English 199
Study Guide for Exam 2

Works to be emphasized
Shakespeare, "That time of year thou mayest in me behold" 1238
Addonizio , "First Poem for You" (920)
Eliot, "Journey of the Magi" (1167-1168)
Wordsworth, "The World is Too Much with Us" (978)
Claude McKay, "America" (1007)
Hamlet
The House of Mirth

Terms

• Poetry terms: You won't be asked specifically about poetry terms, since they were covered on the last test, but you should know, for example, what constitutes a sonnet (both kinds), a rhyme scheme, and so forth. Click here for a list (although it contains more than the terms that we've studied.)
• Anagnorisis/recognition: point in the play during which the tragic hero experiences a kind of self-understanding; the discovery or recognition that leads to the peripeteia or reversal
• Antagonist: the character who opposes the protagonist
• Catharsis: a purgation of emotions. According to Aristotle, the end of tragedy is the purgation of emotions through pity and terror.
• Dramatic irony: the words or acts of a character may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the audience. The irony resides in the contrast between the meaning intended by the speaker and the different significance seen by others.
• Foil: any character in a play who through contrast underscores the distinctive characteristics of another, particularly the protagonist.
• Novel of manners

Concepts (from your notes)

Great chain of being
The humors
Background on Shakespeare and Hamlet
Imagery, themes, and prosody in Hamlet
Background on Edith Wharton
Basic information on critical approaches (from class presentations): Psychological, Deconstructionist, Cultural Studies, Feminist, and Marxist

Potential Questions

1. In what ways do the actions and personalities of secondary characters shed light on Hamlet and on Lily Bart?

2. To what extent is fate or chance responsible for what happens to Lily Bart and Hamlet, and to what extent are they responsible through their own actions, especially their propensity to delay acting in the face of a threat?

3. Compare and contrast Lily Bart with Gertude; in what ways are their situations similar? Or compare Lily with Ophelia: is it accurate to say that each is an innocent sacrificed to a corrupt culture?

4. In The House of Mirth, money is not supposed to be mentioned in polite society, yet the entire society is based on money; in fact, as Wai Chee Dimock points out, the culture is based on an economic exchange in which love, or what passes for love, is a subject for speculation and women are objects to be bought and sold as stocks are on the stock exchange. Write an essay in which you discuss this idea.