The Fall of Man

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the word and all our woe ...

These are the opening lines of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost which cannot be understood without a working knowledge of the story of the Fall of Man. Not only Milton, but other authors allude to the concept - as do many artists. We sometimes refer to "forbidden fruit."

The narrative is that Eve, partner of Adam in the perfect Garden of Eden, was tempted by Satan, disguised as a serpent, to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Although this was forbidden by God, she persuaded Adam to do the same. From being immortal and without sin, they then became both mortal and sinful, his act being known as Original Sin. It induced shame which led them to cover their genitals with leaves. They were finally banished from the Garden by St. Michael. The fruit is often represented as an apple and the leaves as fig leaves.

I failed to find a verifiable photograph of the Garden and so, here is my impression. St. Michael was not wearing the eponymous underwear of the erstwhile famous brand at the time. Nor a fig leaf.

Satan wanted vengeance on God for hurling him, then an angel, Lucifer, bearer of light, out of heaven down to Hell because he had rebelled. After consultation with the other fallen angels, he decided that the best way was to attack God's newly created humans. His sin was Pride or hubris, the worst of the 7 Deadly sins. (Soldiers in W.W.1 sang of a match as a Lucifer). The council of fallen angels, now devils, in Hell was known as Pandemonium (all the devils) a word we still use today. Pride, as we all know, goes before a fall.

Mankind, instead of being immortal as before, now encountered Death, until given the chance to regain everlasting life by following God's incarnated son, Jesus. In Paradise Regained Milton covered that too. At length. 

These are doubtless great works but the diction is heavily Latinate. Dr. Johnson remarked of Paradise Lost that "none ever wished it longer than it is" and that "the lack of human interest is always felt". Well said, Samuel.

How to structure and write a literature essay

This post will give you a basic structure for a one-hour literature essay on one of your set examination texts. It is: introduction, 3 or 4 main paragraphs, conclusion.

Before you start, repeat to yourself: relevance, relevance, relevance. However brilliant an idea may be, it will gain no marks at all if it does not answer the question exactly as set.

Even if you feel pressed for time, read the question carefully and give it a few minutes' thought before writing anything. Then construct one sentence (or a couple of shorter ones) which answer it directly, You can jot this down on rough paper - if allowed - or it can be the first sentence of your essay, in the introduction.

Let us take the question: Analyse the theme of madness in King Lear. (Search for my separate post on the correct way of punctuating, although you can use quotation marks even for full titles in handwriting). Your overarching sentence for the whole essay might be:

"The theme of madness in King Lear is closely allied to that of folly and is embodied in three characters: King Lear himself, the Fool and Poor Tom. Each is different and has his own language".

You have shown that you can relate madness to other concepts but do NOT go on to write about folly except to mention it briefly. The last sentence shows that you are aware of how a writer achieves his effects. Showing how will gain you top grades. 

Fortunately, the structure of paragraphs is there: one for each character.  A paragraph must have a key sentence: "The Fool's apparent madness contains sharp wisdom about the folly of Lear's actions because he is licensed to say what others dare not". You then expand on that point with a further explanation backed by quotations or close reference, paying attention to his unique manner of expression. If you cannot remember a quotation, do not invent it. The examiner knows the text inside out! Instead quote a word or two and paraphrase. To summarise: each paragraph has a leading key sentence, expansion and examples by quotation or close reference. Do the same for the other characters.

The conclusion can be a round up of what you have said or a new perception - but still relevant. It could be that sane Edgar in the sub-plot is also Poor Tom in the main plot, with his assumed madness. A different point could be that madness is connected to the theme of insight and blindness.

Extra tips: do not use AI to help you to write your homework essays. That bland, impersonal style is instantly recognisable and you will find yourself adopting it. Use the language that you would to a respected older person, not pompous but direct. Never use "upset" or "incredibly" and there is no need to say "I think". If the question seems impossibly difficult, do what you can with it. Schools will complain and the moderators will adjust their marking. 

Good luck and may you get Top Marks!

