Notes Dryden’s MacFlecknoe” and Criticism” I. I want to .docx

Notes:
Dryden’s “MacFlecknoe” and “Criticism”
I. I want to start today by exploring a term which was central to
the neo-classical era - “imitation of nature.” This was, for
Dryden, and later for Pope, the highest virtue of poetry, but it’s
hard to define exactly what the term means. It combines the
idea that poetry should imitate something (as opposed to being
pure invention) with the idea that what poetry should imitate is
that which is natural ‑ by which it is meant that which is
universally believed to be true. What is unnatural, for Dryden
and Pope, are beliefs which are unique, which are not generally
shared. In a sense, for them Protestantism is unnatural because
it claims that individuals are free to believe in God however
they choose.
II. Because Dryden and Pope assume that there are universal
truths or values which we all have access to, there is no
intention in their poetry to try to create new values. Rather,
their poetry is designed either to imitate the values they assume
we all should share, or to satirize those who for some reason
have rejected those values. Dryden and Pope also assume that
only those who are stupid or dull would reject universal values,
and thus a central object of their satires is to expose such
stupidity or dullness. In “Mac Flecknoe,” the object of Dryden’s
ridicule is a playwright, Shadwell, who was aligned politically
with the Whigs, and who was a “true‑blue Protestant” ‑ a
religious extremist, from Dryden’s perspective. For Dryden,
Shadwell is ridiculous both because of his political and
religious beliefs, and because he had claimed that his writing
was in the tradition of Ben Jonson, which Dryden thought was
presumptuous. In “Mac Flecknoe,” Dryden will try to expose
Shadwell to ridicule through two strategies ‑ he will have
Shadwell praised for writing in ways that are contemptible, and

he will portray the naming of Shadwell as the heir to Flecknoe
as analogous to the recent coronation of Charles II, which he
assumes we will see is preposterous. Each of these strategies is
designed to reaffirm universal values ‑ the absurdity of what
Shadwell is praised for will remind us of what kind of writing
should be praised, and the inadequacy of Shadwell as a king
will reaffirm the values against which he is seen as inadequate.
Finally, before we turn to the poem, I should mention that the
term for how Shadwell is portrayed is “mock‑heroic” ‑ the poem
mocks the idea that he could be a hero, and thus reminds us of
how important a value heroism itself is.
III. The poem breaks down into seven sections, each of which I
now want to look at:
1. (ll.1‑12) Flecknoe is described ‑ look at ll.5‑6, 11‑12, to see
what his “realm” consists of.
2. (ll. 13‑59) The first of two of Flecknoe’s speeches, in which
he explains why Shadwell is best suited to perpetuate the
qualities described in the opening of the poem. Note comparison
to John the Baptist, ll. 31‑35.
3. (ll. 60‑63) A brief interlude, in which Flecknoe is overcome
by what he has described.
4. (ll. 64‑93) An elaborate setting of a scene of decay and ruin,
focusing on the place where Shadwell will be coronated. Look
at ll.70‑78, the combining of images of sexual decay with a
description of Shadwell’s version of the theater.
5. (ll. 94‑138) Shadwell’s coronation. Note description of who
will come to the coronation (ll.98‑101), Shadwell’s gaining of
the throne by “thy own labors”(ll106‑07), and the comparison to
Hannibal, ll. 112‑2202.

6. (ll. 139‑210) Flecknoe’s second speech, which explains the
wonderful consequences which will follow from Shadwell’s
reign. Look at the description of his dominions, ll. 139‑140; the
account of Shadwell’s skills as a writer, ll. 157‑160 and ll.
165‑66, ll. 183‑190, and ll. 205‑210.
7. (ll. 211‑217) Flecknoe is abruptly taken away, and Shadwell
now reigns “with double portion of his father’s art.
English 2202
Lecture Notes on Dryden’s Criticism
I. The selections from Dryden’s criticism that you have read all
rely on his general belief that poetry, because it is an imitation
of an eternal or unchanging nature, can be claimed to be a
vehicle for communicating universal truths. Note, though, that
Dryden is in no sense a systematic theorist – in a sense, he
doesn’t need to be for two reasons: first, because the bases of
his critical claims are themselves “truths” that have been
established by history; and second, because he assumes that his
audience has itself been taught these truths, and thus doesn’t
need arguments for why these truths are true.
II. Passages in Dryden’s criticism:
p. 2251-2252 Two types of poets: the first, who can be seen
“wrestling and torturing a word into another meaning,” is like
“witches” who are “justly hanged” and the second, who “creeps
along with ten little words in every line,” is a Leveler, whose
“plainness” is a failure of “imagination.” Look at how these two
“types” set up by contrast Dryden’s ideal of a poet, although
specifying what that ideal might be is elusive.
p. 2252 Wit is universal, true in all languages.

p. 2254 Shakespeare and “nature,” which he found “inwards.”
p. 2255 Shakespeare and Jonson as sources of “rules.”
p. 2256 How to use “particular opinion” to combat “general
authority”
pp. 2256-2257 “Universal tradition,” and the causes of pleasure
in poetry.
p. 2257 What is a “delight to all ages” is an “imitation of
nature.”
p. 2257 Defining wit as a “propriety of thoughts and words.”.
p. 2258 Chaucer follows nature, but never “goes beyond her.”
English 2202
Pope’s “An Essay on Man”
I. Rather than trying to tie together all the pieces of “An Essay
on Man,” I want to look at a number of specific passages to try
to get a sense of how Pope thinks that humans should
understand the human condition. First, however, I want to
consider two general issues which are relevant to Pope’s ideas.
II. The first issue is the question of how human evil and
suffering can be reconciled with the existence of God. The idea
here, for Pope, is that a belief in God entails the notion that all
aspects of the universe are part of a divine plan ‑ indeed, some
18th Century thinkers went so far as to compare the universe to
a clock which God had set in motion. The problem with this
assumption is that it makes it hard to explain evil ‑ if the
universe is a display of the glory of God, what possible reason
can there be for evil?

