Ode on a Grecian URL

While you probably won't be enduring another exam of the Romantic or Victorian variety, there's a chance you'll run into more ID and essay exams about literature in the future; hence, here are some strong answers to the passages we put to you on our final exam.

Once you make it past the basic identification of author and text, there are no strictly right or wrong answers to the significance of the passages we asked you to identify on the exam. These are simply some answers that received full credit for the passages.

Trends to notice include the generally close readings of the texts, concrete observations about how these passages fit into the larger argument of the texts from which they are excerpted, and an eagerness to analyze each text anew. For example, the answer to Passage 9, though brief, offers an impressive new analysis of the organization of the similes in the text.

Also notice how much these samples vary in length: the answer to Passage 5 is just as brilliant as the answer to Passage 3, but it's half as long.

1. a) Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
   b) This phrase occurs in the last stanza of the poem, Dover Beach where the speaker has finished addressing the sea as a sort of metaphor for the state of Victorian England. At this point, the speaker reflects on what he has observed based on the motions of the sea.
   c) Because this passage is in the last stanza, it gives meaning to the rest of the poem. The first 3 stanzas address the moonlight and the sea as metaphors for Victorian England. He emphasizes, in the beginning, the absence of light like he does in the end with words such as “darkling plain” and “armies clash by night.” The use of dark and night and the absence of light suggest uncertainty regarding the Victorian Age – specifically between tradition and reform. The last phrase, “ignorant armies clash by night,” suggests England fighting itself over this struggle between tradition and reform.
   
   
2. This passage is from Eliot’s Middlemarch. It occurs just after Dorothea has witnessed Rosamond & Will together, & immediately following when Will makes it known to Rosamond that she is nothing to him, & that Dorothea is the only woman who means anything to Will. Rosamond, used to always being considered the epitome of womanhood & the object of all men’s desire, is shocked beyond anything. She feels that she is “losing the sense of her identity” & “waking into some new terrible existence” because, in her shallowness, she always believed herself to be the center of all things. And it hurts. This new concept is being “burnt & bitten into her.” This is a representative (& extreme) demonstration of the themes of self-realization in the story. The characters all come a new understanding in the world, & in a sense, it is a symbol of what will happen in Middlemarch, that its people will one day realize that their small town is in fact not the center of existence. And it will be an unpleasant shock, just as it is to Rosamond & her “sensibility.”
   
   
3. Modern Painters by John Ruskin
   - Ruskin is here describing how to judge a piece of art. What he states here rids the reader of any thought that the greatest art is the most beautiful, most realistic, etc., which he explicitly mentioned in another part of the piece. Basically this passage is in conclusion to his premises that arts greatness cannot be measured against how beautiful, lifelike, etc., it is.
   - This passage is significant in that it summarizes a very main point in this piece, that art is great relative to the greatest number of greatest ideas it (the work of art) inspires. This idea is conducive to the theme that viewing, being inspired by and critiquing art are all highly individualistic in nature. According to this passage it can be implied that it depends on how the nature of the person how and how much they are given ideas by a piece of art. Further, it seems to me that Ruskin suggests even this concept is itself highly individualistic by using “I” a lot in order to remind the reader that these are his ideas, ideas which may or may not hold true for everyone or at least be true to varying degrees.
   
   
4. This is a passage from the beginning of the first act of Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest” in which Algy has found out that Jack is “Jack in the country” and “Ernest in town,” and is introducing the term “Bunburyist” to the audience. This is a significant passage because it employs the epigram (seen in Algy’s critique of Jack’s lack of ability in “literary criticsm”), which is one of the dominant style devices of the play, and affords the telling of many social truths (that the critics in the paper are rubbish) by outlandishly sarcastic claims.
   
   
5. This passage is from Walter Pater’s “The Renaissance.” It is at the very end of the essay + concludes his thoughts on the reason for and effects of art.
   The repetition of passion + the word fruit to describe I brings home Pater’s theory that art, which presents itself (ripens like fruit) is a different thing in each new moment, should be avidly “eaten” (so it doesn’t spoil) instead of being pinpointed + philosophized. It is there to “eat” and nourish (produce passion) and nothing else.
   
   
6. (A) Lady of Shallott, Tennyson
   (B) This is the very end of the poem after the lady ventures out of her tower and dies.
   (C) In her death the Lady of Shallott experiences all the things firsthand that she could not as an artist apart from her subject and nature and society. Before her death she hears occasional sounds through the window but is never around people. She is isolated from the community and really a myth to them more than an actual person. In her death those are all contrasted. She is now in nature surrounded by water and gardens. She is also surrounded by community, as she sails by the “knight and burgher, lord and dame” all come out to see her almost like she is a work of art in a museum, they crowd around to see her. Also how as she comes in it is “silent into Camelot.” It seems the tables have changed. She in life has been hiding, but observing these people of the town and now only in death do they look at her. And they finally know her name, The Lady of Shallott.
   
   
7. This passage comes from Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover.” It is right after Porphyria’s lover (the speaker) has strangled her with her hair, in order that she might “always” love him.
   The almost regular rhyme scheme contrasted with the morbid subject (strangling) gives off an ambiguous impression of whether the speaker is in his right mind or not. This frightful contrast is also perhaps Browning’s way of illustrating what can happen, the tension and uncertainty that can arise from individuals being made separate from the society. When Porphyria leaves society to join her lover, bad happens. It also expresses perhaps the kind of effect individuality can have on people - something which Browning makes fun of here.
   
   
8. 1) This is from Middlemarch, by George Eliot
   2) This passage takes place after Fred has been at the tavern (the Green Dragon?), and has observed Lydgate, still frantic over debt, betting wildly at billiards. Mr. Farebrother has just given Fred a pep talk, and told Fred that he (Farebrother) liked Mary but she likes Fred best and that Fred should “go for her” and be all that he can be. Book VI or VII?
   3) Once again, this deals with the theme of change and impermanence. Fred has gone through hard times, but felt a “regenerating shudder” at that moment. He was re-invented in Farebrother’s eyes. This also points to the theme of how our social peers shape and affect us. If Farebrother can re-invent Fred, maybe man can invent man, unlike in Frankenstein.
   
   
9. 1) Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
   2) The narrator is the poet and is describing Laura’s movements just as she is about to give in to the Goblins’ temptations
   3) This shows the significance of not being able to find allegory within the poem. The poet uses metaphor after metaphor yet still isn’t able to find one that works. This can also show how Laura is becoming less alive as she gives in, going from human to non-human as each metaphor progresses. The images of the swan, lily, branch, and vessel show this.