Final Exam Study Guide

English 227: Final Study Guide

Wednesday, March 17th from 11-1pm in HSB-2

For the final, be able to….

1. Define tragedy, and explain why Paradise Lost could be considered a tragedy, citing specific evidence from the text.
2. Explain how the political turmoil of the day (Cromwell, the Restoration) informs Paradise Lost.
3. Indicate some significant events that occurred between 1660 and 1785.
4. Explain what The Royal Society was, and Cavendish’s and Swift’s views of it, as evidenced in their writings.
5. Compare and contrast Swift’s “Stella’s Birthday, 1719” (1180-1181) with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (741), citing similarities/differences in both content and form.
6. Define satire and explain why “A Modest Proposal” OR Gulliver’s Travels is effective satire.
7. Identify one theme in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and show how specific rhetorical devices (alliteration, metaphor, etc.) support this theme.
8. Provide insight into what it might have been like to be a (middle/upper-class) woman in the 18th century, drawing on what you know of the lives of Anne Finch, Lady Montagu, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
9. Summarize the main points of the excerpt you read of Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication.”
10. Describe the historical role Lady Montagu played in eradicating small pox in Britain.
11. Compare and contrast the theme of beauty as it’s developed in Montagu’s “The Small Pox” and Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication.”
12. Be able to compare/contrast two works from the following list – Paradise Lost, New Blazing World, Gulliver’s Travels, or "Essay on Man" – discussing each work’s purpose, and what each work has to say about human nature, given the world it depicts.