GIULIA REINERO - L12 - LETTERATURA INGLESE 1

03/02/2020

HOW THOUGHT ACCOMPANIED THE TRAVELLER by Moniza Alvi

 Thought tried to go everywhere with the traveller: personification (thought is not a human being but it’s
described like it is) extended metaphor because it’s not only a single image but it’s present all over the
poem, from the beginning to the end
 Alliteration: two words that are very close begin with the same sound (tried, traveller,
treacherousrepetition of “t” and “r”)
 Third line: alliteration of the “s” (strangers, scarcely, seen) the sound of the “s” can also represent the
sound of silence
 Thought is trying to be together with the traveller so this effort is emphasised by the sound repetition of the
“S”. Thought is with the traveller even though when it’s difficult (across treacherous borders) and that’s
stressed through sounds
 Brazen: sfacciato, treacherous: insidiosi
 Thought is going through places which are not pleasant and that’s represented by the repetition of the “b”
sound (brazen, brothels, breath). It arrives at a brothel so it has to take a deep breath to face that
unpleasant place
 Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds
 At the beginning there are longer vowel sounds and at the end the vowel sounds is shorter (taking a deep
breath longer vowel sounds; squeezing itself in shorter vowel sounds so the image reflects the meaning
of the line)
 Capacious: spazioso; destitute: emarginati
 Ethical drive of literature: the ability to make you face a different reality, to make you encounter the Other.
Literature has the power also to create full and real characters and because of that we are pushed to identify
ourselves with them
 Alliteration of “C”: could, capacious, country, become Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds
 Adventurous and destitute: people that travel for different reasons and these words are linked together by
the repetition of “D” (also “doors”)

WILLIAM BLAKE: he is considered as the first Romantic poets but someone considers him as a pre- Romantic (also
because of the simplicity of the language)

The garden of love by William Blake (1794age of Revolution: egalitarian principles)

 The poet describes himself as someone who used to play in the garden of love and he points out the idea of
the purity of childhood, seen as a state of bliss: the child is very close to supernatural qualities. There is a
contrast between the childhood and experience that destroys and creates pain but even though it’s
disruptive, this contrast is necessary to grow up.
 Writ: archaic form of “written”
 Poetry by Blake is against the authority because he was a deeply religious poet and he had also some
religious visions. Religion was something individual and for Blake institutional authority went against the
religion.
 The chapel: it’s built in a place which used to be a place of love but now it is described as the complete
opposite of the paradise- like Garden of Eden you can’t enter the Chapel because the gates are shut and
there is a phrase: “Thou shalt not” (written in archaic form which is the symbol of the institutional authority)
and this is an absolute prohibition because there isn’t the verb, it’s incomplete so that means that you
mustn’t do anything. The chapel represents the institutional powers that wanted to be destroyed in this
period.

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  Democratization of the poetry: revolutionary ideals against the institutional authority, period characterised
by utopian ideals of human equality against the old powers and that’s represented also through poetry.
William Blake uses a simple language: some words are monosyllables (Germanic origin, while polysyllables
are typical of the Latin language) and also lines are shorter. The poetry is more accessible to a bigger number
of people and that’s the meaning of democratization of poetry (every poet adopted a different strategy to
make the poems more accessible). There is a connection between the historical context and the content of
poems.
 There is a rhyme pattern and that makes the poem easier to understand: ABCB (ballad rhyme ballad is a
song, typical of the process of the democratization of the poetry; it’s the most popular genre that comes
from the lowest classes of the society). Ballad was transmitted orally and it tells about tragic love, death and
also supernatural events. The most famous romantic ballad is by Coleridge, “The ballad of the ancient
mariner”. Blake made his poetry more accessible through simple language (short words), ballad rhyme
scheme and simple rhymes.
 Blake used to play in the garden when he was a child but now that he came back he found something
different: there is a chapel (religious symbol) that is not accessible because the notice on the door says
“Thou shalt not” and the implication is that you mustn’t do anything total prohibition (contrast with the
idea of freedom). Blake points out the contrast between childhood and adult life. This prohibition is
connected with religious institutions and Blake was a radical institution man (Mary Wollstonecraft was the
first feminist writer and also the mother of Mary Shelley and Thomas Paine was a radical politician man and
in this period England tried to repress radical ideas).
 The garden has become a cemetery, filled with graves so it’s not an welcoming place.
 There is an internal rhymes (gowns and rounds, briars and desires) there is a sort of consonance and
assonance at the same time. There is the repetition of “and” (sense of paralysis) at the beginning of each
line and that’s called anaphora. There is also the alliteration of the sound “B” (black, binding, briars);
alliteration is typical of the ballad because it was supposed to be transmitted orally and learnt by heart, so it
was easier to remember the poem.
 There is sometimes a relation between the form and the message of the form. “Priests were walking their
round” it means they continually do it and that’s represented also by the repetition of “and”. The rhyme is
between black, binding and briars because Blake wanted to points out the fact that priests are binding
Blake’s joys and desires.

05/02/2020

17TH century, after Elizabethan age during the English Civil War (1642- 1660) 1660: year of the Restoration,
because England became a Republic for a short period and King Charles I was executed so the restoration means the
restoration of the monarchy.

JOHN DONNE: The Flea (1633) published after his death

 Donne went against and renovated lots of conventions of love poetry. This poem is dedicated to the woman
he loves and he tries to convince her to have sex with him but he doesn’t use images typical of love poetry;
actually he uses disgusting and rude image (the flea) and that was unusual for the poetry of that time.

 Donne was part of a group of metaphysical poets: they expressed their feelings but at the same time
they built a logical argument in their poems (like philosophers) and they tried to combine the high and
low, the sacred and the profane, so they tried to unite opposites.
- Donne says that their bloods are already united in the flea so they could also mix their body fluids.

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  Conceit: unexpected and surprising image, a metaphor that links two images that are not related together.
In this period, religion was the most important thing so the image of the flea representing the union
between a man and woman is unusual and disgusting. It links low and higher images.
 Maidenhead (virginity): he becomes more and more explicit
 Suck, enjoy (godere), swells (symbol of pregnancy), blood (of maidenhead): the poet uses low images to
convince the woman to have sex with him.
 Donne is famous for his religious poems, religious meditations (“No man is an island”: we are all connected
together) and this is part of juvenile poems, so he didn’t mean to publish them.
 Rhyme pattern: AABBCCDDD (3 couplets= distici and three lines rhyming together).
 Donne is becoming more and more blasphemous while the woman is rejecting him: he compares the
marriage to an insect and he points out it through the repetition of “marriage”. Donne says to the woman
that they are married in the flea because they are united by their bloods. The cloister is also compared to
flea’s body.
 Key words: self murder, sacrilege, sins the woman refuses to have sex with him because they are not
married, in addition it’s also a blasphemy to talk about the flea in sacred terms but then Donne says that
she’s a sinner if she killed the flea.
 “three sins in killing three”: chiasmus (the structure is repeated but inverted, like in front of a
mirrorassonance between sins and killing).

10/02/2020

John Donne was considered a metaphysical poet and their poems were connected to philosophical arguments
because they tried to explain the validity of the poem through logical reason.

 The flea is compared to a church, to a marriage so it is compared to sacred images so the metaphysical
conceit links two images, usually the first one higher and the second lower.
 The poem shows the objections of the woman that’s a logical dialogue between the poet and the woman

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (by John Donne)

 The context is different from the flea because there is a couple and the man is trying to convince the woman
not to be sad through logical argument and he makes reference to some images that at that time were not
typical of love.
 First stanza: At the beginning of the poem there is a stanza to introduce the main argument present in the
second stanza: us. There is a simile at the beginning of the first line (“as”) that represents death but the poet
knows that the separation will lead to something painful.
 Rhyme scheme: ABAB (alternate rhyme)
 Consonance of “S” (3rd line): it describes a man who is dying and his breath that is fading away and
that’s represented by a sibilant sound
 Second stanza: it begins with the alliteration of “M”. The two lovers have to separate but with no noise and
then in the second line there’s an hyperbole (exaggeration) to represent the pain (tear- floods, sigh-
tempests) semantic field: weather
 Third line: the semantic field is religion because love is like religion (sacred) so do not belittle their
love by mourning loudly their pain.
 Third stanza: moving of the earth means earthquake but the trepidation of the spheres is more important
than an earthquake. Here the semantic field is geography and geology. Our love is like the celestial moving
of the spheres, belonging to superior dimension while the love of other people is similar to an earthquake.
Our love is innocent, pure and it doesn’t have to be showed in public.

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 GIULIA REINERO - L12 - LETTERATURA INGLESE 1
 Fourth stanza: the poet refers to sublunary lovers (that means they live on Earth) and they live through
senses so they can’t admit the absence of the person they love.
 Fifth stanza: we are different from the other people, we don’t show our pain in public because our love can’t
be explained by words. Love is based on intellectual union so we don’t miss physical appearance.
 Sixth stanza: semantic field is the artisan’s workshop. Their love is compared to gold which is so precious;
there is an alliteration in “B” (breach, but beat). Finally their love is so strong that their souls can’t be broken
by separation.
 Seventh stanza: their souls is compared to the fixed foot of the compass (it’s a metaphor that follows the
simile in the previous line)
 Eighth stanza: when a lover goes away, the other is like the leg of a compass so he/she tries to go towards
him/her. There is a connection to navigation (compass was used to navigate)and to Oronooko too and of
course it could be a reference to sea voyages because that was the period of English colonialism. The
semantic field is the one of travel technology. Grows erect: it could be seen as a sexual reference.
 Ninth stanza: the woman has to be patient and strong because her husband will return home and he will
end where he begun. He’s trying to cheer his wife up and at the same time to cheer himself up.

Paradise lost (by John Milton)

Milton was the opposite of John Donne (belonged to the Church of England) because Milton was a puritan.

 English civil war (1642- 1660): monarchy was abolished and the king executed.
 Milton was the personal secretary of Oliver Cromwell, the leader of England at that time. Milton wrote a lot
of different political pamphlets about the liberty of the press but when in 1660 the Monarchy was restored,
he was in danger and also their books were burned because of his ideas.
 This poem is an epic poem but the protagonists are fallen gods and human beings. The epic poem is inspired
by the Bible and the first protagonist is Satan, the archangel who was rejected from Heaven. Paradise lost
could be interpreted like an appendix of the Bible. Also Adam and Eve are two protagonists of the poem
because they were sinners and rejected from the garden of Eden.

Satan and other rebels have just been rejected from Heaven and they are in Hell. It is Satan that speaks at the
beginning of the poem.

 In the poem there is no rhyme scheme, because it is written in blank verse (used by Shakespeare and in
theatre) not rhymed. The democratisation of the poetry is characterised by the blank verse because this
kind of verse is more similar to the reality. Milton uses the run-on-lines (enjambements) because the
structure of the sentence doesn’t end at the end of the line.

11/02/2020

Not an epic about achievements but about the fall of divinity of heroes the fall of Satan, Adam and Eve. Critics
read this work with Milton’s biography side to side. After the end of the Restoration and Cromwell’s death, he was in
a harsh time and in this period he wrote Paradise Lost (it’s not coincidental).

Also Shakespeare wrote in blank verse, it was typical dramatic and theatre writing in order to make characters
speak; then it was used also to make poetry closer to everyday speech, more accessible.

- Satan and the other fellow angels question the authority of God so they find themselves in hell. The 1st
sentence is an immediate reaction of Satan to the place he’s in.
- 2nd sentence: “be it so” is a declaration of defeat. He says that they were defeated only because God has
force which makes him superior and otherwise they were equal (“reasons made equals equal”). God didn’t
defeat because he was right but because he was more powerful.
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 - 3rd sentence: Satan describes himself as the new possessor of hell
 alliteration: line 14Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven
 chiasmus: line 14 the 2 elements are on the same level (heaven of hell, hell of heaven)
 He celebrates his mind because he is rational and reasonable and he says that him and the other angels
are equal to God. It doesn’t matter where they are because the mind is strong and doesn’t care the place
he’s in (praise to the rationality of our mind). He is giving a speech to other fallen angels to cheer them
up and also to encourage them because he’s their leader.
 Historical context: just ended Civil War that had been waged a similar assumption and that’s “Why
should one accept the power of monarchy based on force and violence?”. It was also related to the
religious debate: Cromwell and Milton (puritans) believed in the rational power of individuals, able to
read and interpreting the Bible.
th
- 4 sentence: Satan is not inferior to someone that has been made powerful by a thunder, who used
violencethey are equals rejection of violent blinding authority coming from above.
- 5th sentence: it’s better to reign in hell than to serve in Heaven years in which constitutional monarchy
was about to come in England (crucial political issue)
 Similarity with Oronooko: Oronooko will be the leader of the rebellion in the second half of the
book. He shares ideals with Milton like courage, leadership, rebellion against unfair authority.
- Satan is not a positive character but at the same time he’s a fascinating character, very consistent with his
ideas and principles, with a deep sense of justice, ready to throw away his state of angel because he can’t
accept God’s absolute authority, who he thinks he’s equal to.

ORONOOKO – APHRA BEHN (1688, 20 years later than Paradise Lost)

Opening of the book: I do not pretend...

Feign’d= invented

Fancy= imagination

Accidents= events

 This hero is not fictional or fake, not a product of Aphra’s imagination, every event she narrates is really
happened to the character
 There’s enough entertainment in the reality of this story without the addition of invention

This is connected with the distinction between novel and romance (Bertinetti p. 122-123)

Realistic story, stories that are believable,
characterized by verisimilitude, in which we
can identify
Es. bourgeois novel (rise of the middle class)
in which the middle class could identify
Narration with fantastic elements, not
realistic, courage of mortals of first rank
(kings, queens… the middle class could not
identify) impossible events
Es. knightly romance (=romanzo cavalleresco)

The late 17th century is a stage of transition between romance and novel.

Aphra Behn is presenting her book as a true story (also in the subtitle): she declares her book to be a novel (but
before romance and novel were interchangeable  now they are not).

 It is the 1st novel of English Literature

Typical move of late authors: she states that she witnessed by herself all events that are being narrated, she is a first
hand witness, or that what she did not see was told to her by the protagonist in person  this shows the
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truthfulness of the story.
This strategy was not always to take seriously, sometimes it was true but sometimes it was not.
She claims she saw all of this in Surinam, an Island in the West Indies in which she lived.

She narrates how African slaves are transported to American colonies. She makes a distinction between African
slaves and the natives of Surinam ( Transatlantic slavery).
Before the narration of the transportation of American slaves she wants to narrate about the natives and their
relationship with him: the relationship between the Europeans and the natives was positive, of friendship.

This has to do with the question of genre: period in which great Britain established a huge empire  curiosity for the
exotic, different and inaccessible places  travel literature;
for this reason she narrates about boring stuff like their clothes and their manners.
Literature becomes a system, a literature market, so the authors write to meet the reader’s desires and
expectations.
There’s also the 1st law on copyright.
Aphra Behn was the 1st professional female writer in this period.

This natives are described as wearing only single apron, compared to Adam and Eve wearing only a fig-leaves 
state of original pureness and innocence.
The word “beauty” is repeated more than once, they are described as beautify except for the color which is reddish-
yellow  they are naturally beautiful but on the other hand the color of their skin is described as a sign of ugliness:
skin color was already a question and a sign of beauty (the darker, the uglier according to beauty standards of the
period which privileged pale skin).

She says they are naked but they are not ashamed, because they are used to it and there are not indecent glances
between them.

“like our first parents before the fall” = Adam and Eve

12/02/2020

APHRA BEN: ORONOOKO

- Two kinds of prose: novel (realistic, believable, verisimilitude truthfulness) vs romance (narration with
fantastic elements, like for example the knightly romance. This difference is not really clear in Oronooko and
some critics consider it more a romance than a novel. It was published during a transition period and the
birth of the bourgeois novel will come only some years later. Oronooko anticipated the rise of the bourgeois
realistic novel but it could be considered as a travel literature.
- The story is set in the colony of Surinam and there are different digressions on this place just at the
beginning of the book. Oronooko is an eponymous because he gives the name to the book but he has never
lived on Surinam.
- Main themes: the taste of the exotic, the curiosity of discovering new places and new people and for people
of that time the only way to satisfy that curiosity was reading books like Oronooko.
- Pp. 2-3: natives are described like innocents and pure; it is described also their way to dress.
- P.12: nature is the only teacher and the only guide (mistress) and natives are described like completely
innocents, they live in a state of innocence before knowing what the sin truly is. Natives were seen as
primitive compared to European people and they asked themselves if natives were better or worse than
them. Natives lived in a soft primitivism, which is the best state while the hard primitivism is the need of
civilizing natives but some of European’s inventions could also destroy primitive people (such as religion).

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- P.13: contrast between the innocence of natives and the corruption of Europeans. Aphra Ben appreciate the
natives (we live in perfect tranquillity) they helped Europeans to survive in that place and without them
maybe colonisers would have died.
- P. 14: natives are superior in number than Europeans and it is better not to treat them as slaves. Then it is
described the way in which slaves were transported and sold (twenty pound a head). This is the period of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade (1630) slaves were transported from Africa to America to work in the
plantations. Between 1750- 1800 this kind of trade developed and had his peak. This kind of trade was called
also triangular trade because it touched Africa, America and Europe: goods such as weapons, pearls and
knives were sold for slaves and it was a very lucrative activity. This is the period of the birth of the insurance
and actually slaves were insured.
- P.15: Coramantien was the most profitable area of Africa at that time (it is the actual Ghana). It is described
as a warlike and brave nation: they couldn’t ransom themselves so they were sold as slaves. Lots of internal
wars between natives were encouraged by the arrival of Europeans and their weapons.
- Aphra Ben has never been to West Africa so some pages are a second hand writing, because Oronooko told
her the story and she rewrote it; this is the part closer to a romance of the book.
- The population of that area was matrilineal and this means that the successor is not my son but my sister’s
son.
- P. 16: Oronooko is described so much beautiful that he doesn’t seem belonging to this world. He seems like
an earthly god but this is an ambiguous description because he belongs to a gloomy race and from a rational
point of view this is an ambivalent description. He is described as a perfect character, he’s got greatness of
soul, true honour and absolute generosity.
- P. 17: Oronooko is different from the innocence of the primitives because he is the product of an European
education (he was taught by a Frenchman). There is a difference between the population of Surinam and the
people of the West Africa and Oronooko is a slaves’ seller. Oronooko is a great character and he’s also a
great seller.
- Aphra Ben was in favour of the monarchy and for her the execution of the King was a tragedy so she projects
her political ideas on the protagonist of the book. She wrote some satires about the Puritans, such as “The
roundheads” which was the nickname of the Puritans.
- P.18: Oronooko and also Aphra Ben show a big respect of the rank. Oronooko’s description: he’s different
from the rest of his fellows he doesn’t have a flat nose nor big lips but he’s described as a Roman classical
beauty. He’s a West African but he represents a classical hero, he’s perfect both physical and psychologically
but this is far from being realistic (romance). He carries characteristics that are partly Europeans and partly
Africans. His hair are not curly but long and fluent so this is not a description of a typical African human
being.
- Oronooko’s general was killed in a battle and he fell in love with his daughter Imoinda and Oronooko gives
her 1500 slaves as a present (unrealistic). She’s described as a spotless human being and they are presented
as a knight and his heroine (romance). They swear love to each other even though they live in a polygamy
society but he swears that she will be his only wife.
- Oronooko’s grandfather wants to have Imoinda as his wife and at this point there is a contrast between
Oronooko and his grandfather (he also gives the royal veil which is the symbol of the marriage). Aphra Ben
doesn’t know well the African society: it is described with Europeans stereotypes based on a oriental
elements but they are not realistic (this is more similar to the romance than the novel).

