John donne holy sonnet X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou thinkst, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

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

And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

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

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

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

1. Describe, in your own words, Donne's opening proposition (lines 1-2).

2. How is Death deceived in lines 3 and 4?

3. Rest and sleep are pleasant for men; how does Donne use this argument to make Death seem pleasant?

4. How do you interpret "soonest our best men" in line 7?

5. What bad company is Death forced to keep? Why?

6. Which sedatives are better than Death?

7. What is Donne's elegant final paradox, linking the ideas of Death and Eternal Life?

8. What elements in the poem give it its surprising force? Think about rhythm and imagery.

Individual work

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MODULE 2

LECTURE # 8

The Literature of early Enlightenment and Classicism

(1700 – 1740)

1. The main literary genres of the period.

2. Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744). “The Rape of the Lock”, “The Essay on Man”

3. Daniel Defoe (1661 – 1731)

4. Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745)

5. Richard Steele

6. John Gay, English playwright and poet

7. Henry Fielding

LECTURE # 9

The development of the English Literature

in the second half of the 18^th century (1740-1780)

Gothic Novel

1. Characteristic features of the literature of the period.

2. Samuel Richardson (1689 – 1761) “Pamela”(1740), “Clarissa Harlowe”.

3. Henry Fielding (1707 – 1754) “Joseph Andrews”, “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”

4. Tobias Smolett (1721 – 1771) and Laurence Sterne (1713 – 1768).

5. Johnson and his circle. A dictionary of the English language (1755)

6. Oliver Goldsmith (1728 – 1774) “The Vicar of Wakefield”(1764), “She Stoops to Conquer”(1773), poems

7. Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The duena Comic opera, The Rivals (play), St.Patrick’s Day (comic opera), Pizarro (tragedy, 1799)

8. Gothic Novel

9. Horace Walpole : the novel “The Castle of Otranto”(1974), ‘The Mysterious mother’ (tragedy) (1768)

10. Ann Radcliffe “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1791), The Italian (1797), “The Romance of the Forest”,