III. The second issue concerns the scope of human reason. In
part because of the rise of science, the 18th Century was a
period of immense optimism about the power of human reason.
While earlier ages (in Europe) had believed that human
experience was essentially evil or worthless (e.g. Puritanism or
Calvinism), and had argued that human experience should
largely be devoted to the avoidance of evil, the 18th Century
instead emphasized the potential of humans to understand the
deepest mysteries of existence ‑ basically, the switch is from
seeing original sin as that which defines human experience, to
seeing an almost god‑like reason as that which defines human
experience. But the question here (echoing the first question we
considered) is whether human reason is not exposed as
meaningless by its failure to explain the ultimate mysteries of
experience. What, Pope asks, can human reason be expected to
reveal?
IV. What I now want to do is look at a number of passages
which bear on these questions:
a. opening 16 lines (pp. 3-4) ‑ what is it Pope thinks needs to be
vindicated?
b. limits of reason, ll. 44‑60 (pp. 4-5)
c. error of demanding consistency in nature, ll. 131‑153 (pp. 6-
7)
d. defining the “bliss of man,” ll. 189-196 (p. 7)
e. the chain of being vs. man’s “impudence,” ll. 233‑258,
especially the description of human pride as leading to a
description of man as a “vile worm,” line 258. (pp. 8-9)
f. the culminating claim that “whatever is, is right” ll. 281-294

(p. 9)
e. “proper study of mankind” ll. 1-18 (pp. 2547-2548) – focus
here on Pope’s central notion that understanding “mankind” can
only be based upon studying what is revealed about humans in
their actual behavior (as opposed to a Puritan argument that
humans should be understood in terms of their deepest beliefs
about themselves – note here, especially, ll. 29-30, where Pope
sees the introspection that might be produced by recognizing the
limits of human knowledge as leading to a judgment of man as a
“fool”).
English 2202
Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”
I. I want to approach “The Rape of the Lock” by first looking
briefly at the kind of poem it is, and then tracing the action of
the poem, canto by canto. Like Dryden’s “Mac Flecknoe,” “The
Rape of the Lock” is a “mock-heroic” poem, which basically
means treating commonplace events as if they were episodes in
a heroic drama for example, the pretense that Shadwell was
being coronated. In “The Rape of the Lock,” Pope uses
traditional devices found in such epic poems as “The Iliad” to
frame his account of what is certainly a trivial event a
gentleman’s snipping of a young lady’s lock of hair. Thus (as
your introduction explains) Pope imagines drawing room
occurrences as a war, aristocratic young men and women as
heroes and heroines, an epic battle in the card game, goddesses
who watch over their chosen heroines, and a journey to the
underworld in the Cave of Spleen episode in Canto 4 all
devices that would have been appreciated by an audience
trained in the classics. We will leave until the second hour of
class, however, the question of what exactly is being mocked
here suffice it to say that while Pope is certainly poking fun at
the pampered rich youths he describes, he seems also quite

serious about showing, as he puts it in l.2, “What mighty
contests rise from trivial things.”
II. Let me now try to summarize the action in each of the
cantos, and then we’ll talk about specific places in the poem
that you found difficult or confusing.
Canto 1: After an initial description of Belinda waking up, we
hear a long speech from, as we learn, Ariel, the Sylph who is
supposed to guard Belinda. Ariel explains that there are four
different kinds of spirits, each of whom is identified with a
particular form of character, or humour: 1. The salamander
(fire), or shrew; 2. The nymph (water), who yields readily; 3.
The sylph (air), who seems a kind of innocent flirt; and 4. The
Gnome (earth), or prude. Ariel says that prudes “early taint the
female soul”(l.87) by a kind of too conscious flirtation (the idea
seems to be that prudishness is the mirror image of overt
sexuality), and says that the Sylphs preserve innocent vanity
from such a fate. He warns that Belinda is in danger. Finally,
Belinda awakens and prepares herself to go out.
Canto 2: Belinda ventures out for the night, described in
rapturous terms (she is “the destruction of mankind”(l.19) she
seems all light, all smiles, but with no consciousness of the
effect she is having. The Baron is then described as her suitor
he wants Belinda’s locks of hair, but of course what he really
wants is her. Belinda is unaware of this, but Ariel summons the
Sylphs to dedicate themselves to protecting her.
Canto 3: The central episodes here are the game of Ombre
(which Belinda wins) and the Baron’s cutting of Belinda’s lock.
As the game of cards is described, it comes to seem a metaphor
for romantic combat, and Belinda’s glee in her victory is
portrayed as part of her general vulnerability she seems
unaware of the deeper sexual implications in what she does. The
Baron’s assault on Belinda is aided by Clarissa, who will

reappear in Canto 5 as a cynical prude. After the lock is cut,
Ariel rushes to protect Belinda, but leaves when he discovers, in
her confusion, “an earthly lover lurking at her heart.”(l.144)
The canto ends with the Baron exulting in his triumph.
Canto 4 In Belinda’s gloom, her watching spirit changes from
Ariel to Umbriel, who proceeds to the “Cave of Spleen” to
address its queen. What Pope imagines here is a kind of warped
sexuality, where women are seen as deranged by their inability
to handle male sexual advances. Umbriel gains the “gifts” of the
Queen of Spleen to take back to Belinda, and finds her in the
arms of Thalestris, an Amazon. Thalestris gives a long speech
attacking what men do to women, and then retreats to her
“beau,” Sir Plume, who gives a disjointed, wimpy speech telling
the Baron to return the lock. The Baron refuses, and the Canto
ends with Belinda bemoaning her fate.
Canto 5 Everyone but the Baron is moved at this, and
Thalestris tries hopelessly to change his mind. Clarissa then
argues that all of women’s charms come to naught (women are
valued for physical charms which cannot last), and counsels a
sort of resigned submission. Belinda frowns at this, and
Thalestris urges war, which then occurs. In the war, the
weapons are social graces, as men die from frowns, but are
reborn with smiles. Belinda confronts the Baron, drawing a
dagger like pin on him, but the Baron still will not yield.
Everyone cries at him, but the lock has disappeared into the
heavens where it will consecrate the fame of Belinda.
III. The central issue of “The Rape of the Lock” is how the
poem imagines Belinda’s fate as a sexual being her fate, that
is, as a young woman confronting both sexual desire, and the
social codes through which sexual desire is performed. The
question I want to pursue is whether the poem allows us any
sense of Belinda as in control of her identity is she merely an
object defined by the codes she experiences, and by the desires