17/02/2020

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- Aphra Ben describes Oronooko so this part is set in West Africa not in Surinam; she wasn’t the first witness
of the events but she is a second hand narrator and witness. This is the less credible part of the book and
also the description of Oronooko is a little bit unrealistic because he’s described as a perfect man.
- Oronooko is in love with Imoinda but the problem is that his grandfather wants her as one of her wives and
he is a very self- centred king so Imoinda can’t refuse to marry him. Finally the court is described as an otan
(serraglio) and this is the first unrealistic element even though Aphra Ben said that she didn’t invent
anything, she didn’t add anything from her imagination.
- P. 26: Oronooko is complaining about the future of Imoinda and he mentions some particular images such as
fortifications, walled cities and enchantments and they are typical of the knightly romance. He says that he
can’t do anything against the king because he is also his grandfather.
- Harem intrigues: Oronooko has to do something to save Imoinda who is imprisoned in the king’s otan so one
of the friends of Oronooko tries to help him. Some images are typical of the oriental society such as oriental
dances.
- “The forced marriage”: book written by Aphra Ben where she describes the passions of women that were
forced into marriages that they didn’t want.
- Oronooko manages to see Imoinda and they consummate their love: they are discovered so he has to run
away from her. The king decides to sell Imoinda as a slave because he’s furious for what she did but then he
complains about his decision.
- P. 43: death is described as honourable and noble Imoinda prefers to die rather than become a slave. For
high people rank honour is the most important thing like in the knightly romance, the only thing that the
knight doesn’t want to lose. The king didn’t decide the right punishment for Imoinda because of her rank but
Oronooko believes that she is dead.
- When Oronooko discovers she’s dead, there is a battle against another army and he’s so struck that he
refuses to fight but then he changes his mind and he starts fighting again for his army. This scene has been
compared to the Iliad and the behaviour of Achille in one of his battles.
- P. 48: alliteration in “d” (destruction, divine, descended) and Oronooko is compared to a god and there’s an
alliteration in “s” (shine, splendour, strike) that points out that his beauty becomes a weapon against his
enemies.
- P. 49:description of the French institutor of Oronooko institutional religion and morality are considered
separated by Aphra Ben; she was a royalist but also a free thinker. The Frenchman is described as a positive
character even though he’s not a very religious man. Also the primitives of Surinam are described as people
with a great morality even though they are not religious. Oronooko can’t understand the trinity of God and
he considers it ridiculous.
- P. 50: Oronooko is trading slaves with Europeans and in particular with an English trader. This book is the
first that denounces the horror of slavery and it became important also thanks to Southerne’s play that
made the book popular and the play is also important for the abolitionist debate and because of that it was
forbidden in Liverpool which was the centre of the slave trade. On the other hand Aphra Ben doesn’t
denounce the slave trade completely but she justifies it when it has to do with the highest ranks; the class is
important because a noble person could ransom him/herself.
- Chattel slavery: to consider a person as an object, sell him and buy him as a slave. Aphra Ben justifies slavery
saying that if you take a person with your honour then it’s right.
- The English trader invites Oronooko and some of his noble friends to dinner and then takes them as slaves:
they are outraged and begin an hunger strike and that was very dangerous at that time because they would
be more likely to be ill on the transatlantic ships. The captain promises Oronooko to set him and his friends
free as soon as they land but Oronooko believes him.
- P. 54: Oronooko believes the captain and he asks him to be freed from the chains. The captain considers
Oronooko an heathen so he can’t trust him, to be a Christian is enough to trust a person. Oronooko says that

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 he has promised so he will keep the promise or he would lose his morality and honour; actually he will stop
his hunger strike but the captain will sell him as a slave.
- From that moment on, Aphra Ben will be more present in the story, actually she was the daughter of a
governor of Surinam and she was there in the 1660.
- P. 58: Trefry is a positive character even though he buys Oronooko as a slave and even though he was a
plantation overseer; he’s described as a man of great wit and fine learning. At that time, the planter is
absent so Trefry has the task to oversee his plantations. Trefry understands immediately that Oronooko is
different from the other people with him, he’s also superior to the others.
- P. 61: Oronooko captures the admiration of everyone, Trefry is only the first who sees him and actually he
doesn’t work in the plantations.
- Oronooko is called Caesar: James II was called like this to emphasise his quality and Aphra Ben chooses this
name because he was one of her favourite political figures. The book was published in 1688, year of the
Bloodless Revolution or Glorious Revolution the Stuart are substituted with the Orange and after that,
there was a change towards the parliamentary monarchy. Oronooko is renamed Caesar because at that time
slaves were named with Christian’s names. Oronooko and James II have something in common: they have
great qualities and they have been rejected by the Dutch.
- Unrealistic elements: Oronooko is recognized by some slaves that were bought by him and they admire him
and treat him with great respect even though this is unusual. There is also a beautiful woman slave who is
Imoinda so Oronooko and her meet each other and they are also allowed to live together (unusual again)
because Europeans tried to break any possible alliance between people of the same country and culture.

18/02/2020

- Oronooko is treated with great respect by Europeans even though he’s a slave because everyone is struck by
his beauty and purity. Of course this is unrealistic, because he’s not considered as a slave and in particular
Trefry is so struck by Oronooko that he promises to set him free.
- Caesar: European Christian name, sign of Oronooko’s greatness.
- Imoinda is pregnant but Oronooko doesn’t want that his baby born in West Africa because he could be taken
away from his parents so Oronooko’s impatience grows.
- P. 67: Trefry is happy when he discovers that Imoinda is pregnant. Aphra Ben says that she’s already become
a friend of Oronooko and part of the plot. The Frenchman is not taken as a slave because he’s Christian but
that’s not right because at that time Christians could become slaves too.
- Narrative perspective: the narrator is a first person narrator, which at that time was very usual and it was a
way to confirm the truthfulness of the events narrated; also Robinson Crusoe does the same thing that Ben
does. “Love letters” is a book where it’s used the first person narrator and it’s an epistolary novel .
- Autodiegetic narration: narration in which the narrator is also the protagonist for example Robinson Crusoe
but in the case of Oronooko is an allodiegetic narration because the narrator is not the protagonist of the
story.
- Consonant vs dissonant: consonant 1st person narrator there’s a coincidence between the events and the
time of narration so the narrator tells the events in the same time in which they happen. While dissonant 1st
person narrator is when the narrator narrates the events later on, so there isn’t a coincidence between the
events and the time of narration. In the case of Oronooko there is a dissonant narration because Oronooko’s
events happened in 1660s while the narration happened in the 1680s (Surinam was a Dutch possession at
that time).
- When Aphra Ben talks about the Europeans in Surinam calling them “we” and sometimes “they” because
sometimes she agrees the way in which Europeans behave but sometimes she doesn’t agree.

9
 - Oronooko’s impatience: Oronooko is very influent on his fellows companions and at that time there were
several slaves rebellions. Oronooko has to be distracted from his impatience and he visits some areas
inhabited by natives of Surinam digression on the natives of Surinam.
- P. 72: description of Surinam which is described on one hand as a sort of Arcadia, a nature offering
sustaining to the human beings but on the other hand it is described also under the point of view of the
possible commercial exploitation of this land.
- P. 75: according to Aphra Ben, the beauty of that place is even superior to all the gardens of Italy the
difference between a classical garden and the savage nature. Oronooko is kind and friendly towards natives
because he’s the mind of the expedition and he’s a noble character. He fights against a tiger and a numb eel
(Anguilla elettrica) and that gives an heroic connotation to Oronooko.
- Many native leaders have missing organs: some of these mutilations are consequences of local wars but
some of them are self- mutilations to prove their value as warriors but this is kind of barbaric, so far from
Europeans’ ideas.
- P. 89/90: Oronooko’s impatience has reached its peak: for his rebellion, he chooses a Sunday because it was
the day in which Europeans went drunk. Oronooko’s speech convinces slaves to rebel and to find a place
where they could live all together in independent communities, waiting for the right moment to come back
to their native land  maroon communities. They are united and Europeans organize hunting party to take
slaves back and they are defeated because they haven’t weapons . Oronooko and Imoinda resist until the
very end but then he’s whipped in public and that’s the worst humiliation for him: honour is the most
important value, more important than Imoinda. Punishments for slaves were exemplar just to show to the
other slaves not to rebel anymore. Oronooko thinks that it’s his fault and recognizes that those slaves
couldn’t fight because they were slaves inside while he’s full of honour and he will fight until the end keeping
his honour and nobility.

DEREK HUGHES- BLACKNESS IN GOBINEAU AND BEHN: ORONOOKO AND RACIAL PSEUDO SCIENCE

Hughes makes clear that enslavement in the 17th century was justified in terms of religion and not in terms of skin
colour. Actually, pseudo science of racial differentiation started to take shape in the mid of 18th century but the idea
of race was completely different from today. According to Gobineau, racial differences are permanent: races differ
from each other by external form and the proportion of their limbs, by the structure of their head and by the inner
structure of their body. Oronooko’s European features have been interpreted as revealing a “Eurocentric” attitude
on Behn’s part but they also indicate that Aphra Behn was partly African in a racially intolerant society. Racial
theories changed profoundly thanks to developments in archaeology and palaeontology and with a growing interest
towards the origin of the Aryan race.

- Non racist theories: differences of ethnic character are linked to external influences of education and
custom.
- Racist theories: culture and religion are products of racial character (e.g. Gobineau: the sacrificial barbarity
of Aztecs resulted from the black and yellow current that had formed the race). Gobineau also saw the
characteristics of different French regions determined by the different racial mixtures if their inhabitants.

Gobineau saw race as the determining force in history and in the rise and fall of civilizations. However, he also
stressed that an individual black man might be more intelligent than an individual white man (in particular cases).

Behn’s idea: the description of Oronooko as beautiful and nasaly perfect can be seen as a symbol of Behn’s racial
insensitivity and superiority of Europeans towards Africans. Actually, Hughes tries to demonstrate exactly the
opposite: the choice of describing Oronooko as a Greek beauty is a symbol of tolerance of races by Aphra Behn.
Moreover, Buffon assures us that there are black Africans with well proportioned noses and European ideas of
beauty. On the other hand, for Gobineau racial characteristics are determined by the body and the black variety is
the lowest and lies at the bottom of the ladder (military men that compete to cut off their noses, ears and lips is
10
another custom that denotes racial inferiority while Behn turns this ritual into an economic process: the Caribs use
part of their bodies as currency showing that they don’t have a system of counting and exchanging). For Behn,
people are distinguished by manipulations, marking and mutilations they do to their bodies not by the bodies
themselves (Imoinda’s body is cut with ornate markings and Oronooko is executed by dismemberment). The feature
that distinguishes the European body is that it’s clothed while the feature of the Caribs is that some of them lack
noses, ears and lips in both cases the strangeness is provoked by the modification of the body.

For later racial scientists, the forms of religion were dictated by race: Sepulveda describes the inhabitants of Mexico
as “less than men” (homunculi) but he says that they have been totally transformed by conversion. In Oronooko: the
slaver captain uses the superiority of Christian to heathens as a justification for betraying Oronooko. Also
Oronooko’s French tutor is released because he’s a Christian (because whiteness means Christianity).

19/02/2020

“The rise of the novel”(Ian Watt, 1957): 20th century is the period of the novel.

- Fictional realism: novel characterised by romantic elements and realistic ones.

- Individuals’ lives: philosophical and economical reasons. John Locke emphasised the importance of senses
and individualism and this is also because of economical reasons such as the rise of the merchant class, in
opposition to the old powers, such as the aristocracy.
- Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719): it’s taken as the first individualistic novel he’s abandoned on an
island alone and he has to find food to survive; the island represents a macrocosm for him. In this period,
sailors were shipwrecked to deserted islands so these were real events.
- Moll Flanders: a poor woman who remains an orphan who tries to survive in London so she becomes a
prostitute the individual tries to survive by using what she has and that means her body.
- Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, S. Richardson (1740): the use of first person to validate what I’m writing.
Pamela is an epistolary novel and that’s the story of a maid servant who receives lots of sexual proposals by
her master (Mr. B). It’s an epistolary novel and Pamela is a chaste, virtuous, young woman and she doesn’t
accept Mr. B’s proposals so he has to marry her to conquer her. Marriage= social mobility, this is something
innovative at that time and it was popular among women. But was she pretending to be virtuous only to
marry Mr. B?
- Shamela, Henry Fielding (1741): parodic version of Pamela, a sort of travesty. This novel, which is a parody
of Pamela, she follows a scheme to become reach and powerful and she uses her body to reach her goals.
 Most of these novels carries the name of the protagonists, they are common names and not very
significant because they want to show the simplicity of the middle classes. The title is Shamela which
is symbolic because it refers to “shame” or “sham” which means “fake” or also “shambles which is a
great confusion.
- Joseph Andrew is a satirical novel, a social satire of the society of that time. The mood is different form
Defoe or Richardson. Richardson was a puritan while Defoe didn’t belong to the Church of England so they
both belong to strict religions and morality.

JOSEPH ANDREW AND SHAMELA

 P. 62: Joseph is a positive example to follow because he is a model of purity and virtue and this is the story of
Pamela’s brother (Joseph). Fielding continues to making a satire because he says that Joseph maintains his
virtue and purity but this was a characteristic of women. Joseph is a victim of the sexual proposals of her
mistress because he was a servant. The mistress is Lady Booby (synonym of stupid) and she is related to Mr
B, in Pamela: her name carries a symbolic meaning.
Narrative perspective: the author is the voice of the narration so it is an heterodiegetic narration. The
narrator tells the story of some characters in third person but he’s a very intrusive narrator (meta-
11
 literaryhe comments the narration) because sometimes he stops his narration in order to comment on it.
Sometimes the narrator is omniscient because he describes characters’ feelings and sensations.
 P. 61: it’s easier to follow positive examples rather than the negative ones. Fielding seems to agree with
Richardson and Defoe and he makes a declaration of poetic. Positive individuals are very effecting to reach
the greatest number of people but the book narration is more important. Lots of poets belong to the Neo-
classical or Augustan Age (like Alexandre Pope) and according to them the classical model is a permanent
and eternal example to follow. Fielding was a writer who looked to the neo- classical models but also to the
biblical culture so there are lots of references to classical elements.
 (Licensing act- 1737: every single play must be controlled and then even censored before being
played).

Chapter 2:

- Joseph is a country man and he works for the Booby family

 p. 64: Joseph is compared to Priapus (sexual references: Priapus had a huge member). Fielding is
making a satire and under the point of view of the morality he’s different from Richardson and
Defoe.

Chapter 3:

- p. 66: Mr Abraham Adams is the country parson but he has never met the nobles of his church because both
Mr and Mrs Booby consider themselves as superior and Mrs Booby called her country neighbours “the
brutes”.
- P. 67: Mrs Slipslop uses difficult words (polysyllabic words) but Fielding makes a satire against this woman.
Lady Booby wants to take Joseph with her to London because he deserves a good education but the truth is
that she wants to have a sexual relationship with him. Fielding makes a satire against the “affectation”
showing oneself in a different way from the reality and one of the causes is the hypocrisy. Slipslop means
“error” or “little sin”.

Chapter 6:

- P. 72: intrusion of the narrator (we) and description of Mrs Slipslop

26/02/2020

- In London, Joseph’s virtue is threatened by both his mistress, Lady Booby (who is now a widow), and her
maid Mrs. Slipslop. In Book I Chapter 6 Joseph writes a letter to his sister Pamela, complaining about this, in
a parody of the epistolary style of Richardson’s Pamela. At the end of the letter Joseph says that London is a
bad place (page 72) and here we can see the contrast between urban contexts (towns) and country it
represents for him an organic community and a network of social relationships. Book II, III and IV will have
this ideal as an objective.
- In the rest of chapter 6, there is the description of Mrs Slipslop: we have already read her grotesque physical
description and now we are given her character and her wish to seduce Joseph (page 73; there is another
sexual assault by Mrs Slipslop to Joseph at the end of the chapter). This is an example of Fielding’s ironic
style his writing is often humorous thanks to the use of understatement, euphemisms, circumlocutions,
periphrasis .
- In chapter 7, Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop have a conversation where, both frustrated by their unsuccessful
sexual attempts at Joseph, they gossip about him and describe him as an immoral boy. On page 76, the
narrator interrupts the scene with a sort of invocation to Love he uses the 3rd person narrator which is
external (heterodiegetic), intrusive; he controls narrations and opens digressions to meditate on it. His voice
is ironic: the irony is based on a contrast between the the two women’s sexual instincts and the elevated
12
 language being used to describe it, echoing classical literature. This contrast is called mock- heroic (in the
preface of the book, Fielding describes the book as a “comic epic- poem in prose”) and it’s typical of 18th
century neo- classical literature.
- Chapter 8 describes Lady Booby’s final advance when Joseph mentions “my virtue”, she gets furious (pp.
79/80). In Joseph reference to his sister , the satirical parody of Richardson’s Pamela continues; the parody is
based on the fact that men’s chastity was not an issue at that time. Lady Booby’s hypocrisy is also linked to
her rank: how can a poor servant refuses her advances?
- To cut a long story short, Joseph is fired, stripped of his livery (servant’s uniform) and left to fend for himself
in the darkness of the night. Before this, in chapter 10 he writes a letter to his sister, lamenting his fate (pp.
84/85) the importance of male chastity was taught to Joseph by his parson, Abraham Adams who will
become a very important character in the book. Joseph’s reference to the biblical Joseph, the chaste
character in the book of Genesis, whose story has many traits similar to Fielding’s Joseph.
- Fielding differs from the bourgeois novelists from his time in many ways including names: Fielding shows his
neo-classical approach (based on the conception of the eternal forms of nature as models for our lives) also
in his choice of symbolic, significant, model-based names: Joseph, Booby, Slipslop, Abraham Adams
(certainly a patriarchal figure).
- Chapter 11 is subtitled “Of several new matters not expected” and this represents a turning point in the
novel. From now until the final chapters of the book (when Pamela will appear as a character), the satire on
Richardson is pushed aside in favour of an independent narration and it becomes less and less related to
Pamela. This turning point coincides with Joseph setting out for the countryside; he’s going to Lady Booby’s
country estate because he wants to be reunited with his beloved Fanny. Pp. 86/87: their last goodbye before
his move to London to follow Lady Booby. The repeated hyperbole is a strategy to describe deep love
feelings, the combination between chastity and passion (e.g. thousand sighs, violent, soft, modesty). Joseph
was defending his virtue to remain faithful to Fanny so he is a fully human character with healthy natural
impulses and moral values at the same time (see Hawley’s introduction).
- In chapter 12, there is the key theme of the novel: charity. On his way to Fanny during the night, Joseph is
assaulted, badly beaten and abandoned in a ditch by two thieves. Later, he is found by a driving stage- coach
and transported to an inn: Fielding presents a gallery of characters who find all sort of excuses for not
helping poor Joseph, thus revealing their lack of charity and their moral flaws: the wealthy lady, the lawyer,
the coachman. Through their hypocrisy, Fielding points out his social satire. the only people who help Joseph
are the stagecoach’s postillon and the inn’s maidservant Betty: the good- natured people come from the
lowest classes and sometimes they are social outcasts. Fielding’s satire is addressed to wealthy people (in
particular Mrs Tow-wouse who insults Betty and her husband for their generosity.
- During Joseph’s stay at the inn we encounter a incompetent surgeon who is convinced of Joseph’s imminent
death and also the local clergyman, Barnabas, extremely ignorant of religious matters. They add to the social
satire as they present themselves much better than they are. As Fielding writes in his preface “The only
source of true ridiculous is affectation”, which comes from “one of these two causes: vanity, or hypocrisy”.
- In chapter 14, the gentleman arriving at the inn is discovered to be parson Adams. He feels sorry when he
hears about Joseph who has fallen under Mrs Tow-wouse’s cares (p. 97) once again Fielding’s irony
manifest itself through the use of euphemisms (“sweetness” and “wonderfully”). Mrs Tow-wouse’s physical
description reflects her character: her pursed lips (labbra arricciate) “pursed” refers to her avarice and
meanness. In Joseph Andrews, goodies are often beautiful (like Joseph and Fanny), whereas baddies are ugly.
This is a characteristic that is distant from the realistic outlook of the bourgeois novel; rather, it sounds
closer to romance, if not to the fairy-tale. The mention of the 18th-century painter William Hogarth is not
casual: similarly to this novel, Hogarth’s images were powerful creations that satirized social ills and human
vices in a caricatural way.

