1. Where can you look up:
a. The meaning of the word ‘sheene’ (that was used in the 16th century)
To look up the meaning of the word ‘sheene’ the first step can be searching for it in the monolingual dictionary ‘The Oxford English Dictionary’ (OED), ed. by J.A. SIMPSONNN & E.S.C. WEINER. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1961. The word ‘sheene’ is to be found in volume number nine (S-Soldo). The signature of this book in our library is D-3.275 (a) (9).
If one is not satisfied with the information given in the OED the next thing to do is to take one of the etymological dictionaries in which more detailed information is given.

b. what the word ‘metonymy’ means
In the local library several books can be found in which literary terms are explained. They all differ in the amount of information they give for the different terms.
Mentioned in the ‘Directions for Anglo-American Studies’ (‘DIANA’) are:
ABRAMS, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, 1993.
CUDDON, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. London: Penguin, 1991
Both of them can be found in our local library and have the signatures Aeg-602a and Aeg-637.
Another good book for researches concerning literary terms is:
SHAW, HARRY. Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972
I would prefer to take this book because of its short and clear definitions and the plausible examples.

c. information about the British author Siegfried Sassoon?
In my opinion a very useful book in this case is:
VINSON, JAMES, ed. Great Writers if the English Language : Poets. London: The Macmillan Press Limited, 1979
In this book you can find a short curriculum vitae, a detailed list of publications, a list of books in which the author is mentioned and finally it gives a good description of happenings in the author’s life that influenced his writings.
In contrast to this
Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. Springfield: G&C MERRIAN CO.
just gives the names of the authors with instructions for the pronunciation and very concise biographies, consisting of short catchwords.


2.
a. Was ist – in unserer Bibliothek – die Signatur von
SCHABERT, INA (ed.): Shakespeare Handbuch: Die Zeit – der Mensch – das Werk – die Nachwelt. Stuttgart: Kröner 1972; 3rd, revised and enlarged ed. 2000.
The old edition which already can be found in our library has the signature Jeb-152. According to the system of signatures the third edition will get the signature Jeb-152 (b).

b. Was heißt “revised and enlarged edition“? Was macht es notwendig, ein solches Buch nach einem Abstand von fast drei Jahrzehnten neu aufzulegen?
In the ‘Shakespeare Handbuch(...)’ topics can be found that are concerned with the influence of Shakespeare’s works on the modern time and modern works and with present research work. Over the years the influence of his works changes and in the research works new theses are established or older theses can be proved by new findings. To keep the book on a actual level it has to be revised and enlarged.







3. Where can you find information about Romanticism?
SEEBER, H. U.. Englische Literaturgechichte. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993.
Spiller, R. E.; Thorp, W. ; Johnson, T. H.; Seidel Canby, H.; Ludiwig, R. M. (ed.). Literary History of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963
Both books are concerned with literary history but they treat it in different ways. The first one is a German book about the English literary history. The ‘Englische Literaturgeschichte’ is organized chronological. It is very easy to get a complete overview of Romanticism in one chapter.
In the second one you can find different topics like ‘The Colonies’, ‘The Democracy’ and ‘Crisis’. To find out more about Romanticism you have to look up ‘Romanticism’ in the index at the end of the book and this will lead you to the different topics in which ‘Romanticism’ is included.
If you already know the most important things about Romanticism the ‘Literary History of the United States’ can help you to consolidate your knowledge, but if you want to get an overview the ‘Englische Literaturgeschichte’ would be more helpful.


4. You would like to gather information about 17th century poetry; but this time you are not satisfied with just reading about such poems, you also want to read them. Which books will give you (among other things) a selection of seventeenth century poems?
Very often new anthologies are published so a great variety can also be found in our library. Some of them are concerned with a special genre, others with a special epoch and others again with authors of a special nationality.
The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Seventeenth Century Verse and Prose (2 Vol.). Toronto: The Macmillan Company 1969.
These two books are in our local library in my opinion the most appropriate ones when one is searching for collections of poems from the 17th century.