ONLY - have fun with the Bishop and the bun

 It is vital to place the word only correctly in your sentence. That position is usually just before the word it refers to or qualifies.

To see what i mean, take this simple sentence.

The Bishop gave the baboon a bun.

Now pop the word only before each word in turn.

I know you can do it by yourself - but I want to have fun also.

Only the Bishop gave the baboon a bun.

The only Bishop gave the baboon a bun.

The Bishop only gave the baboon a bun.

It's even more fun reading the sentences aloud. The last one should have a deeply apologetic tone because clearly the baboon had suffered as a result of its treat. Now carry on by yourself.

Note to any teachers reading this: your pupils will love it.

The Great Chain of Being

The concept of a chain of all creation, firmly in place and indisputable was widely upheld in the Middle Ages and through to Shakespeare.

It maintained that there is a rightful hierarchy which must not be broken and it is the exact opposite of our modern egalitarian view of life.

At the top was God and below Him came the angels. Man was next and was considered less spiritual than those above but with a capacity for reason which kept him above the category below him, animals. Plants followed and at the bottom were minerals. 

Within these groups there was also a ladder which makes quite comical reading nowadays when we do not pay attention to the exact position of prawns in a paradigm of life.

Kennings and Homeric epithets

An Anglo-Saxon kenning is a descriptive pfrase which replaces the noun: 

The ship sailed over the whale-road.

A Homeric epithet is an adjectival phrase which adds to the noun:

The ship sailed over the wine-dark sea. It usually has two words: bright-eyed; rosy fingered.

Two words you must not use in a literary essay.

 Upset and incredibly are inappropriate in formal writing. Upset is too colloquial and bland and incredibly means the opposite of what it says. 

Verbal, oral and aural

Strictly, verbal means "in words" and refers to something written whereas oral means spoken. Aural refers to the sense of hearing.

Practical Criticism

This is a method of approaching a text, often a poem, where the reader or student is given no background information about authorship, date or background. The analysis must therefore concentrate on the words on the page and devices used. It has fallen out of fashion recently since its promotion by I. A. Richards in the 1920's but it can be a useful method of ensuring a fresh response to a work.

Tautology and pleonasm

These two terms are similar in meaning as both refer to unnecessary words. Some critics regard them as interchangeable but there is a useful difference.

Tautology refers to the repetition of words with the same meaning: big, huge, large man
Pleonasm occurs when the idea contained in one word is repeated by another: huge giant.
Pleonasm could be seen as a sub-type of tautology. The adjectives are: tautologous and pleonastic
Repetition can be used effectively for emphasis.

Principal and principle

These two words sound alike and so it is only in writing that their endings are confused.
Principal means head or chief and you can see the a in both. You could also think that the Principal of your school will never be your pal.
Principle means a belief and a way of remembering it is to think of asking someone to follow it please where you can see the ple in both.

Affect and effect

These two words are easily confused. In practice you can forget about affect as a noun (the affect) as its usage is largely psychological/medical. This leaves:
affect as a verb meaning "to change": the experience affected his attitude
effect as a verb meaning "to bring about":  she effected an improvement in working conditions
effect as a noun meaning "result": the effect was just what she wanted

The experience of reading a novel

   This post will not give answers or definitions but it will examine what happens when you read a novel. In one sense you enter a contract with the author: s/he has produced a text which you will attempt to enjoy and believe in. Your role can also include filling in, with your imagination, some details which the writer has omitted but care must be taken here. Although in real life there is a possibility of knowing a fact which is not apparent immediately, such as whether or not a neighbour has a mole on his shoulder, we will never find that out about Sherlock Holmes. 

   The issue is one of implication and inference: the author implies and the reader infers according to the clues given. The text is therefore an object to which the reader contributes and, in that way, it is not static. (We often paint in our minds a picture of a character's appearance and are then irritated if an actor in a TV adaptation does not fit that portrait.)