13
 - In chapter 15, Joseph and Adams recognize each other and we find out that Adams is going to London to sell
his religious sermons to some publisher. Because of his sense of charity, he renounces to go to London to
follow Joseph.
- P. 103: he writes the last paragraph of the chapter only to make it longer but it’s nonsense Fielding can be
ironic also in his meta literary digressions when he reflects on the progress of his writing. In this way he
detaches himself from the bourgeois novel because he points out that this is just a narration, not a piece of
real life.
- Chapter 16: we discover that the thief has escaped during the night, and that the local Constable (policeman)
who was supposed to guard him is called Tom Suckbribe (another symbolic name).
- Chapter 17: while he’s trying to sell his sermons, Adams has a conversation with parson Barnabas and a
bookseller on religious issues it reveals Adam’s religious ideas which are connected to the theme of
charity. Barnabas is critical towards Whitefield, one of the leaders of the Methodist Church, because
Methodism preached for the poverty and the humbleness of the clergy; this is not surprising because
Barnabas is interested in his material privileges. In his reply, Adams states the opposite conviction: he agrees
with that, but, at the same time, he disagrees with another crucial doctrinal point embraced by Methodism
(see page 113). Adams reflects on what is more important to achieve salvation for a Christian: good works or
orthodoxy faith? Methodism was a mystical belief that emphasizes a new birth of Christ, believing in Christ’s
grace as the way to salvation. Adams gives more importance to the behaviour and good actions towards his
fellow human beings. He could be called a Latitudinarian: someone who tolerates difference in doctrinal
faith in people, as long as they behave with Christian’s generosity. Finally Adam’s ideals were not very
popular at that time (e.g. the bookseller doesn’t want to publish his sermons now) but Fielding shares them
because he’s tolerant towards characters who are not perfect Christians but they are ready to help each
other.
- Chapter 18, for instance, focuses on Betty and on how she falls into sexual temptations nevertheless, she is
certainly presented as a positive character (like many low-class characters in Joseph Andrews), and often
described as “good-natured”.

2/03/2020

 Book I: narrates the adventures of Joseph in London , his decision to go back to the country and the first inn
where he must stay to recover after the accident.
 Book II and III: the protagonists’ journey in the countryside, the encounter with many characters and the
defence of moral principles in the face of human hypocrisy and vices.
 Book IV: set in Lady Booby’s country estate where Joseph and Fanny’s marriage will be obstacle once again.

Fielding dedicates the first chapter of Joseph Andrew’s books to a literary digressionII.1 is subtitled “Of division in
authors” and here Fielding reflects on the reasons why books should be divided in Chapters, and compares his book
to a journey and its Chapters to a series of inns, for the reader to pause in his/her reading journey. Significantly,
then, the author makes a connection between the structure of his work and the plot of Books II and III. Fielding
refers to Homer and Virgil’s similar structural choices neo- classical inspiration. Some critics compared the journey
to the structure of picaresque novel, characterised by an episodic structure. The similarity between Joseph Andrews
and the picaresque novel also concerns their contents: in both, characters meet a whole gallery of people and these
meetings become a vehicle for a series of ironical takes on society.
 One of the most famous picaresque novel is Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605): parson Abraham Adams that
forgets his sermons back home, he forgets to pay the bill at the inn putting Joseph in trouble. He is
completely absent- minded, just like Don Quixote, he is absorbed by his books and he’s the most impractical
person (sometimes he puts in danger his friends) because his books, which are his only source of knowledge,
lead him to misunderstand people’s real intentions. His innocence becomes a vehicle for Fielding’s social

14
 criticism. Adams is an idealist who stands by innocent people (such as Joseph and Fanny) in spite of any
caution or common sense. For this reason, many critics consider Adams as the real protagonist of Joseph
Andrews and once again, we have a symbolic choice of name: the parson is faithful, hospitable, charitable
and innocent like Abraham the Biblical patriarch.
 The difference between Quixote and Adams is that Quixote misunderstands a big reality around himself
while Adams misunderstands men’s characters; Quixote believes in a “romance” reality, while Adams
believes faithfully in the Bible.

BOOK II:
- History of Leonora (II.4, II.6): narrated by a lady to Adams while they are travelling in a stage-coach this is
one of the interpolated tales which shows the digressive nature of Joseph Andrews. These tales amplify the
central themes of the book, as in the case of Leonora’s history there are some topics such as vanity and
deception. Adams intrudes in the lady’s narration with his exclamations and comments.
- II.5 constructs a slap-stick comedy situation because while Adams is defending Joseph from an inn’s host, the
two start fighting (p. 144) here the host shows his social pretensions because he thinks that the two
travellers are inferior to him and they don’t deserve his respect. This is the arrogance based on the rank
mixed with arrogance and vanity. This passage shows Fielding’s irony based on the use of euphemisms (the
fight is described as an exchange of formalities and hyperboles (the stream of blood) and finally the host’s
wife throws on Adams a pot of hog’s blood with comic results (pp. 146/147)
- In II.8 and II.9 Adams meets a gentleman, he gives him a speech on political elections and then the
gentleman begins a long speech about the importance of nationalism and patriotism (pp. 158/159).
Suddenly they hear a woman shouting because she’s being raped: Adams runs to help her and the
gentleman vanishes and this inspires the narrator’s irony (p. 160).
- The description of the fight points out Fielding’s criticism of would- be heroes (p. 160): Fielding uses
circumlocutions, through which he describes heroes and leaders and army commanders as empty of rational
faculties, so less intelligent than ordinary people. He also compares these figures to the rapist, expressing a
negative judgement about them.
- Social criticism is present also in II.11: Adams and the raped young woman are taken to a magistrate who
believes the attacker’s version because he seems more respectable. This is a parody of justice because the
judge behaves ignorantly towards the two real victims until a local squire (signorotto) in the crowd
recognizes Adams rank and social class are the most important value in life.
- II.3: reunion of Adams, Joseph and Fanny together with Mrs Slipslop, frustrated in her sexual purposes
towards Joseph. Joseph and Fanny ask Adams to marry them immediately, but he refuses and convinces
them to follow the usual procedure.
- In the last chapters of Book II, the three protagonists have some financial problems and they can’t continue
their journey back home. Adams asks a loan to a clergyman, parson Trulliber who reveals himself very little
charitable but then they are helped by a simple peddler (very humble person). This is the conclusion of Book
II.

BOOK III:
- It opens with a literary digression and a very important statement by Fielding which confirms his neo-
classical orientation (p. ?): this is a declaration of realism where he says that he is inspired not by single
individuals but by models of behaviour that he has seen in many people and that has been existing since
ages, even though they are old. That’s connected to the didactic purpose of his work and he compares his
writing to a mirror that shows readers their flaws and sins in a compassionate and kind way.
- P. 203: this passage is an example of the kind-hearted quality of Fielding’s irony which culminates in his
description of parson Adams in spite of all his flaws (see the introduction where Hawley says that Adams has
to be admired but not followed as a role model).
15
 - In III.2, the three protagonists continue their journey: Adams shows his lack of orientation while Joseph is
much more practical (see p. 203). Then they meet Mr Wilson, a kind gentleman, who tells them the story of
his life which continues in III.3 and III.4 (and Adams intrudes with his comments). Mr Wilson tale can be
considered as an interpolated tale where vanity is one of the key theme. Mr Wilson’s dissolute time in
London is compared to “A rake’s progress” by Hogarth and it affirms once again the opposition immoral
town vs. virtuous country life (read Wilson’s tale).
- In chapter III.6, they are assaulted by a group of hunters with their dogs: Adams, who is asleep, is attacked
by a dog and Joseph bravely defends him. On page 243, the narrator invokes the Muse to help him describe
Joseph’s valour, then he describes the origin and the story of Joseph’s cudgel (randello), a passage compared
to Achille’s shield from Homer’s Ilyad, a clear example of neo-classical style (see note 13).
- The story of the fight is developed later: page 243 “lightning darted from his eyes” and “heroick youth,
swift of foot” reinforce the neo classical suggestions of the excerpt because Joseph is described like a God
descended on Earth. The narrator claims that no simile is mentioned to describe Joseph because it would
interrupt the description, whereas he is interrupting it anyway with his reflection (it’s a sort of preterition:
when you declare that you don’t want to say something but you say it anyway). Finally, no fitting simile can
be found to compare Joseph because he is a simile himself that other writers should use to describe their
heroes. Fielding’s neoclassical inspiration aims at becoming a model itself for future authors.
- In chapter III.7, 8, 9 and 10, the people who led the hunting party invite the three protagonists and then
kidnap the beautiful Fanny; chapter III.11 finds Adams and Joseph tied together back to back so Joseph cries
for Fanny and he gives free rein to his despair (p. 264).
- The following pages are ironic especially when Adams goes into details about what might happen to Fanny,
deepening Joseph’s suffering and he also exhorts Joseph to submit himself to God’s will. Joseph is presented
under an heroic light, even though Joseph’s tears are considered inappropriate for a hero.
- Anyway he concludes the chapter with a quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (p. 266) Joseph is presented
as a particular kind of hero, opposed to dominant ideals of heroism. Joseph is masculine, strong, rational and
virile as traditional heroes are supposed to be; at the same time he is not afraid to show his feelings and
sufferings, which were qualities usually attributed to women. Joseph is a mix of virtues that were considered
separated between the two sexes, so he has a cross- gender identity.
- In Chapter III.12, Fanny is saved by the arrival of Peter Pounce, Lady Booby’s steward, who is travelling by
stagecoach towards Lady Booby’s country estate. In Chapter III.13, he also gives Adams a lift, and they start a
conversation on charity (p. 273) Pounce (who is synonym of miser “avaro”) denies the idea of charity to
the point of comparing people to animals so from that moment on their conversations are more and more
tense until Adams jump out of the carriage (hyperbolic and exaggerated example of the connection between
his principles and his behaviour).

3/03/2020

BOOK IV:
The protagonists’ wanderings are now over and the plot is set in Lady Booby’s country estate. After firing Joseph, in
chapter IV.1 we are told that Lady Booby has different feelings towards Joseph, swinging between hatred and
passionate desire. She too is now back to her country estate.

- P. 275: Fielding’s irony is based on contrasts: we are told of bells and acclamations by Lady Booby’s
parishioners but then we are given some details of her bad behaviour towards them and their material
needs. Textual analysis: “tend” is associated to “their utter impoverishing” forming a sort of paradox (when
we use a word meaning his opposite) that stresses how much she is careless as a local patriarch. Phonetic
pattern: created by the recurrence of the sound “f” emphasizes some images and keywords related to this
situationthe richness of the family vs. the offal left for the infirms and infants . (textual/stylistic analyse is
16
 possible only in prose, not only poetry and the distance between Lady Booby and her country estate
reinforces the dichotomy between town and country).
- In the following chapters, Adams declares in church marriage between Joseph and Fanny but they have to
overcome many obstacles in order to get married. In IV.2 Lady Booby orders Adams to cancel the wedding
justifying it with the fact that Joseph is a vagabond (he doesn’t belong to that parish). Adams obeys only to
his conscience so he annoys Lady Booby.
- In order to achieve her aims, Lady Booby involves the lawyer Scout and the judge Frolick they represent a
parody of justice because they serve only the needs of the rich and powerful. Chapter IV.4 is important
because of the arrival of Pamela Andrews (Richardson’s heroine and Joseph’s sister) and her Mr Booby (Lady
Booby’s nephew) so for his wife’s love, Mr Booby saves Joseph and Fanny from judge Frolick’s sentence.
Now Joseph is a relative of Lady Booby so she accepts him in the family but she refuses to admit Fanny.
- In chapter IV.7, Mr Booby and Pamela try to convince unsuccessfully Joseph to abandon his idea of marrying
Fanny (p. 297) here Mr Booby and Pamela’s hypocrisy is evident because they consider their mixed union
superior and better than Joseph and Fanny’s. Mr Booby justifies this superiority by mentioning his material
riches and Joseph replies referring to a less material kind of fortune because he gives little importance to
wealth and rank. He stresses the word “equal” more than once (unlike his sister who rejects her social
origin). The hypocrisy is more and more evident because while they are talking, Fanny is outside and risks to
be raped once again by Beau Didapper and then by one of his servant (beaten up by Joseph) Beau is the
incarnation of vanity, superficiality and arrogance.
- IV.9: almost all the principal characters of the novel are together in Adams’s house including the pedlar who
had generously helped them in II.15 (coincidentally, the same pedlar has just rescued one of Adams’s
children from drowning in IV.8).
- IV.10: Adam’s nearly- drowned son, Dick, reads a story called “The history of two friends” which is another
interpolated tale which stops the plot and increases suspense until the final resolution of the plot.
- IV.11: at the end of Dick’s reading, Beau Didapper sexually molests Fanny once again so Joseph hits him and
the characters who are against their marriage exploit the situation to blame the innocent Fanny and remind
Joseph how inappropriate that union would be. Joseph doesn’t change his mind and he still wants to marry
Fanny. Adam’s wife and his eldest daughter agree with Mrs Booby and they blame him for caring too much
about people at the expense of his own family. A happy ending for the young couple seems impossible but
this is typical of comedies’ plot: they come to a moment of deepest crisis before a final resolution.
- Final resolution, chapter IV 12-16: misleading revelations, comic misunderstandings, mistaken identities and
dramatic turns of events.

Cristopher Parkes, “Joseph Andrews and the control of the poor”

- This essay relates the novel to the social and political context of that time but it has also a biographical
importance: Henry Fielding studied law and he was a magistrate so he had the issues of poverty and crime
much at heart. He created the first policing body for controlling crime (Bow Street Runners).
- The novel is about the lack of charity in the 18th century England; the book can be considered a call for the
return of benevolence which is the moral centre of the novel. In the two pamphlets, written by Fielding, we
can notice that he doesn’t rely on the return of benevolence but he calls for a network of county
workhousesthey existed in England from the 17th century and they were places giving accommodation and
employment to the poor but they later became very hard places to live in, with the risk of exploitation.
- Pp. 17- 18: in that period the Poor Laws were used to marginalize the poor and to get rid of them, sentencing
their expulsion or hanging. The conditions of workhouses were so bad that sometimes people would escape
from them and then they would be expelled, falling outside any form of state control.
- In his pamphlet, Fielding claims a reform in this system because labour force was needed in the country so
he proposes a managed containment of the poor rather than their expulsion. He imagined workhouses as
17
 places where poor people might become available employers; the system of employment is exclusive
because in this way the job market would be controlled by the state (no personal decisions nor individual
initiatives). Poor relief would be de-personalized and turned
to the advantage of the labour market (p. 20: Parkes connects Fielding’s pamphlets with the French historian
Michel Foucault’s study which takes in consideration the efforts of European nations in the 18th and 19th
century to create systems of surveillance for the people).
- The Poor Laws decreed that people of “low degree” couldn’t travel throughout the country without an
authorization. When Joseph leaves Lady Booby’s house in London he might have been arrested because he
travels back to Lady Booby’s country estate to meet with Fanny and not to his parents’ county but he’s not
arrested only because the poor were extremely neglected. In this system the control belongs to the initiative
of the local patriarch and Lady Booby is a careless one because she uses the law to punish Joseph trying to
expel him thanks to lawyer Scout and judge Frolick. Lawyer Scout himself claims for more transportations
and hangings for people such as Joseph. This situation points out how personalized poor relief could be and
based on random favouritism.
- Parson Adams, the most charitable character of the whole novel, has problems with exercising his virtue. He
ends up neglecting his family needs and he is influenced by personal feelings Parkes connects these
problems with his impractical lack of orientation. Adams embodies the related needs to control both charity
and national space.
- The undisciplined nature of the national space is dangerous: Parkes quotes the passage where Fanny and
Adams are taken to the court by the man who tried to rape her and they are considered as criminals because
they look less respectable than him (p. 26).
- At the end of the novel, there is an happy ending for Joseph but mostly thanks to coincidence and luck. Mr
Booby’s charity is not an act of charity because in the end, he’s helping a member of his family.

04/03/2020
ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)
(Bertinetti’s history page 114-116)

- He was a catholic: he was not allowed to higher studies or public appointments

- First professional poet: living off the earnings of his work
- Physical deformity: due to a juvenile tubercolosis

The rape of the lock (lines 121-148)

- Setting: London’s fashionable society
- Subject: the protagonist Belinda’s toilet (cosmetic make-up, ‘toletta’). Therefore, a trivial event, a high-class
woman getting ready for social life.
- metaphorical language with religious connotations: veil, vase, mystic, white, adores, pow’rs.
- displayed toilet: reinforced by assonance in [ei], bold in the verses.

Neo- classical satire is based on contrasts:

 elevated language and images (“mystic order”, “nymph”, often based on hyperboles) vs. superficiality of
contemporary society (“adores … the cosmetic pow’rs” – Belinda worships her make-up equipment).
 heroic ideals vs. frivolity of everyday life, embodied by the plot of the poem, inspired by a real event: a
quarrel between two fashionable families when one of Belinda’s locks is cut off by a Baron, with tragicomic
consequences Bertinetti page 115)
 Belinda is preparing for a ‘battle’ (“cosmetic pow’rs”): “mock-heroic”, “mock-epic” (‘eroicomico’, close to
Fielding’s style in prose). The Baron’s arrogance and Belinda’s narcissism cannot be compared with classical
battles – their argument will end in a game of cards.
18
  Incipit of the poem:
“What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,I sing”
 Content: opposition “mighty” vs. “trivial”
 Form: the same opposition is reinforced by open vs. closed vowel sounds. The same
phonetic contrast is present also in “I sing”.

Neo- classical poetry or “Augustan Age” (Bertinetti, pp. 113-114)

- Influenced by Latin literature (Horace, Ovid, Virgil); “The rape of the lock” will later influence Parini’s “Il
giorno” (1763)
- Imitates the eternal forms of nature; rationality and didacticism (following the tradition of Humanism, which
will also influence Fielding’s style)
- Language: refinedprivileged form: heroic couplet (distico a rima baciata: AA BB CC, etc) which is rigorous,
self- enclosed, without many enjambements and always terminating with a full stop.

Lines 125-128:

1. Continuation of religious metaphors prosaic/denotative meaning:

 Heav’nly: very beautiful, gorgeous
 Inferior priestess: Betty, Belinda’s chambermaid
 Altar: toilet, dressing table
 Trembling: out of fear (for the battle to come? Or for her mistress’ temper?)
2. The contrast mentioned above is conveyed by (in bold):
 The oxymoron “sacred rites of pride”
 Line 126: spatial contrast between low (“she bends”) and high (“she rears”), joined together by an
anaphoric repetition of “To that”.

Lines 129-132

- Who is “she”? Who is “the goddess”? The “goddess” is Belinda, whereas “she” refers to Betty, who is helping
her mistress to get ready.
- Where exactly are the religious connotations continued? What kind of metaphor do we find in the
underlined phrases? Do you notice any phonetic pattern? The religious connotations continue in line 132
(Pope mentions the goddess). In line 129 and 130 there is a metaphor: “treasures” and “offerings” may be a
reference to the content of the toilet. Phonetic pattern: repetition of [r] in line 129 and 130.

Lines 133-136:

 Underlined words (lines 133-4): details on “treasures” mentioned in line 129 “gems” and “casket” which
means “scrigno” (stock container for treasures, it’s present in The merchant of Venice.
 Highlighted words: exotic references which add to the riches of these treasures; exotic taste of readers is
growing because this is the period when England is becoming the most powerful colonial power in the world
(p. 113 of Bertinetti: he compares it with Behn’s taste for the exotic in Oronooko). Colonialism consists in
exploiting a colony’s natural resources and here exotic animals are killed for manufacturing everyday objects
like combs.
 Concerning types of metaphors: “casket” and “Arabia” are personified. Personifications and hyperboles are
Pope’s most frequently used metaphors.

Lines 137-148 (my own analysis content and form)

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  Repetition of metaphorical images that we already found in the previous lines
 Words with double meanings: “bible” can also means “trinkets” (ninnoli, ciondoli)
 Phonetic patterns (p, b, ai)

Neo- classical poetry: Pope’s erudition and intertextuality, mythical and learned references

The final line is considered to be a reference to a passage from Homer’s Iliad:

- Pope could live of his own writings especially because of his translations of famous classical works (by
authors such as Homer and Ovid)
- Neo-classical poetry is sometimes characterized and made more complex and elaborate by a dense
intertextuality (Bertinetti page 115: not only society, but also “high culture becomes an object of parody” in
the poem)

Thematic structure of lines 121-148

- Lines 121-132: preparation for the ritual

- Lines 133-138: description of the dressing table
- Lines 139-148: the actions of the toilet

Pope’s later works (Bertinetti pp. 115-116)

- The rape of the lock is rather benevolent, as a satire, especially if compared to Pope’s later works ì, written
after he reached fame: e.g. The Dunciad (1728): a scathing work where the literary world of his time is
presented as “The empire of Dullness” (the title: “dunce” means “stupid” plus the classical suffix “iad” as in
“Iliad”: the adventures of stupidity “La stupidiade”.
- One of his targets is Colley Cibber who is also attacked by Fielding in Joseph Andrews.

