15. Discuss, with quotations, examples, and illustrations, the truth of George Eliot's comments on life. 16. Discuss the motivation of the book. 17. Discuss the use of description in Silas Marner. 18. Write an essay on Silas Marner as a picture of life. Discuss its "truth to life" in character, events, dialogue, problems; in the author's comments on life; in ethical vision. 19. What effect, if any, has Silas Marner had upon your ideas and opinions, on your observation of human nature? Be specific in your answer; use illustrations. 20. Write an essay on the evidences of truth, sincerity, and sympathy in Silas Marner. 21. Discuss the influence of the characters on one another in Silas Marner. 22. Which of the characters are typical, in a sense representative of their kind? 23. The following exercise under other books may be adapted to Silas Marner: a. Kidnapped: 2, 7, 9, 12, 17 b. Ivanhoe: 10, 12 (with different illustrations), 13, 14 (with different characters), 15, 18, 21 c. Quentin Durward: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 15 F. The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1. State the theme of this book. Show how the story illustrates the theme. 2. Is the struggle which makes up the plot a moral one or an external one? Explain. 3. Investigate the proportion of narration and description. Why is so much description used? Point out definite scenes or passages which would lose much of their effect if the description were omitted. Are any parts of the book over-described? Write an essay on the use of description in The House of the Seven Gables. 4. Of the six main characters which are the most real? Why? Which, if any, seem a bit machine-made, that is, more the result of the exigencies of the plot than of the complexities of human nature? Do any seem not clearly defined? 5. What are Hawthorne's favorite means of revealing character? Find all the places which are devoted mainly to characterization and see what method predominates. What method does he use least successfully? Explain. Explain in detail the means by which Clifford's character is revealed. Are the characters individualized or typical? 6. Is Hawthorne most interested in the plot, the characters, the setting, or the theme of the story? Explain your answer. In which of these elements do you think the novel had its origin in his mind? 7. Compare this book with one of Hawthorne's short storiesEthan Brand, The Birthmark, Rappaccini's Daughter, The White Old Maid, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Feathertop, or The Great Stone Face. What similarities of style, point of view, subject matter, characterization, and artistic emphasis do you find? In each case is it plot, character, theme, or setting that most interests him? What aspects of human experience seem to occupy his earnest attention? 8. Write an essay on the style of The House of the Seven Gables. Find examples of Hawthorne's fondness for figure of speech. Which figures predominate? Does he use words of poetic suggestion? Make a list of phrases or sentences which seem to you chosen with imaginative insight. Find examples of symbolism. Why does symbolism seem a natural part of Hawthorne's method of treating his subject matter? Can you find symbolism in his short stories? Can you find examples to show that he paints what he sees with loving detail as if he were an artist in miniature? Point out details in his descriptions that prove him to have been a close observer. Find examples of his fondness for moralizing, of his ever-present sense of the moral significance of things. Find examples of irony. Characterize his humor. Is it ever combined with pathos? Has the book any passages of dramatic power? 9. Write an essay on the use of the mysterious and the supernatural in this book. 10. What are the chief methods of creating suspense in this story? Find examples of foreshadowing, of effective chapter endings, of climax, of withheld information. Does the plot warrant the somewhat elaborate atmosphere of mystery which is thrown over it? 11. Write an essay on the use of description in this book to create atmosphere and to reflect mood. Find the descriptive passages which help to create mood. Which of them seem to you most striking? To what extent do the descriptive passages foreshadow and illuminate the action? 12. Notice Hawthorne's fondness for repeating phrases and for piling up emphasis on certain details in order to suggest the underlying significance of what is happening. Compare his method in this with the use of "leit-motifs" in an opera. What significant details about the setting, the facial expressions, or the personal peculiarities of the characters, the symbolic use of certain tangible objects, tones of voice, gait, gesture, etc., are given special emphasis and repeated until the reader realizes that they have an underlying significance? 13. Find examples of Hawthorne's fondness for making the dress of characters suggest their personality. In what does this device resemble his use of other tangible means to suggest intangible ideas and feelings (e. g. Alice's posies, the well, the picture, the harpsichord, the chickens, etc.)? 14. Make a list of the six main characters, and then select from the book the phrases which best describe their outward appearance, the comments which best reveal their inward characters, and the figures of speech which present them most vividly to the reader's imagination. 