   The text will create a world which the characters inhabit but all we have is the words on the page. From those words we recreate this world so that the text is a link between the author's imagination and our own. Caution is needed when we respond to a character as it is easy to criticise a writer for inconsistency or making a personage do something we feel s/he would not do but this may be the fault of our over-active participation rather than a flaw in the novel.

   It is possible to read on different levels: merely enjoying the narrative or examining the techniques used to achieve the result. Some writers draw attention to their own methods and remind us that we are reading fiction by metanarrative, a distancing device which can, paradoxically, make the work seem more real by insinuating that the characters are out of control since they lead their own lives.

   Reading is a complex activity and your analysis will be deeper if you contemplate the process.

Synonyms and antonyms

Synonyms are words with similar meanings and antonyms are opposites. An easy way to remember is that synonyms and similar both begin with s. You can buy dictionaries of them (e.g. Penguin) and this is a good way of improving your vocabulary but take care. Even words with close approximations differ as to register and function and so it is best to encounter them when reading before using them yourself. There is also the famous Roget's Thesaurus which gives phrases as well and is a fascinating book in its own right but even more liable to lead to errors of style.

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is not a common device but, in its simplest form, can be represented by abba, where each letter stand for a word: silvered leaves, leaves silvered with frost. It may exist in a more extended version with clauses or phrases instead of single words.

The Four Humours

The four humours were part of a theory of personality which used to account for temperament. They were conceived of as fluids which, when present in the correct proportions, produced a sound individual. If one were too predominant, the person would have an excess of that quality. They were:
blood - hot and moist, giving rise to a sanguine outlook, optimistic, sociable and cheerful
yellow bile or choler - hot and dry, promoting a tendency to anger and excitability
phlegm - cold and moist, evident in an unemotional, thoughtful, even sluggish, person
black bile or melancholy - cold and dry in one given to gloom and introversion
It is important to be aware of this hypothesis when reading texts of the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan era as it underlies some of them: for example Hamlet might have been immediately recognised as melancholic without too much need for further explanation.
The idea is not completely dead as we may still refer to a person as sanguine, phlegmatic or choleric

PERSONA

This word, which in Latin means an actor's mask, refers to the personality of the writer within the text. This does not equate with his or her character in life: in The Canterbury Tales Chaucer assumes the persona of an innocent and credulous pilgrim but he was a sophisticated man. Even inside this work he shows himself, as narrator, to be shrewd and critical.

Free verse and blank verse

These terms are often misunderstood:
Free verse has no set rules such as specified length of line or rhyme. The poet and reader must pay attention to such aspects as natural rhythm, effectiveness of having some short and some longer lines and use of unregulated length of stanzas.
Blank verse has no rhyme but does have a formalised line length of five iambs and is therefore in unrhymed iambic pentameters. An iamb is a two-syllable unit with the weak stress first and the heavy stress second as in the word again. A line of blank verse follows the rhythm of five repetitions of this word: again, again, again, again, again. Much of Shakespeare's verse is written in iambic pentameters as are true sonnets.
Sometimes, particularly at the beginning of a line, the first foot may be inverted with the stress on the first syllable. A foot is the name given to each unit when the line is analysed and so an iamb is an example of a foot.

Grammatical mood

This term refers to verbs and the mood of the speaker/writer. Fortunately in English, it is a simple matter and one we do not have to worry about.
The imperative mood is that of commands: Go away!
The indicative mood is the normal one when we tell of what will happen, has happened or is happening: I shall go; I went; I am going. Note that it applies to any tense of the verb.
The subjunctive mood hardly exists in English but, if you learn French, you will have to master it as the mood of uncertainty and emotional input.

Separate and desperate

The spellings of these two words often cause confusion. Perhaps it helps to recall the root of the latter: "spero" meaning "I hope".

Ambiguous and ambivalent

An author may produce an ambiguous piece of writing where the meaning is unclear either unintentionally or with the purpose of conveying two meanings at once.
A reader may respond ambivalently by holding two different views or reactions in mind simultaneously - we might react in this way to Shylock.