AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE bliss.

Everything that seems to divide the soul

from this reality is maya or illusion.
INDIA  The Hindus regard Purusha, the universal spirit
as the soul and original source of the universe.
A. – land of prayer As the universal soul, Purusha is the life-giving
Sanskrit – literature of india principle in all animated beings. As a
Rik-Samhita – collection of thousand hymns in personified human being, Purusha’s body is the
praise of different Gods. source of all creation. The four Varnas serve as
the theoretical basis for the organization of the
1. Literary Periods. The Indus civilization Hindu society. These were thought to have
flourished in northern India between 2500 and been created from purusha’s body:
1500 B.C. Te Aryans, a group of nomadic warriors - The Brahman (priest) was purusha’s mouth.
and herders, were the earliest known migrants Their duty is to perform sacrifices, to study
into India. They brought with them a well- and to teach the Vedas, and to guard the
developed language and literature and a set of rules of dharma. Because of their sacred
religious beliefs. work, they are supreme in purity and rank.
a) Vedic Period (1500 B.C. -500 B.C.). This - The Ksatriyas (warriors) are the arms. From
period is named for the Vedas, a set of hymns this class arose the kings who are the
that formed the cornerstone of Aryan culture. protectors of society.
Hindus consider the Vedas, which were - The Vaisyas (peasants) are the thighs. They
transmitted orally by priests, to be the most live by trading, herding, and farming.
sacred of all literature for they believe these to - The Surdas (serfs) are the feet. They
have been revealed to humans directly by the engage in handicrafts and manual
gods. occupation and they serve meekly the three
b) Epic and Buddhist Age (500 B.C. –A.D.). classes above them. They are strictly
The period of composition two great epics, forbidden to mate with persons of a higher
Mahabharata and the Ramayana. This time varna.
was also the growth of later Vedic literature,
new Sanskrit literature, and the Buddhist b) Buddhism originated in India in the 6th century B.C.
literature in Pali. This religion is based on the teachings of Siddharta
c) Classical Period (A.D. -1000 A.D.). The Gautama called Buddha, or the ‘Enlightened One’.
main literary language of northern India during Much of Buddha’s teaching is focused on self-
this period was Sanskrit, in contrast with the awareness and self development in order to attain
Dravidian languages of southern India. nirvana or enlightenment.
Sanskrit, which means ‘perfect speech’, is  According to the Buddhist beliefs, human
considered a sacred language spoken by the beings are bound to the wheel of life which is a
gods and goddesses. continual cycle of birth, death, and suffering.
d) Medieval and Modern Age (A.D. 1000 – This cycle is an effect of karma in which. a
present). Persian influences on literature were person’s present life and experiences are the
considerable this period. Persian was the result of past thoughts and actions, and these
court language of the Moslem rulers. In the present thoughts and actions likewise create
18th century India was directly under the British those of the future.
Crown and remained so until its Independence  The Buddhist scriptures uphold the Four
in1947. Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths are: 1) life is
2. Religions. Indian creativity is evident in religion as suffering; 2) the cause of suffering is desire; 3)
the country is the Birthplace of two important faiths: the removal of desire of suffering; and 4) the
Hinduism, the dominant religion, and Buddhism, which Noble Eightfold Paths leads to the end of
ironically became extinct in India but spread suffering.
throughout Asia.  The Noble Eightfold Paths consist of: 1) right
a) Hinduism, literally “the belief of the people of understanding; 2) right thought; 3) right
India”, is the predominant faith of India and of no other speech; 4) right action; 5) right means of
nation. The Hindus are deeply absorbed with God and livelihood; 6) right effort; 7) right consideration;
the creation of the universe. 8) right meditation.
 The Purusarthas are the three ends of man:
dharma – virtue. Duty, righteousness, moral law; 3. Religious and Philosophical Works.
artha- wealth; and karma- love or pleasure. A a) The Vedas form a collection of sacred among
fourth end is moksha- the renunciation of duty, hymn or verse composed in archaic Sanskrit the
wealth and love in order to seek spiritual Indo-European speaking people who entered India
perfection. It is achieved after the release from from the Iranian regions. Most scholars believed it
samasara, the cycle of births and deaths. to have the period of about 1500- 1200 B.C.
 The Hindus believe that all reality is one and b) The Dhammapada (Way of Truth) is an
spiritual, and that each individual soul is anthology of basic Buddhist teaching in a simple
identical with this reality and shares its aphoristic style. One of the best known books of
characteristics: pure being, intelligence, and the Pali Buddhist canon it contains 423 stanzas
arranged in 26 chapters.
 c) The Upanishads form a highly sophisticated protesting her innocence, received by earth, which
commentary on the religious thought suggested by swallows her up.
the poetic hymns of the Rigveda. The name
implies, according to same traditions, ‘sitting at the 5. Literary Selections.
feet of the teacher.’ a) The Panchatantra is a collection of Indian beast
 The most important philosophical doctrine is fables originally written in Sanskrit. In Europe the
the concept of a single supreme being, the work was known under the title The Fables of Bidpai
Brahman, and knowledge is directed after the narrator, and Indian sage named Bidpai,
toward reunion with it by the human soul, ( called Vidyapati in Sanskrit).
the Atman or self.  In theory, the Panchatantra is intended as a
 The nature of eternal life is discussed and textbook of artha (worldly wisdom); the
such themes as the transmigration of aphorisms tend to glorify srewdness and
souls and causality in creation. cleverness more that the helping of others.
b) Sakuntala is a Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa.
4. Epics. The two major Indian epics, the Love is the central emotion that binds the characters
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are the literary Sakuntala and king Dushyanta. What begins as a
embodiments of Hinduism. The Mahabharata is longer physical attraction for both of them becomes spiritual in
and more important but the Ramayana seems to be the end as their love endures and surpasses all
more interesting for modern audience. difficulties. King Dushyanta is a noble and pious king
a) The Mahabharata consists of a mass of who upholds his duties above personal desire.
legendary and didactic material that tells of the Sakuntala, on the other hand, is a young girl who
struggle for supremacy between two groups of matures beautifully because of her kindness, courage,
cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas. The and strength of will. After a period of suffering, the two
traditional date for the war is 3102 B.C. are eventually reunited.
 The poem is made up of the almost 100,000 c) The little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika) is attributed
couplets divided into 18 parvans or sections. to Shudraka, a king. The characters in this play include
 Authorship is traditionally ascribed to the sage a Brahman merchant who has lost his money through
Vsaya, although it is more likely that he liberality, a rich courtesan in love with a poor young
compiled existing material. man, much description of resplendent palaces, and
 It is an exposition on dharma (codes of both comic and tragic or near-tragic emotional
conduct), including the proper conduct of a situations
king, of a warrior. Of a man living in times of d) Gitanjali: Song Offerings was originally
calamity, and of a person seeking to attain published in India in 1910 and its translation followed
emancipation from rebirth. in1912. In these prose translations, Rabindranath
 The Bhagavad Gita ( The blessed Lord’s Tagore uses imagery from nature to express the
Song) is one of the greatest and most beautiful themes of love and the internal conflict between
of the Hindu scriptures. It is regarded by the spiritual longings and earthly desires.