09/03/2020

18th-century neo-classical satirical poetry: Jonathan Swift’s, The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732)

Aspects of Augustan satire (first half of 18th century)

1. Some authors of that time published collectively under a pseudonym “Martin Scriblerus”; this club included
Pope, Swift and John Gay.
2. Fielding started writing a little bit later but he was inspired by them (actually his pseudonym was Sclibrerus
Secundus). His satire has often been compared to Pope because they both have a kind hearted attitude
towards the characters they satirised Hawley calls his attitude a “positive example of amiable humour” (p.
XXI).
3. The Sclibrerians were much less elegant than Pope’s The Rape of the Lock; Swift’s The Lady’s Dressing Room
(1732) is a clear example of that, freely mixing the high and the very low.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

- He was a clergyman like John Donne

- He wrote a very harsh and provocative kind of satirical works; e.g. A Modest Proposal (1729) that suggests
to solve the problem of Irish poverty by selling Irish children as food to rich people.
- Gulliver’s Travels is based on a journey to fantastic places and it’s an ancestor of fantasy novel but also a
parody of travellers’ tales like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe: it presented itself as an authentic story just like
Crusoe. Finally it is a harsh satire on English society of that time (Bertinetti, pp. 116-119)

20
The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732)

Lines 1-10

- Introductory lines setting the situation: Celia is preparing for a romantic appointment with her lover
Strephon. Without being noticed, Strephon enters the room and starts observing every single details in it.
There are similarities with Pope’s style and “The Rape of the Lock”.
- Similarities with Pope: what follows is an “inventory”, just like the list of cosmetics in The Rape of the Lock
(cataloguing was one of Swift’s favourite techniques).
- Neoclassical contrast: Mythical and elevated connotations (haughty, goddess and arrayed) create a contrast
with the trivial activity of the woman preparing for the romantic appointment (line 1: irony through
hyperbole 5 hours for getting ready).
- Celia and Strephon: typical names of pastoral poetry. Betty is a stock name for a servant (as in Fielding and
Pope)
- Use of the heroic couplet: AA, BB, CC, etc.
- Differences with Pope:
1. shorter lines
2. lines 6-10 and in the rest of the poem: uncomplicated, simpler language, less erudite
3. line 8: litter (disordine, rifiuti) and line 9: matter (questione, materiale/materia) this anticipates
the more vulgar aspects of this poem, as seen in the following lines. See the alliterative patterns in
lines 7-9, which add emphasis to the inventory made by Strephon (ll. 5-7) and to the images of
“litter” and “matter” (these two incidentally rhyme).

Lines 11-28:

- In spite of the preterition present in line 15 (which means “it’s better not to say too much on this..”, Swift’s
catalogue here displayed is very different from Pope’s besmeared, dirt, sweat, dandruff, unsavoury begin
a rapid succession of low, repulsive images, bodily fluids such as “steams” (l. 27).
- Strephon is called “rogue” (briccone, furfante, canaglia). Men lie and women are not sweet: the poem
becomes more and more explicit.
- Alliterations, assonances and consonances: in lines 27-28 a repetition of sibilant sounds reproduces the
sound of the “steam”.
- Lines 29-38: see what happens to Celia’s poor puppy-dog

Lines 39-54:

- This catalogue of disgusting images continues to the point that Strephon feels sick (l. 43). The underlined
words are reinforced by:
a) Phonetic patterns such as alliterations and consonances line 42 (sp) reproduces the spitting; ll 44-
45 [bi] as in the verb “to be”: this is what Celia’s dressing room IS like; textual analysis: the sibilant
sound in lines 50-52
b) Structural repetitions: anaphora in line 42 “here she” conveying the message that the mess is
everywhere in the room

OPEN QUESTION FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: Significantly, in a poem describing what the human body produces, we
find references to the 5 human senses: where can you find: sight? smell? touch? hearing? taste?

- Sight: lines 11, 20

- Smell: lines 27, 28, 44, 86, 105, 113-114
- Touch: lines 52, 66

21
Lines 55-114:

- The following lines further develop this catalogue. Sometimes they employ epic/learned references:
1. Lines 83-88: Celia’s chest (cassa) compared to Pandora’s box (out of which all evils flew into the
world).
2. Line 98: quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost (considered the English epic par excellence at that
time) here, the “secrets of the hoary deep” (corrotto abisso) do not refer to the hell or the sea.
But in general, the language is much more vulgar and less refined than Pope’s, and much more
straightforward.

Lines 115-132:

- L. 115: Strephon’s searching Celia’s room is defined with a hyperbole: “grand survey” (grandiosa indagine).
Switch from high to low, similar to a paradox: in lines 116-118 the apex of Swift’s vulgarism is reached,
culminating in the obscene “shits”. This poem belongs to a series of works by Swift called “excremental
works” focused on inspiring disgust. At that time, it created some controversy and inspired some replies in
verse by women poets. CRITICAL DEBATE: is Swift being a realist about the facts of life? Or inspired by
religion (he was a protestant clergyman, like Donne) and criticizing human pride and hypocrisy? Or a
misogynist (women- hater)
- Lines 119-122: another change high/low Vengeance is described as a goddess but the details of this
vengeance are as follows: after what he has seen, Strephon is condemned by his imagination (“foul” –
‘sconcia’, “vicious” – ‘perversa’) to associate all women with bad smells; l. 122, “he sees with all her stinks”,
associates the senses of sight and smell. This is compared by critics to the ending of the famous Gulliver’s
Travels, where the protagonist can’t stand the presence of other (stinking) humans, not even his own family .
Swift’s supposed misogyny might be seen as a part of his more general misanthropy (hatred for fellow
humans).
- ll. 131-132. The author pretends he does not agree with Strephon. The “queen of love” is Venus, another
goddess but according to the myth she rose from bad-smelling mud (“stinking ooze”), that is to say from the
bottom of the sea another switch from high to low.
- ll. 133- 134: read by myself

10/03/2020

18th century, new developments in poetry

- Simplification of poetical language, culminating in the Romantic period. In this period poets do a general
effort to make poetical language more accessible; in a way it is democratized just like late 18 th century
revolutions (American and French) were trying to democratize politics.
- Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads (1798): Wordsworth’s “Preface” to this collection (Bertinetti’s
History 158) is considered the manifesto of Romantic Poetry. In it he rejects the poetic diction of neo-
classical poetry, its phraseology made of archaisms and elaborate figure of speech. He also calls for a poetry
about everyday situations, written in the language used by men, experimenting with “the language of
conversation of middle and lower classes”.

Pre- Romantic poets: towards Romanticism

- The detachment from neo-classical approach, connected to the rise of the so- called “Age of sensibility”
direct expression of feelings in literature (second half of 18th century), was a gradual change as in all cultural
developments.
- Between Augustan poetry (represented by Pope) and Romanticism (represented by Wordsworth) there are
many intermediate authors: William Cowper (1731-1800) and Thomas Gray Bertinetti’s pp. 140-143.
22
William Blake’s The Garden of Love

Blake is considered by Bertinetti as a Romantic, but other critics consider him as a pre-romantic.

- Simple language
- Shorter lines
- Ballad rhyme scheme
- Romanticism exalt the lyric (poem expressing the poet’s feelings and thoughts directly, without much formal
mediation)

William Cowper, The Task (1785)

- It’s a meditative long poem, longer than 5000 lines

- Starting inspiration: a challenge, the description of a sofa; the poem begins praising the sofa in a mock-epic
tone following the tone of Milton because both poems are written in blank verses (neo-classical in a way).
The task is the mission of writing about the sofa.
- Subject: life in an English village, opposed to the corruption of London life. A series of reflections on seasonal
changes and starting from this, Cowper finds a basis for discussing.
- Different social themes: conditions of the poor, colonial oppression, social and political injustice under
tyranny.
- The protagonist of the excerpt is Kate, an ordinary young woman who becomes crazy for love for a sailor.

The task (lines 534-556)

Lines 534-538

- Kate is a serving maid while her beloved is a sailor (they are ordinary people, not heroines or heroes
interest on the outcasts). Poetry in the second half of 18the century, the so-called “Age of sensibility”,
touches on melancholy, psychological instability, social marginality so it is focused on outcasts (excluded
people) and this anticipates Romantic issues.
- Kate was not always a serving maid, she used to live in a better condition and this is emphasised by the
repetition of “better” (lines 1-2) she was better dressed (“clad”) as strengthened by the alliteration
clad/cloak (mantello). This idea suggests that social classes are not necessarily permanent and eternal but
they can change.
- Verse: there were different ways to simplify poetry and both Blake and Cowper employ a simpler vocabulary
but Blake uses the ballad as a model, whereas Cowper prefers the blank verse (unrhymed iambic
pentameter).

There often wanders one, whom better days

Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed
With lace, and hat with splendid ribbon bound.

BLANK VERSE (AND METRICAL ANALYSIS)

1. Unrhymed: the lack of rhyme, the presence of many run-on-lines make the lines more fluent, closer to
prose and everyday language. The absence of rhyme doesn’t imply the phonetic echoes: “splendid
ribbon bound” where consonances in [nd], [n] and [b] amplify the beauty of Kate’s old way of dressing
(satin and lace good quality materials)
2. Iambic pentameter: one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, five times. Usually we stress
lexical words (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs) and don’t stress grammatical words (pronouns,
conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries). In the quote above stressed syllables are underlined.

23
  Line 534 is a regular blank verse as line 536
 The first half of line 535 (before the comma) is irregular. Variations from the standard rule are
connected to the message. Here the line begins with two consecutive stresses which add a sense
of urgency as if to emphasise that Kate was in better conditions in the past (which is the main
message of these three lines).

Lines 539-546

- Kate’s feelings about the departure of her beloved alternate swing between hope and sadness.
- Kate travels with her imagination (“fancy”) to stay with her beloved. Consonances in [f] and sibilant sounds
replicate the sound of “foaming waves”. Kate’s hopes are also marked by the alliteration in “where warmest
wishes” which echoes the key terms “waves” and “weep” (cry).
- In the following lines there is the repetition of [d] sound: first connected with hope in “delusive” (creating
illusion), “glad”, “dream”, then with his opposite in “heard”, “doleful” (mournful), “tidings” (news),
culminating in “death” and “never smiled” with emphasis through the exclamation mark.

Lines 546-556

- In the following lines, Kate’s suffering leads her to madness and to living like a homeless. This aspect might
be seen as a biographical reference since Cowper himself suffered from depression and it is said that he
attempted suicide. We may assume that Kate is a victim of many deaths that, at the time, took place at sea.
The “distant shores” in line 540 might be a reference to Britain’s colonial enterprises.

My own analysis:

- Lexical repetitions: cloak (l. 535 and 550); “there”(ll. 547-548).

- Repetitions of words appeared in previous lines: “better days” and “better clad”, “livelong days” and
“livelong nights” (ll. 547-549).
- Landscape details: the fact that Kate is now homeless.
- Phonetic echoes: ll. 534-535repetition of [b]; ll. 539 repetition of [f] in “foaming” “fancy” and
“followed”; l. 540: “shores” and “she”.
- Structural repetitions: “though pressed with hunger oft” “Though prinched with cold” (ll. 555-556)

11/03/2020

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67)

see Bertinetti pages 137-139

Volume 1, chapter 1

- The narrator starts with the moment he was conceived, claiming it influenced his whole life and character
but that doesn’t imply a chronologically narration. Tristram’s parents didn’t pay enough attention when
they did it and this is very important because every man’s success and misfortune depend on how the
humours and animal spirits are set. The narration speeds away unpredictably, in all directions, just like
Tristram’s life, “like hey- go mad” (pazzi sfrenati). See Rick’s “Introductory Essay” pp. 30-1: meta-literary

24
 novel, speaking about itself and its construction and many things narrated could be applied to the novel.
Sterne’s writing can look at the character and at the structure of the novel, at the same time.

The conception of Tristram (chapter 1)

- Page 6: the characters are humanly believable but the events related to them are meta-literary commentary
on the novel’s construction (see Rick’s examples on p.XXXI)2 examples: the first is that the sexual
intercourse is interrupted by the issue of time that is very important for an un-chronological novel. The
second example is Tristram’s father blasphemy, significantly exclaimed in an act of creation, reflects the
contrast between sacred and profane on the whole book (Ricks says that the novel had a great success but
also many enemies for its obscenities and its popularity decreased during the Victorian period for moral
reasons). The final direct speech is an example of ongoing dialogue between Tristram and some imaginary
reader; it’s a way through which thenovel declares its fictional structure, on the contrary to Oronooko (see
Bertinetti p. 137)
- Chapter 2 (Homunculus and animal spirits): Tristram mentions the scientific theories of that period
 Of humours and animal spirits: the moment of conception is believed to affect the embryo
 Homunculus: the male spermatozoon has tiny characteristics of a tiny human being. Sterne is here
irreverent (because he compares the characteristics of his spermatozoon to the Ministry of Justice)
and also playful (he calls it “my little gentleman”) while he’s sad and despairing about the ways in
which his father’s irritation might have influenced and established a very fragile basis for his future
life.
- Chapter 3 (uncle Toby): Tristram knows all this because his uncle (a very important character) told him much
later so the narration un-chronologically moves forward in time. His father was a natural philosopher so he
was interested in science (at that time there were two kinds of philosophers: those who were interested in
science and natural events and moral philosophers). Tristram’s father declaration is sad but it’s mixed with
Tristram’s irony (“her backside”): this is the first example of Sterne’s light-hearted tone, even in the face of
tragic events Sterne’s “contentedness” (Ricks p. XXXII): it’s not superficiality but a resilience towards the
facts of life, enjoying life while enduring it.
- Chapter 4 (method of narration): the first part is very meta-literary because Tristram reflects on his method
of narration. Some readers are not satisfied if the narration doesn’t start from the very beginning so he
starts from the moment of his conception (he quotes Horace’s ab ovo). There is a meta-literary irony on the
future success of the book (it’s prophetic). Even though Horace didn’t start from the beginning, Tristram is
going to do as he likes because he doesn’t want to follow established rules very original structure of the
novel. Finally, for readers who are not so curious they can move to another chapter (“Shut the door”) so
Sterne’s intruding irony is made of typographical tricks.
- Beyond the door (explanation of the clock affair): Tristram’s father is very precise and this is emphasised by
the alliteration of [e].
 Ironic euphemism for sex (“little family concernment”) and this task is considered as something that
has to be done. Later the pair of habits (clock and sex) are joined through another alliterative pair
with two negative words (“plagued” and “pestered”). Sex is described as an annoying duty. Her
mother had created in her mind the association of the family clock and the family sex.
 Sterne quotes John Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding (1690): focus on the understandings, on
the workings of the human mind and Tristram does the same because he focuses on the associations
in his own mind the subtitle is “life and opinions” and not “life and adventures”. There is a passage
from objective facts to how they are processed by human intellect (Bertinetti pp. 137-38).
 The novel is considered as the ancestor of the psychoanalysis and the stream of consciousness, long
before Virginia Woolf and the Modernist novel because Sterne transferred on the written page, the
working of the human mind. James Joyce homage him in Finnegans Wake (1939).

25
  “But this by the bye” could be considered the motto of the novel which is composed by a series of
digressions produced by Tristram’s association of ideas. Sterne is considered the father of digressive
novel.
- Chapter 5 and 6 (Tristram’s birth and the reader’s patience): Tristram gives us the exact date of his
birtheven though Sterne is very digressive, his chronological points of reference are always precise. He
wishes he had been born on the moon and he describes Earth as a vile planet made of the remains of other
planets which could be taken as a meta-literary observation, as this book is made of scraps of a jumble of
various observations. He complains about the Earth because here a person can be happy and lucky only if
he/she has goods, riches and power while Tristram has the target of continue misfortune. The narration of
his birth will appear only much later so he ask the reader to be patient.
- Chapter 7 and 8 (example of Tristram’s association of ideas): he describes his birth so he mentions the
midwifethe trade of the midwife was legally defined by the lawyer who inserted his definition as a whim in
the law everyone has his or her peculiar whims everyone has his or her hobby- horse; it could mean
hobby but also obsession or prostitute. (“Running horse could mean venereal diseases) “and so long as a
man rides his hobby-horse peaceably and quietly” along the King’s high-way there is no harm (double
meaning of hobby-horse: metaphor from “hobby” the “real horse”)
- Chapter 8: many great men have a passion for horses”when I see a great man destined to great
achievements who exaggerates with his hobby-horses, «then, my Lord, […] I wish the hobby-horse, with all
his fraternity, at the Devil” (I get very irritated) chapter 8 is closed by the dedication to a Lord. These are
very capricious association of ideas.
- Chapter 9 (On the preceding dedication): Tristram says that his dedication is virgin because it has not been
written with anyone in mind yet who is the chapter going to be dedicated to. Tristram puts the dedication to
the highest bidder so he ridicules those lords who wish for a book to dedicated to them social irreverence.
He highlights the fact that literature was moving from a patronage system (rich people sponsoring writers) to
a literary market. There is also a meta-literary aspect: Dodsley was Sterne’s real publisher (who had first
rejected the book, which was first published at Sterne’s expenses, and published it only after its immediate
and great success). The rest of the book is dedicated to the moon in accordance with a lunatic book such as
this one. Finally Candid and Cunegund characters from Voltaire’s Candide (published only in January 1759,
but already very popular).
- Chapters 10, 11, 12 (on parson Yorick- the facts)
 Chapter 10: parson Yorick had some merit in the calling of the midwife, but the world did not agree,
thinking he did it for personal interests.
 Chapter 11: he was a descendant of the Danish Yorick, the fool (buffone di corte) at Hamlet’s court.
He liked to joke at people’s flaws, regardless of their rank, so he made many powerful enemies.
 Chapter 12: in spite of his friend Eugenius’s advice for moderation, he didn’t change his behaviour,
and his enemies finally broke his heart. The chapter is closed by: the inscription on his grave (“Alas,
poor Yorick”), the description of his grave (“not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look
upon it,--and sighing as he walks on, Alas, poor Yorick!”), two completely black pages to mourn his
death.
- Observations on parson Yorick:
 Sterne’s continuous engagement with the reader: why was Yorick misunderstood Sterne writes
“Lay down the book, I will give you half a day so you can think about it”.
 Yorick as autobiographical, close to Sterne and to the spirit of the book: both are country parsons,
he loves joking and having fun at the expense of others, in particular at people’s vices, he’s a very
playful character, when warned by Eugenius, he answered «with a pshaw! With a hop, skip, and a
jump”, very similarly to a Shakespearean fool, even his last words are uttered with a “cervantick
tone” of mock-gravity.

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  Sterne and Cervantes share an oblique perspective towards reality: Yorick’s horse is compared to
Rocinante and we have a declaration of love for Cervantes.
 Inscription and black pages: source of irony, innovative “an act of unexpected freedom by the
writer, they mark the limits of the narrator, the limits of the novel as a genre, and the limits of the
language, reminding people that the novel is fiction not reality.

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Chapter 13:

- p.33: Tristram seems like he’s apologizing, he expresses some self-criticism because he calls his work
“rhapsodical” that means “fragmentary” in a negative sense. He mentions again the midwife (crucial for his
birth) because he’s afraid of losing the reader’s attention but at the same time the reader is warned because
unexpected things may happen so other digressions will come. The world of the midwife is an area of 4/5
miles but its map will be included in volume 20. He says “not to swell the work” he’s paradoxical ironic
given that he’s planning to write at least other 20 volumes. When he says “I detest the thought of such a
thing”his conscious digressions have been swelling his work constantly. Finally the reader is told that this
is revealed in confidence which is absurd.

Chapter 14:

- P.34: Tristram claims that he has to deal with his parent’s marriage settlement (accordo matrimoniale) in
order to introduce the presence of the midwife. He opens a meta-literary digression: he found the details he
needed quickly this time but usually a writer has to face many obstacles in order to get straight to the
point extended metaphor in which the narration is compared to a journey (he lists a series of obstacles .
Tristram complains about how slow he has been so far; Bertinetti (p.138) quotes the critic Eagleton because
Richardson’s Pamela was written in real time (her diary was contemporaneous with the events being
narrated) while Tristram Shandy can be seen as a parody of that because Tristram is struggling between the
time of his writing and the time of the events Tristram can never catch up with the present and his
conversations with the readers can be seen as a way to deal with that.
- P.35: Tristram wants to go at his own time so he doesn’t seem to consider the narrative time gap as a real
problem and it could be interpreted as a striving for realism: reality, unlike art, is never concluded, it’s a
never ending flow (see Ricks XXIV, quoting Henry James). Reality is introduced by the reference to his
booksellerhe has to make some money. Another way of interpreting Tristram’s digressions, by Carlo Levi:
both Tristram and Sterne suffered from a bad health, so they try to keep melancholy and spleen away by
never going on with the plot, in order to delay the conclusion of his narration and therefore of his life.
Actually, he is obsessed by time (it’s important the image of the clock, at the beginning of the novel).