of those who want her? Or is she allowed a sense of power or
of control over how her identity is situated within the public
form which sexuality takes in this world? As these questions
make clear, the poem very much offers us a world where
personal identity is public in the sense that one’s identity is
defined by the relations one has both to others and to social
codes Belinda’s self in the poem will be formed both by how
she presents herself publicly, and by how she will respond to an
assault on that public presentation.
IV. Let’s begin with the Ariel’s account of how young women
are understood. Focus first on the general account of the
Sylphs, 1:67-76 (p. 2689), and then on the contrast between the
Gnomes, 1:78 90 (p. 2689), and the Sylphs, 1:98 105 (pp. 2689-
2690).
V. Now turn to the description of Belinda preparing to go out,
1:121-145 (p. 2690). Note how her airiness is in fact defined as
a lack of self-consciousness.
VI. Explore the contrast at the start of Canto II between how
Belinda is described as she arrives at the party, 2:1-22 (p.
2691), and the first description of the Baron, 2:29-45 (p. 2691).
VII. Look at the actual assault in Canto III. Begin with
Belinda’s glee at winning, 3:99 100 (p. 2696), then turn to
Ariel’s inability to protect Belinda, 3:135 145 (pp. 2696-2697).
Finish with the Baron’s gloating, 3:160 178 (p. 2697). W hat is
the Baron’s attitude towards Belinda? How should she respond
to this?
VIII. Of course, the rest of the poem pursues precisely the
question of how Belinda should respond, and I want to look at
some of the possibilities:
a. Thalestris’s first speech, 4:95-120 (pp. 2699-2700).

b. Belinda’s response, 4:147-176 (p. 2701).
c. Clarissa’s cynicism, 4:9-34 (p. 2702), and Belinda’s
response: she “frowned,” 4:35-36 (p. 2702).
d. The battle: a party as power? 4:57-71 (pp. 2702-2703)
e. Loss as gain? The disappearance of the lock, 4:103-112,123-
130 (pp. 2703-2704); and the conclusion, 4:141-150 (p. 2704).
English 2202 Lecture Notes on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
I. Begin by talking about allegory explain that allegory is a
dramatization or enactment of abstract ideas in which characters
and situations have a one to one correspondence with the ideas
that they are supposed to represent. It was, by the time Bunyan
wrote, considered a naive or uncultured form of writing, since
its primary purpose is a kind of translation of the abstract into
the experiential presumably, the contempt for allegory comes
from a belief that it is designed for those who are unable to
understand abstract ideas, and indeed, Pilgrim’s Progress was
enormously influential among working class families during the
18th and 19th Centuries. But the work does more than offer
instruction on religious faith for the uneducated it also
provides a critique of the very social hierarchy which writers
such as Dryden were so concerned to defend, and it does this
precisely because it translates the comfortable abstractions of
Christian piety into concrete experiences, and by doing this
shows how those experiences themselves might be transformed
by Christian faith. Thus, in Bunyan’s hands, allegory becomes a
powerful weapon for challenging the social complacency which
Dryden seems to assume what the progress of Pilgrim through
the world shows is the inadequacy of the world to what he

believes, and while (unlike, say Milton) Bunyan believe that
such inadequacy is finally redeemed only in an afterlife, the
work still provided a tool by which working class people might
articulate their own dissatisfaction with the very society which
Dryden and Pope so confidently celebrate. Finally, it is worth
noting that the contempt of much of subsequent British literary
history for Bunyan (the philosopher David Hume wrote
confidently that the essayists Addison and Steele would be read
long after Bunyan was forgotten) is revelatory of how literary
work devoted to the interests of the masses is regarded Dryden
is “serious” and Bunyan is not because Dryden writes for an
educated elite which in part defines what counts as serious.
II. Bunyan’s view of Christianity can cause discomfort, which is
in many ways what he intends. But such discomfort does not
justify the response that he isn’t “really” a Christian, or that
there is some “genuine” Christianity that he fails to understand.
Bunyan is offering an argument, anchored in Protestant and
Puritan theology, about the form that he thinks Christian faith
should take, and while his views may seem extreme, they are
just as “Christian” as any other Christian denomination. From
the perspective of academic study, there just isn’t anything like
a real “Christianity” which can be used to judge whether
particular expressions of Christian faith are to be seen as
genuinely Christian. Rather, the purpose of academic study is to
understand something on its own terms, and also in its relation
to both what it might challenge, and what might challenge it.
And in such study, your own beliefs about what is or is not
really true are simply irrelevant.
II. In turning to Pilgrim’s Progress, what I would like to do is
look closely at three episodes:
1. Christian’s revelation.
a. Let’s start with the initial description of Pilgrim’s distress,
p.2270A. Note the emphasis on the internal definition of

Pilgrim his distress is private and note the consequence of
this for how he is regarded.
b. The reactions first of his family (2270B, 2271A) and
Christian’s reactions to these reactions (2271B,C), and then of
his “neighbors”(2272A).
c. Christian seeks “an inheritance incorruptible”(2272B).
2. Vanity Fair
a. Now, let’s examine the account of social experience in the
description of Vanity Fair, pp. 2274-2275. Note the merging of
commerce and evil, p. 2274. Then look at the inability of those
caught up in this commercial world to understand the pilgrims,
pp. 2275. Note how the violence of their reaction points to the
impossibility of this world acknowledging what true faith
demands..
b. The pilgrims are put on trial, 2275B-2276; note that in the
book, most of them are put to death.
3. Heaven
a. Finally, look at how heaven itself is described when Christian
finally arrives (pp. 2277-2278), focusing on Bunyan’s refusal to
allow heaven to be seen as having any connection to a worldly
sense of pleasure or purpose – what eternal life seems to allow
(or demand) is a perpetual worship of God (the Talking Heads:
“Heaven is a place/where nothing, nothing ever happens” and
“It’s hard to imagine/that nothing at all/could be so
exciting/could be this much fun.” ).
English 2202
Lecture Notes on Gulliver’s Travels, Part IV
I. I want to start by offering a little background to Gulliver’s