Hindus in somewhat the same way as the e) The Taj Mahal a poem by Sahir Ludhianvi is
Gospels are by Christians, It forms part of about the mausoleum in North India built by the mogul
Book IV and is written in the form of a dialogue emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal. The
between the warrior Prince Arjuna and his façade of this grandiose structure is made of white
friend and charioteer, Krishna, who is also an marble and is surrounded by water gardens, gateways,
earthly incarnation of the god Vishnu. and walks. The tomb at the center of the dome stands
on a square block with towers at each corner. The
b) The Ramayana was composed in Sanskrit, construction of the building took twenty years to
probably not before 300 B.C., by the poet Valmiki, and complete involving some 20,000 workers.
consists of some 24,000 couplets divided into seven d) on Learning to be an Indian an essay by
books. It reflects the Hindu values and forms of social Santha Rama Rau illustrates the telling effects of
organization, the theory of karma, the ideas of colonization on the lives of the people particularly the
wifehood, and feelings about caste, honor and younger generation. The writer humorously narrates
promises. the conflicts that arise between her grandmother’s
The poem describes the royal birth of Rama, his traditional Indian values and her own British
tutelage under the sage Visavamitra, and his success upbringing.
in bending Siva’s mighty bow, thus winning Sita, the
daughter of king Janaka, for his wife. After Rama is 6. Major Writers.
banished from his position as heir by an intrigue, he a) Kalidasa a Sanskrit poet and dramatist is
retreats to the forest with his wife and his half brother, probably the greatest Indian writer of all time. As with
Laksmana. There Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, most classical Indian authors, little is known about
carries off Sita, who resolutely rejects his attentions. kalidasa’s person or his historical relationships. His
After numerous adventures Rama slays Ravana and poems suggest that he was a Brahman (priest). Many
rescues Sita. When they return to his kingdom, works are traditionally ascribed to the poet, but
however, Rama learns that the people question the scholars have identified only six as genuine.
queen’s chastity, and he banishes her to the forest b) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) The son of a
where she gives birth to Rama’s two sons. The family Great Sage, Tagore is a Bengali poet and mystic who
is reunited when the come of age, but Sita, after again won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
The death of his wife and two children brought him as the Hundred Schools period because of the
years to sadness but this also inspired some of his many competing philosophers and teachers.
best poetry. Tagore is also gifted composer and a Among the most influential include Lao Tzu, the
painter. proponent of Taoism, and Confucius, the founder
c) Kamala Markandaya (1924). Her works concern of Confucianism.
the struggles of contemporary Indians with conflicting 3. Ch’in Dynasty (221 B.C. – 207 B.C.). This is
Eastern and Western values. A Brahman, she studied where China saw unification and the
at Madras University then settled in England and strengthening of central government. Roads
married and Englishman. In her fiction, Western values connecting all parts of the empire were built and
typically are viewed as modern and materialistic, and the existing walls on the northern borders were
Indian values as spiritual and traditional. connected to form the Great Wall of China.
 Nectar in a Sieve. Her first novel and most 4. Han Dynasty (207 B.C. – A.D. 220) One of the
popular work is about an Indian peasant’s most glorious eras of Chinese history. This period
narrative of her difficult life. was marked by the introduction of Buddhism from
d) R.K. Narayan (1906). One of the finest Indian India.
authors of his generation writing in English. He briefly 5. T’ang Dynasty (A.D. 618 – 960) The Golden Age
worked as a teacher before deciding to devote himself of Chinese civilization. Fine arts and literature
fulltime to writing. All of Narayan’s works are set in the flourished in this period. Among the technological
fictitious South Indian town of Malgundi. They typically advances of this time were the invention of gun
portray the peculiarities of human relationships and the powder and the block printing.
ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban - Tu Fu, Li Po and Po Chui – Chinas Great
existence clashes with ancient tradition. His style is Poets
graceful, marked by genial humor, elegance, and -Li-Yian – Chinas Greatest Poets
simplicity. 6. Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960 – 1279). This period
e) Anita Desai (1937). An English-language Indian was characterized by delicacy and refinement
novelist and author of children’s books, she is although inferior in literary arts but great in
considered India’s premier imagist writer. She excelled learning. The practice of Neo-Confucianism
in evoking character and mood through visual images. proliferated.
Most of her works reflect Desei’s tragic view of life.
 Cry, the Peacock. Her novel addressing the Philosophy and Religion
theme of the suppression and oppression of Chinese literature and all of Chinese culture has been
Indian women. profoundly influenced by three great schools of
 Clear Light of Day. This is a highly thought: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
evocative portrait of two sisters caught in the Chinese religions are based on the perception of life as
lassitude of Indian life. Considered her most a process of continual change in which opposing
successful work, shortlisted for the 1980 forces, such as heaven and earth or light and dark,
Booker Prize. balance one another. These opposites are symbolized
 Fir on the Mountain. This won her the by the Yin and Yang. Yin, the passive and feminine
Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby force, counterbalances Yang, the active and masculine
Memorial Prize. force, each contains a ‘seed’ of the other, as
represented in the traditional yin-yang symbol.

a. Confucianism provides the Chinese with both a

CHINA
moral order and an order for the universe. It is not
a religion but it makes individuals aware of their
Chinese literature reflects the political and social
place in the world and the behavior appropriate to
history of China and the impact of powerful religions
it. It also provides a political and social
that came from within and outside the country. Its
philosophy.
tradition goes back thousand of years and has often
Confucian ethics is humanist. The following are
been inspired by philosophical questions about the
Confucian tenets:
meaning of life, how to live ethically in society, and
A. jen or human heartedness are
how to live in spiritual harmony with the natural order
qualities or forms of behavior that set
of the universe.
men above the rest of the lie on earth.
- Red Dragon of the East
Also known as ren, it is the measure
of individual character and such, is the
goal of self-cultivation.
1. Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.). People practiced a
B. li refers to ritual, custom, propriety,
religion based on the belief that nature was
and manner. A person of li is a good
inhabited by many powerful gods and spirits.
person.
Among the significant advances of this period
b. Taoism was illustrated by Lao Tzu during the
were bronze working, decimal system, a twelve-
Chou Dynasty. Taoist beliefs and influences are
month calendar and a system of writing consisting
an important part of classical Chinese culture. The
3,000 characters.
“Tao” or “The Way” means the natural course that
2. Chou Dynasty (1100 B.C. – 221 B.C.). The
the world follows. To follow the “Tao” or to go with
longest of all dynasties and throughout most of
the flow is both wisdom and happiness. For the
this period China suffered from severe political
disunity and upheaval. This era was also known
 Taoist, unhappiness comes form parting from the falling of the snow in midsummer which were
“Tao” or from trying to flout it. the curse that Tou Ngo cast upon her death.
c. Buddhism was imported fro India during the Han The truth is revealed in the end the tragic
dynasty. Buddhist thought stresses the heroine is vindicated.
importance of ridding oneself of earthly desires
and of seeking ultimate peace and enlightenment Major Writers
through detachment. With its stress on living a. Taoist Writers
ethically and its de-emphasis on material  Chuang Tzu (4th century B.C.) was the most
concerns, Buddhism appealed to both Confucians important early interpreter of the philosophy
and Taoists. of Taoism. In his stories, he appears as a
quirky character who cares little for either
Philosophical Works public approval or material possessions.
a. The Analects (Lun Yu) is one of the four  Lieh Tzu (4th century B.C.) was a Taoist
Confucian texts. The sayings range from brief teacher who had many philosophical
statements to more extended dialogues differences with his forebears Lao-Tzu and
between Confucius and his students. The Chuan Tzu. He argued that the sequence of
Analects instructs on moderation in all things causes predetermines everything that
through moral education, the building of a happens, including one’s choice of action.
