American Literature / Unit 19 AML 1816 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Drill 2: The Form of the Passage
The idea
The board prints a passage from Rowson's Charlotte Temple in which a couple retire to a cottage where Love and Hymen attend them, Plenty and her handmaid Prudence preside at the table, Hospitality stands at the gate, Peace smiles and Content reigns. The question asks for the form, offering allegory, burlesque, epistle, fable and parody. The answer is allegory. The test is mechanical: abstract qualities are capitalized and given bodies that act, and that personification of abstractions is what allegory means. Check the others. A burlesque mocks by exaggeration, and nothing here is mocked. An epistle is a letter, and this is narration. A fable ends in a stated moral and usually uses animals. A parody imitates a particular target.
In practice
Capitalized abstractions, doing things.
Where people slip
Do not decide by the passage's sweetness. The form question asks what the words are doing, and here they are turning qualities into characters, which is the definition.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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