Travels. As you know, the 17th and 18th Centuries witnessed
the “discovery” by Europe of the rest of the world, and this
“discovery” had a profound impact on the self assuredness of
European thought. Basically, what the discovery of other
cultures forced upon Europe was an awareness that the values of
European civilization (most obviously the values of
Christianity) were not the sole ways by which humans had made
sense of their experience. During the period, a popular genre of
literature was the travelogue which recounted the traveler’s
experience of “alien” cultures, and focused on the conflict
between the traveler’s beliefs and the beliefs he found in the
cultures he visited. Some travelogues insisted on the equality or
even the superiority of the alien cultures they described; others
ridiculed these cultures, and claimed that the failings of foreign
cultures confirmed the perfection of Christianity. But what is
common to all these works is an awareness that the existence of
a variety of cultures makes it impossible to simply assume the
superiority of European culture. So the central theme of the
travelogue is finally human nature how various cultures have
understood human nature, and how to judge from among
competing understandings of what human nature is. There is one
further aspect of the travelogues that should be mentioned its
role in legitimizing imperialism. Insofar as travelogues
portrayed other cultures as inferior or savage, an excuse was
provided for subjecting those cultures to European rule. An
obvious corollary is that if travelogues presented European
cultures as somehow inferior to the cultures that they sought to
colonize, then that colonization would itself be seen as less
legitimate, less morally defensible.
II. Gulliver’s Travels is clearly intended as a satire on the
travelogue a satire on the idea that European culture can or
should understand itself in relation to other cultures. The
problem, for Swift, with the travelogue seems to be that the
travelogue is founded on what is finally a dubious idea the
idea that we can observe other cultures without the frame of our

own beliefs, that we can see other cultures objectively. What
Swift shows us in Gulliver’s Travels is what happens to a
character who sees things completely objectively in the sense
that he seems to have no beliefs or values which are the basis of
his judgments. In this sense Gulliver is gullible completely
taken in by whatever he sees or experiences. Most critics would
agree with this characterization of Gulliver’s Travels as a satire,
in part, on the character of Gulliver. But there is no agreement
among critics about what the purpose of this satire is. Is it to
show Gulliver’s inferiority to the values he experiences
particularly the values of the rational Houyhnhnms’s? Or is it to
show how his own lack of values leaves him unable to judge
what he experiences? In either case, Gulliver’s Travels is
deeply critical of Swift’s society the difference between the
two interpretations is that in the first, Swift seems to imply that
humans are intrinsically worthless, while in the second, the idea
would be that individuals such as Gulliver (who is in a sense,
for Swift, a typical “modern man”) pose a danger to the
Christian values in which Swift himself believed. We’ll keep
both of these possibilities in mind as we examine Gulliver’s
Travels.
III. Let’s begin with the initial description of Gulliver, p. 2587.
What sort of person does he seem to be from this? What
motivates him? What does he value?
IV. Now let’s look at what happens when he is set ashore
examine the encounter with the Yahoos:
pp. 2588-2589 His description of the Yahoos.
p.2589A His response when a Yahoo holds out his hand.
p. 2589B, 2590 The first meeting with the Houyhnhnms.
Emphasize how his reactions seem divided between violence
towards that which is beneath him, and incredulity at that which
he cannot understand.

V. Now that we have some sense of Gulliver’s character, I want
to look at the society of the Houyhnhnms. Start by asking them
to volunteer some of the qualities (in particular rationality) that
characterize the Houyhnhnms. Then look at some passages that
illustrate this:
a. Start with Gulliver’s learning their language: he’s introduced
to the concept of “the thing which was not”(p. 2595), a phrase
that he will go on to use with no apparent sense of irony(p.
2598). Then look at the description of the purpose of language,
p. 2598.
b. Description of the differences among the horses, p. 2608.
(Talk about the statement that it would be “unnatural” if the
differences in rank were violated.)
c. The virtues of the horses include their rationality (p. 2615A)
and their “friendship and benevolence.”(p. 2615C) They don’t
understand the meaning of the word “opinion” (p. 2615C).
d. Their rearing of offspring and their “marriages” are the result
of rational calculation, pp. 2615D-2617. Look in particular at
the concluding description here of the “regulation of
children”(pp. 2616B-2617), which makes clear that for the
Houyhnhnms, raising their offspring is governed by their
general understanding of rationality rather than any particular
affection
f. The horses have no “letters” – their knowledge is
“traditional,” p. 2618C.
g. A description of what a “conversation” among the horses is
like, p. 2621.
VI. Now look at Gulliver’s account of poverty in his own land,

pp. 2605-2606. What are we supposed to make of this? Are we
meant to share Gulliver’s irony? (Probably note how the claim
that Gulliver is merely gullible minimizes the radicalism of
what Gulliver says here.)
VII. Now turn to the debate over whether Yahoos should be
exterminated (p. 2617), which ends with accepting Gulliver’s
notion that castration works to control a population (p. 2618A).
(Gulliver only learns later that he will be targeted for
castration, p. 2618B.) Does this change our sense of the
superiority of this culture?
VIII. Finally, emphasize the effect of all of this on Gulliver,
focusing in particular on the bleak view of human nature with
which we are left.
p. 2620 Gulliver’s life with the Houyhnhnms.
pp. 2621-2622 Gulliver believes he can now see humans “as
they really were.”
pp. 2628-2629 Reactions to his family when he returns home
pp. 2631-2632 A brutal description of the reality of
colonialism, followed by irony (but would it be recognized as
such?) about England as a colonizer.
English 2202
Lecture Notes on Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”
I. Swift took orders in the Anglican Church in 1694, and he was
named dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin in 1713. For
many years he worked, anxiously and unsuccessfully, to secure
himself a permanent appointment in England; during this period

he considered his life in Ireland a kind of exile. Swift's Ireland
was a country that had been effectively controlled by England
for nearly 500 years. The Stuarts had established a Protestant
governing aristocracy amid the country's relatively poor
Catholic population. Denied union with England in 1707 (when
Scotland was granted it), Ireland continued to suffer under
English trade restrictions and found the authority of its own
Parliament in Dublin severely limited. Swift had himself made a
variety of proposals for lessening the suffering of the Irish,
none of which seems to have had any effect. (Many of these
proposals are included in the list of alternative “expedients”
that Swift says must be dismissed in “A Modest Proposal”[48].)
II. There is a logical structure to “A Modest Proposal,” which I
think can be glimpsed if we break the essay into seven sections:
1. (44-45) A grimly serious description of the effect of poverty
on the people of Ireland; however, the grimness is undermined
by the satirical use of statistical and economic language.
2. (45-46) The solution? To cook children (and Swift assures us
they will be tasty).
3. (46-47) A “digression,” that explains why of the idea that
“young lads and maidens” between twelve and fourteen might
also be made available as food. Why reject this idea? Because it
is “a little bordering on cruelty.”
4. (47-48) A list of six “advantages” Swift’s proposal offers:
1. It would “lessen the number of Papists.”