harmonious family life and the development of  Lui An (172 – 122 B.C.). Taoist scholar, the
virtues such as loyalty, obedience and a sense grandson of the founder of the Han dynasty.
of justice. His royal title was the Prince of Haui-nan.
b. The Tao-Te Ching (Classic of the Way of Together with philosophers and under his
Power) is believed to have been written patronage, he produced a collection of
between the 8th and 3rd centuries B.C. It essays on metaphysics, cosmology, politics,
presents a way of life intended to restore and conduct.
harmony and tranquillity to a kingdom racked b. Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145 – 122 B.C.) was the
by widespread disorders. greatest of China’s grand historians who
c. Chuang Tzu is the philosophical work of Lao dedicated himself to completing the first history
Tzu’s most important disciple, Chuan Tzu. of China the Records of the Historian. His
Written in a witty, imaginative style, this book work covers almost three thousand years of
consists of fables and anecdotes that teach Chinese history in more than half a million
the Taoist philosophy and questioned the written characters etched onto bamboo tablets.
principles of Confucianism. c. Po Chu-I (772 – 846). He wrote many poems
speaking bitterly against the social and
Literary Selections economic problems that were plaguing China.
a. The Book of Songs (Shih Ching), compiled d. Li Ch’ing-chao (A.D. 1084 – 1151) is
around the 6th century B.C. is the oldest regarded as China’s greatest woman poet and
collection of Chinese poetry. This collection was also one of the most liberated women of
consists of 305 poems, many of which were her day. Many of her poems composed in the
originally folk songs, focusing on such themes tz’u form celebrate her happy marriage or
as farming, love, and war. express her loneliness when her husband was
b. The Book of Changes (I Ching) is one of the away.
Five Classics of Confucian philosophy and e. Chou-Shu-jen (1881 – 1936) has been called
has been primarily used for divination. the Father of the modern Chinese short story
c. Record of a Journey to the West is the because of his introduction of Western
foremost Chinese comic novel written about techniques. He is also known as Lu Hsun
1500-82 by the long-anonymous Wu whose stories deal with themes of social
Chengen. The novel is based on the actual concern, the problems of the poor, women and
7th-century pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk intellectuals.
Xuanzang (602-664) to India in search of f. Mao Tun is the pen name of Shen Yen-ping
sacred texts. who is an exponent of revolutionary realism.
d. Dream of the Red Chamber is a novel by He is the author of a half-dozen novels, of
Cao Zhan thought to be semiautobiographical which Midnight (1933) is considered to be his
and generally considered to be the greatest of masterpiece.
all Chinese novels. It details the decline of the
Jia family including 30 main characters and
more than 400 minor ones. The major focus is
on young Baoyu, the gifted but obstinate heir JAPAN
of the clan.
e. The Injustice Done to Tou Ngo a play by - home of rising sun
Guan Han-Cheng, a Yuan dramatist, tells the Naga-uta – long poem
story of the poisoning of Old Chang by his own Kojiki – Records of Ancient Matters
son but the conviction of Tou Ngo for the Nihongi – Chronocles of japan
crime. The element of the fantastic is Yukiguni (Snow Country) – written by
employed in the appearance of Tou Ngo as a Yasunari Kawabata, second Asian recipient of
ghost defending herself in the trial and the Nobel Prize in Literature
  The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
Shikibu, a work of tremendous length and
Religious Traditions complexity, is considered to be the world’s
first true novel. It traces the life of a gifted
Two major faiths were essential elements in the and charming prince.
cultural foundations of Japanese society.  The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon,
a. Shintoism or ‘the way of the gods,’ is the represents a unique form of the diary genre.
ancient religion that reveres in dwelling divine It contains of vivid sketches of people and
spirits called kami, found in natural places and place, shy anecdotes and witticisms,
objects. For this reason natural scenes, such snatches of poetry, and 164 lists on court life
as waterfall, a gnarled tree, or a full moon, during the Heian period.
inspired reverence in the Japanese people.  Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko was
b. Zen Buddhism emphasized the importance of written during the age of feudalism. It is a
meditation, concentration, and self-discipline loosely organized collection of insights,
as the way to enlightenment. Zen rejects the reflections, and observations, written during
notion that salvation is attained outside of this the 14th century.
life and this world. Instead, Zen disciples Major Writers
believe that one can attain personal tranquillity a. Seami Motokiyo. At age 20 not long
and insights into the true meaning of life after his father’s death, he took over
through rigorous physical and mental his father’s acting school and began to
discipline. write plays.
b. The Haiku Poets
Poetry is one of the oldest and most popular means of  Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694) is regarded
expression and communication in the Japanese as the greatest haiku poet. He was born into
culture. It was an integral part of daily life in an ancient a samurai family and began writing poems at
Japanese society, serving as a means through which an early age. Basho means banana plant, a
anyone could chronicle experiences and express gift given him to which he became deeply
emotions. attached.
a. The Manyoshu or ‘Book of Ten Thousand  Yosa Buson (1716 – 1783) is regarded as
Leaves is an anthology by poets from a wide the second-greatest haiku poet. He lived in
range of social classes, including the Kyoto throughout most of his life and was
peasantry, the clergy, and the ruling class. one of the finest painters of his time. Buson
b. There are different poems according to set presents a romantic view of the Japanese
forms or structures: landscape, vividly capturing the wonder and
 choka are poems that consist of alternate mystery of nature.
lines of five and seven syllables with an c. Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972) won the
additional seven-syllable line at the end. Nobel prize for Literature in 1968. Three of his
There is no limit to the number of lines which best novels are Snow Country, Thousand
end with envoys, or pithy summations. Cranes, and Sound of the Mountains. He
These envoys consist of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables committed suicide shortly after the suicide of
that elaborate on or summarize the theme or his friend Mishima.
central idea of the main poem. d. Junichiro Tanizaki (1886 – 1965) is a major
 Tanka is the most prevalent verse form in novelist whose writing is characterized by
the traditional Japanese literature. It consists eroticism and ironic wit. His earliest stories
of five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables including were like those of Edgar Allan Poe’s but he
at least one caesura, or pause. The tanka later turned toward the exploration of more
often tell a brief story or express a single traditional Japanese ideals of beauty. Among
thought with the common subjects which are his works are Some Prefer Nettles, The
love and nature. Makioka Sisters, Diary of a Mad Old Man.
 Renga is a chain of interlocking tanka. Each e. Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) is the pen
tanka within a renga was divided into verses name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a prolific writer
of 17 and 14 syllables composed by different who is regarded as many writers as the most
poets as it was fashionable for groups of important Japanese novelist of the 20th
poets to work together during the age of century. His highly acclaimed first novel,
Japanese feudism. Confessions of a Mask is party
 Hokku was the opening verse of a renga autobiographical work that describes with
which developed into a distinct literary form stylistic brilliance a homosexual who must
known as the haiku. The haiku consists of 3 mask his sexual orientation. Mishima
lines of 5-7-5 syllable characterized by committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment).
precision, simplicity, and suggestiveness.
Almost all haiku include a kigo or seasonal
words such as snow or cherry blossom that
indicated the time of year being described. AFRICA
Prose appeared in the early part of 8th century - after World War II
focusing on the Japanese history.
