Pepy's Diary - What did I find most interesting?

I definitely enjoyed the historical aspect of the diary. Coming from a previous Political Science major, History tends to interest me and entertain me. I especially found the London fire intriguing. I pictured myself watching all of the action - the fire, the mad people running, and while doing tha I imagined what it must have been like to be there. What is it like to watch a fabulous city (in this case not so fabulous) cirty go up in flames. What is it like to watch your own home go up in flames. Even Pepys seems troubled by the entire ordeal. When he talks of wanting to write his father but the post office had gone up in flames so he couldn't and the idea of having dinner and how melancholy it actually was. While reading this everything felt so real.

I also related this piece to the September 11 attacks on the United States. It felts as though I was on autopilot watching the CNN coverage of the planes flying into the towers. Wow!

Absalom and Achitophel - Is Absalom and Achitophel propoganda? why/why not?

I think it was definitely a political propoganda. A few things jumped out at me while I read....just to list a few:

Pg. 2215 - The Careful Devil is still at hand with means/ And providently pimps for ill desires/ The Good old cause revived a Plot requires./ Plots, true or false, are necessary things,/ To raise up comonwealths and ruin kings.
- This refers to the issues with the Popish Plot and the fears of the Catholic Church overthrowing government as a whole.
Pg. 2217 - So several factions from this first ferment/ work up to foam, by their friends, more by themselves thought wise,/ opposed the power to which they could not rise.
-Once again a referral to the Popish Plot.

A Description of a City Shower

Jonathan Swift is definitely rated as my personal favorite poet from the eighteenth century. So what if he didn't think he accomplished much, he did an excellent job capturing what real life was like during the Restoration Period through his works of literature. "A Description of a City Shower" is funny. While he discusses the nastiness of a rain shower in London. While most would think rain provides an excellent cleansing of the city, in London this is not the case. He warns everyone not to go far when the rain begins because it was not wise to be stuck trying to wade through the "mud." Then the storm comes. Sewage, dead animals, pollution, and garbage flood the streets as the Thames River and the drainage ditches back up into the city. This beatiful rain shower has turned into a nasty mess. Swift mocks a beau stuck in the middle of the street in his box chair and not able to get out of the mud without getting dirty. He also mocks the Whigs and the Tories, who should be arguing about politics, but instead are working together to save their whigs. At the end of the poem and rain storm, when the sun should be shining, instead there is all sorts of gross items just laying in the street to either be left or to be moved back into the river.

This poem fits so perfectly into the eighteenth century with its satirical way of describing a rain shower in London. Swift's works were most often satires that critiqued society in one way or another. This one not only critiques the cleanliness of the city but also how social status was so important. The beau was being carried around in a chair on a couple guys shoulders but when the muck came out he was no better than the guys that were carrying him, in fact he was worse off. What a great poem!

Is there a constructive purpose to the satire in "The Country Wife?"

I'm not sure if the purpose of the satire was necessarily constructive, but it did make a fine point. Society was so uppity and perfect, this pointed out one big, fat flaw - it's over-sexuality. England was one big walking disease and it was so normal for someone to have gonorrhea or syphilis - these STD's are not normal and should not be considered normal. They are nasty diseases and were spreading like wild fire. Wycherly felt the need to let people know how common and yet disgusting it was for these people to be breeding like flies. He pointed out the fact that sexuality was a fact of society and also brought forward the question of morality. Is it really moral to be sleeping with other individuals when they are married or when you are married yourself, or worse, both? No.

Also, women were made out to be so naive and dumb in The Country Wife. Their only concerns were with their own beauty, the gossip of the town, and their own reputation. Men treated women the way one would expect them to be treated, they were treated as possessions and arm ornaments rather than wives and confidantes. Although the women's rights movement had not started yet, I want to know why. There is no reason why women should allow themselves to be treated as possessions and toys when they are so much more.

Discuss the merging of Love and Money in Moll Flanders

As I was reading this novel it became quite clear to me and actually began to bother me that everything I did was based on money. One problem, I had no idea the difference between a pound, a schilling, and a guinea. It really bothered me that every action was based on money. Marriages were based on money and how much "fortune" the other person would bring into the marriage and if that person lied they would both be "quite undone." True money does make the world go round and true it is hard to live with little or no money even today, but life is not just about money. Before Moll fell in love she would first do a bit of an investigation on the other's wealth and history of how he spent it. Money was somewhat of an issue to me when I was getting married, I wanted to be sure I was going to be financially stable, but I did not base all of my feelings on my husband's bank accounts. I understand that money does play a huge roll in everyones life, but should it have played this big of a roll? Then when money did fall into someones hands, they wasted it. Moll was so concerned with looking rich the money she had was never enough. Money isn't all there is in life. By basing their entire livelihood on money they missed out on a lot of what is actually important: love and relationships.

Does Evelina fit the characteristics of the modern novel?

There was definitely a development of characters in Evelina versus that of Moll Flanders. I think I enjoyed Moll Flanders a lot more, maybe it was the structure of the novel as letters - who knows. I just did not care at all for it. In Evelina we are given the opportunity to become attached to Evelina and the other characters. We hear about her loves, her fears, and all of the more complex feelings she has rather than the surface problems that Moll exhibited in Moll Flanders.

Another characteristic of the modern novel that Evelina definitely fits in with is the length of the prose. While reading the novel I had trouble due to the length. I kept wondering when it was going to end. Not a good thing to wonder about when reading a novel. It was very lengthy.

This novel was also one that was aimed at the middle class. This was not a loftyone and it somewhat addressed real issues (even though they seemed a little bit odd). Along with this is the "formal realism" characteristic. The whole time while reading I kept comparing the novel with V.C. Andrews. Right when things begin to look up for poor Evelina, things go down again much like the V.C. andrews novels. Incest, love, disownment, you name it - it was there. Considering the raunchy V.C. Andrews is probably my favorite writer - that would be the only reason I would consider Evelina enjoyable.

Just didn't care a whole lot for it. It was long and rambly and the letter format was a bit tough to get into - maybe this is because I just did not have time to read the novel as in depth as I would have liked.