2. It would give the “poorer tenants…something valuable of
their own.”
3. It will increase the “nation’s stock,” as well as adding the
“profit of a new dish.”
4. The “constant breeders” of infants don’t have to pay any
money for “maintaining them” after their first birthday.
5. It will greatly benefit “taverns.”
6. It will be a “great inducement to marriage.”
5. (48) A paragraph listing other possible “advantages,” that are
dismissed because they are “studious of brevity.”
6. (48) A paragraph dismissing alternative proposals, many of
which were ones Swift had actually made.
7. (48-49) The conclusion, repeating some of the “arguments,”
challenging “politicians” to explain to “the parents of these
mortals” why they would oppose such a pathway out of their
misery, and ending with a denial that he has any “personal
interest” in the proposal: his own children are too old for him
“to get a single penny.”
English 2202

Lecture Notes on Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” and
Montagu’s “The Dean’s Provocation for Writing the Dressing
Room”
I. My only general comment is that neither of these poems fits
any narrowly conceived notion of gender. Swift’s poem is too
complicated to be seen as needing to be judged (as some critics
have suggested) as either “realism” or “woman hating.” Neither
of these judgments can acknowledge the centrality of pleasure
in the poem’s account of what Strephon discovers, nor can
either address the function of the conclusion of the poem, which
seeks to bracket Strephon’s voyeurism by seeing it as something
to be judged. (There is a continuing tension in the poem
between the language that’s used to describe the various things
that Strephon “discovers,” and the speaker’s continued
insistence that Strephon is repulsed by each of his discoveries.)
Similarly, Montagu’s rejoinder doesn’t simply “counterattack”
by seeing “bodily functions” as “personal fixation or frustrated
desire” (I’m quoting here from the introduction to the poem in
the Norton Anthology). It also, and more importantly, refuses to
accede to the framework at the end of Swift’s poem – refuses,
that is, to accede to the notion that erotic desire should either be
based on some idealized notion of what Swift calls
(mockingly?) “the charms of womankind”(l.130),or should
instead locate itself within the gross physicality that Strephon
discovers, and, I would argue, covertly desires. This dichotomy,
which has certainly been central to how women have been
understood within patriarchy, is shown by Montagu to be both
reductive and absurd – reductive because it defines women
exclusively in terms that emerge from male desire, and absurd
because it ignores the male desire that lies behind such a
characterization of women.

II. Passages in Swift:
ll. 1-18 Initial description of Strephon as a “rogue” in taking
such an “inventory.”
ll. 37-42 The “basin” is “fouled” by her spit.
ll. 43-47 “No object Strephon’s eye escapes” (47).
ll. 62-68 Fantasizing how Celia must pick her nose – it takes a
moment to realize that this is fantasy, not an actual account of
an object.
ll. 89-118 Lifting up the lid of Celia’s toilet leads to the
horrified recognition: “Celia shits.”
ll. 119-122 Strephon is “punished” for his “peeping” – his “foul
imagination.”
ll. 129-143 Strephon is to be pitied for being “blind/To all the
charms of womankind.”
III. Passages in Montagu:
ll. 1-14 Describing Swift’s own self-presentation as a kind of
warped idealization of male charm.
ll. 15-20 Jenny reminds him that it’s all about the money. Note
that the use of the word “come” has the same reference to
orgasm that contemporary usage would have.
ll. 21-30 Swift is described as offering money (which “the
Lady” accepts) in a “paradise of thought”(22).
ll. 31-63 “Morals” requires a “small digression.” The digression
I think is best seen as a parody, or at least a scathingly ironic

summary, of Pope’s arguments in “An Essay on Man.”
ll. 63-78 Impotence (he “tries – and tries”[69]) leads Swift to
attack her body as disgusting, but Montagu’s focus is not on any
particular aspect of the body as intrinsically repulsive – rather,
her interest is in how impotence transforms what was erotic into
something that is disgusting.
ll. 79-81 The “nymph” attacks his age(80) and tells him to
leave.
ll. 81-83 He demands that she return his money.
ll. 84-95 She says that the money has been locked away, and
ridicules his impotence, connecting his failure at sex with what
she says is the failure of his poetry to sell. Note in particular
the brilliant (but unstated) rhyming of “luck in” with fucking.
ll. 96-99 He threatens to get revenge by writing a poem about
her dressing room (which is obviously meant as a reference to
“The Lady’s Dressing Room”) which will cause “the very Irish
[not to] come”(99) .
ll. 100-101 She responds by thanking him for offering to write
such a poem because it will “furnish paper when I shite”(101).
English 2202 Lecture Notes on Mary Astell’s “Some
Reflections on Marriage”
I. The central question in the selections from each of these
writers is what we might call the fate of women within the
social codes dominant in the 18th Century. Each of the
selections you have read (or will read) suggests both that the
way that women are defined serves primarily the interests of
men, and that there are important dimensions of women’s

experience that are denied within the dominant definition. But
what is perhaps more important is that these writers disagree in
fundamental ways about what is wrong with what came to be
called patriarchy, and thus disagree about how patriarchy might
be challenged. Generalizing much too loosely (but still with
reasonable accuracy) the disagreement is whether women should
be understood as being in significant ways indistinguishable
from men, or rather whether they should be understood as being
fundamentally different from men.
II. The first position is central to how women are portrayed in
Montagu, and, in less obvious ways, in Leapor; the second
position underlies everything Astell says about marriage. To put
this in far too simply or programmatically, Montagu and Leapor
think that restrictions on the lives of women have barred them
from doing what men are encouraged to do, which is to have
one’s life defined by one’s desires and interests, whatever they
might be. On the other hand Astell thinks that restrictions on
the lives of women have barred them from having what is
unique to their own identity as women allowed to be the real
basis of their lives.
III. In Astell’s “Some Reflections Upon Marriage” the central
question is obviously whether marriage can offer women
fulfillment. Focus on how “reason” is contrasted to the object-
like status women have in marriage.
pp. 2421-2422A Marrying for love or for money are the same –
in each case the man’s motive is his “irregular appetites.”
p. 2422B Defining “true wit,” as opposed to “that which
nowadays passes under the name of wit.” Her point here seems
to be that the “wit” which might make a woman attractive to a
man has nothing to do with “true wit.”
p. 2422C Regardless of whether the love is of beauty or of