Chapter 15:

- The marriage settlement: Elizabeth, Tristram’s mother, will deliver the baby in London, all expenses paid by
Walter (Tristram’s father) but there was a clause, suggested by uncle Toby unless she makes them travel
to London on a false alarm and this is what happened because they travelled to London but she wasn’t
pregnant. The marriage settlement, in chapter 15, is a legal document full of technical jargon parody of a
legal text, in some parts it is written in Gothic characters, which could be taken as a satire to the grave mood
of such documents and it add a shade to Sterne’s typographical tricks and actually Sterne can be considered
a pioneer of the digital literature. There is a focus on the shape of the words (see Ricks p. XXI): he
emphasises the references of the novel to the arts in general (painting, music, drama) and he points out the
expressive limits of the words. Tristram Shandy tries to be encyclopaedic and omni-comprehensive and, at

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 the same time, it shows that written literature is only one among the many forms of artistic expression (in a
period when the power of literature was more and more praised).

Chapter 16: the journey back from London, with Walter constantly complaining about the loss of money and of his
son.

Chapter 17: Walter is insistent about observing the clause: she will have to deliver her baby in the country.

Chapter 18:

- P.41: there is a controversy between wife and husband because Elizabeth wants a female midwife while
Walter wants a male midwife because he thinks it’s safer controversy between female and male
midwives and the use of instruments for delivering babies which will be important for Tristram’s birth.
- P. 43: Sterne focuses on London’s centralism times were moving towards the highest peak of Industrial
Revolution.
- P. 44: balance of power between men and women within the family.
- Finally Sterne points out the gender relationships (women were excluded by the medical professions) and
sometimes he shows himself as a misogynist (“weaker”, “only like a woman”). The starting topic here is the
baby’s birth and Sterne employs medical/bodily images (England= human body, women= vessels).

What is the compromise reached by Tristram’s parents? Consider the minor digression where the narrator Tristram
reflects on his own relationships with women: can you see any link with what said above? Which part of this chapter
could be related to the essay on Joseph Andrews included in your programme? When exactly was this chapter
written?

Chapter 19:

- P.47: Walter’s obsession with names because he’s convinced that names can influence the person’s
character and behaviour so he’s very superstitious about it (this is called “magick bias”).
- P. 47 (“Your son.. your dear son”): Walter is presented as a great rhetorician, someone who can use words in
a very convincing way (Tristram quotes several classical authors and terms about rhetoric and logic).
- P. 50: Walter hated the name Tristram because it comes from Latin and it means “sad”.
- P. 51: Tristram’s father can’t bear to call his son like that and this is a tragedy for him. The narration will have
to wait because one must be born before being christened this is another meta- literary digression which
delays the progress of the story and it’s also obvious but in the following chapter Tristram opens another
digression exploiting another possible meaning of this sentence.

Chapter 20:

- P.51: at that time Catholics partly admitted baptism before birth (it’s a theological controversy) but Tristram
starts another digression and it has to do with the relationship with his readers”my mother wasn’t a
papist” so he imagines to address a female reader and he punishes her (is he again misogynist?) for not
having read between the lines at the end of chapter 19.
- P.52: he complains about a general attitude of looking only for adventures in a book adventures are
compared to flesh parts of human body while “subtle hints and sly communications of science fly off, like
spirits upwards” (he uses once again another bodily metaphor).
- P.53: long document in French on the catholic debate about baptising before birth. The novel is full of
erudite sources often quoted in full but this is ridiculed because Tristram proposes not only to baptize
babies before being born but all homunculi (spermatozoon) by injection. This satire on the excessive

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 meticulousness of erudition and science can be compared to Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (see Ricks p. XX and
Bertinetti p. 139).

Chapter 21:

- P. 56: Walter and uncle Toby are downstairs and they hear noise upstairs Toby’s reply is left suspended
(the birth is delayed) and the sentence will be completed only in volume II.6 and Tristram’s birth will not be
described until volume III. Toby’s character is characterised by modesty which he learnt by a blow which he
received during the battle of Namur (a wall fell down and a piece of stone struck against his groin). The topic
of the war is left suspended because Tristram thinks that telling the story now would complicate the
narration so the readers have to wait the right time.
- P. 61-62: Toby can’t bear to have an argument with his brother because he’s incredibly modest, everytime
they have an argument he starts whistling. As for Tristram, he shows his erudition on Logic and Rhetoric
mentioning several kinds of arguments from classical works and at the same time he makes fun of them by
inventing the “Argumentum Fistulatorium” but there’s more: he also invents the “Argumentum Tripodium”
and the “Argumentum ad Rem”.

“As for the Argumentum Tripodium (‘argomento della terza gamba’), which is never used but by the woman against
the man;--and the Argumentum ad Rem (‘argomento della cosa’), which, contrarywise, is made use of by the man
only against the woman;--As these two are enough in conscience for one lecture;--and, moreover, as the one is the
best answer to the other,--let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves.” translate
this quote and identify its jokingly bawdy (‘sconcio’) aspects. What other potentially obscene references can you
identify in this chapter?

Chapter 22:

- P. 63: It’s another meta-literary chapter. Tristram is very self- praising because he says he was very good in
the previous chapter in his digressions he digressed about Dinah, but he also kept on portraying Toby at
the same time, so he didn’t forget the progress of the topic he was moving away from.
- P. 63-64: Tristram describes his narrative structure as a two-wheel machinery, one inside the other moving
in different directions. He claims its originality (“a species by itself”) but he also employs an original
metaphor (technological) for a fictional structure and he defines his work as digressive and progressive
thanks to the two wheels machinery.
- P. 64: The conclusion takes us back to Carlo Levi’s interpretation.

Read chapter 23, 24, 25: On uncle Toby’s character: what is the feature of any person that best helps defining his/her
character? His/her hobbies (e.g. hobby horse of uncle Toby). What metaphor does Tristram use to explain this? what
is this feature, specifically, in Toby? how did he come by it? at the end of Volume I, what is still to be narrated, by
Tristram, about Toby’s character?

17/03/2020

Volume II: the beginning of the second volume takes up the subject of the perplexity of Uncle Tobyhe’s confused
about the description of the battle of Namur and the accident that he was victim because of too much military
technical jargon to explain to the people he speaks to he becomes irritated and because of it his wound gets
worse so he decides to get a map of the city of Namur and its fortifications, in order to make himself clear.

Chapter 2: on the issue of Toby’s perplexity, meta- literary chapter opening digressions about the structure.

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 - P. 76: Tristram mentions his critics, imagining that they could find very hard to accept Toby’s confusion so he
imagines a dialogue with them he swings through different moods: first he flatters them, then when they
get too critical he interrupts them in a very impolite way (“Go look”) and finally he says he could never give
such an unkind reply being “an erudite man”. In this case, this meta- literariness can be seen as an
anticipation of future developments in literature and actually Tristram Shandy can be taken as a pioneer of
the self-reflexive attitude of postmodern fiction self- reflexive on the possible options that he had,
concerning the ways the book should continue, often involving readers in a playful way like Sterne does in
his novel. Compare this novel to Italo Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore where he starts with
all the possible beginnings and suggests his readers the most comfortable ways to read the book.
- P. 77: Sterne starts reasoning with the critics because he asks them if they read Locke’s book, defined as a
history book. Tristram Shandy can be given a similar definition: a book of what passes in Tristram’s own mind
(his “opinions”).
- P. 78: the history of man’s mind has seen many cases like Toby where confusion was caused by words not by
ideas so critics shouldn’t be surprised. Confusion created by words: the idea of language as misleading,
treacherous recurs often in the book (Anderson’s essay) this is a modern idea which will developed in the
20th century by the cultural school of “Deconstruction” based on the idea that language resists and escapes
the fixed categories with which we try to interpret it.

Chapter III:

- P. 80: Toby has a passion for ballistic and fortifications so much so that Tristram starts a full blown
apostrophe (exclamation addressed to someone who is not present)for fear that his passion will ruin his
health. Sterne quotes several specialists on fortifications to show his erudition and parody of it at the same
time.

Chapter IV:

- P.81: Tristram reflects on that apostrophe and he says that he has more to say but he decided to stop there
so beautiful that apostrophe was (just like in painting, beauty is more important than truth) as the parallel is
made only to let the apostrophe coolthis is a declaration of anti-realism which is then reduced to a trick
(whether the reader agrees to that or not isn’t important because he added the observation in order to give
time to the apostrophe to cool and to make the chapter longer; compare it with the conclusion of Joseph
Andrews, volume I.15).
- P. 82: After 3 years spent recovering in Walter’s London house, he gets impatient with the doctor, (very
untypical of a modest and patient man like him) but why did he change so suddenly? It will be explained in
the next chapter, as Tristram says. In the York dialect “Shandy” meant “strange” and “unconventionally” .
Actually in chapter 5, Trim (Toby’s servant) convinces Toby that in the country they will have a whole garden
to re-build miniature fortifications, so they both leave London for Shandy Hall.
- P. 83: It’s meta-literary because it reminds readers about the principal plot that was abandoned in volume I,
on the day of Tristram’s birth.

Chapter VI:

- P. 88: Toby can finally complete the sentence that was interrupted in volume 1, chapter 21 the sentence is
trivial and simple.
- P. 89: Walter cannot explain his wife’s insistence for having the midwife and not Dr. Slop helping her. Is
“her” an object pronoun (complete sentence) or a possessive adjective (incomplete sentence)? The vulgar
pun is left suspended by the four asterisks, and increased by the capital letters in “ONE WORD”. Later,

30
 Tristram mentions the possible words to complete the sentence (like Calvino, he lists several potential
developments of the story).

Chapter VII, p. 90: this vulgar joke is followed by a rhetorical apostrophethis eloquence create a humorous
contrast if applied to the scurrilous reference of ONE WORD (comical technique close to Augustan mock-epic).

Chapter VIII: meta- literary because Tristram imagines some “hypercritick” complaining that Walter’s servant
Obadiah has returned too quickly with Dr. Slop, who lives 8 miles awaythe focus here is again on the human mind
and this is an anticipation of modernist fiction (e.g. Woolf and Joyce) will concentrate on this kind of time, the “time
of the mind” that Virginia Woolf will oppose to the “time of clock” (chronological time). In any way, Obadiah crashed
into Dr. Slop just outside the gate of Shandy Hall (he was coming to visit Mrs Shandy) humorous twist that
undermines the seriousness of what has just being declared.

Chapter IX and X: description of Dr. Slop, of his accident against Obadiah and of his arrival at Shandy Hall covered in
mud.

Chapter XI: on reader’s imagination Slop has left his instruments home so once again Obadiah is sent on a mission
because he has to go to Slop’s house and take them back.

Chapter XII: Toby keeps mentioning the siege of Namur even now that Mrs Shandy is in labours (doglie) so Walter
gets annoyed at him Toby feels hurt but he’s not the man to react, he’s patient and peaceful and we have the
description of the episode when he freed a fly that he had captured. More and more, as the novel progresses, we
become aware that the life of the mind, the «opinions» of the title contain another ironic twist: much more than
Tristram, we are presented with the «opinions» of Toby and Walter (see II.13 to 19, the last two chapters describe
Walter’s ideas on obstetrics, which led him to prefer Dr. Slop for his wife).

Chapter XVII: While they are waiting for Obadiah with Dr. Slop’s bag, Trim fetches a book for Toby and a sermon
drops out of its pages so Trim reads it aloud to the others during the rest of the chapter. These events are significant:
a misplaced sermon, found by a chance, on which a very long chapter is basedin this book, marginal events are
only apparently marginal because sometimes they become very important. The sermon is about the importance of
human conscience as a guide, against religion without morality and against the Catholic church and the practice of
confession. Trim is constantly interrupted by comments from Toby, Walter and Dr. Slop (who is a
Catholic)discussions follow. Trim is overwhelmed with emotions because he keeps thinking about his brother Tom
who has been imprisoned in Lisbon, by the Portuguese Inquisition for 14 years and he’s still in jailBertinetti p. 114:
the second half of the 18th century is the age of Sensibility: a capacity to have moral feeling (including the belief in
the innate goodness of man), towards other people, forming a dialectical co-existence with the rationality
emphasised by the Enlightenment. The sermon was by Yorick who had misplaced it between the book’s pages;
Tristram tells us that it will be lost again and preached by someone else in York Cathedral (“by a certain prebendary
of that church”). Soon the Shandy’s family will publish a full volume of Yorick’s sermon “at the world’s service”
notice the presence of Sterne in the book because he was the one who preached the sermon in real life (1750). He
was the one who published Sermons of Mr. Yorick in 1760 (a sort of spin-off to Tristram Shandy) Sterne builds a
series of mirror games, hiding behind both Tristram and Yorick as his alter-egos so he anticipates another feature of
the postmodern novel: the real author hiding himself/herself in his/her book as a fictional character (different from
autobiographical).

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Essay on Tristram Shandy (Anderson)

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P. 966: It begins with a long quotation on volume 1, chapter 6 which is very important because Tristram addresses
the reader directly and he says that the readers have to be patient (“don’t fly off”give me credibility) because he
doesn’t want to tell them everything immediately because they are not familiary yet. Tristram says that the readers
and him starts like acquaintances and then they’ll become friends and they’ll be more familiar. Tristram is aware of
the criticisms of the readers and he’s using rhetoric trying to make friends with them. Anderson identifies a
relationship based on a teacher- student relation and Tristram is telling us that our imagination is limited and he’s
trying to extend the power of it. Sometimes Anderson says he’s a little bit arrogant (end of volume 1: “My readers
can’t guess where I’m going” and also in volume 2 there are some parts that need to be explained about Toby’s
modesty and about the story of his name). At the same time readers are expected to take part to the interpretation
of the novel and Tristram himself asks them to participate. P. 967: Tristram says to the reader to use their
imagination to complete the story themselves and this is an agreeable responsibility between readers and narrator.
Tristram tries to educate readers’ imagination to go beyond their stereotypes and common places: all generalization
to experience are not enough to comprehend the novel and we have to push the boundaries of our imaginations
beyond.

There are three methods (identified by Anderson ) to educate the readers’ imagination:

1. Judging of the events and characters of the novel

2. Language and double meaning of words in the novel
3. Disappointing reader’s expectations about narrative form

In all these three ways readers’ expectations are shattered and they realize they were simply generalizing and
interpreting conventions (the reality of the novel is much more difficult to understand)human events are more
complex.

P. 968: In volume 1, chapter 4 he quotes Horace (starting from the egg“ab ovo”) so readers think he refers to the
classical ideas of how novel should be structured but then he reminds us that Horace didn’t recommend to start
from the very beginning Horace praises Homer to start “in medias res”. Tristram present itself as not a literally
sophisticated and he says that where a narrator starts the narration is a matter of choice of the author so he’s going
to set his own rules. After mentioning Horace, Tristram says that if the reader is not interested, he can skip the
chapter and go on (he’s not arrogant, because he’s giving us an option).
P. 969: (1st method) Anderson talks about the two- wheel machinery (vol. 1, chapter 22) and then he concentrates
on the value of his digression and where Tristram considers it as the sunshine of his book. Through the digressions
he manages to transform tragic parts into comic arthe disappoints our expectations in terms of form. The
dedication at the beginning of the novel: Sterne writes that every time a man smiles, he adds a piece to the fragment
of life.
P. 970: (2nd method) Anderson talks about Yorick (volume 1): he’s very kind and he tries to do everything for the sake
of his parishioners but people didn’t recognize his generosity and Tristram encourages the readers to think about it.
P. 971: He has an attitude to have fun at the expense of other people because he likes joking so Anderson compares
the relationship between Yorick and the parishioners to the attitude of Tristram towards his readers Tristram
tease his readers but at the same time he tries to teach us something and to widen our experience and imagination
thanks to his erudition. The readers can’t understand Yorick’s generosity maybe because we’re annoyed by
Tristram’s jokes and narrative tricks. Anderson gives Tristram a chance to move us away from our preconceptions
and laziness (trying to go beyond our usual way of thinking and of reading).
P. 972: Tristram leaves his readers free to enjoy the ambiguity of language because it reflects the ambiguity of the
reality. Language has also a “supreme expressive power” because it goes beyond the denotative simplicity so
language can be as complex as the reality (very modern idea). The fact that Tristram keeps disappointing readers’
expectations is a way to keep away the melancholy (the so- called “spleen”)

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P. 973: Humour is a way to take the spleen away so he’s asking us to be educated in order to go beyond the barriers
of our mind they can be broken only through laugh, humour and good- temper.

- Yorick is a mirror of Sterne, an autobiographical character so that’s why he’s so important: he’s a clergyman,
he likes to joke but most of all he’s misunderstood by his people and Tristram is making an effort to show his
readers “Don’t behave like Yorick’s people and try to be more patient. If you do so I can educate your
imagination and we can be friends”.
- The value of digression: they are a way to push readers to think differently and they are a way to turn tragic
moments into humorous ones.

L’empirismo inglese si basa sull’idea che l’identità umana si fonda sulle esperienze concreteHume definiva
l’identità umana come un flusso di percezioni. Il riferimento ad Orazio può essere relazionato con l’empirismo di quel
periodo. Il saggio si può ricondurre alla “reception’s theory” secondo la quale nessun testo letterario è completo
senza l’interpretazione dei lettori. Reception’school (reader’s response school): mettere il lavoro interpretativo del
lettore al primo postoil testo non esiste se non in modo incompleto, Tristram stesso dice che ci vuole una
condivisione di conoscenze tra il lettore e lo scrittore.

18/03/2020

Elizabethan poetry at the turn of the century

- This poetry was produced between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th
- Linguistically: crucial years for the rise of Modern English.
- From the 1580s to early 1600s: “golden period” of English Literature (before only Latin was considered the
language of literature). When Shakespeare died (1616), literature in Modern English was already rich in
various achievements.
- English Renaissance (arrived in England a little bit later): revival of classical cultures and influence from
Italian Renaissance and humanism  Petrarca’s Canzoniere (1336-1374) becomes the main inspiration for
many English sonnet writers e.g. Wyatt and Surrey import Petrarchan conventions and forms, while
introducing innovations (see Bertinetti pp. 16-18).
- Sonnet: could combine emotions with the structural rigidity of formal perfection in order to convey feelings.

The Sonnet: from Petrarca to Shakespeare

 PETRARCHAN ( 2 quatrains and 2 tercets, 4+4+3+3)

Structure:
First quatrain ABAB
Second quatrain ABAB
First tercet CDE
Second tercet CDE

 ELIZABETHAN or Shakespearean ( 3 quatrains and a couplet, 4+4+4+2)

Structure:
First quatrain ABAB
Second quatrain CDCD
Third quatrain EFEF
Couplet GG

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 - These were two extremes but they weren’t a fixed rule because poets just added some variations to their
poems.

Philip Sidney: Astrophil and Stella

- Sidney was the perfect gentleman of his time: courtier, soldier (he died while fighting in the Flanders, like
Uncle Toby) and poet. The court was a centre of culture, too shaping the country’s taste on theatre,
painting, music, fashion. It was a crucial idea of Renaissance that fine arts and good governments should be
closely connected Bertinetti p. 22: The Art of English Poesy (1586) by George Puttnam associated poetical
figures of speech to manners and civilization (pretentious people are associated to hyperboles, for example).
- Sidney’s The Defence of Poesy: it defends the moral value of literature, its superiority to philosophy and
history and its development of the English language.
- Sidney’s works: all published posthumously (not an aristocrat’s primary activity)Astrophil and Stella is
written in 1582 and published in 1591: it started the popularity of “Sonnet Sequence” as a literary genre
(love sonnets for a specific woman). This poem is composed of 108 sonnets and 11 songs centred on the
same subject (feelings of the poet for a specific woman).

