MyHumanitiesStudio Exercises


1			Romantic Literature (pp. 329-334) Literature > Style > Simile/Metaphor http://www.mhhe.com/HumanitiesStudio/5/6/4.html Romantic authors generally exalted nature and made it a prominent subject of their writing. For poets such as Wordsworth, contemplating nature was a means of approaching the sublime, a transcendent quality that they tried to capture in their work. Analyze the excerpt from Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads in the textbook (p. 330). What metaphors does Wordsworth make use of in this fragment? Are his metaphors in this piece direct, indirect, implied, or personified? Have any of his metaphors grown so timeworn as to become clichés? Compare the language in this poem with that of the American romantics Emerson (p. 334), Thoreau (p. 335), and Whitman (p. 335). How do the views of nature expressed by these American authors compare with that expressed by Wordsworth? Which of the authors most successfully employs metaphors to express meaning? Did any of the nineteenth-century authors succeed in capturing the essence of the sublime in their writings?




2			Romantic Music and Dance (pp. 347-350, 352) Dance > Setting > Theatrical Elements http://www.mhhe.com/HumanitiesStudio/3/7/2.html In the nineteenth century, ballet (pp. 349-350) became a popular form of entertainment, one enjoyed by the middle class as well as the aristocracy. What qualities did romantic ballet share with other aspects of the romantic movement, such as literature and art? How might the spectacle of a balletic production have compared to that of a painting like Géricault's Raft of the "Medusa" (Fig. 12.19)? What qualities of ballet might have made it particularly attractive to a nineteenth-century audience? How did the costumes of ballerinas (Fig. 12.30) capture the spirit of romanticism better than later ballet costume styles?

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