Sensibility Poets: Thomson, Gray, Goldsmith

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The excerpt from the poem by Thomson is an early example of a genre of poetry that would become increasingly popular as we move to the 1800s:
Satire
Mock epic
Natural description
Romantic (love) poetry
Philosophical poetry
The poets we have read for today are generally called:
Augustan poets
Metaphysical poets
Sensibility poets
Nature poets
Romantic poets
These poets are notable because they emphasized:
The satirical; they poke fun, both gentle and bitter, at human institutions and human behavior.
The mock epic and the mock heroic: they take trivial things and write about them in epic proportions.
The melancholy, the ordinary, and the natural: they often write about lonely, melancholy individuals and natural landscapes.
The religious, the devotional, the allegorical: they often write about religious subjects, using allegorical and devotional styles.
James Thomson is famous for his suite of poems (from which we have read an excerpt) about:
The Lake District
Cambridge
Oxford
The cycle of the seasons
London working classes
In the Thomson excerpt, the following happens:
The sun comes up, a warm day passes, the sun sets, the moon comes out, a meteor shower occurs, the moon sets.
The sun sets, the moon comes out, a meteor shower occurs, the moon sets, the sun rises.
Summer slowly gives way to autumn, autumn fades into winter, winter passes slowly, finally spring returns, and then summer not long after.
Winter passes slowly, finally spring returns, and then summer not long after, summer slowly gives way to autumn, and autumn fades into winter again.
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is dated:
1711
1721
1731
1741
1751
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" is dated:
1717
1727
1737
1747
1757
"The Deserted Village" is dated:
1740
1750
1760
1770
1780
The excerpt "Autumn," which is itself an excerpt from The Seasons, is dated:
1700
1715
1730
1745
1760
The author of "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" is:
James Thomson
Thomas Gray
William Collins
Oliver Goldsmith
William Cowper
Christopher Smart
The author of "The Deserted Village" is:
James Thomson
Thomas Gray
William Collins
Oliver Goldsmith
William Cowper
Christopher Smart
The author of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is:
James Thomson
Thomas Gray
William Collins
Oliver Goldsmith
William Cowper
Christopher Smart
The Enclosure Acts were:
Laws that foreclosed on small farm holdings during the 1700s, forcing large numbers of rural Englishmen to move to the cities
Laws in the 1700s that prevented rural Englishmen from using common farm and grazing lands as they had done for centuries, forcing large numbers of rural Englishmen to move to the cities
Laws passed in the 1700s that forced English farmers to pay rent on the common lands they used for tilling and grazing, which caused many of them to abandon their farms for the city
The name of the village in "The Deserted Village" is:
Auburn
Southwark
Liverpool
Wakefield
The village in "The Deserted Village" has been deserted because:
The villagers have been lured to the cities and America by higher paying jobs.
The rural way of life has become unpopular; city life, with its myriad of allurements, has become so attractive that few people want to farm the land, tend cattle, or do other rural work.
The rural people have been forced off the land by the Enclosure Acts and have had to move to the cities and America to survive.
In "The Deserted Village" there are numerous references to something or someone called a "swain." What or who is that?
Rural laborer, peasant
Sheep, lamb
Cattle
Oxen
Village parson
Farm child
In "The Deserted Village," the poet discusses the sorts of things that await the rural folk who move to city. In the line, "Here, while the proud their longdrawn pomps display,/There the black gibbet glooms beside the way," what is a "gibbet"?
Entrance to the mines where many of the poor rural folk are forced to work
Gallows, a place where people are hung
A type of black cattle common in England, and a symbol here of the plight of the rural folk forced off the land
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Alas, regardless of their doom,/The little victims play!/No sense have they of ills to come,/Nor care beyond today"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Not all that tempts your wandering eyes/And heedless hearts is lawful prize;/Nor all that glisters gold"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Let not Ambition mock their useful toil./Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;/Not Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile/The short and simple annals of the poor"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,/Their sober wishes never learned to stray;/Along the cool sequestered vale of life/They kept the noiseless tenor of their way"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Now black and deep the night begins to fall,/A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching gloom,/Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth..."?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "Yet ah! why should they know their fate?/Since sorrow never comes too late,/And happiness too swiftly flies./Thought would destroy their paradise./No more; where ignorance is bliss,/'Tis folly to be wise"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,/With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;/These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,/These were thy charmsBut all these charms are fled!"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"
Which poem are the following lines taken from: "The lengthened night elapsed, the morning shines/Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright,/Unfolding fair the last autumnal day"?
The Seasons
"Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
"Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat"
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
"The Deserted Village"

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