North Africa – earliest example of Muslim inspired to examine Western values critically and to reassess
religious writing African culture. The movement largely faded in the
early 1960s when its political and cultural objectives
Chaka – Thomas Mafolo had been achieved in most African countries. The
In the Gold of Mines – BW Vilakazi basic ideas behind Negritude include:
The Swamp Dwellers – Wole Soyinka  Africans must look to their own cultural
Nadine Gordimer – second sub-Saharan African Writer heritage to determine the values and traditions
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe that are most useful in the modern world.
Ozidi and Song of a Goat – John Peter Clark  Committed writers should use African subject
matter and poetic traditions and should excite
a desire for political freedom.
1. The Rise of Africa’s Great Civilization. Between  Negritude itself encompasses the whole of
751 and 664 B.C. the kingdom of Kush at the southern African cultural, economic, social, and political
end of the Nile River gained strength and prominence values.
succeeding the New Kingdom of Egyptian Civilization.  The value and dignity of African traditions and
Smaller civilization around the edges of the Sahara peoples must be asserted.
also existed among them the Fasa of the northern
Sudan, whose deeds are recalled by the Soninka oral African Poetry
epic, The Daust a. Paris in the Snow swings between
assimilation of French, European culture or
a) Aksum (3rd century A.D.), a rich kingdom in negritude, intensified by the poet’s catholic
eastern Africa arose in what is now Ethiopia. It served piety.
as the center of a trade route and developed its own b. Totem by Leopold Senghor shows the
writing system. eternal linkage of the living with the dead.
c. Letters to Martha by Dennis Brutus is the
b) The Kingdom of Old Ghana (A.D. 300) the first of poet’s most famous collection that speaks of
great civilization in western Africa succeeded by the the humiliation, the despondency, the indignity
empires of Old Mali and Songhai. The legendary city of prison life.
of Timbuktu was a center of trade in both the Mali and d. Train Journey by Dennis Brutus reflects the
Songhai empires. poet’s social commitment, as he reacts to the
poverty around him amidst material progress
c) New cultures sprung up throughout the South: especially and acutely felt by the innocent
Luba and Malawi empires in central Africa, the two victims, the children.
Congo kingdoms, the Swahili culture of eastern Africa, e. Africa by David Diop is a poem that achieves
the kingdom of Old Zimbabwe, and the Zulu nation its impact by a series of climactic sentences
near the southern tip of the continent. and rhetorical questions.

d) Africa’s Golden Age (between A.D. 300 and A.D.

1600) marked the time when sculpture, music, Novels
metalwork, textiles, and oral literature flourished. a. The Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono points
e) Foreign influences came in the 4th century. out the disillusionment of Toundi, a boy who
 The Roman Empire had proclaimed Christianity leaves his parents maltreatment to enlist his
as its state religion and taken control of the services as an acolyte to a foreign missionary.
entire northern coast of Africa including Egypt.
 Around 700 A.D. Islam, the religion of b. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depicts
Mohammed, was introduced into Africa as well a vivid picture of Africa before the colonization
as the Arabic writing system. Old mali, Somali by the British. The title is an epigraph from
and other eastern African nations were largely Yeats’ The Second Coming: ‘things fall
Muslim. apart/the center cannot hold/ mere anarchy is
 European powers created colonized countries in loosed upon the world.
the late 1800s. Social and political chaos
reigned as traditional African nations were either c. No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is a
split apart by European colonizers or joined with sequel to Things Fall Apart and the title of
incompatible neighbors. which is alluded to Elliot’s The Journey of the
 Mid-1900s marked the independence and Magi: ‘We returned to our places, these
rebirth of traditional cultures written in African kingdoms,/ But no longer at ease here, in the
languages. old dispensation.’

Negritude, which means literally ‘blackness,’ is the d. The Poor Christ of Bombay by Mongo Beti
literary movement of the 1030s-1950s that began begins en medias res and exposes the
among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers inhumanity of colonialism. The novel tells of Fr.
living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule Drumont’s disillusionment after the discovery
and the policy of assimilation. Its leading figure was of the degradation of the native women
Leopold Sedar Senghor (1st president of the republic of betrothed, but forced to work like slaves in the
Senegal in 1960), who along with Aime Cesaire from sixa.
Martinique and Leo Damas from French Guina, began
 e. The River Between by James Ngugi shows the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Her
the clash of traditional values and works include, The Soft Voice of the
contemporary ethics and mores. Serpent, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People,
A Sport of Nature, My Son’s Story.
f. Heirs to the Past by Driss Chraili is an f. Bessie Head (1937-1986) described the
allegorical, parable-like novel. After 16 years of contradictions and shortcomings of pre- and
absence, the anti-hero Driss Ferdi returns to postcolonial African society in morally didactic
Morocco for his father’s funeral. The Signeur novels and stories. She suffered rejection and
leaves his legacy via a tape recorder in which alienation from an early age being born of an
he tells the family members his last will and illegal union between her white mother and
testament. black father. Her works include, When Rain
g. A Few Days and Few Nights by Mbella Clouds Gather, A Question of Power, The
Sonne Dipoko deals with racial prejudice. In Collector of treasures, Serowe.
the novel originally written in French, a
Cameroonian scholar studying in France is g. Barbara Kimenye (1940) wrote twelve books
torn between the love of a Swedish girl and a on children’s stories known as the Moses
Parisienne show father owns a business series which are now standard reading fare for
establishment in Africa. African school children. Among her works are:
h. The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka is about a Kalasandra Revisited, The Smugglers, The
group of young intellectuals who function as money game.
artists in their talks with one another as they
try to place themselves in the context of the
world abouth them.
ENGLISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE
Major Writers
a. Leopold Sedar Senghor (1960) is a poet and
statesman who was confounder of the
ENGLISH LITERATURE
Negritude movement in African art and
literature. His works include: Songs of
Shadow, Black Offerings, Major Elegies, I. Old English Period
Poetical Work. He became president of A. Historical Background
Senegal in 1960.
1. The beginnings of English literature appeared in
the 7th or 8th century AD. After the Romans
b. Okot P’Bitek (1930-1982) was born in
withdrew their troops from Britain in 410, there
Uganda during the British domination and was
followed a long period of social unrest, war, and
embodied in a contrast of cultures. Among his
turbulence.
works are: Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol,
African Religions and Western Scholarship, 2. The Britons were forced to defend themselves
Religion of the Central Luo, Horn of My alone against Picts and Scots from Scotland.
Love. Then, from the European continent came the
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (about AD 428).
c. Wole Soyinka (1934) is a Nigerian Playwright, 3. The Anglo-Saxons were tall and fair-haired
poet, novelist, and critic who was the first black people who wore breastplates called “byrnies”,
African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for sometimes adorned with gold, their helmets
Literature in 1986. Among his works: plays- A were covered with figures of boars, heads or
Dance of the Forests, The Lion and the other decorations and they fought with swords
Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero; novels – and spears or with bows and arrows. They
The Interpreters, Season of Anomy; poems plundered city after city. When this society
– Idanre and Other Poems, Poems from became established, English literature began.