15. Show how five of the characters are intimately connected with the theme of the story. What part does each have in working it out? 16. What purposes are served by Uncle Venner and by the introduction of the story of Alice Pyncheon? 17. Discuss Holgrave as a satisfactory hero. 18. What characteristics have Phoebe and Hepzibah that make them appealing? Which do you admire the more? 19. Discuss the humor of the book. What passages best illustrate the peculiar quality of Hawthorne's humor? In what ways does his humor resemble his turn of mind in other respects? 20. Discuss the effectiveness and verisimilitude of the dialogue. Compare it with the dialogue in The Rise of Silas Lapham. 21. Select ten passages of author's comment which seem to you true or interesting or both. Explain in your own words what you think they mean and what their application to the story is. Give examples to show their truth or falsity as observations on life in general. 22. What particular things about this book mark it as characteristic of the romantic rather than the realistic point of view? 23. It has been said that Hawthorne put more of himself into this book than into any of his others. If that is true, what sort of man should you imagine Hawthorne to have been? Are there traces of Puritan ancestry, or of New England ways of thought? How does the book indicate a preoccupation with moral questions, especially that of sin and its consequences? What indication is there that the author was a close and loving but retiring observer of life? What shows him to have been somewhat out of touch with the actual world of fact? Are there indications that he was of a sensitive, imaginative nature? that he was a lover of the beautiful? Characterize him as you think he is revealed by his work. G. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens Exercise A under Chapter IV may be used for detailed study of A Tale of Two Cities. Other exercises which may easily be adapted are: Exercises at the end of Chapter IV, B and C: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17 Exercises under Kidnapped: 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Quentin Durward: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18 Silas Marner: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 16, 21, 22 The House of the Seven Gables: 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 21 H. The Idylls of the King, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson The following exercises at the end of Chapter III are especially applicable to The Idylls of the King: Exercise 1 (Substitute for the poem quoted any Idyll) 66 66 66 66 6 (Make similar collections of your own from the Idylls) 7 (Make similar collections of figures of speech from the Idylls) 16 (Choose passages from the Idylls) 1. Find passages in the Idylls which express feelings you yourself have felt. Find passages that could appeal only to a certain class of readers. Find passages that would appeal to any one. How great a range of feeling is there in the poems? How many means of creating feeling? Find examples of mood created through sound, through images, through the power of words, through restraint. 2. Study the Idylls from the point of view of sound alone. Find examples of sound used to create various moods. Is the effect of each one due to the meter, to the combination of vowel and consonant sounds, or both? Find examples of onomatopoeia. Is the onomatopoeia deliberately imitative or suggestive? Read aloud particularly fine examples of tone color. Is the tone color due to rhyme, alliteration, deep toned and open vowels, liquids and sibilants, or to combinations of these devices? 3. Paraphrase these passages from the Idylls carefully, noticing particularly how the thought is carried from line to line. Point out thought divisions. Is the thought expressed directly or through allegory, suggestion, images, or symbols? a. King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: The Passing of Arthur, 408–423 b. King Arthur on the quest for the Grail: The Holy Grail, 869-915 c. Sir Tristram on the vows of the Round Table: The Last Tournament, 650-698 In each case comment on the truth or falsity of the ideas, illustrating by comment or examples from your own experience or the experience of people you know about. 4. Write an essay on Tennyson as an observer and painter of Nature, using the Idylls as examples. You should point out the purposes for which Tennyson introduces nature-pictures into the poems (to create mood, for example), his use of them in similes, the beauty of the pictures in themselves, the evidence that he was a close observer of nature, the aspects of nature in which he was most interested, the value of the pictures to the poems. 5. Write an essay on the ideals of the Idylls. Cite as examples ideals of government, of religion, of chivalry, of courtesy, of obedience, of honor, etc. 6. Write an essay on the Idylls as paintings and tableaux, showing how certain of the scenes have the qualities of color, lighting, grouping, etc., that make up a beautiful painting. 7. Investigate the use which Tennyson made of Malory's Morte D'Arthur. How and why did he change material to suit his needs? What are the chief differences in Tennyson's and Malory's methods of treating the same stories? 8. Discuss the songs in the Idylls. What artistic purpose do they serve? In what are they like one another? Which are best? 9. Analyze the blank verse of the Idylls. Notice the use of endstopped and run-on lines, cesuras, variations from the normal iambic pentameter line, adaptations of meter to subject matter, |