5. If you had to write a short paper in the treatment of time in the novels written by Virginia Woolf:
a. where would you find titles of books and articles dealing with Woolf’s treatment of time?
The best catalogue for both books and articles is the one on CD-ROM from the Modern Language Association (MLA) in the university library.

b. list any three of these titles.
1.
TI: Tragic Time: The Problem of the Future in Cambridge Philosophy and To the Lighthouse
AU: Banfield, Ann
SO: Modernism-Modernity, Chicago, IL (MoMo). 2000 Jan, 7:1, 43-75.
2.
TI: Time, Tense, Weather in Three ‚Flood Novels’: Bleak House, The Mill on the Floss, To the Lighthouse
AU: Sadrin, Anny
SO: Yearbook-of-English-Studies, 6AA, England (YES). 2000, 30, 96-105
3.
TI: Virginia Woolf and the Rhythm of the Novel
AU: York, R.A.
SO: Orbis-Literatum:-International-Review-of-Literary-Studies, M, Denmark (OL). 1995, 50:2, 103-22


6. Please give a short definition of the terms:
a. alliteration
An alliteration is a head rhyme also called initial rhyme. Close repetitions of the same sound at the beginning of words are called alliterations.

b. chiasm
In a chiasm contrasting terms are arranged crosswise. In most cases the word order in the first phrase is reversed in the second.

c. oxymoron
Oxymorons are also called concise paradoxes. They are expressions in which two words ore phrases of opposite meaning are combined.


7. Please list some connotations of the following terms:
a. autumn
colours, end of something, shorter days, darkness, beginning cold, falling leaves, darkness, rain, fog, tea, kite, covering, forgetting

b. harbour
home, starting point, new beginning, hopes, beginning journeys, international contacts, ships, fish, arrivals, tears, workers, steel, noise, container, immigrants, emigrants


8. The following excerpt is an excerpt of a poem written by the famous American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb –







a. Please note the meter of the first stanza.
I stressed syllables
U unstressed syllables
UI UI UI UI
UI UI UI
UI UI UI UI
UI UI UI
In the first stanza iambic tetrameter and trimeter alternate.

b. Please identify as many rhetorical figures as you can find
Alliteration
Line 3: ...treading – treading – till...

Assonance
Acoustic:
Line 3:
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
Line 7:
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
Counted:
Line 3:
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
Line 5:
And when they all were seated

Onomatopoeia
Line 6:
Drum

Geminatio
Line 3:
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
Line 7:
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
Simile
Line 6:
A Service, like a Drum -

Internal Rhyme
Line 3+7 :
Kept treading – treading - till it seemed
Kept beating – beating – till I thought

Personification
Line 4 :
That Sense was Breaking through

Synesthesia
Line 1 (together with words from other lines)
felt
Funeral (line 2)
Mourners (line 3)
Service like a drum (line 6)

Metaphor
Line 1:
Funeral
Line 2:
Mourners









9.
a. Please identify the rhetorical figures in the following line by another American poet, Charlotte Smith (1749-1806):
When latest autumn spreads her evening veil
Personification:
Autumn + spread

Metaphor (explained in b.)

b. How does the figure embodied in the word ‘veil’ work?
Metaphors consist of three parts. One of them is the source domain as in this case ‘veil’. The other ones are the target domain and the tertium comparationis which do not have to be mentioned explicit in the text. In the case of the line mentioned in task 9a. there are different possibilities for target domains.
To find out the real meaning of a metaphor one has to think about connotations of the source and the target domain. The words, phrases and expressions both have in common are combined in the tertium comparationis and give the real meaning.
To make this clear I am going to draw such a scheme for the source domain ‘veil’ and the in my opinion different target domains embodied in the given line.







































Source Domain
‘veil’
covering
hideaway
shelter
protection
hiding place
warmth
cover
nearness
hide
disguise
darken
forgetting
fog
_________________
(as above)

















Tertium
Comparationis
hiding
forgetting











_________________

fog
hiding
cover
forgetting













Target Domain
‘evening’
darkness
sleepy
end of day covering
hiding
forgetting








_________________
autumn
fog
colours
end of something shorter days
darkness
beginning cold falling leaves
darkness
rain
tea
kite
covering
forgetting




The word fog is not included in the line but terms like evening, autumn and veil are words I would connect with it. Both times fog is in the Tertium Comparationis and because of this I think it would also fit as a target domain for veil.