Prison, A Shuttle in the Crypt, Mandela’s 4. Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory to
Earth and Other Poems. convert the British to Christianity. He established
a Benedictine abbey at Canterbury as the seat
d. Chinua Achebe (1930) is a prominent Igbo of his diocese. This became the center of
novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental learning and scholarship of all Western Europe.
depictions of the social and psychological
disorientation accompanying the imposition of
Western customs and values upon traditional B. Old English Literature
African society. His particular concern was 1. The Venerable Bede (673?-735), a monk,
with emergent Africa at its moments of crisis. was the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar who
His works include, Things Fall Apart, Arrow wrote the 'Ecclesiastical History of the
of God, No Longer at ease, A Man of the English Nation
People, Anthills of Savanah. 2. Alfred the Great (848?-899) wrote in his
native tongue and encouraged scholarly
e. Nadine Gordimer (1923) is a South African translations from Latin into Old English
novelist and short story writer whose major (Anglo-Saxon).It was probably during his
theme was exile and alienation. She received
 time that the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' was 5. Education flourished; and the first
begun. universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were
3. Beowulf is the most notable example of the founded in the 12th century.
earliest English poetry, which blends B. Literature
Christianity and paganism. 1. Pearl Poet (14th century) is generally
 Beowulf is written in Old English, the remembered for his narrative poem 'Sir
source of Modern English. Gawain and the Green Knight'.
 The story of 'Beowulf' takes place in  Sir Gawain is considered the best
lands other than England; but the example of the romance.
customs and manners described were  Romances are considered the most
those of the Anglo-Saxon people. This popular literary form of the Middle Ages.
epic poem describes their heroic past. It Gawain is an example of a metrical
tells of Beowulf's three fierce fights with romance, that is, a long rambling love
the monster Grendel, the equally story presenting knightly adventures and
ferocious mother of Grendel, and the courtly love.
fiery dragon. By conquering them,
2. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) was one of
Beowulf saves his people from
the world's greatest storytellers.
destruction.
 His 'Canterbury Tales' is a
 Old English poems, such as 'The Battle
masterpiece, with characters who
of Brunanburg' and 'The Battle of
remain eternally alive: the Wife of Bath,
Maldon', are heroic, while 'The
with her memories of five husbands; the
Wanderer' and 'The Sea-Farer' have a
Noble Knight, returned from heroic
sad and pleasing lyric quality.
deeds; his gay young son, the Squire;
4. Caedmon (7th century) was an unlearned the delightful Prioress; and entertaining
cowherd. According to legend, he was scoundrels, such as the Friar,
inspired by a vision and miraculously Summoner, and Pardoner.
acquired the gift of poetic song.
Unfortunately, only nine lines by this first  He chose a religious pilgrimage as the
known poet survive. frame story of the richest portrayal of
medieval men and women.
5. Cynewulf (8th century) signed his poems in
a kind of cypher, or anagram, made up of  He directed satire to the worldliness of
ancient figures called runes. His poems, the bishops and abbots and the
such as 'Christ', deal with religious subjects. corruptness of friars and pardoners.
3. Sir Thomas Malory wrote 'Le Morte
d'Arthur', a collection of stories about King
II. Middle English Literature Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table
A. Historical Background culled from the Arthurian legends. 'Le Morte
1. Harold II, last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, was d'Arthur' was the main source for later
killed in the Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14, retellings of the stories.
1066. William the Conqueror crossed to 4. Middle English Drama
England from the North of France, overcame
 Drama began with the impersonation or
the English King Harold and assumed the
dramatization of passages from the
kingship.
liturgy of the resurrection and the nativity
2. The Norman Conquest greatly changed of Christ.
English life. The Normans wiped out the
 Miracle and mystery plays began as
English ruling class. They destroyed
celebrations of traditional religious feasts
vernacular English; purged and purified
and fasts.
monasteries; emphasized knowledge of
Latin; and gave England a new architectural  They were first produced in the Latin
novelty – the castle. language and staged inside the Church.
3. Frenchmen filled all positions of power. The  By the 14th century, whole “cycles” of
Old English language went untaught and short plays were performed on certain
was spoken only by "unlettered" people. The feast days of the Church – the plays
language of the nobility and of the law courts were based closely on the narratives of
was Norman-French; the language of the the Bible, hence they are called miracle
scholars was Latin. This situation lasted for plays.
nearly 300 years.  Morality plays were also popular at the
4. Age of Chivalry - Chivalry came into being, end of the Middle English period. They
fed by the great Crusades. The tales of King dramatized the typical content of a
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table homily or a sermon. They usually
were a result of this movement. Chivalry was personified such abstractions as Health,
closely connected with feudal obligations, Death, or the Seven Deadly Sins and
with the church and with social relations offered practical instruction in morality.
between men and women.
  Everyman is regarded as the best of the  Dr. Faustus powerfully exemplifies the
morality plays. It talks about Everyman sum total of the intellectual aspirations of
facing Death. He summons the help of the Renaissance.
all his friends but only Good Deeds is 2.Edmund Spenser (1552?-99) left an
able to help him. Characters in this unfinished work entitled 'The Faerie Queene'
morality play are personifications of (1589-96) which is considered his
abstractions like Everyman, Death, masterpiece.
Fellowships, Cousins, Kindred, Goods,
Good Deeds, etc.  'The Faerie Queene' is an elaborate
allegory built on the story of a 12-day
5. English and Scottish ballads were sung by feast honoring the Queen of Fairyland
people at social gatherings. They preserved (Elizabeth I).
the local events, beliefs and characters in an
easily remembered form. One familiar ballad  Each verse in the Spenserian stanza
is 'Sir Patrick Spens', which concerns Sir contains nine lines: eight lines of iambic
Patrick’s death by drowning. pentameter, with five feet, followed by a
single line of iambic hexameter, an
"alexandrine," with six. The rhyme
III. The Renaissance In English Literature scheme of these lines is "ababbcbcc."
A. Historical Background 3.William Shakespeare is the great genius of
1. Renaissance swept Western Europe in the the Elizabethan Age (1564-1616). He wrote
15th Century. The word means "rebirth" and more than 35 plays as well as 154 sonnets
refers especially to the revival of ancient and 2 narrative poems ('Venus and Adonis',
Greek learning. 1593; 'The Rape of Lucrece', 1594).
2. The invention of printing through movable  He is a genius at characterization; he
types (Gutenberg) kindled a new spirit of immortalized the noble and yet disturbed
inquiry and hastened the overthrow of feudal Hamlet; pathetic Ophelia; wise Portia;
institutions. ambitious Macbeth; witty Rosalind;
3. In England the Renaissance coincided villainous Iago; and dainty Ariel.
roughly with the reigns of the Tudors -  His sonnets, also known as the
Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth Elizabethan sonnet, are composed of
I. Under Elizabeth's brilliant rule, England three quatrains and one heroic couplet
became a world power. with the rhyme scheme - abab-cdcd-
4. For England, the year 1485 is a convenient efef-gg.
date for marking this change from 4.Ben Jonson (1573?-1637) was a
medievalism. In that year, two significant contemporary of Shakespeare. His comedy
events took place: the Wars of the Roses was strictly patterned after the structure of
ended on Bosworth Field and William the Greek masters’.
Caxton printed Malory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur'. 'Volpone' (1606?) is a comical and sarcastic
5. The gradual broadening of human portrait of a wealthy but selfish old man who
knowledge during this period is often keeps his greedy would-be heirs hanging on
referred to as the revival of learning. The his wishes, each thinking that he will inherit
individual liberated himself/herself from the Volpone's wealth.
bonds of feudalism and other rigid 5.The King James Bible is one of the supreme
institutions of the middle ages. achievements of the English Renaissance.