First quatrain (ll.1-4 ABAB):

- The first lines explain why he is writing, for whom, for what purpose. The poetical voice displays his plan,
intentions and objectives:
 My love my verse (I love this woman so that’s why I’m writing this poem ) show her my pain
cause her pleasureher reading (she will continue reading my poem) her knowledge (she will
gain some knowledge about my pain) her pity (she will feel pity for me) her grace, her love for
me (she will grant me her grace and I will win her love or myself).
- The lines develop according to formal logic, through logical connections. Writers and readers shared an
education in classical rhetoric. These connections are sometimes reinforced by anadiplosis the last beat of
the fragment is repeated at the beginning of the next one (read/reading, know/knowledge). In Elizabethan
poetry, feelings were often expressed by reasoning, persuading, demonstrating, argumenting (see also the
later John Donne’s “The Flea”).
- Notice the contrast “my pain” vs. her “pleasure”:
 Petrarchan convention: love poetry was on unrequited (‘non corrisposto’) feelings. The whole book
sees Astrophil swinging between hope (for the success of his love) and despair.
 This is reflected in the volume’s title: «Astrophil» means star-lover (lover of Stella) but the two
names come from different classical languages (Greek and Latin), as if to mark their distance.
Another Petrarchan convention described love as a union of opposites, through oxymorons or
paradoxes (such as burning ice, freezing fire) or hyperboles (such as sea of tears, tempests of
sighs) they are satirised at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet when he’s in love with Rosaline.
 At the same time, pleasure and pain compose an alliteration, maybe to reinforce their proximity in
the poet’s mind. Notice that «pity», the feeling that should change the situation as the poet wishes,
continues the same alliteration.

Second quatrain (ll. 5-8ABAB)

- Grammatical structure: the first 8 lines compose a long period. Line 5 is the main sentence: he is trying to
put in words to describe his sorrow.
 this wished-for correspondence words/sorrow is evoked with 2 alliterative pairs in [f] and [w],
continued in line 6 («fine» «wits»).

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  “Leaves” (‘foglie’/’pagine’): double meaning which unites two sources of inspiration typical of love
poetry nature and former poets (this sonnet is quite meta-textual, because it reflects on how to
write a poemBertinetti p. 24).
 ll. 7-8: the natural image is continued in «showers», with an alliteration in [f] and sibilant sounds
reproducing the noise of falling rain.
 l. 8: the negative element «sunburned brain» contains a consonance in [b] which echoes the equally
negative «blackest» in l. 5.

Third quatrain (ll. 9-12 CDCD)

- Notice the change in rhyme pattern from the first 2 quatrains (different from the standard Elizabethan
pattern) and there is a change in grammar. This reflects a shift between line 8 and 9 concerning the content:
 In spite of the poet’s intentions in ll. 1-8, l. 9 introduces a problemhis lack of inspiration.
 The shift is emphasised by the full stop and the beginning of the next sentence with “but”.
 This sonnet could also be seen as made of two quatrains and two tercets (like a Petrachan one), if
we give more importance to grammar than to rhymes: there is a full stop at the end of line 11.
- Metaphorically:
 Invention, Nature and Study are personified battle in the poet’s mind. Invention is described as
the child of Nature while Study is only Invention’s step-mother (almost a fairytale, like «Cinderella»).
 Creativity must come from Nature, not by literary models from the pastdouble meaning of “feet”:
a “foot” is also a fragment of a poetical line.
 At the end of line 11 there is a full stop: nature is presented as superior and it offers the poet
imagination and creativity. If we take the grammatical structure in consideration we can see that the
final three lines are a single period so we can consider the sonnet as composed of two quatrains and
two tercets.
 Line 12: “great with child” = pregnant + “throes” = doglie metaphor because poetical creation is
described as giving birth to a baby. Notice the genealogy Nature- Invention- Poem. Sidney is known
for adding in his sonnets passions and the life of senses, untypical for that period.
- Phonetically: the alliteration in [f] continues and sibilant sound (mostly reinforcing the negative images in ll.
10-11, such as “step-dame” and “strangers”).

Couplet (ll. 13-14 EE)

- Line 13: note the anaphoric structure “biting my”+ “beating my”
 After all, when we bite our pen (or our nails) that is always a sign of unease…
 “trewand” = “truant” (rebel, non cooperative)
- Line 14: “Fool” can be taken as a suggestion of self-mockery, undermining the seriousness of his feelings
recurrent in his sonnets.
 “Look in thy heart and write”: he claims that he is not conventional, he must look into himself and be
original Bertinetti p. 24: Sidney highlights the value of originality making use of Petrarchan
conventions but giving them a personal meaning.

23/03/2020

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

- Unlike Sidney, he was not an aristocrat. He had to labour to get through his education
- Colonial administrator in Ireland (also known for his brutal methods with the natives) and he is famous for
his writings “The Irish question”.

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 - Considered today as THE Elizabethan poet, especially for his major works:
 The Sheapheardes Calendar (‘Il calendario del pastore’, 1579): series of pastoral eclogues following
the classical tradition of the genre, it is set in a bucolic (countryside) context, and composed of
philosophical dialogues among shepherds with allegorical meanings (they weren’t realistic because
shepherds weren’t educated), on the subject of love, morality, religion, ecc. Dedicated to Sidney,
who was his patron.
 The Fairie Queene (‘La regina delle fate’; 1590, 1596; six books): one of the most important poems in
the English language. Epic poem of knightly adventures, where every knight allegorically represents a
virtue. Book III is centred on Britomart, a woman knight who embodies chastity, she’s the
representation of Elizabeth I (celebrated as “The Virgin Queen”).
- Archaic language, influenced by Chaucer. Experiments with form (Spenserian stanza, see Bertinetti 26).
- The poem earned him a small pension (much less than he expected).

Amoretti (by Edmund Spenser)

First quatrain (ll. 1-4 ABAB)

- From line 1 there is the expression of touch and taste which is a very physical beginning if not an erotic
image for that time. Amoretti (cupid, cherubs, little love poems) was dedicated to his second wife, which is
quite untypical and it is a successful love (“Such grace I found”).
- Metaphorically: typical of love poetry of that time, we find a comparison between woman and nature.
- Phonetically: repetition of sibilants to reproduce the smells (sense of smell); consonance in [d]the sense of
sight is involved because there is a description of a place decorated with flowers (damsels, deck).

Second quatrain (ll. 5-8BCBC)

- 4 important aspects: the message, the structure, the phonetics and the rhyme patterns
 The message: lipscheeksbrowes (forehead)eyes: after kissing her lips in l. 1, the poet moves
his attention to other parts of her face. Each of them compared to a specific sweet smelling
flowerstructural repetition.
- Phonetically, the part of her face and the specific flower are also associated through sounds:
 l. 5: consonance in [l]
 l. 6: alliteration in [r]
 l. 7: alliteration in [b]
 l. 8: consonance in [l], [k] and [p] + assonance in [ai]
- Rhyme pattern: the first quatrain follows the scheme ABAB, the second one has a rhyme pattern BCBC so
part of the previous rhyme (B) is continued here in a sort of chain and we find the same pattern in the third
quatraincontinuity in the rhyme pattern because from one quatrain to the next there’s not a complete
change of rhyme pattern.

Third quatrain (ll. 9-12 CDCD)

- Bosomneckbreastnipples: the poet’s attention moves from the face downwards, with a clear increase
in erotic suggestions culminating in l. 12 with the word “nipples”.
- Phonetically: similarly to ll. 5-8 in the previous slide, can you trace some connections between the part of the
body and the description of its associated flower? A woman’s bosom could be similar to a strawberry but
phonetically speaking the alliteration in (b bosom and bed create an alliteration, bosom and strawberry
form a consonance) traces the connection between the part of the body and the description of its flowers.
Line 11: alliteration in “l” (lilies, leaves and lykes) and “b” (breast and be). There is also an assonance in “s”

36
 (breast and shed) and in “theyr” and “ere” (“ere” is the archaic form of “before”). Line 12: repetition of “l”
(nipples and lyke) and “s” (blossoms and jessemynes).

Alliteration: repetition of the same sound at the beginning of two consecutive words (e.g. bosom and bed)
Consonance: repetition of the same sounds but not necessary at the beginning (e.g. bosom and strawberry)

Final couplet (ll. 13-14 EE)

- Typical of Elizabethan sonnets (see Shakespeare) the closing couplet marks a change, a twist, if compared to
what has been said previously:
 In argument: so far, her body was described as equivalent to various natural wonders here her
body is defined as superior, even better (conventional image of love poetry: woman’s beauty is
better than nature).
 This change is reflected in structure and rhyme pattern: so far, each quatrain maintained part of the
previous quatrain’s rhymes (original feature of Spenser’s sonnets)here, the rhyme (E E) is
completely new.
- Phonetically: the smell of flowers is reinforced by an alliteration in [f].

Elizabethan metre and prosody

- Metrically speaking, this sonnet is based on the structure of iambic pentameters, which go like: x / x / x / x
/ x / (/ = stressed syllable, X = unstressed). Iambic pentametre will remain the standard metre of English
poetry and drama for a long time because of its length:
 The most that our brain can handle without making a big effort in our memory and that was
important for actors
 It is iambic and not trochaic (/ x), because the English sentence usually begins with a pronoun
subject and pronouns are not stressed.
- Regular iambic pentameter in this sonnet:
 l.4: For damzels fit to decke their lovers bowres.
 l.8: Her lovely eyes lyke Pincks but newly spread.
- Can you identify other regular lines? Can you identify lines with variations from this standard, and connect
these prosodical variations to what is being expressed in the line? L.1: “Comming to” begins with a stressed
syllable; l.2 “sweet flowers”  consecutive accents to emphasise the sweetness of the flower’s smell. L. 12:
two consecutive stressed syllables “yong blossomed” and in l.13 there is “give most odorous” which are
three stressed syllables and it is connected to what poet says at the end because he says that the woman is
even superior to nature.

Elizabethan spelling

- Elizabethan spelling can be quite confusing because at that time it was unregulated, there were not
standard rules yet, for a series of reasons: e.g. influences from different countries and cultures.
 French scribes had superimposed new spellings on Old English ones (CWen > QUeen)
 Many continental printers worked in England (GHost is a spelling coming from Flemish)
 During the Renaissance, many foreign words were imported into English
 The 15 th century witnessed a shift in the pronunciation of English vowels, widening the gap spoken
vs. written
 16 th century spelling reformers added letters to show the etymology of a word (added the silent b
of ‘debt’ – not pronounced even today – because it comes from Latin ‘debitum’)
- Other cases:

37
  Presence or absence of final ‘e’ (Spenser’s sonnet: «kisse» (l.1), «decke» (4)
 Use of apostrophe to replace an ‘e’ inside a word («arm’d»)
 Use of ‘ie’ in place of ‘y’ at the end of words («busie»)
 Double consonants, especially ‘ll’ (sonnet: «Comming» (1), «excell» (14)
- Can you notice other spelling peculiarities in the sonnet? E.g.: lyps, lyke, seemd, gardin, bosome, yong,
bounch. Lines 5, 13 and 14: “doe” is not used to emphasise something, at that time “do” could be used or
omitted; many playwrights insert “do” or “did” to maintain the regularity of the iambic pentameter, so only
for metrical reasons. In many case there are different ways of writing things which is not a grammatical
mistake, as we consider today. Another example is “more better” that is a mistake today but at that time it
wasn’t there were different ways to pronounce and spell words or phrases and this was connected to the
great creativity of poets, at that time.

24/03/2020

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130
- Shakespeare’s sonnets are a collection of 154 sonnets. It is not clear to who the sonnets are dedicated to;
from sonnet 1 to 26 sonnets are dedicated to a “fair youth” and the other sonnets are dedicated to an
unspecified dark lady which identity was never identified. She was called like this maybe because of her skin
complexion or for her attitude.
- Structure and rhyme pattern: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. The rhyme changes every time we move from a
quatrain to the other and then to the final couplet and that’s typical of Shakespearean sonnets.
- Difference from Spenser’s sonnets: he used conventional images of love at that time (woman’s beauty
surpasses nature) while in this sonnet Shakespeare writes a lyric but also a sort of parody of that love poetry
convention (see lines 1 and 2 no signal of beauty and he doesn’t use poetical images). Shakespeare’s
woman is not incredibly beautiful but quite ordinary and simple; he uses a very simple language
(monosyllabic words).
- Second quatrain: “reeks” smell (she has a normal breath). The reference to roses could be taken as a
reference to Spenser and flowers were stereotype images to express the beauty of one’s beloved in love
poetry.
- Third quatrain: the focus here is on the hearing and sight declaration of realism (line 9: he knows well
that the music has a more pleasant sound than the voice of his woman). His woman is not a goddess because
she “treads on the ground”. Line 9: regular iambic pentameter and lines 11 and 12: alliteration in (g)grant,
ground, go (hard sound).
- Final couplet: the twist in argument in Elizabethan sonnet is placed at the end of the sonnet. In the previous
lines the poet says that his woman is very simple and ordinary but in the final couplet, Shakespeare inserts
his point of view “and yet” signals the change because he says that his love is so rare and he points out the
uniqueness of his mistress. The other women are belied and presented under a false light through false
comparisons whereas he didn’t exaggerate his description. “She” can be the subject or object of the verb but
it’s better to consider it as the object. The most important point in this poem is the parodycal intention and
actually this sonnet is considered as “anti-petrarchan” by critics.
- Critics agree that this sonnet was written in the last decade of 1500s (1595 approximately when Romeo and
Juliet was performed at the beginning of the play Romeo was still in love with Rosaline, complaining that
his love wasn’t requited and he uses very conventional images and rhymes. After he meets Juliet, his
language is characterised by a radical change because is more realistic and he starts speaking about Juliet in
blank verse. There is a change towards a realism, away from poetical conventions).
- This sonnet is written in an unpoetical and ordinary language.

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 25/03/2020

Shakespeare’s sonnets

- No certain date of composition: presumably in the mid-1590s, when the plague shut theatres down and
Shakespeare could not practise his main profession (playwright, actor, company manager).
- Publication: 1609 (with little success), then republished in 1640.
- Structure: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG; there is an argument in 3 phases, closed by an epigrammatic (very concise
and with a strong effect on the reader) couplet (see Sonnet 130).
- Themes: not very clear, as many things in Shakespeare’s life (the title of collection, too, is rather vague
“Sonnets” is general):
 Numbers 1 to 126: dedicated to a «fair youth».
 N. 127-152: dedicated to a «dark lady».
 2 sonnets dedicated to Cupid.

But a good number fall outside these general categories so many things are unclear.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet n.1

Lines 1-4: ABAB (or ABA?)
- Theme: sonnet 1 belongs to the only consistent group of poems in the collection: the ‘Marriage sonnets’ (no.
1-17) because they share the same message.
- Message: the poet argues that his friend should procreate to perpetuate his beauty and qualities. It carries
several resonances:
 Biblical: doctrine of increase vs. narcissism (see Matthew xxv, Parable of talentsone must make
his treasure fruitful).
 Classical: Ovid’s Metamorphoses on time (l. 3) assaulting human condition. It was very popular at
that time implied reference to time that destroys human qualities and the idea that only being
concerned about oneself leads to negative consequences (embodied by the character of Narcissus).
- Youth = rose
- In the first quatrain the main argument is stated: our children continues our qualities and the most beautiful
creature should have children in order to continue his qualities and memories (the author here is speaking to
the fair youth).
- Images: from natural worldcreature, rose, piper. The fair youth and the beauty are compared to a rose
that will die.
- Phonetics:
 l.1 : consonance in [cr], linking the subject «creatures» and what they should do («increase»). They
link the subject with what they should do.
 l 2 + 3: alliteration in [r]: associates «rose» and «riper», stressing its inevitable change with the
coming of time the rose is going to mature and then die.
 l. 4: internal rhyme «heir» + «bear», stressing what progeny will do. Plus, alliteration in [m].
 ll. 1-4: alliteration in [d], linking the two synonyms «die» and «decease» «die» is a keyword, also
echoed in the recurrent assonance in [ai] this assonance will continue in the rest of the poem.
- On the sound [ai] should ll. 2 and 4 rhyme? Probably, they did in Shakespeare’s time many individual
words have changed in their pronunciation, from Elizabethan times. In some cases, alternative stressings
were available, especially with words of 3 or more syllables they could have an additional stressed/strong
syllable at the end, and in that case the syllable would be pronounced as a full vowel, especially if poetical
requirements needed that.

Lines 5-8: CDCD

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 - Youth= flame
- This is where classical myth is most evident. Ovid’s Metamorphoses was very popular at the time it
describes Narcissus with ardent eyes, burning himself like a flame.
- Phonetics: The burning flame image is echoed by:
 alliteration in [f], which unites the keywords of this metaphor, echoing in «foe» (enemy) and «self»
(consonance).
 consonance of sibilant sounds they contribute to echo the image of the flame burning down.
- The fair youth’s self-centered attitude is also emphasised by:
 l. 5 Double meaning: «contracted» = «betrothed» (engaged) or «withdrawn, concentrated» > both
meanings convey how self-centred he is he’s married to himself.
 l. 8: three repetitions of «thy» (possessive of «thou»), which is also present in ll. 5 (variant «thine») and
6.

Lines 9-12: EFEF

- Youth = bud (close to the comparison of the rose, first quatrain)

- As in ll. 1-4, the youth is compared again to a natural imagethe bud is described as a place of burial (image
of death), just like the Biblical parable of talents. There is a coexistence between life, developing to its fullest
and death; the poet is telling us that the youth is in the prime of its life but at the same time it is going to die.
- Open questions for your own analysis:
- What similarities can you identify between this bud image and the natural metaphor present in the first
quatrain? The comparison with the rose, in the first quatrain.
- ll. 10 + 11: which words convey the youth’s self-centred attitude? The words are: only (could mean the only
one but also solitary and lonely), repetition of the possessive (thine, thy) to convince youth to change his
attitude and finally buriest.
- What phonetic pattern emphasises the dominant image of this quatrain? Alliteration in “b” bud and
buriest (your bud is buried, the image of the bud is associated through the alliteration to the image of the
burier what the poet criticizes about the attitude of the fair youth).
- Can you see a significant double meaning in l. 11? Content because it means “happiness” and also
“something that contains”
- What kind of metaphor can you spot in l. 12? («churl» = ‘spilorcio’ & «niggarding» = ‘avarizia’»; cf Romeo
and Juliet I.i.226: Romeo comments on Rosaline’s will not to give him her love with: «she … in that sparing
makes huge waste» keeping that quality for herself is a huge waste). It’s a paradox because being mean is
usually done in order not to waste what we have while here the poet says exactly the contrary.

Lines 13-14: GG (final plea to youth)

- Rather than offering a change and a twist to the main body of the sonnet, like in n. 130, here the final
couplet is the climax, apex, summary of the main argument. To paraphrase: ‘stop behaving like this, or your
death will be your complete end.’
- Images: the metaphor related to eating (the youth is described as devouring himself, a sort of cannibal) is
continued from line 6.
- Sentence structure: the verb «eat» has two subjects «grave» and «thee» so grammatically speaking they are
presented as equivalent youth = death.
- Lexis: “world” is repeated in consecutive lines maybe to stress that the selfish youth should open itself to
others, to society. It is mentioned in l. 9, too. And the first subject of the poem is «we» (l. 1), not «thou».
- Phonetics: the main idea is echoed in the alliteration in [g] > being a glutton = grave, death.
- Metre: the poet’s plea (‘supplica’) begins in l. 13 with a stressed syllable, while the rest of the line is a regular
iambic pentameter:

40
 - «Pity the world, or else this glutton be”Can you spot other significant deviations from the metrical norm,
in the rest of the sonnet? Line 13 begins with a stressed syllable, to emphasise the poet’s plea; another
example of variation is in the lines 6-7 and they emphasise the accusing tone of the sentence and what is
wrong about youth’s behaviour. In line 6 there are two consecutive stressed syllables to emphasise the
waste of youth. Line 11: bud and buriest (consecutive stressed syllable). Line 12: mak’st (archaic form of the
2nd person singular) and waste two consecutive accents ( there is also a consonance in “st” and an
assonance “ei”); if he had written “makest”, there would have been two syllables so the metrical
arrangement would have been regular. Line 14: the world’s due two consecutive accents. Line 7: paradox
(“making famine”accusation against the fair youth). Paradox and oxymoron: the difference is in the
grammatical structure. Many of the double meanings in this poem can have a relation with the economic
and financial aspect (see the Parable of talents: a man who has some talents decides to bury these coins
into the ground and he’s going to be criticized because he should have used them to make more money
what we have should be used to produce farther riches so we must invest what we have).

