Okay, so here is the first foray of things to think about.  It's plenty, but keep checking back; if I think of more, I'm going to add them.

1.                  Know the plot of Beowulf .

2.                  Know who Beowulf, Wiglaf, Hrothgar, and Grendel are; know what Heorot is.  Know when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded England.  Know who King Alfred is.  Know what a "hlaford" is.

3.        What's the relationship between Fate and (a Judeo-Christian God) in Anglo-Saxon poetry?

4.                  Anglo-Saxon prosody is based upon what?

5.                  Why's it so bad to be a "Wanderer"?

6.                  Name a couple of reasons why Beowulf marks the beginning of English literature, per se.

7.                  The wife in “The Wife’s Lament” and her husband are separated by what?

8.                  Who is the first pilgrim described in The Canterbury Tales’  “General Prologue” – and why?

9.                  Who loves hunting?

10.              Who loves food?

11.              Who loves love?

12.              1066.  'Nuff said.

13.              Harry Bailey tells all the pilgrims to tell tales that encompass what two qualities?  What do they mean?

14.              Be prepared to translate a dozen or so lines from Chaucer.

15.              Be prepared to discuss one of the pilgrims from “The General Prologue” in detail.

16.              .

17.              What does “Goddes privetee” mean and how’s it figure into “The Miller’s Tale”?

18.              “Maken ernest of game” is how the Miller ends his prologue.  How might that reflect on the tale and The Tales?

19.              The Wife of Bath relies on what as her “authority” in her prologue?

20.              How many times has she been married?  Be prepared to talk about her last two husbands in particular.

21.              What is the Wife of Bath’s particular point in telling her prologue?

22.              Why does Oswald the Reeve react so badly to Robin the Miller's prologue, and tale?

23.              The cook has a "mormal."  Is this a good thing?

24.              Review the works of Gwilym and Dunbar.  Note what’s characteristic in their verse.  What innovations do they bring?

25.              Know the kings and queens of England from 1400-1702, and what general positions they represented religiously and, if you know, politically.

26.              Wyatt introduced what verse form(s) into English?

27.              He loved whom?

28.              Why does “political poetry” become so pronounced during the Early Modern Era?

29.              What are some of the trends of the Early Modern Era?

30.        What's the relationship between (false) Hope and birth/death in Wroth's Sonnet 40?

31.      The Countess of Montgomery's Urania looks like modern fiction.  It even reads like modern fiction, kinda.  Why isn't it modern fiction, though? 

32.       Who are Lucasia and Orinda?

33.      Philips' "The World" is what genre of poem?  Why is it so different than her other works?

34.              Choose one Shakespeare sonnet and get to know it pretty darned well.

35.              Define blank verse.

36.              What's an epic?

37.              What is an aubade?

38.              What is an Italian sonnet?

39.      What is an allegory?

40.              What is an English sonnet?

41.              Who got forty translators to publish a Bible?

42.              What led Henry VIII to start his own church?

43.              What’s the difference between “renaissance” and “early modern period” as labels for a historical period?

44.              Which of our authors supported Cromwell?  Which were monarchists?

45.              What is the Interregnum?

46.              Who were the Whigs and the Tories?

47.              Know the relative dates (i.e. one author to another) of all the authors we’ve read.

48.              What's an epic?  A "mock-epic"?

49.              What is The Exeter Book?

50.        What is accentual syllabic verse?

51.        What happened in 1066?

52.        If somebody in Chaucer's day mentions their "lest," what are they talking about?

53.        What are the three/four estates?

54.        What is exegesis, and can you get it from social contact?

55.        When you're thinking about the Wife of Bath, what's the phrase "God vs. the bod" mean?

56.          Donne, Herbert and Herrick are often lumped together as the "Metaphysical Poets."  Differentiate between them, their styles and their concerns.

57.        The eighteenth century is concerned with "Reason."  Think about the texts we've read, choose one, and conceive of how it demonstrates -- or doesn't -- "reason."

58.          Know about the biographies of the major authors (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Johnson).

59.     What is a metaphysical conceit?
     

60.     What are the two opposing elements viying for supremacy in Donne's poetry?
     

61.     Be able to talk about the distinctions between Herrick's "Delight in Disorder" and "Upon Julia's Clothes."
     

62.     Herbert is known for his "concrete poetry."  What is this?
     

63.     What differentiates Herbert's vision of God from Dunne's?
     

64.     Know what poets wrote under what monarchs, and their connections.
     

65.     Think about how even political poets can be ambivalent in their portrayals of their patrons.
     

66.     What was the name of the writing/discussion group to which Pope, Swift, Gay and Arbuthnot belonged?
     

67.     Know every single line of Milton that we read.
     

68.     Be able to enumerate and apply Enlightenment ideals.
     

69.     Likewise, know some pertinent points about the Renaissance (not the least of which ought to be the dates of the thing).
     

70.     Be able to discuss the varieties of satire that we've seen during this course.
     

71.     A heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming iambic pentameter lines.  Be able to cite and discuss how these work.
     

72.    What is hubris?
     

73.     While we're on words ending in -is -- or -as, anyway -- what's the difference between cupiditas and caritas?
     

74.     Know your demons. (! Think Milton.)
     

75.     What is Grub Street?
     

76.     If a poet talks about "numbers" what's he or she referring to?
     

77.     Know the two significant parts to Swift's "Modest Proposal."
     

78.     Be able to name two classical sources which the Enlightenment poets drew upon for their verse.
     

79.     Know what an "occasional poem" is and be prepared to talk about one from this course.
     

80.     Be prepared to make and support differentiations between the various epochs or movements that we've covered in here.
     

81.     For the essays, make sure that you've got some specific passages from specific works in mind.  I know this seems impossible, since you can't predict the questions, but you can do it if you think over major themes of the course, major types of movements or images, and characteristic elements from a given poet or poets
     

82.     What's a "capacious mind"?  In fact, what's the "mind" got to do with Paradise Lost at all?
     

83.     Why's Milton write Paradise Lost, according to the poem?
     

84.     If, within one sonnet, you see a man envisioning himself as a town needing to be besieged or a bride engaged to the wrong man and needing to be "ravished," where did you see it?
     

85.     If there's a Biblical allegory afoot, where did you see it?
     

86.     If there's religious poetry eschewing the body, where are you going to find it?
     

87.     If you see a poem structured as a classical argument (built in three parts), where are you?
     

88.     If you're reading poetic letters to a friend, it's likely you're reading whom?
     

89.     If you're thinking about one of the prime innovators of the sonnet, who might you be thinking of (two possible answers here, too)?
     

90.     What's so bad about Ireland, according to Dryden?  Swift?
     

91.     If you're reading a dictionary, what English guy do we have to thank for it (more or less)?
     

92.     I think 91's enough, don't you?