“wit,” it will not last.
p. 2422D A woman “can’t properly be said to choose.”
p. 2423A A savagely ironic account of how women who are
“allowed to improve themselves” might then teach men to use
their “immortal minds” for goodness, rather than the “pursuit of
irregular appetites and unreasonable desires.”
p. 2424A For women, the fact that marriage as Astell describes
it might lead to the end of the human race is irrelevant, because
their destiny was never this world.
English 2202
Lecture Notes on Mary Montagu’s “The Lover: A Ballad”
I. Mary Montagu’s poetry can be seen as an utter rejection of
Mary Astell’s notion that women should be understood as
fundamentally different than men because, rather than being
driven by “irregular appetites” and “irrational desires,” they
have a capacity to know and thus be defined by Christian
notions of spiritual purity. For Montagu, the primary difference
between men and women seems to be that men get to act on
their desires and women don’t, in large part because of the
success of what came to be called patriarchy in denying that
desire was in any significant way a part of the lives of women.
Montagu sees that one of the ways that patriarchy makes its
view of women seem to be a simple truth of human nature is
through the portrayal of women in literary culture, and many of
her poems seek to disrupt that culture by portraying women as
having a capacity not just to refuse to accept the terms by which
they are understood in writing by men, but also to show what
the patriarchal understanding of women reveals about male
desire.

II. In her response to Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room,”
Montagu is devastating in her insistence that Swift’s description
of women is based on his own fear of what acknowledging the
desires of a woman might do to his own sense of himself. For
Montagu, Swift’s narcissism collapses once a woman refuses to
accept the role that his desires would require of her. In “The
Lover: A Ballad” Montagu’s target is also how the identity of
women is structured in poems that express male desire (whether
overtly or covertly seems irrelevant here), but her goal is less to
expose and ridicule male desire than it is to describe (and make
desirable) an account of erotic love in which men and women
are free to act upon their desires, while also recognizing their
obligations to the desires of those they desire. In the traditional
(male) love poem, the goal of the speaker (the lover) was to
persuade the beloved to abandon her resistance to his desire,
and the assumption was always that this resistance was based
upon some failure of the beloved to recognize that her fears
were, in some sense, delusional or self-destructive. Montagu’s
rejoinder to this is that women reject men (the beloved resists
the lover) not because of a fear of male desire, but because of
the utter inadequacy of male desire, if it defines itself in terms
of overcoming the resistance of the beloved, to offer anything
like a satisfying erotic relationship.
III. Thus, Montagu’s goal in “The Lover: A Ballad” is both to
reject the traditional account in love poetry of why the lover
resists the beloved, but also to describe the kinds of eroticism
and intimacy that would become possible if she met a would-be
lover who didn’t produce resistance on her part by seeing her
exclusively in terms of his own desire.
English 2202 Lecture Notes on Mary Leapor’s “An Essay on
Woman”
I. Leapor’s “An Essay on Woman” is in substantial agreement

with Astell on how women are victimized by the roles that they
are expected to play, and also on the scorn which an educated
woman must face. But there seems no agreement about the
solution to this oppression. Where Astell sees in Christian faith
a source of meaning that might preserve women from what men
would make of them, Leapor instead limits herself to the hope
for “a friend to please,” but without any clear sense of either
what pleasing might be, or any confidence that such pleasing
might somehow by the basis, or at least the starting point, of a
satisfying life. In this sense, “An Essay on Woman” seems
deeply, even disturbingly pessimistic – ultimately, the
emotional intensity that makes her poetry seem more modern
than any of her contemporaries emerges not from an imagining
of a life free of constraint or oppression, but rather from her
engagement of constraint and oppression. What I am suggesting
is that Leapor seems to need the social conditions she so
mercilessly exposes as a condition of her own capacity for
imaginative expression.
II. It’s supposed to be significant that Leapor was born poor and
died young, never seeing any of her poems actually appear in
print. She was encouraged (and seems to have been given
support) by Bridget Freemantle, the daughter of a rector who
lived near her. These two facts – her poverty and her having
found support from a somewhat more affluent woman – seem to
demand that we read her poetry in terms of her poverty or her
finding support only in relation to another woman. The problem,
though, with such a reading is that it risks reducing her poetry
to nothing more than a confirmation of our own political pieties,
and thus loses the chance to engage ways in which her poetry
might challenge, or at least disturb, our own certainties.
a. (ll. 1-5) The only real worth women offer to men is “wealth.”
b. (ll. 22-25) Beauty becomes tiresome to men.

c. (ll. 27-37) A savage attack on how women with “wit” are
regarded.
d. (ll. 40-47) The fate of women who strive to become a “brisk
companion” of their husbands.
e. (ll. 49-52) Rather than wealth, what Leapor wants is warmth
and a “friend to please.”
f. (ll. 53-60) Regardless of the particular shape her life may
take, women are nothing “but a slave at large.”
English 2202 Lecture Notes on Gray’s “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard”
I. The poetry we have read so far the poetry of Dryden and
Pope, at least is similar in its rejection of particular experience
as a proper subject matter for poetry. Rather, these poets
believe that the subject matter of poetry should be derived from
experiences which are sufficiently general to allow every reader
to have access to them. Similarly, Dryden and Pope believe that
the values which poetry expresses should be universal in the
sense that they are values which, presumably, no one could
doubt. Finally, these poets agree that such values are to be
found in the beliefs and experiences of a social elite what
poetry expresses, then, is what is valued by a cultural and social
elite, and such value is universal because these poets cannot
imagine that any alternative kind of value could be defended.
II. In the second half of the 18th Century, however, a different
kind of poetry begins to emerge in what are called the poets of
“sensibility.” Writers such as Gray, Smart, and Goldsmith
turned from the idea of poetry as an imitation of what is
universally valued, and instead wrote poetry which originates in
the expression of feeling of sensibility. (It is not at all clear