6. The Reformation changed the interpretation This translation was ordered by James I and
of the relation of the individual Christian to made by 47 scholars working in cooperation.
the Church and to God. It was published in 1611 and is known as the
7. The Humanists labored to make the ancient Authorized Version. It is rightly regarded as
classics prevail. They not only emphasized the most influential book in the history of
the importance of beauty and perfection in English civilization.
art, but they also preached the Greek ideals 6.Characteristics of the period
of a well-rounded life that is trained in both  There was a marvelous increase in the
the body and the intellect. production and quality of English
literature.
B. English Renaissance Literature  Poets took up new views, beautified
1.Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) died at 29 them, and sang of them in their lyrics.
when he was stabbed in a tavern brawl. A  Writers wrote in praise of peace, of
line from his own 'Doctor Faustus' is his best springtime and above all heavenly and
epitaph: "Cut is the branch that might have earthly love.
grown full straight."
 The sonnet became the most favorite
 His plays, such as 'Tamburlaine' (1587?) lyric poem. The sonnet is a 14-line
and 'Doctor Faustus' (1588?), brought iambic pentameter poem.
passion and tragedy onto the stage.
  English prose also made a distinct  'Paradise Regained' (1671) is Milton's
advance during this period, but writers of sequel to 'Paradise Lost'.
Elizabethan prose concentrated on  Milton's last work is a blank-verse
style. tragedy in the ancient Greek manner. It
 Melodrama and sensationalism deals with the story of Samson and
appeared in the writings done by such Delilah. 'Samson Agonistes' (1671) is in
dramatists as John Webster (1580?- many ways Milton's allegorical
1625?), Thomas Middleton (1570?- description of himself as a Samson
1627), and John Ford (1586-1640?). bound in chains by his enemies, the
These playwrights took such liberties followers of King Charles II.
with their subjects and with the 5.John Donne (1573-1631) was the greatest of
language. the metaphysical poets.
 In 1642 the Puritan reformers  Metaphysical Poetry makes use of
controlling London ordered that the conceits that is, of farfetched similes
theaters be closed. They did not reopen and metaphors intended to startle the
officially until the Restoration of 1660. reader into an awareness of the
relationships among things ordinarily not
IV. The 17th Century associated.
A. Historical Background  Donne’s chief subject was love as it
perfects man. He never treated the
1. The 17th century is sometimes been called
subject profanely. He drew from diverse
an age of transition; sometimes an age of
sources as theology, myth, sciences,
revolution.
folklore, geography, war and court
2. Oliver Cromwell ruled England. The national litigation.
pride of Englishmen lessened as the Crown
lost dignity through the behavior of James I,  He was occasionally earthy, but only
Charles I, and Charles II. because he recognized that man is a
creature who must love in a natural way.
3. A new middle class began to show its power.
 His poem 'The Extasy' is a celebration of
4. The Age of Exploration and scientific sacramental love. His prose is as rich as
investigation reigned. his poetry; but nothing can match the
B. Literature of the 17th Century mastery of such poetry as his 'Hymne to
1.The 17th century was an age of prose. Interest God My God, in My Sicknesse'.
in scientific detail and leisurely observation 6.George Herbert (1593-1633), like Donne, was
marked the prose of the time. This new both a metaphysical poet and an Anglican
writing style emphasized clarity, directness, priest. Some of Herbert's most effective
and economy of expression. It first appeared poetry deals with man's thirst for God and
just before 1600 in the 'Essays' of Bacon. with God's abounding love. Herbert's
2.Francis Bacon was a famous English collection, 'The Temple' (1633), was
essayist, lawyer, philosopher and statesman published posthumously (he probably did not
who had a major influence on the philosophy intend his poetry to be published).
of science. 7.Andrew Marvell (1621-78), Richard Crashaw
 Philosophically, Bacon sought to purge (1612?-49), and Henry Vaughan (1622-95)
the mind of what he called "idols," or were other metaphysical poets of merit. Most
tendencies to error. easily understood, perhaps, is Marvell, at
least in the well-loved lyric 'To His Coy
3.John Bunyan wrote the prose masterpiece of
Mistress'.
the century 'The Pilgrim's Progress' (1678)
8.Cavalier Poetry is written with a sense of
4.John Milton (1608-74) was the great poet of
elegance and in a style which emphasized
the first half of the century.
wit and charm and the delicate play of words
 He was a Puritan who served Cromwell and ideas. Chief among the Cavalier group
as Latin secretary. were Thomas Carew (1595?-1639), Richard
 Milton's greatest early poem is 'Lycidas' Lovelace (1618-58), Sir John Suckling
(1638), a lament on the death of a (1609-42), and Robert Herrick (1591-1674).
college friend. 9.John Dryden (1631-1700) wrote such poems
 He dedicated his masterpiece, 'Paradise as 'Absalom and Achitophel' (1681-82) and
Lost' (1667), to his daughters. This is an 'Alexander's Feast' (1697), which
epic poem telling of the fall of the angels established his superiority in both satire and
and of the creation of Adam and Eve lyric. He was also the leading dramatist,
and their temptation by Satan in the writing both comedy ('Marriage-a-la-Mode',
Garden of Eden ("Of Man's first 1673; 'The Kind Keeper', 1680) and tragedy
disobedience, and the fruit/ Of that ('Aureng-Zebe', 1676) of great popularity.
forbidden tree . . . "). It is written in blank His translation of Virgil's Aeneid is still widely
verse of great solemnity. read for its poetry alone.
 3.Alexander Pope (1688-1744) published an
V. THE 18TH CENTURY AGE OF REASON exposition of the rules of the classical school
in the form of a poem “An Essay on
A. Historical Background
Criticism” in 1711.
1. The 18th century celebrated the excellence of
 'The Dunciad' (1728) lists the stupid
the human mind.
writers and men of England by name as
2. Many people of the time thought they were dunces. These "dunces" proceeded to
passing through a golden period similar to attack Pope in kind.
that of the Roman emperor Augustus. For
this reason the name "Augustan" was  Pope excelled in his ability to coin
given to the early 18th century. The century unforgettable phrases. Such lines as
has also been called the Age of "fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
Enlightenment. Many writers of the era or "damn with faint praise" illustrate why
used ancient Greek and Roman authors as Pope is the most quoted poet in English
models of style. Hence the period in literature except for Shakespeare.
literature is often described as neoclassic.  ‘The Rape of the Lock' (1712)
3. Scientific discoveries were encouraged. mockingly describes a furious fight
Many important inventions for example, the between two families when a young man
spinning jenny, the power loom, and the snips off a lock of the beautiful Belinda's
steam engine brought about an industrial hair. Pope wrote in heroic couplets, a
society. technique in which he has been
unsurpassed. In thought and form he
4. Cities grew in size, and London began to carried 18th-century reason and order to
assume its present position as a great its highest peak.
industrial and commercial center.
4.Thomas Gray (1716-71) was probably the
5. In addition to a comfortable life, the most typical man of letters of the period.
members of the middle class demanded a
respectable, moralistic art that was  He was a scholar of ancient languages,
controlled by common sense. They reacted a letter writer, and a critic as well as a
in protest to the aristocratic immoralities in poet.
much of the Restoration literature.  His 'Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard' (1751) is a collection of
18th-century commonplaces expressing
B. Literature
concern for lowly folk.