30/03/2020

The merchant of Venice

Act 1, scene 1

- Line 3: Antonio says that he’s sad but he can’t understand why: obsessive repetition of “it” (which is
sadness)Antonio is obsessed and worried about that unexplainable sadness so the repetition emphasises
this obsession.
- Line 1: “I know not” Elizabethan English was not a regulated language because it had more options open
to use.
- Metrical arrangement: first two lines are iambic pentameter blank verse (five stresses in each line and no
rhyme). Line 6 is not regular because there are five consecutive stresses this adds emphasise because
Antonio wants to point out that sadness has changed him (he is now a want-wit). Blank verse is unrhymed
iambic pentameter (5 accents in each verse).
- In the following lines (line 8), Salanio and Salarino try to help their friend, trying to understand the origin of
that sadness. Antonio is a merchant and he’s involved in commercial trades so his friends say that maybe
he’s worried about his goods and cargos. There are some metaphors: Antonio’s mind is compared to a ship.
In the third line we have signal that the play is set in Italy (“signore”) and Salarino makes compliments to
Antonio because he compares his ships to “pageants of the sea” so he’s trying to cheer Antonio up
explaining why he’s sad and reminding him that he’s a great man.
- Metaphor: Antonio’s ships are compared to a masterpiece and this is emphasised by the alliteration in
[w]woven wings.
- Phonetic patterns: “pageants” and “petty” (little, not important) alliteration in [p].
- Lines 15-22: Solanio continues Salarino’s reasoning he tries to convince Antonio that he is sad because
worried about his ships at sea. Notice the metrical regularity of line 15: “I” is not stressed, usually, but in this
case it is stressed in opposition to “you” (‘Se ce l’avessi IO, una tale fortuna in giro”)
- Solanio’s message: if I were you, all my actions would be pervaded by my worries about my ships:
 plucking the grassto see how the winds blow
 reading maps, to check my ships’ routes
 l. 20: “every object” (constant anxiety)
- Phonetics:
 alliteration in [b] that introduces the argument (believe, better, be, broad)
 alliteration in [p] which intensifies the described actions (plucking, peering)

41
 - These sound patterns are reinforced by metrical arrangements 3 consecutive trochaic lines (starting with
an accent: “be”, “plucking”, “peering”) that also give intensity to those actions. They are a variation to the
regularity of line 15.
- Semantics: “venture” is one of the many words with an economic meaning‘fortuna’, but also ‘impresa’,
‘affare’, ‘investimento’.
- In the following lines (22-40), Salarino continues this description (He and Salanio are almost close to one
another). In these lines the semantic field is the one of the sea (he mentions the blowing wind) then he
compares the ship to a burial so to death. Hourglass: idea of time so when he thinks of time he thinks of his
ships that could be shipwrecked. There is also a personification: the ship is described as a person that low his
head. Salarino says that Antonio is obsessed about his ships and he uses 3 significant images:
1. Physical activity: whenever you breath, you remind of your ships (l. 23)
2. The passing of time so when you think about time, you think about the danger of your ships (l.26)
3. Metaphysical dimension represented by churches: whenever you go to church, you would be reminded
of the danger of ships (l.29).
Phonetical patterns:
- l.22: 2 consecutive stresses “wind cooling” to emphasise his initial image
- l. 24: regular iambic pentameter
- l.26: repetition of sibilant sound by the letter [s] because the sound of the sand inside an hourglass can be
compared to the sound of the sea
- l.29-30: solidity of rocks represented by the consonance in [d] hard sound which echoes the hardness of
this rock (called dangerous)
- l.28: trochaic beginning (the line begins with a stressed syllable), so this isn’t a regular verse and this
emphasises the image of the shipwreck of one of Antonio’s ships and his anxiety about it.
- l.37: he’s repeating the same word think, thought. It emphasises the thought of Antonio which is absorbed
by such worry, so he’s mentally tortured and he can’t think about anything else.

Lines 41-50: Antonio negates 5 times in 5 lines  this negation can be a way to reveal his true feelings. Is he too
quick in dismissing love as the reason for his sadness? Both reasons (economy and love) are possible: they are two of
the main themes of the play, often intertwined together. Here love comes after and is more easily dismissed than
economy. What can this mean? Is it because it is less important than economy, or more?
- Semantics: field of economy, again: “fortune”, “ventures”, “trusted”, “estate”, “merchandise”.
- Structure: Solanio’s joke, which has a proverbial origin, could be paraphrased thus: “If there’s no reason to
your sadness, then you could be happy just as easily” it follows the specular structure of a chiasmus
(sadmerry; merry sad) to emphasise that sadness and happiness are equivalent, in this case.

Lines 77-112:

- Meta-theatrical extended metaphor: Antonio compares the world to a stage Gratiano develops that image
and “plays the Fool” (which means both ‘to act foolishly’ and ‘to play the Fool’s part’).
 line 79 is shared between the 2 characters that usually indicates a rapid dialogue (8% of the Merchant
lines are shared).
 Shakespeare’s Fools are often those who reveal a deep truth hiding behind their jokes; in the tradition of
the Italian Commedia dell’Arte (which influenced Shakespeare) Gratiano was the name for the stock
character of the comic doctor.
 Gratiano’s comic lines: he says that it’s better to devote oneself to wine and laughter than to resemble
to a statue and constantly in a bad mood (reference to Antonio) this description culminates into an
impression (‘imitazione’) of an imaginary “Sir Oracle” which is meta- theatrical.

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  After a grave beginning on sadness and financial worries, the Fool is meant, with his explicit jokes, to
entertain the lowest sector of the audience (mixed composition of Elizabethan theatre audiences).

Phonetics and metre:

- Gratiano opens his speech with an alliteration in [l], centred on “laughter”.

- Two consecutive lines starting with a stressed syllable, emphasising the actions he describes: “Sit” is echoed
by “cut”, “Sleep” by “creep” and “peevish” (all negative terms in this description); besides “sit” and “sleep”
alliterate.
- Lorenzo is much less boisterous and wise, but not without humour he gently mocks Gratiano’s chattiness.
- Gratiano uses rhyming lines before exiting:
 It was used to signal a change in scene and it was helpful also for the actors (Antonio and Bassanio
remain alone on the stage) Shakespeare’s theatre was based on words.
 Here he pulls a vulgar joke, but at the same time hints at the monetary value of people (a recurrent
theme in the play) as a Shakespearean fool often does, his jokes can be seen as revealing a truth
(interaction between human society and feelings).

Lines 130-134:

- Bassanio has borrowed money from Antonio in the past, but wasted it “In money and in love”:
homosexual feelings hidden in their relationship? At the end of this scene, Antonio will move from “you” to
a more affectionate “thou”.
- Economy and sentiments are again intertwined (linguistically placed on the same level, here): we have a
chiasmus: moneylove; love warranty/debts.

Lines 140-144:

- Bassanio’s shaft (‘arrow’) metaphor:

 Phonetically, sibilants and [f] echo the sound of the whizzing arrow.
 Lexically and metrically, the repetition of “self-same”, with its consecutive stresses, emphasises the fact
that Bassanio is asking again for a loan.

Lines 161-172:

- He needs a new loan in order to woo and marry a lady who is Portia.
- Bassanio’s description of Portia:
 Her richness is mentioned before her beauty; in l. 167, is worth related to her riches or her human
qualities? It is left suspended.
 The wooing of Portia is compared to the mythical enterprise of Jason (Giasone) and his quest after the
Golden Fleece (financial subtext).
 Lines 167-168: alliteration in [w] echoing the sounds of the wind, and intensified by 3 consecutive
stresses this courtship is described like one of Antonio’s sea ventures.
- Disturbing subtext of the play: money and financial interests pervade every aspect of human and social
exchanges, and Christians behave very “unchristianly”.

Act 1, scene 2

- Just like Antonio in 1.1, Portia is “aweary of this great world”, but we are clearly told why in ll. 26-34: her
dead father’s will decreed that her husband must be the one who makes the right choice between 3
caskets she has no say in the decision (lines 17-26).
- Portia’s situation and gender oppression are intensified by:

43
  Lexically a pun: her father’s will leaves her no agency contrast between her will and Portia’s father
will.
 Metaphorically: she compares herself to a hare who escapes the meshes (‘reti’) of good sense
hunting/imprisonment metaphor; she is bound by a legal document (“will”) and uses an extended legal
metaphor: “laws”, “decree”, “counsel”  the two metaphors are intertwined. Notice that it is through a
legal action that she will manage to gain an active role, later in the play.
- Rest of scene 2: they joke on the flaws of Portia’s suitors this is an excuse to have fun on stereotypes of
several nations but they have all renounced the challenge but the only one who doesn’t renounce is the
Prince of Morocco. The Duke of Saxony’s nephew, for example, is a total drunkard. Both Nerissa and Portia
like Bassanio because he’s described as valiant and he’s also a soldier.
- Portia and Nerissa’s joking on men reveal their independent character. See also their linguistic subtleties, as
in the phonetic pattern contained in the chiasmus bestworse ; worstbetter, then culminating in “beast”;
in other words, Saxony is always sub-human (“little worse than a man” or “little better than a beast”).
- They speak in prose, not in verse. Prose was usually employed for lower-class characters, for comic or not
very dignified exchanges, or for informal/intimate dialogues here we have some intimacy between them,
when they speak of Portia’s suitors (Merchant: 79% verse, 21% prose).
- At the same time, Portia addresses Nerissa with the informal “thou”, whereas Nerissa calls her mistress
using the respectful “you”.

Act 1, scene 3: Bassanio, Shylock and Antonio

- Lines 11-15: They agree on the loan (3000 ducats) for which Antonio must guarantee. Antonio doesn’t have
money because all his money are at sea, on his ships so they need Shylock that lends money throw usury.
- Economy and humanity: pun on “good”. Bassanio means that Antonio is a good man but when Shylock says
that Antonio is “good”, he means that he can guarantee the payback of the loan.
- Bassanio and Shylock speak in prose (low subject: money) Antonio’s arrival introduces verse, not least
because they start debating the righteousness of lending money with interest (more dignified topic, with
religious references).

Lines 37-47:

- But before that, Shylock expresses his hatred for Antonio in an “aside”, a speech only the audience is
supposed to hear (as if the character were thinking aloud). His hatred has financial reasons, but also
originates from Antonio’s public insults against him. Notice his eating metaphor: he wants to take revenge,
and describes it as ‘feed fat the ancient grudge (rancore).

Lines 93-97:

- To justify his methods, Shylock recounts the Biblical story of Laban’s sheep.
- One of the cross-currents in the play is to show the cruelty of Christians against Jews, often embodied in the
double meaning of “gentle” (‘kind’, but also ‘gentile’, ‘non-Jew’). Anti-Jewish prejudice was widespread (see
Chiara Lombardi’s «Introduction» for Shakespeare’s sources on this, pp. xiii-xvi).
- Here Antonio calls Shylock “devil”, “evil”, “villain” (note the consonance in [v]), “rotten apple”, “false”
someone who pretends to be good to hide his true nature.

Lines 101-124:

- Then Shylock reminds him of his past insults and spitting at him in public:
 Consonance in [b] when he speaks of his tribe’s patience it comes up again when he imitates the
servile tone (“bondman’s key”) that he is supposed to assume now, as if to replicate the rhythm of
his “bated breath” (respiro mozzato) while “bending low” (si inchina fino a terra)
44
  Notice also the alliteration in [sp] between “spurn” (prendere a calci) and “spit”.
- This is a perfect example of Shakespeare’s talent for exalting his speeches to poetical heights while
anchoring them firmly in the solid ground of everyday reality.
- In what ways does Antonio continue to abuse Shylock? He says that he’ll call him ‘dog’ again, he’ll spit on him
and spurn him too so he actually humiliates him (p.36). Lexical pattern: “thee” Antonio is addressing
Shylock using “thee” and “thou” but “thou” and “you” were 2 alternative options: thou was more informal
than you Antonio uses “thou” to humiliate Shylock, as if he were inferior. Line 131: “barren” and
“breed” alliteration in [b] but they are opposite. Antonio says that he produces goods while Shylock
doesn’t produce anything because he only lends money so this is a paradox.
- What kind of bond is offered by Shylock? Shylock says that if Antonio doesn’t repay him on time, he will take
a flesh of his body. Shylock is not sincere because he said he wants to revenge himself against Antonio’s
insults.
- How does Shylock justify his offer? He says that he makes this offer in order to conquer Antonio’s favour.
Shylock wants to convince them that he doesn’t really want a flesh of human body back, so he wants to
show that he’s kind and not cruel. Antonio is convinced that his ships will take back his investments, he can’t
believe that all his ships shipwrecked. Antonio thinks that Shylock is joking about his offer.
- Can you spot the abovementioned pun on «gentle»? Antonio says “Gentle Jew” and “He grows kind”.
“Gentle” can mean “kind” but also “Non- Jew”; it is a pun that has serious implications for the message of
the play. The traditional opinion of Jewish is questioned in many ways so inside this pun, we find an
ambivalence

1/4/2020

Act 2, scene 1

- The prince of Morocco has arrived in Belmont to try his luck with the choice of the casket.
- Link in the plot construction: at the end of Act 1 Scene 2, Portia commented on Morocco and the coming of
his prince so here it is clear that this scene is the continuation of that one (the plot set in Belmont).
Morocco immediately asks not to be disliked for his skin colour which is significant in a play about racial
tensions:
 “complexion” + “hue” (synonym of colour) they envelop his speech;
 colour prejudice was quite widespread at the time and even Queen Elizabeth commented about the
excessive number of colour people living in London in this period;
 Portia’s comment in 1.2 ll. 124-127 was rather prejudiced, too. What did she say about him? She
compares him to a devil basing her considerations on his skin’s colour, she says that even he were a
saint she would like him to shrive her rather than to marry her. This is a play about racial
relationships: Morocco and Shylock are related to the same issue (racial origins).
Phonetic/structural patterns: “condition” and “complexion” anaphora, alliteration and rhyme.
Opposition between saint/devil originates from the same phonetic pattern. Also “shrive” and “wive”
rhyme together. Portia wants to say that it doesn’t matter whether Morocco is a saint or not, her
feelings won’t change.
 he claims he is equal to Europeans by using an image of colour, too (“whose blood is reddest”) +
alliteration in [n] connecting “neighbour” and “near” with “north”.
- At the same time, Morocco courts Portia by:
 repeating “love” 3 times;
 showing off with a classical reference (“Phoebus”) + his pride repetition of “mine”;
 moving from “you” to “thee” in the most audacious reference he’s getting more confidential
when he moves closer to the issue of sex (he says that lots of women appreciated the colour of his
skin;
45
  concluding with his readiness to exchange his colour only for a chance to read her mind (expression
of devotion).

Open questions:

- Can you notice the irony in Portia’s answer (ll. 13-22)? (to grasp it, you must keep Scene 1.2 in mind…): the
problem is related to every single courtier that she has met until that moment so she describes every single
man that has appeared so far. She is ironic when she says that she considers Morocco like the others
because she sees him in a very negative way, so he’s mock by Portia. She makes fun of him: she uses a word
with a double meaning fair which means ‘chiaro’ (mock to Morocco’s dark complexion).
- Portia reminds Morocco of the condition he must respect, if he wants to try his luck with the caskets, what is
it? If he makes the wrong choice, he won’t marry any women on Earth. Later on, other two conditions are
mentioned: they won’t tell anyone about their wrong choices and if they failed, they will have to go away.

Act 2, scene 2
Lines 1-29

- Complete change of atmosphere and setting, this is one of the comic interludes of the play, for the least
sophisticated sectors of an Elizabethan audience (the Merchant was probably written soon after A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, also containing many scenes like these).
- Comic mood + servant speaking the character speaks in prose.
- It is the kind of scene many theatre directors cut to make their performance shorter, but:
 Launcelot is tempted to run away from Shylock, so he represents the medieval Morality Play, a
religious kind of drama where protagonists were torn between figures symbolically representing
good and evil, virtues and sins (see Bertinetti 19);
 Launcelot comically complains about his strange situation: his conscience is telling him to remain
with a devil (Shylock), whereas his fiend (‘diavoletto’) is telling him to run away comical, but it
embodies the ambivalence of morality at the heart of the play (is Shylock the real villain here?).
Launcelot says that his conscience tells him to stay there with Shylock (who represents evil)
traditional situation is turned outside down.

Lines 98-106
- Launcelot runs into his blind father Gobbo in ll. 30-80 he makes him believe that his son is dead (further
comical effect). As for the figure of the clown/fool in Shakespeare’s plays, (see Lombardi’s «Introduction»,
p. XXI). Then he declares what he intends to do: to run away from Shylock and enter Bassanio’s service. His
comic complaints emphasise the stereotypes on Jews: Shylock is not only the devil incarnate, but also a
miserable person, because he doesn’t feed his servant:
 he deserves being hanged (“give him a halter”);
 Jew is used as a term of abuse.

Lines 107-158:

- Further comic passages: in order to convince Bassanio, they start speaking through confused speeches:
 they keep interrupting each other (dashes);
 they correct each other;
 they use stock phrases;
 they use malapropisms (linguistic mistakes).
- And it’s all for nothing: Bassanio (who speaks in verse) tells them he has already agreed on that with Shylock
(ll. 135-139) one may assume that Launcelot was not such a good servant, for Shylock.

46
Lines 159-195:

- Gratiano asks Bassanio to take him along to Belmont (we will find out he is in love with Nerissa, Portia’s
maid). Bassanio agreed, but begs him to control his lively and annoying character.
- Open questions for your analysis: what rhetorical strategies does Bassanio employ, in terms of lexis, metre,
grammar, imagery, phonetics? Repetition of “too” to underline the exaggeration because Gratiano is always
excessive and this concerns lexical choice. There is the repetition of “wild” at the beginning and at the end.
Imagery: semantic opposition and contrast between “cold drops of water” (metaphor) and “skipping spirit”
(repetition of sibilant sound) phonetic opposition between sibilant sound and the hard sound in [d].
Grammar: repetition of “hear thee”, “become thee” (imperative); Bassanio uses “you” at the beginning but
then he moves to “thee” being more confidential to convince Gratiano to behave well. Then Bassanio
underlines the difference between their background and the one they are entering (“but where thou art not
known”). Metrical: some cold drops 3 consecutive accents
- Gratiano promises, but he can’t help showing his real attitude with the comic “swear but now and then”.
Significantly, Gratiano’s clownish character is described in the same scene where Launcelot appears we
have two different ‘clowns’ juxtaposed, the low and the high-class, speaking in prose and verse.

Act 2, scene 3:
Page 58

- The rest of Act 2 is composed of many short scenes many threads being developed before they all
converge around the central story of Antonio/Shylock.
- 2.3 shows the quick farewell between Shylock’s daughter and Launcelot (they are sad and they say that
they’ll miss each other) Jessica asks him to give Lorenzo a letter in secret in which she explains that they
are going to get married , and she rejects her father and ethnic belonging:
 Shylock’s house = hell (Shylock is the evil)
 “not to his manners” = she considers herself gentle/gentile (pun) she is his daughter but she’s
kind and not miserable.

Act 2, scene 4:
- They are preparing for a street masque, which will be the stratagem to take Jessica away from Shylock’s
house; she will also take some of her father’s gold and jewels.
- Masque:
 reference to Venice carnival;
 reference to a theatre genre of Shakespeare’s age, with elaborate costumes, stage machinery,
music, very popular among aristocrats and at court (see Bertinetti 64).
- Jessica will disguise herself as a page (paggio) bearing a torch: there will be further and more important
cases of woman disguising later in the play.

Act 2, scene 5:
Lines 11-15

- 2.5 mixes Launcelot’s funny jokes (while he continues to act as a secret messenger for Jessica between her
and Lorenzo) with Shylock’s fears and doubts about the coming masque (he tells Jessica to shut herself
inside the house properly) and about going to eat at Christians’ pun hinting again at Shylock’s revenge as
an act of cannibalism (“feed upon” = ‘cibarsi di’ o ‘cibarsi a spese di’).