whether this was in any way a conscious or deliberate change –
unlike a writer such as Bunyan, Gray, Smart, and Goldsmith
were part of the same cultural elite that earlier had included
Dryden and Pope.) This change, which will culminate in
Romanticism, involves both a change in subject matter, and a
change in style. Increasingly, the subject matter of poetry will
come from either the natural world, or commonplace
experience, and the poem will focus on the poet’s responses to
what he is experiencing. The style of poetry changes similarly,
from the highly artificial verse of Pope or the abstractness of
Samuel Johnson to a much more direct or imaginative use of
language where Johnson or Pope ask us to wonder, “what is
the meaning of this?,” the poetry which emerges in this period
instead seems to ask, “What would it mean to see something in
this way?” The difference is finally between the attempt of, say,
Johnson and Pope, to portray the truth, and the attempt of later
writers to express a way of seeing things.
III. With this in mind let’s now consider Gray’s “Elegy Written
in a Country Churchyard.” Begin by focusing on the subject
matter a speaker recounting a visit to a cemetery in a
churchyard, and trying to imagine what value might have been
found in the lives of those who are buried there. Crucially, in
pursuing this question, Gray deliberately draws a contrast
between our customary ways of finding value, the assumption
being that we can genuinely respond to those who are buried in
the churchyard only if we shed our normal understanding of
what makes a life meaningful.
IV. Stanzas 1 3 (ll.1 12) describe the church yard look at the
emphasis on “me” in the first stanza.
V. Stanzas 4 7 (ll.13 28) try to imagine the lives of those who
are dead, focusing on the simplicity of their lives. Look at how
the details of ll.21 24 create a sense of what has been lost.

VI. Stanzas 7 16 (ll.29 64) draws a contrast between the
simplicity of the lives the speaker imagines, and the heroic
abstractions which we normally use to describe value. Look at
how “Ambition” “Grandeur” and so on are exposed as empty in
the face of death note how death is first leveling (ll.41 44),
and then finally allows a reversal of what we value in the
description of Milton and Cromwell (ll.59 60).
VII. Stanzas 17 24 (ll.65 96) examine what is of value here.
Note the contrast to the “slaughter”(l.67) which governs history,
and the praise of simple emotion (ll.89 92).
VIII. Stanzas 25 29 (ll.97 116), the song of the “swain,”
continue the praise of simplicity. Note the insistence on
personal loss as the most important value, ll.105 116.
VIII. Finally, the concluding three stanzas offer an epitaph
which specifies the kind of value the speaker has found note
the contrast to the abstractions earlier in the poem.
English 2202
Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village”
I. Obviously, “The Deserted Village” is quite similar to Gray’s
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” each of the poems
offers an idealization of country life, and draws a contrast
between the simple virtues of the poor and the corruption of the
wealthy. But while Gray writes as if the only difficulty the poor
face is their lack of recognition, Goldsmith instead describes
what amounts to an assault on the very people he praises in his
poem, the rich are contemptible not merely because they are
morally inferior to the poor, but also because their actions are
producing the destruction of the poor themselves. One of the
central social events of the period is what is called the

“enclosures” a process by which lands held in common for
villagers to raise cattle and food for their own use (most
villagers would also work in some way for the local nobility)
were being enclosed for private use. The consequence of this
was devastating people were no longer able to support
themselves in traditional ways, and were forced to sell their
labor time to make a living, either by working on the newly
enclosed farms, by moving to cities to seek work in various
industrial concerns, or by emigrating, most often to America.
Thus, while both Gray and Goldsmith idealize the poor in ways
that we should perhaps be suspicious of, Goldsmith also
provides an account of real social experience which makes us
aware of suffering that exists, in a sense, independently of
whether the poor are really as perfect as they are described.
II. 1. The opening section of the poem (ll.1 34), offers an
account of the “charms” of the village, emphasizing the
pleasure they offered to the speaker. Look at ll.7 16, and note
how the beginning risks making the whole experience a sort of
aesthetic object.
2. The next section, ll.35 74, insists not merely that the charms
which have been described have “fled,” but that what has cause
them to disappear is “trade” look at ll. 63 65, ll. 71 74 for
what Trade has done.
3. Next, ll. 75 136, we get a further description of what has
been lost, emphasizing the defeat of the speaker’s hopes, ll.97
99, and ll. 113 116. Emphasize here the problem of finding out
whether the speaker regrets what has been done to the poor, or
rather his own sense of loss.
4. In ll.136 250, we are offered the descriptions of the village
preacher and schoolmaster. The emphasis here is on a kind of
natural piety each of these men do what is right without much
concern for personal gain. The central idea here seems to be of

a community which is joined together by decency and simple
faith. The conclusion of this section, ll.225 250, lists details
from country life which include lust and drinking (l.232, 249
250), and the idea seems to be that because of the piety
represented by the preacher and teacher, a full array of life
becomes permissible without becoming corrupt.
4. The following section, ll.251 302, returns to the theme of
what has caused the suffering, offering a scathing account of
luxury, ll.259 264, and an attack on enclosure, ll. 275 280.
5. In ll.303 384, the fate of the poor is described they will
either suffer in the city (ll.309 312), or emigrate to barbaric
America, ll.341 360.
6. Finally, in the conclusion (ll.385 end), the speaker once more
attacks luxury, and ends with a defense of poetry (ll.407 430) as
that which allows injustice to be exposed.
English 2202
Lecture Notes on Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience
I. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience are intended to
show, as Blake explains on the title page, the “two contrary
states of the human soul.” The idea here is that we can
understand the world in two very opposed ways we can see the
world as a place of innocent unity with what we experience, or
we can see the world as a place where what is most important is
our own relation to it. This is complicated enough, but for Blake
this gets more complicated by the fact that “innocence” and
“experience” denote not merely attitudes towards the world, but
also ways of shaping or forming the world. We can he says,
shape ourselves and society as if innocence were true, or as if
experience were true, and what he wants to show in these poems
is a sense of what happens as we do this.

