English 2112: World Literature II: Study Guide for Test One

Below you will find review questions for each work we've read for Test One. Also, you will find the names of the authors and each work we read--study them carefully, writing each name and title as it appears on this page multiple times to learn the spelling, including quotation marks (" ") and italics (use underlining when writing by hand). You will be expected to provide these names and titles on the Quote ID section. As for the review questions, please consider them supplemental to the discussion questions found on each individual author page--you should re-study those as well.

Review Questions

François-Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778)

Candide

How does Voltaire use plot in this novel to ridicule the "optimistic" philosophy promoted by Pangloss?
As readers, how can we identify with Candide's movement from naive surrender to "the best of all possible worlds" towards a more practical wisdom: "we must cultivate our garden"?
In Voltaire's satirical critique of the Enlightenment, what is the problem with reason, if any? What kind of change is he trying to encourage with his satire?

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

"A Modest Proposal"

Why does Swift create an extreme fictional persona to deliver the "modest" argument in this essay?
How does the ironic distance between the literal and figurative meanings of this essay engage the reader on an ethical level?
What role does hyperbole play in creating satire? How does Swift manage to create content that both disturbing to our sensibilities and clearly recognizable as satire?
What social philosophy is Swift indirectly attacking by pretending to adopt it? How does Swift manage to expose the flaws of that philosophy?

Olympe de Gouges (1743-1798)

Declaration of the Rights of Woman

How do the arguments made by de Gouges reflect Enlightenment values, particularly when she insists that women "unite under the banner of philosophy"?
Is de Gouges the kind of optimist that Voltaire would ridicule, or does her outlook suggest a reasonable approach to problem-solving?

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

How does Wollstonecraft feel about her fellow women? Are they to blame for their current condition of "slavery"?
Why does Wollstonecraft take time to address her writing style? Does she distrust language? What takes precedence over words, for her?

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

"Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

What is the purpose the poems that Wordsworth is introducing with this preface?
Is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" enough to create poetry with lasting value? Why not?
How does Wordsworth understand "taste" in Poetry? Are we all permitted to judge poems however we feel?

"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

How has the speaker changed during the five year absence? What has been lost and what has been gained?
What is the value of nature for the speaker? How is that value connected to the mind of the speaker?
How does the speaker propose to cope with the darker side of human life, the trials and suffering of city life, for instance?

"Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

What is the attitude toward childhood in this poem? Is this attitude straightforward or complex? How so?
What is the "philosophic mind," and what is its purpose?
What is more worth celebrating than the "delight and liberty" of childhood? What qualities of human experience replace that childhood condition?

Percy Shelley (1792-1822)

"A Defence of Poetry"

By distinguishing between reason and imagination, is Shelley challenging the Enlightenment as a good approach to the good life?
How can poetry make people better, according to Shelley, and how are poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world"?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

"The Lotos-Eaters"

Is the argument made by the men in the Choric Song a genuine argument? If not, what does this poem suggest about the power of reason?
If the poem ends without returning to the speaker outside the Choric Song, is the reader left to think that the men, in fact, do not leave the island? Why would Tennyson revise the myth in this way?

"Ulysses"

What is the speaker’s attitude toward his own desire to venture out again?
Does the ending of the poem instill confidence in the heroic ideal?
On what basis can we critique (if at all) the ambition displayed in the poem?

Pages

Study Guide for Test One