Victorian Age

One of my favourite books from the Victorian era is Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, which is about three men taking a rowing boat up the Thames on holiday. It gives a wonderful picture of this popular pastime int he Vicorian age. I would love to be able to see the Thames as it was in those days, crowded with boats of all kinds.

It was a very interesting age. It was a time of enormous change - huge advances in technology, science, and medicine, improvements to the educational system, more legal rights, better education, and career opportunities for women, the beginning of Trade Unionism. It was a time of great writers like Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, Thomas hardy etc. It was the age of the music hall, and the wonderful operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. And of course it was the age of the fascinating Queen Victoria herself. 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem which was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797-1798. It is one of the most striking examples of English Literature. It was written in Romantic Period. Therefore, it has romantic elements. Some of them are nature, strong human emotions, supernatural forces, sin and restoration.the story gives the message that every creature which is created is important and has task for this world. You can not just kill them, and all people can get this message.

The Romantic Period

I think this term is very complex so I only defined The Romantic period.
The Romantic period begins late in the 18th century. Two key themes of romanticism are isolation and idealization of nature. These themes, of course, could have shown up many times before or after, but what made them touchstones of an artistic period was urbanization and industrialization.

See more detail:
http://www.answers.com/topic/romanticism 

A Quotation from Robinson Crusoe

For this week, I want to talk about a quotation of Robinson Crusoe that was given to us to explain in the lesson. This quotation is interesting for me. I will share it.

"As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulf of human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with life and a state of health in the world." 







So Robinson Crusoe was happy  when he left his parents because he'd become independent and embarked on a life of his own. But although this gave him some short-term happiness eventually it led to a great deal of suffering for him. In building his plantation he made a similar mistake. He could have worked hard and built it up slowly but surely but he wanted the fast road to success and tried to develop the plantation faster than it could naturally grow and so it failed. 

The Modest Proposal

I researched the Modest Proposal with details after I had heard it.Swift is considered to be one of the kings of irony in English literature. In the Modest Proposal, Swift suggests that the solution to the Irish potato famine is for people to eat their children. The irony is that it was the British essentially causing the famine by taking what potatoes were harvested away from the Irish people to intentionally starve them - the British were eating potatoes meant for the mouths of Irish little ones. Swift suggests that by eating the children's food, one might as well be eating the children themselves, as the result is the same: dead children. Of course, Swift himself was also secretly Irish, living and working in London. 
To sum up, Jonathon Swift did write A Modest Proposal as a joke, he wanted to draw attention to the critical poverty crisis in Ireland.As for a thesis try something like: Jonathon Swift wrote A Modest Propsal as a way to open the eyes of the people around him for the need to reform the welfare system of Ireland.

MacFlecknoe

When I first read his poet, I had difficulty in understanding. In time, I realized its beauty and admired him.John Dryden disliked the poetry of Thomas Shadwell. Dryden also disliked Shadwell's political beliefs and quite a few of Shadwell's ideas about the function of art in society.In MacFlecknoe Dryden starts by making fun of Thomas Shadwell's poetry, but goes on to make fun of all eighteenth century poetry, and even poetry in general. 
Dryden began with a very high regard for the value of poetry both as entertainment and as a social and political force. He steadily lost faith in poetry's being either useful or honest the more he knew about it. 
To sum up, this poet was quite strange for me in terms of meaning and shape. After Shakespeare, this poets has shocked me but I loved them. I am looking forward to see others.