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Insights into Literary Works: Marvell, Hawthorne, Walker

Explore the historical and biographical approaches in practice in three literary works: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and Alice Walker's "Everyday Use." Gain a deeper understanding of themes, characters, and cultural contexts.

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Insights into Literary Works: Marvell, Hawthorne, Walker

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  1. Week Two • 1. Three literary works • 2. Historical and Biographical Approaches • 3. Shakespeare’s Hamlet

  2. Historical and Biographical Approaches • I. General Observations • II. Historical and Biographical Approaches in Practice • A. “To His Coy Mistress” • D. “Young Goodman Brown” • E. “Everyday Use”

  3. “To His Coy Mistress” • Poet: Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) • Poem • Theme: carpe diem

  4. “To His Coy Mistress” • As in courtly love, the “coy mistress” was treated like a goddess. • Yet later in the poem she was also reminded that she was in fact human with no Greek god’s or Biblical figure’s power to stop time. Therefore she should not waste time and should seize the day. • Marvell was a well educated man and a Puritan. That explains the numerous allusions on Greek mythology, courtly love and the Bible.

  5. Allusions in “To His Coy Mistress” • Bible: 4th BC to conversion of Jews to Christianity / the Flood • Greek mythology: “Time’s winged chariot”/ “slow-chapped power” (cannibalism of Kronos) • Metaphysical conceits: “vegetable love” / lovers roll up into “one ball”/ comparison of worms will violate the mistress’s chastity.

  6. “Young Goodman Brown” • Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) • A short story • Hawthorne’s famous novel: The Scarlet Letter • Film: The scarlet letter “A” stands for adultery • Religion, Calvinism and Witches

  7. “Young Goodman Brown” • Story took place at the days of King William (reigned 1688-1702) • It was written in a Puritan New England (Calvinism) background • Calvinism includes the doctrine of elective salvation; that means people are chosen for heaven or hell even before birth. • Therefore appearance is misleading, an outwardly righteous person can be a damned soul. (As in the story)

  8. Puritan beliefs in “Young Goodman Brown” • Although modern readers may consider the witchcraft and Devil in the story as mere imaginations, Puritans in that time believed them to be real. • “Young Goodman Brown” may be read as an example of Satanism. • Although there is no credible record of Satanism killing, many believed Satanism still exists.

  9. “Everyday Use: for your grandmamma” • Author: Alice Walker (1944- ) • A short story • Received the Pulitzer Prize for 1982 novel The Color Purple • Film: The Color Purple • Racism, Sexism, Lesbians, Sisterhood

  10. “Everyday Use: for your grandmamma” • Set in the 1970s in racially segregated American South. • The narrator of the story was like Alice Walker’s mother: a hardworking and strong woman. • Maggie resembled young Alice Walker: the scar, the shyness and lack of self-esteem.

  11. “Everyday Use: for your grandmamma” • “Everyday Use” took place at a time and place when dramatic changes of racial relationships was happening. (The famous Brown vs. Board of Education case) • Alice Walker is herself a strong civil right activist. • Unlike Alice Walker, the narrator and Maggie in the story didn’t rebel against discrimination and oppression, but tried to find their peace and satisfaction in the status quo. • “Every Use” can be seen as Walker’s tribe to similar women in that time who prevailed by enduring and affirming the best in their troubled heritage.

  12. Historical and Biographical Approaches in Practice: Hamlet • Author: William Shakespeare(1564-1616) • Script dated around 1599-1600 • An immediate success in its time and one of the most staged plays in history

  13. Historical and Biographical Approaches in Practice: Hamlet • Queen Elizabeth’s advanced age and poor health leads to the precarious state of the succession to the British crown. Queen Elizabeth by Nicholas Hilliard (1585)Hatfield House

  14. Hence, Shakespeare’s decision to mount a production of Hamlet, with its usurped throne and internally disordered state, comes as no surprise.

  15. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was a remake of an already popular play, based in turn on an episode from the Dark Ages, the lawless, might-makes-right era that followed the collapse of Roman-era civilization. Ophelia

  16. In the original legend, the prince was still a child when his father was murdered. And he learned of the murder from the beginning. Therefore he had to act insane in order to survive and wait for his revenge. The prince in this version was not a melancholic youth but a model of heroes. The Spanish Tragedy, a predecessor of Hamlet

  17. There is some ground for thinking that Ophelia’s characterization of Hamlet may be intended to suggest the Earl of Essex. The portrait of Earl of Essex

  18. Another contemporary historical figure, the Lord Treasurer, Burghley, has been seen by some in the character of Polonius. The Lord Treasurer, Burghley

  19. Knowing about eleventh-century Danish court life or about Elizabethan England is particularly germane to analysis of Hamlet.

  20. In Hamlet’s day the Danish throne was an elective one. The royal council, composed of the most powerful nobles in the land, named the next king. The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604)

  21. The custom of the throne’s descending to the oldest son of the late monarch had not yet crystallized into law. Hamlet, Gertrude and the ghost

  22. The charge of incest against the Queen • Although her second marriage to the brother of her deceased husband would not be considered incestuous today by many civil and religious codes, it was so to considered in Shakespeare’s day. Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1839

  23. Hamlet’s role in revenge • Modern readers/playgoers may think that one of Hamlet’s flaws is that he took revenge into his own hands and not resort to law. • However, in Shakespeare’s time, Hamlet, the son of a murdered father, and more importantly, the son of an usurped king, was not only the legitimate revenger, it was his duty to take revenge and restore order to Denmark.

  24. What is “melancholy” to Elizabethans? • Nervous instability. • Rapid and extreme changes of feeling and mood. • The disposition to be for the time absorbed in a dominant feeling or mood, whether joyous or depressed. Hamlet and the Gravediggers by Jean Dagnan-Bouverte

  25. If we examine Hamlet’s actions and speeches closely through Elizabethan’s eyes, we will realize that at least part of Hamlet’s problem is that he is a victim of extreme melancholy. Ophelia drowned

  26. Different versions of Hamlet Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet Hamlet in German Hamlet in German The Raj Hamlet Shakespeare set in India

  27. Many Hamlets Mel Gibson, with Glenn Close as Gertrude Laurence Olivier Kenneth Branagh Richard Burton

  28. Ethan Hawke, with Julia Stiles as Ophelia Campbell Scott Kevin Kline, with Dana Ivey as Gertrude Ethan Hawke as Hamlet

  29. Shamlet! 莎姆雷特劇照 莎姆雷特官網 「莎姆雷特」彩排，水晶燈掉落

  30. Related links and resources about Shakespeare and Hamlet • The life of Queen Elizabeth– http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/elizabio.htm • BBC- Drama- 60 seconds Shakespearehttp://0rz.net/e61U6 • 屏風表演班 <<莎姆雷特>> http://www.pingfong.com.tw/shamlet2006/shamlet_02.htm • Kakiseni.com– our Hamlet http://www.kakiseni.com/articles/features/MDYyNA.html • Hamlet in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet

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