II. In order to get a sense of the differences between Innocence
and Experience, let’s look at the two “Holy Thursdays,” (pp. 7,
13) which recount the same experience from very different
perspectives. Begin with Innocence, and look at both the
experience, and the perspective of the speaker how does seeing
the children as innocent help the speaker? What does that
perspective leave out? Now look at the “Holy Thursday” of
Experience – note how now, the speaker seems to be the poet
himself, and note how the sense of the event itself changes.
From this perspective, innocence is a delusion, and experience
becomes the occasion for confronting the world as it is.
III. But the world as it is can also be frightening, in part
because the world of experience denies the unselfconscious
unity of innocence. In experience, we become aware of both a
sense of self, and a sense of desire, and both of these threaten to
separate us forever from others. The situation produces fear,
and for Blake, such fear is where religious codes originate
religion tells us desire is bad so that we don’t have to face it,
but for Blake, such a denial of desire is inseparable from death.
These issues are, of course, the central theme of the poem I now
want to look at, “The Garden of Love”(p. 19). Focus on the
character of the speaker what does he experience? What is his
reaction? Note how experience both forces upon us awareness,
but also offers us the possibility of using this awareness to
question what we see.
IV. In “The Garden of Love,” we can see that Blake believes
that desire is repressed or denied in experience by orthodox
religion, and we saw that he thinks the consequence of such
denial is that the world becomes a kind of death. In “The Sick
Rose,”(p. 16) we can see this same issue developed, although
here the subject is what happens to sexual desire if it is seen as

evil. Focus on how the poem shows that for both the rose and
the worm, sexuality is both tumultuous and secretive
something to be denied, or experienced illicitly.
V. While in many of the poems in Songs of Experience, Blake
presents a world of poverty and suffering ruled by hypocrisy, in
a number of other poems, he suggests both what causes us to
accepts such an awful world, and how we might be freed. Begin
with “London,”(p. 19) and focus on how the speaker’s authority
comes from his not having “Mind forg’d manacles.” The look at
“The Tyger,”(pp. 17-18) and begin by talking about Blake’s
view of Christianity what he rejects is the sort of denying
hypocrisy we can see in poems such as “Holy Thursday” in
Innocence, and the “Garden of Love.” Instead, Blake believes
that Christianity is a triumph of imaginative power, making
possible a glimpse of a world not chained by rational
abstraction and natural forces. Blake believes that evil and
suffering are, in a sense, a failure of imagination, and in “The
Tyger,” he suggests the kinds of energies that might come from
perceiving the world imaginatively from perceiving the world,
that is, in terms of the power and glory that Christianity might
offer rather than in terms of repression and denial. In the poem,
focus on what the questions are looking for; look in particular
how “fearful symmetry” comes to seem both something that is
there, and that must be discovered
VI. I now want to summarize the issues which seem important
in understanding Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.
a. Innocence as unselfconscious unity; also as a kind of false
paradise – in “Holy Thursday,” for example, innocence is used
as excuse to ignore the reality of poverty.
b. Experience begins with the discovery of self, with an
awareness of the power and necessity of choice. Blake explores
a number of different ways this awareness can shape experience

– in “The Garden of Love” and “The Sick Rose,” experience is
denied by repressing or denying desire it is as if the loss of
innocence left the world completely evil and frightening. But in
poems such as “Holy Thursday” and “London,” Blake also
suggests that experience can become the occasion for real
understanding the poet/prophet discovers that the world is
created by humans, and this allows the imagination to see
through the denial and illusion which orthodox thought tries to
impose upon experience. In the poems you wrote about in the
study questions, this is clearest in “The Tyger,” where the
speaker asks questions about the sources of power and glory
that are ultimately unanswerable from any perspective that is
external to or separate from the questioner. Blake believes,
finally, that the dilemmas of experience can be addressed only
by a kind of imaginative courage – the courage to accept
responsibility that the world is our own creation, and the
courage to try to change what we have created.
1. How does “The Deserted Village” differ in its subject matter
from poems such as “Mac Flecknoe” and “The Rape of the
Lock”?
2. In “Mac Flecknoe,” Dryden’s primary purpose in writing a
mock-heroic poem about Shadwell is to ridicule him by showing
the absurdity of thinking of him as a hero. How is this different
from Pope’s purpose in writing a mock-heroic poem, “The Rape
of the Lock,” about the events that are described in that poem?
3. How do Montagu and Astell differ in their understanding of
women?
4. Why does Dryden think that Shakespeare’s writing can be
seen as an “imitation of nature”?

5. Why does Ariel stop trying to protect Belinda in the “Rape of
the Lock”?
6. How does Pope characterize Belinda’s preparation to go out
to the party?
7. What does the Baron do to Belinda? Why?
8. What is Clarissa’s advice to Belinda?
9. How does Gulliver react to the first creatures he sees in the
land of the Houyhnhnms? Why?
10. What is the purpose of language according to the
Houyhnhnms?
11. How do the Houyhnhnms change how Gulliver sees human
beings when he returns home?
12. Why does Christian leave his home?
13. How do Christian’s family and neighbors react when
Christian leaves home?
14. What is “Vanity Fair” and why is it seen negatively by
Christian?
15. What does Astell think motivates men in their relationships
to women?
16. Why does Astell think that a woman shouldn’t look to
marriage to find satisfaction?
17. Why does Pope, in “An Essay on Man,” think that humans
should not question their own limitations or imperfections?

18. Why is Strephon shocked by what he discovers in “The
Lady’s Dressing Room”?
19. What does the speaker of “The Lady’s Dressing Room”
think about Strephon’s reactions to what he discovers?
20. Why does Montagu think that Swift wrote “The Lady’s
Dressing Room”?
21. Why do Leapor and Astell think that women are harmed by
“wit”?
22. How do the two versions of “Holy Thursday” differ?
23. What does Blake mean when he says that the rose is “sick”?
24. What is Blake’s view of priests in “The Garden of Love”?
25. What does Swift argue for in “A Modest Proposal,” and why
does he make this argument?

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