Paradise Lost-Frankenstein Exam Review

Poetry:
Be able to identify and briefly discuss the following poems:

-William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”

Terms:
Romanticism

From Paradise Lost

Vocabulary:
invoke (I.13), confound (I.53), impetuous (I.175), guile (I.646), impious (I.686), zenith (I.345), jocund (I.787), tumultuous (IV.16), venial (5), harbinger (13), imp (89), redound (128) ply (201), affront (328), sapient (442), pent (445), credulous (644), concupiscence (1078), impute (1145), facile (1158)

Terms:
Epic poem
Allusion
Invocation
Epic simile
Blank verse

Passages for identification:
• I.1-16: “Of man’s first disobedience . . . unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”

• I.635-42: “For me be witness . . . tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.”

• III.45-55: “ever-during dark . . . invisible to mortal sight.”

• IV.32-41: “O thou that with surpassing glory . . . heaven’s matchless king.”

• IV.744-57: “Whatever hypocrites austerely talk . . . first were known.”

• IX.114-28: “With what delight . . . worse to me redound.”

• IX.322-41: “If this be our condition . . . no Eden thus exposed.”

• IX.602-12: “Thenceforth to speculations . . . universal dame.”

• IX.811-25: “And I perhaps am secret . . . inferior who is free?”

• IX.1022-33: “Much pleasure we have lost . . . virtuous tree.”


From Frankenstein

Vocabulary:
inure (2), poignant (11), indefatigable (14), abstruse (29), precept (31), diffident (44), salubrious (45), obdurate, ignominy (58), efface (62), sublime (64), precipitous (66), slake (71), exhortation (79), scion (84), abject (84), consummation (87), sagacity (93), respite (100), concede (104), abhorred (108), guise (110), sedulous (111), expedite (118), sophism (121), mutable (126), precarious (133), torpor (134), erroneous (136), consternation (137), acme (146), gibe (153)

Terms:
The Sublime
Frame narrative
Tabula rasa
Epistolary novel
Orientalism

Passages for identification:
• P. 2 – “ I imagined that I might also obtain a niche … the channel of their earlier bent”

• P. 12 – “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? … dash the cup from your lips!”

• P.15 – “I was their plaything and their idol … all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me”

• P. 23 – “It was a strong effort of the spirit of good … her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.”

• P. 28 – “So much has been done, exclaimed the soul … the deepest mysteries of creation”

• P. 32 – “I doubted at first whether I should attempt … as complex and wonderful as man”

• P. 33 – “The summer months passed while I was thus engaged … insensible to the charms of nature”

• P. 64 – “The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened … displayed in their most terrific guise”

• P. 68 – “I expected this reception … The blood of your remaining friends”

• P. 69 – “Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent … the only one which man does not grudge”

• P. 92 – “But Paradise Lost excited far deeper emotions … the bitter gall of envy rose within me”

• P. 115 – “His design was to visit India … the execution of his plan”

• P. 116-117 – “But I am a blasted tree … pitiable to others and intolerable to myself”

• P. 138 – “You well know… that our union had been the favorite plan … may not such also be our case?”

• P. 150 – “And I call on you, spirits of the dead … let him feel the despair that now torments me.”


Possible essay questions
You will write one essay, choosing from two of the following. Whichever essay topic you choose, be sure to refer to specific details from the text to support your answer.

1. Mary Shelley uses a passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost as en epigraph to Frankenstein, and Miltonic themes and language appear throughout the novel. In a brief essay, explore some of the ways Shelley uses Paradise Lost in Frankenstein. You may want to consider the creature’s own reading of the epic poem, which profoundly influences his understanding of himself, as well as Shelley’s representations of knowledge (scientific knowledge as well as knowledge of the self and others), good and evil, innocence and experience, ambition, envy, hubris, revenge, and the act of creation.

2. Mary Shelley’s husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was among the first to propose that Satan is in fact the unintended “hero” of Milton’s Paradise Lost—the most dynamic figure in the poem, and the most accessible for a reader to identify with. With Shelley’s suggestion in mind, who, in your view, is the “hero” of Frankenstein: the ambitious, even ingenious scientist and title character, or the spurned “monster” he creates? Keep in mind that both Victor and the creature display a number of “satanic” qualities, and both act in ways that are bound to alienate an audience’s sympathies.

3. Both Paradise Lost and Frankenstein present knowledge as dangerous and potentially fatal. Evaluate Eve’s desire for knowledge in the form of fruit from the forbidden tree and Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit of the “secrets of the universe,” which lead him to create life from dead human matter. In both cases, a character seeks knowledge that is as yet inaccessible to humankind. Is Eve’s desire for knowledge justified? Is Frankenstein’s? Why or why not? Does this desire seem inevitable in one or both cases? Do you identify with one character more than the other in their desire for knowledge, and if so, why? Address the ultimate effect of the quest for knowledge on each character, and whether their fates seem appropriate given their transgressions.