Chapter 4
LITERATURE
Classics and Masterpieces
 Classics-have outlived
 Masterpieces- a work
their time and continue
to be relevant.
 May be remade into
modern versions
that in style, execution,
and resonance far
exceeds what other
writers were doing at the
same time
 Many classics are
masterpieces, but they
don’t have to be
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Sons of Anarchy (Hamlet)
10 Things I Hate About
You (Taming of the
Shrew)
The First Epic: Gilgamesh
 Epic-long narrative poem recounting the actions and
adventures of a hero (not necessarily moral)
 Gilgamesh-tyrannical king who intimidated even the
gods so they created a compassionate counterpart for
him (Enkidu)
 The 2 heros wrestle, resulting in a tie. Enkidu
eventually dies but Gilgamesh lives on…some
interpret it as aggressiveness outlasting kindness
The Iliad
 Accounts for the 10 year duration of the conflict
between Greece and Troy.
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Achilles
Trojan Horse
Helen of Troy
Unique because it shows not only the glory of Greece but the
tragedy of the losing side.
Can be categorized as a tragedy because of the story of
Hector, the Trojan hero. His ambition is his fatal flaw.
Iliad as a Masterpiece
 Established the fundamental principle- real life is
not a simple struggle between good and evil.
 Internal conflict of Hector makes it a great tragedy
Poetry
 Lyrical Poetry-sung to
accompany a lyre
 Popular with Romans
 Written about
pleasurable pursuits of
life-good food, wine,
expressed personal
feelings (unrequited
love)
 Sonnet-14 line poetic
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form
Popular in Italy during
the Renaissance
Iambic pentameter
Petrarch is the most
famous, wrote to his
married love, Laura
Unrequited love
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
 Extraordinary
vocabulary
 Genius lies in his ability
to merge form and
content into a unified
whole
Poetry Devices
Metaphors
Conceits
 An abstract is
 Special kind of
explained in terms of
something that is
visual and concrete
 Ex. Juliette is the sun
metaphor, elaborate
and extended
associations between 2
dissimilar things
 Ex. Your Spouse and
God
Haiku
Detestable crow!
Today alone you please meBlack against the snow.
 short poem in which the writer captures a thought
or image captured from nature.
 Springs from the Buddhist tradition
Forms
Religious Poetry
Premodernism
 The urge to
 Some fear “modern”
communicate and sing
the praises of a deity is
an early component of
the humanities
poetry will be too hard
to understand.
 Emily Dickinson is on
the threshold of
modern poetry,
influenced by both
lyrical and modern
Poetry of Our Time
 Can be read and reread, studied
 Most modern poets prefer their work not be analyzed
or translated into prose, loses its meaning
The Novel
 Essentially a long
narrative
 First “official” novel was
The Tale of Genji
 Romances-french stories
of knights, bravery and
love affairs
 Word “novel” comes
from Latin meaning new
and unfamiliar
Early Western Novels
 First Western novel was
Don Quixote by
Cervantes
 English novels were
Alonso Quixana is an older gentleman who lives
in La Mancha, in the Spanish countryside. He
has read many of the books of chivalry and as a
result, he has lost his wits, and he decides to
roam the country as a knight-errant named Don
Quixote de La Mancha.
presented as true stories
of adventurers, such as
Gulllivers Travels by
Jonathan Swift and
Robinson Crusoe by
Daniel Defoe
 Washington Irving “The Legend
The Novel in
America
American writers were
slow to gain respect and
recognition from
readers in other
countries.
Eventually they earned
the respect of their
international peers
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of Sleepy Hollow”
James Fennimore Cooper The
Last of the Mohicans
Nathanial Hawthorne The Scarlet
Letter
Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great
Gatsby
Ernest Hemmingway The Old
Man and the Sea
The Comingof-Age Novel
Influenced by Freud’s
unveiling of the inner
world as well as the
growth of the new
science of
developmental
psychology, authors
started a new genre of
literature centered on
the early stages of
youthful consciousness.
 Huckleberry Finn
 The Catcher in the Rye
 The Member of the Wedding
The Short Story-An American Invention
Magazine Fiction
Epiphany
 Printed pieces of short
 The sudden insight
fiction that could be
read in one sitting.
into life or human
nature which short
stories often give us
 Edgar Allen Poe
 “The Lottery”
The Short Story Today
 Literary trend today is the zeitgeist of our age: there
is no overarching theory that applies to people and
their cultures the world over