1.Joseph Addison and Richard Steele began
5.Henry Fielding (1707-54) was amused by
the modern essay in two periodicals, The
'Pamela' and parodied it in 'Joseph Andrews'
Spectator (1711-12), and The Tatler (1709-
(1742), which purports to be the story of
11). Their essays appealed to the middle
Pamela's brother.
class in the coffeehouses rather than to the
nobility in their palaces.  Seven years later he wrote 'Tom Jones'
2.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is one of the (1749), one of the greatest novels in
great prose writers of all time. English literature.
 Although born in Ireland, Swift always  It tells the story of a young foundling
said that he was an Englishman. His who is driven from his adopted home,
defense of the Irish people against the wanders to London, and eventually, for
tyranny of the English government, all his suffering, wins his lady.
however, was whole-hearted. As much 6.Laurence Sterne (1713-68) wrote 'Tristram
as he may have disliked Ireland, he Shandy' (1760-67), a collection of episodes
disliked injustice and tyranny more. with little organization but a wealth of 18th-
century humor.
 'A Modest Proposal' (1729), is a bitter
pamphlet where he ironically suggested 7.Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74) wrote one of the
that the Irish babies be specially best plays ('She Stoops to Conquer', 1773),
fattened for profitable sale as meat, one of the best poems ('The Deserted
since the English were eating the Irish Village', 1770), and one of the best novels
people anyhow, by heavy taxation. ('The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766) of the latter
half of the 18th century.
 'Gulliver's Travels' (1726) is a satire on
human folly and stupidity. Swift said that
he wrote it to vex the world rather than VI. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND
to divert it. Most people, however, are so A. Romanticism
delightfully entertained by the tiny
1. The most important tenets of Romanticism
Lilliputians and by the huge
were belief in the importance of the
Brobdingnagians that they do not bother
individual, imagination, and intuition.
much with Swift's bitter satire on human
pettiness or crudity. 2. The Romanticists believed that all humans
deserve the treatment to which human
beings are by nature entitled. Every human
 has a right to life, liberty, and equal his ideas were so unusual. He devoted his
opportunity. life to freedom and universal love.
3. The main tenets of Romanticism included a  He was interested in children and
shift from faith in reason to faith in the animals the most innocent of God's
senses, feelings, and imagination; from creatures. As he wrote in 'Songs of
interest in urban society and its Innocence' (1789):
sophistication to an interest in the rural and When the voices of children
natural; from public, impersonal poetry to are heard on the green,
subjective poetry; and from concern with the
scientific and mundane to interest in the And laughing is heard on the
mysterious and infinite. hill,
4. Because of this concern for nature and the My heart is at rest within my
simple folk, authors began to take an interest breast,
in old legends, folk ballads, antiquities, ruins, And everything else is still.
"noble savages," and rustic characters.  He also wrote ‘The Marriage of Heaven
 Many writers started to give more play to and Hell’ which attacks hypocrisy, and
their senses and to their imagination. ‘Song of Experience,’ which presents a
somber world, one that is sick and
 Their pictures of nature became livelier
diseased by lust and greed, with nature
and more realistic.
replaced by Churches, factories and ale-
 They loved to describe rural scenes, houses
graveyards, majestic mountains, and
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) put
roaring waterfalls.
more wonder and mystery into beautiful
 They also liked to write poems and melodic verse than did. The strange,
stories of such eerie or supernatural haunting supernaturalism of 'The Rime of
things as ghosts, haunted castles, the Ancient Mariner' (1798) and 'Christabel'
fairies, and mad folk. (1816) have universal and irresistible appeal.
B. Pre-Romantic Writers 3. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), together
1. Robert Burns (1759-96), a Scot whose love with Coleridge, brought out a volume of
of nature and of freedom verse, 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798), which
signaled the beginning of English
 His nature lyrics are tenderly beautiful
Romanticism. Wordsworth found beauty in
('To a Mountain Daisy'); his sentimental
the realities of nature, which he vividly
songs are sung wherever young or old
reflects in the poems: “The World is Too
folks gather ('Auld Lang Syne', 'Flow
Much with Us,” “I Wandered Lonely as a
Gently Sweet Afton'). His rich humor can
Cloud,” “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden
still be felt in 'Tam o' Shanter', 'To a
Ways,” and “She was a Phantom of Delight”.
Louse', and 'The Cotter's Saturday
Night'. 4. Charles Lamb (1775-1834) wrote the playful
essay 'Dissertation on Roast Pig' (1822). He
2. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), wrote
also rewrote many of Shakespeare's plays
'Vindication of the Rights of Women' (1792)
into stories for children In 'Tales from
which was one of the first feminist books in
Shakespear' (1807).
all literature.
5. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote poems
3. Gothic Schools wrote stories of terror and
and novels. 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel'
imagination. Representative novels are 'The
(1805) and 'The Lady of the Lake' (1810) are
Castle of Otranto' (1764), by Horace
representative of Scott's poems. Between
Walpole (1717-97); 'The Mysteries of
1814 and 1832 Scott wrote 32 novels which
Udolpho' (1794), by Ann Radcliffe (1764-
include 'Guy Mannering' (1815) and
1823); and 'The Monk' (1796), by Matthew
'Ivanhoe' (1819).
Gregory Lewis (1775-1818). All these novels
are filled with the machinery of 6. Jane Austen (1775-1817) was a gifted
sensationalism unreal characters, writer of realistic novels, but who
supernatural events, and overripe experienced difficulty finding a publisher for
imagination. her skillfully drawn portraits of English
middle-class people. 'Pride and Prejudice'
4. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)
(1813) is her best-known work.
followed Gothic tradition in her 'Frankenstein'
(1818).  Her other novels include: Northanger
Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park,
Emma, Sense and Sensibility
C. The Romanticists
1. William Blake (1757-1827) was both poet
and artist. He not only wrote books, but he D. The Younger Romanticists
also illustrated and printed them. Many of his 1. George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was an
contemporaries thought him insane because outspoken critic of the evils of his time. He
hoped for human perfection, but his
 recognition of man's faults led him frequently 2. In 1833, Great Britain abolished slavery in the
to despair and disillusionment ('Manfred', colonies.
1817; 'Cain', 1821). 3. Choosing the members of the Parliament
 Much of his works are satires, bitterly placed powers in the hands of the voters, in
contemptuous of human foibles ('Don 1834.
Juan', 1819-24). His narrative poems 4. Many great changes took place in the first half
('The Corsair', 1814; 'Mazeppa', 1819), of the 19th century. Intellectual rebellions,
about wild and impetuous persons, such as those of Byron and Shelley, gave
brought him success. place to balance and adjustment. Individualism
 Other poems include: “Childe Harold’s began to be replaced by social and
Pilgrimage,” “She Walks in Beauty,” and governmental restraints.
“The Prisoner of Chillon”. 5. Science made rapid strides in the 19th
2. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was the century. The theory of evolution gave new
black sheep of a well-to-do, conservative insight into the biological sciences.
family. Sonnets, songs, and poetic dramas 6. Technical progress transformed Britain into a
flowed from his pen in the last four years of land of mechanical and industrial activity. Old
his life. ideas of faith and religion were put to serious
 Shelley and Keats established the tests by the new attitudes brought about by
romantic verse as a poetic tradition of scientific progress.
the period. 7. With progress, population doubled; poverty
 Many of his works are profound and and discontent increased.
meditative ('Prometheus Unbound', B. Major Victorian Poets - shifted from the extremely
1820). Others are exquisitely lyrical and personal expression (or subjectivism) of the
beautiful ('The Cloud', 'To a Skylark', Romantic writers to an objective surveying of the
'Ode to the West Wind'). 'Adonais' problems of human life.
