British Culture

Week 9 Class 1
2012 10:03 17

Based on the questions after class last time - they are going to be explained again. The opposites as the conservatives at the time were known as Whigs. Literature in this period people who write it are also politically engaged. So the lecturer gathers… we seem to have been confused by the description of Johnathan Swift - the simplistic division between catholics and protestants… we are talking… America is predominantly a protestant country - but there are different "streams" among protestants. The anglican church - founded the day henry the 8th separated himself from rome… the (it think church) borrowed… english people on the hole like to have church quire music. When the protestant… grows the… creates a compromise - church. It looks like a catholic church. Because in england the head of the church is the king conformity to church (something) conformity to the crown. Puritans refused to be told by the central government how to worship. Puritans hated that. For them to sing songs in the church was a sign of (something bad). Bell ringing was considered a devilish practice. This is a division that split the country. Nobody could tell anyone how to read the bible according to the puritans. The English rejected puritan austerity. The monarchy was restored - once you restore the monarchy you restore the Anglican church. It is a hierarchy just like the catholic church. Swift is a protestant? So what? He is an anglican priest. He thinks the pope is the devil. According to him the church of Rome is wrong. Men like swift didn’t talk about the pope as the antichrist - he would say the pope was a man of error. Extreme puritans - some of them stay in England. Particularly in the midlands and the southwest of the country. There are various sects baptists… many extreme puritans will not conform to the laws of the church of the state. Cambridge university at the time is a hot bed of puritan activity. Oxford on the other hand is the conservative place. Catholics at the time cannot go to the university, cannot be members of parliament - but they can make money, be mercheants. Our next author today - Alexander Pope - was an catholic. English politics from the the end of the 17th century - those parties remain the same parties to this day - the conservative party (the tories) - stood at the time for centralized government. The other party were known as Whigs. Both powers were led by powerful nobles. The whigs wanted to reduce the power of the anglican church. They established their own academic universities. The 18th century in england begins with the reign of queen Anne. Swift begins his career as a propagandist for the tories. He enters the anglican church. Rises the ranks of the church very quickly. Then queen anne dies, and is replaced by a king who is german - the king is protestant. The king couln't speak english. He delegated his authority to his minister - that way the prime minister was the most powerful man in the land - a protestant. Swift was sent to exile. The caps are very wide between the two camps. One other thing the conservatives were against… England is still about blood and landed wealth. Conservatives believed the land should belong to the landed based - people he yesterday had land, not people who became wealthy because of the stock exchange - these people represented to Swift and others like him a new dog eat dog society of capitalism - that has a direct correlation to literature. Satire objected… its main authors were people like daniel dafoe - wrote tens of books. He was also a radical protestant. The first thing you see with gulliver's travels… there was a huge fashion at the time for exciting adventure novels. These novels tended to be full of boring details - like "we fished some fish...". The battle of the ancient against the modern is about everything - politics, literature… Not prose, no cheap pamphleteering. When they think of themselves as representing a minority position, satire is admired - satire is necessary - A. Pope… the lecturer hopes the question about the complexity of Catholics and protestants. Slide "Gulliver's Travels", first edition, 1726: Pope and swift were exact contemporaries - they were both friends. They became friends as part of the literary group (something). A. Pope as a roman catholic could not as Swift enter the church. He had private tutors at home, a son of a merchant. He is the first poet in the English language to make money from literature. He, as a young boy, suffered from tuberculosis. He used a new commercial market - he knew how to exploit it. The first major translation of the entire… this was the beginning of copyright work in england. He translated Homer. His editions of Homer sold so many copies that he had good cause to think he could make a living of it. His (someone's) politics were forgiven. Pope appears in pictures in the presentation. Notice that the first edition of gulliver presents itself as a story by gulliver. Even the frontest piece of the book presents it as… swift's identity was never revealed although everyone knew he was the author. Swift sent the manuscripts to Pope. The offensive stuff was taken by Pope and others to protect Swift. Swift was in conflict with Pope about it. The main enemy of this group is george addison (editor of The Spectator). Gulliver - what is the meaning? - it seems to be a combination of gull (someone who believes
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Gulliver - what is the meaning? - it seems to be a combination of gull (someone who believes false stories) and ver (truth). The first paragraph is crucial in how Swift introduces his hero (starts with "My father had…"): Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe is exactly this kind of narrative. If you read Robinson Crusoe you have to reed 300 pages before you get to Friday. It is boring- not that it is not a great novel. The prose is completely in the present tense. Not what would be expected to be rethorical or literary. Nothing spectacular about this passage you might say, although it's full of clues. He is the middle son of a middling class from the midlands who (something) and his greatest desire is to travel. Swift is already telling us that this character is the typical bourgeois little man - no aspirations, just bland and god forbid he wants to travel - so let him. The next sentences are meant to be boring. No wonder they felt literature was going down the toilet. Eventually his ship (broke or something). He wakes up and finds himself bowed to the grown by (it think little people). The are obsessive details that don't amount to much. There is a catalogue - a list of things (as in other stories - maybe Robinson Crusoe). It's mind bobbling. Conservatives like swift and pope were disgusted by realism. Some people would have thought an insect was crawling through his leg- but it was a human - at 1/12 the size of Gulliver - everything in the story is 1/12 the size in the "real world". There is a new world narrative (like in the case of indians) - but these little people are not Indians - the initial reaction is to recognize the (people met - maybe "Lilliputians") as… with time they start to look very English. They have a king who is called (I think an emperor). Lillypoot becomes england under the reign of George the first. The Lilliputians are petty as they are small. All this is ultimately a metaphor of the uselessness in (something sectaricism). Last paragraph before Chapter 2: What is the first thing he is forced to do in the temple? - He was forced to take a shit in it. What is this about? - The temple is the Anglican church - the murder is the execution of Charles the first. This is the temple as it looks when the puritans take the land. They take a man like him and force him to use it as a toilet. Why is Gulliver a famous children's text? - it is because in the Victorian period they made a child friendly version of it. Swift uses toilet imagery. This is a satire… He uses the (maybe central) metaphor of size versus value. Values are relative as size is relative. One more passage - page 22 in scanned pdf - bottom paragraph: The key to the lecturer is not why he extinguishes the fire but why the fire starts in the first place… Some land which is catholic. Burglum does no mean anything. While she was reading a romance and fell asleep (bad literature) - because of it the palace was on fire. This magnificent palace - this is Hampton court palace. Urine voided in such a quantity… the king forgives him but the queen refuses to live in the palace after that. Urine was much valued by its medicinal quality at the time. Just as when… These giants are so disgusting - this is what I must have seemed to them - the notion of being showered by urine - that's horrific. At the same time it is a satire that satirizes one side of power, it also satirizes (maybe both parties) - it values (maybe not values but satirizes) relativity. Irony underlies every word in the text - Swift wishes us to read beneath the surface - to ask ourselves what is a human being? He comes to a land of horses who are completely rational - their enemies are the Yahoos - they are disgusting. The unims (the horses) enslave the Yahoos. The point is you cannot (as a human being) be a horse - you are both a Unim and a Yahoo. When gulliver finally comes home he has a tame prospective - it leads him to hate his own humanity. Swift was not a huge believer in human beings. Pope is the exact literary intellectual twin of Swift - what Swift believes, Pope believes. He was such a master of elegance, style, refinement. He perfected the form of rimed cuplet. He was capable of created (something of expression) unparalleled in the english language. The rape of the lock is on of our greatest example of a (maybe something like mock of a poem). Also Spencer's the fairie queene… The rape of the lock is a celebration of the english language. It criticizes english pretention of grandure. The rape of the lock is based on an event that happened to a major person at the time. They played hombre, a card game, and a baron wanted to play a game - snuck up behind her and cut one of her curls. This caused her shame and disgrace. Pope was asked to write something about it to bring people together through wit and humor (The rape of the lock). The opening line: The subject is the rape of the lock (a lock of hair). It’s a grand opening… This mock epic uses a (something) of satire. A great ocean crossing is replaced with… a major battlefield is replaced with a card game. (something) is replaced with the (I think seed) of a lady. Spleen means "anger" - it was believed anger comes from the spleen - spleen is a woman's anger. The silfs represent aerial spritis - the gnomes (something like bestious creatures). Canto 1 - line 121: The word cosmic means cosmetic. She's got rouge on her cheeks. Notice how this wonderful description of a woman putting makeup… all the (maybe work) of the british emprire has been reduced to combs and… The pride of this lady's epic makeup are two curls. Those are her main
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reduced to combs and… The pride of this lady's epic makeup are two curls. Those are her main focus of her feminine glory. Loot at the description of the tea table - canto 3 line 107: Every line here is crackling with synthetic beauty and energy and all that it is describing is a tea table. It is described as a vast table. The (maybe alto) of Japan is… We're getting close to the moment of the rape - coffee… Next paragraph we get the scissors represented as a two edged weapon. He takes the gift with reverence… takes is back to (I think Satan). Engine at the time is an instrument of war. The spirit is guarding her seed… A famous echo… She is a virgin as most (something) ladies at the time were. She is into this baron. It is Pope's way of disarming the fight. She was (I think teasing him). The pear (or maybe peer) is the baron. This seed - these line use the pathos of (something) warfare (maybe mocking) Milton. Sheers is a powerful world that connotes at the time extreme violence - to cut the ears and noses of (something) protestants. Ears and noses were cut. He uses that word that is loaded with political meaning. Last passage - description of the cave of spleen (Canto 4 line 40 or so and forth): Why the cave of spleen. She has lost a curl and is angry... The personified queen of spleen resides… pure fantasy of the (Something of spleen)... Irrational feminine anger… The next lines are the lecturer's favorites. The curl disappears into heavens. Line 62 - when people kill in battle with swords here they are fighting as to not ruin the hair. Men at the time wore far more makeup than women. In the end the curl is… into the stars. She kills people by slaying them with her beauty - but someday you will die. Last thought - this is more gentile satire than Swift - it suggests that the world being satirized is a world of petty conflicts. Pope wants to emphasize the charm of this world. Like Swift turning a metaphor - "the english are devouring the irish", pope suggests the tea cup and everything that surrounds it are worth celebrating. Proportion, size and value are the most important part of this work of Pope.

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