Act 2, scene 6:
Lines 15-20
47
 - In 2.6 Lorenzo’s friends comment on how new loves are always more enthusiastic than established
relationships. Gratiano’s lines compares these phases to a ship’s departure and return his imagery mixes
trade, sex and religion:
 reference to sea enterprises (and Antonio’s ships, too? “prodigal” is repeated and Shylock uses the
same word to define Antonio);
 ship associated with sexual images and the bawdy term “strumpet” (‘puttana’)
 departure in pomp (“scarfed”, ‘bardata’ + “prodigal”) vs return in bad conditions (negative terms
united by alliteration in [r]);
 repetition of the keyword “prodigal” clear reference to the Biblical episode (the prodigal son).

Act 2, scene 7:
Lines 3-10

- Back in Belmont, Morocco must choose the right casket quick change of scenes, but Shakespeare
maintains narrative continuity, because at the end of 2.6:
 Jessica stole one of her father’s casketsreminder of Portia’s casket in Belmont;
 Antonio told the men to cancel the masque because departure for Belmont was anticipated.
- Notice the features of the 3 caskets (gold, silver and lead and each one has a riddle):
 marked –th desinence formulaic, archaic-sounding language intended to impress (opposition
“me” and the other caskets);
 –th adds a syllable the three definitions may be seen as having 6 accents, not 5 which emphasises
the elevated language.

Lines 62-79

- After much pondering, Morocco chooses gold Open question: why? He chooses gold because he reflects
on what is written on the casket he compliments Portia because she’s desired by many men and his
beauty is comparable to gold whereas when he opens the casket there is a human skull. The writing says
that the appearance can be treacherous because reality and appearance are not the same thing reference
to death “gilded tombs do worms infold”. Bassanio is in search of gold but he understands the difference
between reality and appearance (also because Portia helps him).
- When Morocco opens the casket, he doesn’t find Portia’s picture but a human skull and a written scroll;
- Message: appearance and reality are not the same (proverbial expression + tomb image);
- Form: short verse (3/4 stresses), one single rhyme song-like, a sort of mockery which contrasts with the
elevated tone of the inscriptions on the caskets. Songs were another case in which Shakespeare used
rhymed verse, together with the end of scenes (see here: lost/frost, heart/part, go/so).
- Portia’s final words: she is happy about Morocco’s loss, and again has a disparaging comment on the colour
of his skin.
- Open question on 2.9: how does Arragon explain his choice? Arragon says that he doesn’t choose lead
because he doesn’t want to lose everything (she insults Portia because he says that Portia should be more
beautiful to risk what he has got) he thinks he deserves more, he says that the society would be better if
there would be meritocracy. Actually, Arragon seems a little bit arrogant.
- Morocco is described as ingenuous and he follows his instincts, Arragon is the Spanish prince, full of himself
and arrogant.

Act 2, scene 8:
Lines 12-24

48
 - They describe Shylock’s reaction when he discovered Jessica’s escape:
 exclamation in inverted commas: imitation, or parody;
 list of adjectives and of short exclamations Shylock has lost his mind out of grief;
 insult (“dog-Jew”);
 “ducats” + “daughter”  they sound equivalent, especially in the expression “my Christian ducats”
(as if money could belong to a specific religion), and are associated by alliteration in [d] and by
“my” he wants both back (association money and relationships).
- Shylock has become the sport of local children, who mock him.
- At the end of the scene, Solanio and Salarino recount also:
 rumours about Antonio’s ships having shipwrecked;
 Antonio’s parting words to Bassanio sailing towards Belmont: full of tears and generosity.

6/4/2020
Act 3, scene 1

- Salarino and Solanio discuss the rumour about the shipwreck of Antonio’s ships (ll. 1-16); Shylock enters and
becomes the object of their scorn (ll. 18-37, below). Open question: In what ways do they show their scorn?
Shylock is broken because of the loss of his daughter and of his money. Salarino replies ironically he says
“flight” which has a double meaning ‘volo’ and also ‘fuga’ so they mock him using words. Shylock says “she
is damned for it” it recalls the word “dam” in the previous line. Salarino answers that Shylock judges his
wife because he’s the devil. Then Shylock mentions the flesh that rebels (referring to his daughter) but
Solanio thinks that Shylock refers to his own blood and flesh like he was a maniac.
- About Antonio’s misfortunes, Shylock repeats 3 times “let him look to his bond” (ll. 41-44) obsessive
repetition out of grief?
- “Feed my revenge” vengeance in itself: he will refuse any kind of compensation (is he so avaricious,
then?)
- His famous monologue (ll. 47-66) has become a symbol against anti-Semitism. Main theme: Jews are just as
human as others human senses, organs feelings positive and negative events  affections, laughs
complete humanity.
- Form of the monologue:
 structural repetitions and anaphoras: first about Antonio’s insults > then about Jews («the same» is
particularly significant);
 part about Jews: lots of «not» = rights denied to them;
 circular end: «revenge» he learnt it from Christians. When revenge is mentioned again, «do we
not» becomes «shall we not» it sticks out through this variation.
- Line 80- 83: He wishes his daughter and his riches buried does this mean he feels he has lost everything
after his daughter’s betrayal?
- Lines 114-116: he feels desperate because of the sentimental value of that ring (gift from his late wife the
ring later becomes a very important symbol for Portia and Bassanio, see Lombardi p. xi)
- In these two excerpts 8ll. 80-83 and ll. 114-116), he does not seem exclusively driven by his love for money,
but by human attachments (See Lombardi xiii-xvi on the sources for Shylock, Lombardi vi-xiii and Bertinetti
42-43).

Act 3, scene 2
Lines 1-24

- Here, too, there is a sub-text related to economy: “hazard” and “venture”.

- Portia’s words (ll. 1-24) show her feelings for Bassanio:
49
  She asks him not to choose too soon, being afraid of losing him;
 She tells him she is «all yours»;
 She later compares him to Hercules (ll. 53-60)
- She says she cannot help his choice, but:
 She mentions «hazard» and «all» (words which are on the right casket);
 She has a significant song played while he is choosing Bassanio’s first words suggest that he has grasped
the message appearances shouldn’t be trusted.

Lines 73-82:
- Bassanio describes appearances as innatural and misleading. He refers this to a series of semantic fields:
 Law hints at what Portia will do in Act 4;
 Religion related to Christians behaving unchristianly in the play?
 Morality: vice disguised as virtue (see Launcelot’s dilemma, conscience vs. fiend, in 2.2)
 Following lines: ornament compared to false hair, “the guiled shore to a most dangerous sea”
(another link to Antonio’s ships).
- So he chooses the leaden casket and therefore wins Portia. This choice connects with one of the main
themes of the play: how ambivalent and uncertain reality can be, making truth hard to be established in an
objective waysee Lombardi xxiii-xxiv on the presence of relativism many tenets of the previous ages
were being questioned, during the age of Renaissance and humanism.
- Open questions on ll. 108-185, where Bassanio and Portia tell each other of their happiness and love (and she
gives him a ring to seal their union – something he should never part from): can you identify metaphorical
images related to the semantic field of economy? And of law? can you see any phrase referring to gender
subordination within the couple? Metaphors related to economy and the same happens with Portia’s reply
she says that she would like to be better (symbol of modesty), she describes her wish as if she wanted to
multiply her beauty and riches (in quantitative terms) and she uses the term “account” (subtext referred to
economy) twice. We can see the gender subordination because all Portia’s goods will become of Bassanio’s
possession (the woman is under the control of the husband and so her riches).

Lines 186-216:
- Gratiano and Nerissa declare their union, and so will get married together with Bassanio and Portia.
- The third couple, Lorenzo and Jessica, arrive with the messenger Salerio, who brings a letter carrying the bad
news: Antonio’s ships are all lost.
- Bassanio tells Portia what Antonio did for him:
 he calls the letter «the paper as the body of my friend / And every word in it a gaping wound /
issuing lifeblood» (ll. 263-265) > anticipating Shylock’s obligation;
 the letter ends with «if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter» (l. 320) >
homosexual subtext?
- Salerio claims Shylock will not accept any sum, however big, as re-payment, insisting with the Duke “and
doth impeach the freedom of the state / If they deny him justice” (ll. 277-278.
- Portia is ready to offer any amount of money is needed. She decides they are getting married and then
Bassanio will go to Venice to help Antonio the consummation of their union will take place on his return,
when the problem is solved and he is not so worried any longer.

Act 3, scene 3
pp. 122-124

- Shylock has a verbal tick repeats phrases but his fury increases that (see also ll. 12-17).
- His revenge is based on a literal interpretation of what he is called (“dog”) = literal interpretation of his bond.
50
 - Issue of justice Venice was a bustling commercial and multi-ethnic centre > the law had to be guaranteed
for all, in order to have a flourishing trade:
 even Antonio is aware of that, to the point that the law will accept a brutal slaughter implication:
is trade more important than humanity?
 Shakespeare’s significant choice of setting: Venice may be symbolic of Elizabethan England, going
through deep changes (with tensions and uncertainties) in economy, religion need for laws to
regulate them, too (see Lombardi v, xii);
 the play’s imagery teems with economic, religious/Biblical, and legal metaphors imagery echoing
the themes and the setting of the play (see Lombardi xix).
Act 3, scene 4
Lines 68-78

- Portia tells Lorenzo and Jessica to run her house on her behalfshe’ll retire to a convent, waiting for
Bassanio’s return. Then she tells Nerissa her true plan she’ll disguise herself as her Paduan cousin who is a
lawyer, and go to Antonio’s trial:
 men are depicted as liars, haughty, arrogant, ignorant, false (she may recite this in a parodizing
style echoed by sound and metrical pattern)
 example of gender emancipation Portia is going to take an active role in the administration of
justice and in the play (compare with slide 7, on gender subordination, and see Lombardi xi);
 see Bertinetti 50 on Shakespeare’s women: intelligent, active, witty, enterprising consider that
women’s roles had to be played by young boys (see Shakespeare in Love) so you had boys who
played women who pretended they are men theatre based on words and on imagination.

Act 3, scene 5:
Lines 19-23

- Launcelot teases Jessica about her Jewish blood when she says she is now a Christian, he replies with a
joke that, again, reveals a deeper uncomfortable truth > is economy more important than religion?

Lines 40-43

- Lorenzo comments on Launcelot’s endless verbal jokes and double meanings, and values silence against
much usless or tricky talk:
 the opposite of what Gratiano said in 1.1;
 theme of appearance as treacherous;
 “garnished […] tricksy word defy the matter”: this hints at how words can manipulate reality
(relativism)
 is this a hidden reference to what Portia is going to do as a lawyer? (echoed by metre: trochaic
beginning in “garnished”…).

8/4/2020

Act 4, scene 1: The trial scene

- Shylock is begged by the Duke to show mercy: see how he justifies his refusal (ll. 35-62; see also Lombardi
xxiii on relativism);
- Antonio’s attitude towards Shylock (ll. 70-83) his self-description (ll. 114-118) his farewell words to
Bassanio (ll. 263-279);
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 - Shylock accuses Venetian society of being just as empty of mercy and as inhuman (ll. 89-103);
- Gratiano’s words to Shylock (ll. 123-138, 315 and 362-365);
- Portia’s (Balthazar’s) speech on mercy (ll. 181-203);
- Portia and Nerissa teasing their husbands (ll. 280-296; see also 4.2 ll. 15-18);
- Portia’s legal strategy (ll. 303-314; see also Lombardi xx);
- Portia’s sentence (ll. 322-361), reinforced by the Duke and Antonio (ll. 366-390);
- The ring affair (ll. 403 to the end) narrative link to the short scene 2 Act 5.

Act 5, scene 1: Back in Belmont

- The first part is a teasing dialogue between Lorenzo and Jessica, swinging between serious and facetious;
- Portia’s speech: nothing is beautiful in itself (ll. 99-110) why here? What connection with the plot?
- Rest of the play: on the ring affair, where Porta/Nerissa argue with Bassanio/Gratiano:
 see Lombardi xi-xii on the symbolic value of the ring: fairytale/myth and social function;
 but the ring might also be a symbol of the female sexual organ: in this argument it is repeated many
times in consecutive lines (ll. 193-207) an occasion for bawdy comicity?
- Portia gives the ring back to Bassanio, but through Antonio (ll. 248-255) symbolic meaning? Has she
realized their deep feelings? (see Lombardi xvi-xvii).

The play’s ending and its genre

- As Lombardi writes (p. xii-xiii), the happy ending of the play is not completely happy its final resolution is
incomplete, the moral questions are not solved:
 Shylock is excluded from human affections, social bonds, religious belonging;
 Probably in relation to this, in Act 5 Jessica sounds melancholic;
 Antonio is not given a chance to break his loneliness presumably, his melancholia which opened
the play is still there.
- Definition for the genre of the play: though generally listed among Shakespeare’s “comedies” (Bertinetti 49),
or “early comedies”, or “romantic comedies”, The Merchant of Venice could also be defined as
“tragicomedy” (see Lombardi xxii), or “dark comedy”.

Essay: The Triumph of the Golden Fleece: Women, Money, Religion, and Power in Shakespeare’s The
Merchant of Venice by Robin Russin

- The article starts saying that the play’s apparent “romantic comedy” hides darker subtexts, which are
related to money: “On the surface, The Merchant of Venice is a romantic comedy. However, laced as it is
with cobwebs of fraud, theft, and speculation on all sides, it is less about the pursuit of love than about the
pursuit, possession, and power of money.” (p. 115)
- Russin insists on the contemporary relevance of the play’s themes. He intends to prove his points through an
analysis of characters, with specific reference to the performance he directed the perspective of this essay
is the theatre director’s, rather than the literary critic: “It is a play that speaks as forcefully to our time as it
did to Shakespeare’s—and a text that speaks most urgently though performance.” (p. 115)

The Venetians (pp. 115-117)

Russin emphasizes two contrasts along the appearance vs. reality dual structure:

- speculation and avarice beneath sophisticated wealth;

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 - sexual ambivalence beneath romance and sentimental attitudes “Almost everyone, including Shylock, is
either in debt or some form of subjugation, or puts him or herself into debt or some form of subjugation.
Shakespeare’s Venice, like the London of his time— and the financial capitals of ours—is a city based on
borrowing, on market speculation and greed masquerading as wealth and sophistication, and a place of
sexual laxity and ambivalence pretending to the language of romance and satisfaction. Its legal and moral
underpinnings are as illusive as reflections in a Venetian canal.” (p. 116)
- But the central character is Portia, who controls the lives of the others. There is a chain of borrowings based
on Bassanio’s gamble with the casket, and whose purpose is not love but Portia’s gold. The play is full of
ironical paradoxes:
 Bassanio chooses lead, but his aim is Portia’s gold, not her love;
 Shylock is hated for his avarice, but he is more concerned with his justice and his daughter than with
his riches.

Jessica, Portia and their rings (pp. 117-118)

- Portia and Antonio are often considered as parallel characters, but it is Jessica who most parallels Portia: “to
subvert a father’s will, to take control of his wealth, to dress like a man in order to deceive, and to marry a
man whose suit pretends to be love, but whose primary interest in the marriage is financial [I do not see
Lorenzo like that]. They also use rings in devious and hurtful ways.”
- The ring is a sacred symbol of faithfulness, but both women use, or refer to the ring, in ways related to
sexual lust (Jessica = Monkey; Portia = going to bed with Balthazar). Jessica is even worse, because she stole.
- Both dressing like men: practiced by prostitutes in Italy, at the time.

The love triangle: Portia, Antonio and Bassanio (pp. 118-121)

- If Antonio and Portia can be seen as parallel characters, they are so also in their love for Bassanio
Antonio’s homosexual feelings for him are evident see Russin’s textual analysis which demonstrates it (pp.
118-119), which also offers an interesting explanation for his sadness at the beginning of the play. Other
characters seem to despise his feelings:
 Salerio, Salerino and Lorenzo = parasite acquaintances, rather than friends. The way in which they
speak about Antonio carries a subtext of mockery
 The conversation between Antonio and Shylock in 3.1 is pervaded by Shylock’s implicit innuendo to
Antonio’s reproductive incapacity.
- On the other hand, Portia is ruthlessly determined to use her money and sexuality to get what she wants
not free of snobbishness and racism (as with Morocco) incarnation of Elizabeth I’s political abilities? Of
Venice’s fascination and riches? She chooses Bassanio because he has no power, and so she can dominate
him she helps his choice of casket, and devises the stratagem about the ring to increase her power on him.

Launcelot Gobbo- Fooling with the devil (pp. 121-122)

- Launcelot’s parody of the morality play in 2.2, torn between the devil and his conscience. Russin’s comment
is worth quoting in full: “As ‘the fool’ in this play, Launcelot is the truth teller, and the truths he tells are
amusing, but full of savage irony. […] What thus emerges is less a ‘wise fool’ than a knowing, jeering and
conniving huckster who chooses to side with the devil. Launcelot’s jibes underline the attitude of the whole
play: the gentiles have struck a deal with the devil—not Shylock, as they repeatedly claim, but rather their
own abandoned consciences. They betray their professed beliefs for venal and venereal reasons, and twist
the ideas and symbols of mercy and love into weapons of domination and submission. Shylock, rather than a
devil, is their convenient scapegoat; a wronged and all too human father and businessman driven nearly
mad by the injuries inflicted on him. Tellingly, Launcelot prefers to be in service to Bassanio and Portia.”
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Portia, Shylock and the quality of mercy (pp. 122-123)

- Portia’s speech on the quality of mercy is usually delivered with sincerity, and has been taken by many as
exemplifying Christ’s compassion against Old Testament’s (and Hebrew religion’s) divine justice. But:
 “after extolling the virtues of mercy at great length and with examples ranging from the personal to
the divine, Portia proceeds to utterly devastate Shylock, depriving him of everything he owns—
including his very identity as a Jew”, together with Antonio. This is “legalized theft”: “When Portia
delivers her lines, it is with calculated cruelty, rising to a ruthless and climactic command—’Down
therefore and beg mercy of the duke!’ (4.1.363). There is no mercy in this scene, only a vicious thrill
at Shylock’s come-uppance and destruction. As the broken Jew leaves the courtroom, Gratiano
compares the baptismal font Shylock now faces with a gallows; this is surely how Shylock equates
the two.”

The best man is a woman (pp. 123-124)

- Obviously, Portia has proved herself better than the rest of men. After the trial:
 “Antonio’s insistence that Bassanio give her the ring he’d sworn to her never to take off only makes
sense if Antonio has in fact recognized her past her disguise as the ‘learned doctor:’ this is his way,
not to thank her, but to drive a wedge between her and Bassanio, to prove to Portia that Bassanio
still loves him more than he loves her. Portia may have saved Antonio’s life, but he’s not going to let
her keep the upper hand without a challenge. Playing this moment as one of recognition and
challenge works very effectively on stage”.
- Back in Belmont, Portia has a letter saying that some of Antonio’s ships, surprisingly, were not shipwrecked,
and mysteriously adds: “You shall not know by what strange accident / I chancèd on this letter” (5.1 ll. 277-
278) Russin explains this as follows: “Since first learning of Bassanio’s intention to woo her, Portia has
used her wealth to control Antonio’s fortunes as well, or at any rate to control the news about his ventures
to her own advantage.”

Jessica and the diamond lost (pp. 124-126)

- This section of Russin’s article reads Lorenzo’s and Jessica’s behaviours as consistent with his general
interpretation of the play:
 Lorenzo is just interested in Shylock’s money;
 Jessica in becoming a wealthy Christian.

Shylock and Antonio: the odd men out (pp. 126-127)

- Both characters end up alone, under Portia’s power: “The earlier suitors who have vied for Portia’s hand are
condemned to abandon any hope for love (or marriage, at any rate) for the rest of their lives. As with
Shylock and Antonio, their contact with Portia has emasculated them.”
- Russin’s conclusion: “In Shakespeare’s Venice, so similar […] our financially afflicted world today, the rules of
law and commerce are subject to deceptive manipulation, fear of ‘the other’ overwhelms respect for a
common humanity, duplicity is the norm, sexuality is a vehicle for ambition rather than true love, and money
drives and warps almost every action. Significantly, the play’s last dialogue is given to Gratiano, its coarsest
and most malicious character.”

Production choices (pp. 128-130)

- This is a description of why Russin’s production decided to set the play in 1920s Venice, California, USA.

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- The social and cultural atmosphere of that time and place offer interesting parallels with the main concerns
of Shakespeare’s text.
- Take this as a significant example of how a play by Shakespeare can be transported to contemporary settings
and, by doing so, be given a renewed relevance and significance. You might compare this with the 1973
National Theatre production on YouTube, starring Laurence Olivier.

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