Source Domain
‘veil’
covering
hideaway
shelter
protection
hiding place
warmth
cover
nearness
hide
disguise
darken
forgetting
fog
wrap up
secrets





Tertium Comparationis
cover
hideaway
secrets
wrap up
hiding place
disguise
forgetting
covering
darken












Target Domain
‘fog’
covering
hideaway
hiding place
cold
cover
disguise
darken
forgetting
wrap up
secrets

10. What is the main difference between metaphors and metonymies?
A metaphor is used to equate a given object with another term. It is very similar to comparisons or similes but it works without trigger terms. A row of associations is replaced by a source domain from which concepts or associations are transferred to a target domain.
A metonymy only exists of one word or short phrase which replaces the whole expression. It also works with associations but it is not so free. The connection between the given word and the replaced expression is very close.
The main difference between a metaphor and a metonymy is that in a metaphor the words do not have to have a connection in the normal use they only get their connection because of the tertium comparationis, the given background in the text and the way the author connects them.
e.g.:
Metonymy:
I read Shakespeare yesterday.
‘Shakespeare’ replaces in this case a special work of the author an the connection is very close.
Metaphor:
A heart of stone.
A heart normally does not have anything to do with a stone. The sentence itself taken word-to-word does not make any sense but if you look at associations like hard, numbness and so on and transfer them from the term ‘stone’ to the term ‘heart’ the sentence gets its sense.

11. Please give an example of
a. a zeugma
All my heart this night rejoices, soft and sweet the angel voices.
[Modernised version of ‘Still – Still-Still’ mixed with Bach’s ‘Air’]
It is very difficult to find a good example of a zeugma in my eyes this is one but I think this depends on the way one analyses this sentence. To show that I understood the concept of a zeugma I am going to give a short definition and a more plausible invented example:
Zeugma means that a verb belongs to two or more objects but only really fits to one of them.
Example:
He kills birds and time.

b. an anaphora
To feel The Rhythm of Life.
To feel the powerful beat,
to feel the tingle in your fingers,
to feel the tingle in your feet.
[The Rhythm of Life from “Sweet Charity” by Dorothy Fields]

12. When Hamlet is disgusted by the corruption in this world, he says ‘tis an unweeded garden’:
Please invent three metaphors that might also be used to described the world in all its corruption:
It (the corrupt world) is…
An easy way to find other fitting metaphors is to take the ‘corrupt world’ as a target domain and look for associations that would fit to it and then to look at other words that would fit as a source domain and share some of the associations found for ‘corrupt world’.
Target Domain
‘corrupt world’
lost
breaking the law
mistakes
bad
ruined
irretrievably lost
irrecoverable
unpleasent
war
beyond help
immoral
falling in disfavour
uncontrollable
unweeded
insoluble situation
downfall
godless
sentenced to death
Tertium Comparationis
Irretrievably lost
ruined
beyond help
uncontrollable
insoluble situation
immoral
breaking laws
godless
Source Domain
sinking ship
irretrievably lost
ruined
broken
destroyed
beyond help
sentenced to death
uncontrollable
insoluble situation
sinning nun
immoral
breaking principles
breaking laws (of
ruined
uncontrollable
insoluble situation
sentenced to death
downfall
irrecoverable
lost
god
godless
falling in disfavour
falling leaf
ruined
uncontrollable
insoluble situation
sentenced to death
downfall
irrecoverable
colourful
lost
plant
part of nature