E212: British Literature since 1760

Charlotte Smith Study Questions

Al Drake | Uni Hall 329 | Th. 6:00-7:00 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com

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Assigned: "Written at the Close of Spring" (33); "To Sleep" (33); "To Night" (33-34); "Written in the Church-Yard at Middleton in Sussex" (34); "On Being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea..." (34-35); "The Sea View" (35).

"Written at the Close of Spring"

1. Explain the connection here between the season, the speaker's state of mind, and the larger point she makes about the human condition. What other poems can you think of that make a similar connection?

"To Sleep"

2. A formal question--how does Smith's concluding couplet in this Shakespearian sonnet compare in its effect on her previous twelve lines to the couplets in some of her other sonnets? (A Shakespearean sonnet is structured as follows: three rhyming four-line units or "quatrains" abab / cdcd / efef, and then a couplet rhyming "gg.")

"To Night"

3. Poets sometimes deal with night as a time when things are waiting to be born. What associations does Smith make in this sonnet?

"Written in the Church-Yard at Middleton in Sussex" / "On Being Cautioned...." / "The Sea View"

4. In these three poems, what kinds of characters does Smith seem to be drawn to write about? How does Smith (or rather the lyric voice or "speaker") relate to these characters? In what sense is her focus characteristic of what would later be called "romantic poetry"?

Edition: Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2A. Seventh edition. New York: Norton, 2000.