(1821), his tribute to Keats, ranks among 1. Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) reflects his age
the greatest elegies. especially in his idealism and his devotion to
 In “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley rather formal virtue. He wrote seriously with a
shows an evocation of nature wilder and high moral purpose.
more spectacular than Wordsworth  'Idylls of the King' (1859) is a disguised
described it. study of ethical and social conditions.
3. John Keats (1795-1821) believed that true 'Locksley Hall' (1842), 'In Memoriam'
happiness was to be found in art and (1850), and 'Maud' (1855) deal with
natural beauty ('Ode on a Grecian Urn', conflicting scientific and social ideas.
1819; 'Ode to a Nightingale', 1819). His  Much of Tennyson's poetry, however,
verses are lively testimony to the truth of his can be read without worrying about such
words in 'Endymion' (1818): problems. His narrative skill makes
many of his poems interesting just as
A thing of beauty is a joy stories. For example, each of the
forever: Arthurian tales in 'Idylls of the King'
brings the reader a wealth of beauty and
Its loveliness increases; it will never
experience. 'The Lady of Shalott' and
Pass into nothingness; 'The Death of Oenone' are pleasing
tales to young readers.
 Keats’ mood, varying from rapture to 2. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) wrote
melancholy, from meditation to fantastic the most exquisite love poems of her time in
gaiety, shows unfailing good taste and 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1850). These
restraint and a classic sense of form. lyrics were written secretly while Robert
 His “Ode to a Nightingale” spoke of what Browning was courting her.
Keats called “negative capability,”  She combines religious fervor with deep
describing it as the moment of artistic classical learning.
inspiration when the poet achieved a  Her best poems are often touched with
kind of self-annihilation – arrived at that mysticism and intense emotions.
trembling, delicate perception of beauty.
3. Robert Browning (1812-89) is best
remembered for his dramatic monologues. 'My
VII. ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE VICTORIAN Last Duchess' (1842), 'Fra Lippo Lippi' (1855),
AGE and 'Andrea del Sarto' (1855) are excellent
examples.
A. Historical Background  The stirring rhythm of 'How They
Brought the Good News from Ghent to
1. The literature written during Queen Victoria's
Aix' (1845) and the simple wonder of
reign (1837-1901) has been given the name
Victorian.
 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' (1842)  Charlotte's 'Jane Eyre' and Emily's
endear Browning to readers. 'Wuthering Heights' (both 1847),
 He was more interested in the emotions especially, are powerful and intensely
of the individual rather than in universal personal stories of the private lives of
law. characters isolated from the rest of the
world.
 He analyzed the complexity of human
life and delighted so much in the 4. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) dealt with
analysis of motives. middle- and upper-class people interestingly,
naturally, and wittily ('Orley Farm', 1862).
4. Matthew Arnold (1822-88) wrote poetry
marked by an intense seriousness and classic 5. George Eliot (1819-80) was one of England's
restraint. greatest women novelists. In 'Silas Marner'
(1861) and 'Middlemarch' (1871-72), she used
 His elegiac poems on the death of his the novel to interpret life.
father, Dr. Thomas Arnold ('Rugby
Chapel', 1867), and of his friend Arthur D. Birth of the Psychological Novel
Hugh Clough ('Thyrsis', 1867) are 1. George Meredith (1828-1909) was one of the
profound and moving. first to apply psychological methods to the
analysis of his characters. For the average
 His interest in the problem of making
reader the brilliance of such novels as 'The
Englishmen aware of higher values of
Ordeal of Richard Feverel' (1859) and 'The
life caused him to quit writing poetry and
Egoist' (1879) is obscured by the absence of
turn to critical prose. As a critic, he drove
plot and the subtleties of the language.
his ideas home with clarity and force.
2. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) brought to fiction a
5. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is a group
philosophical attitude that resulted from the new
of painters and poets who rebelled against the
science.
sentimental and the commonplace.
 He believed that the more science
 They wished to revive the artistic
studies the universe, the less evidence
standards of the time before the Italian
is found for an intelligent guiding force
painter Raphael.
behind it.
 Their poems are full of mystery and
 In a series of great novels, from 'The
pictorial language. One member was
Return of the Native' (1878) to 'Jude the
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82). His
Obscure' (1895), Hardy sought to show
'Blessed Damozel' (1850) and 'Sister
how futile and senseless is man's
Helen' (1870) are typical of this highly
struggle against the forces of natural
sensuous verse.
environment, social convention, and
 Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830- biological heritage.
94), Gabriel’s sister, wrote one of the
3. Samuel Butler (1835-1902) also looked into
most fanciful poems in the language,
the scientific controversies of his day.
'Goblin Market' (1862).
 He believed that evolution is the result of
C. Victorian Novelists
the creative will rather than of chance
1. Charles Dickens (1812-70) became a master selection.
of local color, as in 'The Pickwick Papers'
(1836-37). Few of his novels have convincing  He wrote a novel about the relations of
plots, but in characterization and in the parents to children 'The Way of All
creation of moods he was outstanding. By Flesh' (1903).
1850 Dickens had become England's best-  The point of the story, made with irony,
loved novelist. is that the family restrains the free
 His works include: Great Expectations, development of the child.
Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol E. Romance and Adventure
2. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) 1. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) wrote
produced a different type of novel. He was not stories in a light mood. His novels of adventure
a reformer, as Dickens was. are exciting and delightful: 'Treasure Island'
(1883), 'Kidnapped' (1886), and 'The Master of
 He attempted to see the whole of life,
Ballantrae' (1889).
detached and critically.
 Stevenson also wrote for adults. 'David
 He disliked sham, hypocrisy, stupidity,
Balfour' (1893) and 'The Strange Case
false optimism, and self-seeking. The
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1886) are
result was satire on manners.
quite suited to adult tastes.
Literature would be poorer without
'Vanity Fair' (1847-48) and its heroine, 2. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) glamorized the
Becky Sharp. Foreign Service and satirized the English
military and administrative classes in India. He
3. Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), Emily Bronte
stirred the emotions of the empire lovers
(1818-1848) and Anne Bronte (1820-1849)
through his delightful children's tales. He is
wrote novels which have very little to do with
known for 'Barrack Room Ballads' (1892),
the condition of society or the world in general.
 'Soldiers Three' (1888), 'The Jungle Books' satires criticizing the middle-class life of
(1894, 1895), and 'Captains Courageous' England. An example of which is 'Tono-
(1897). Bungay' (1909), a satire on commercial
3. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) advertising.
(1832-98) combines fantasy and satire in c. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) wrote such
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1865). remarkable novels as 'The Nigger of the
Narcissus' (1898) and 'Lord Jim' (1900). The
scenes, chiefly of a wild and turbulent sea, are
F. 19th-Century Drama
exotic and exciting. The characters are strange
1. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is a poet and people beset by obsessions of cowardice,
novelist who wrote several fine plays. His egoism, or vanity.
'Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) is brittle
d. E.M. Forster (1879-1970) is a master of
in its humor and clever in its dialogue and is
traditional plot. His characters are ordinary
probably the best of his dramas.
persons out of middle-class life. They are
2. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) wrote moved by accident because they do not know
plays that read even better than they act. They how to choose a course of action. He is
are important for their prefaces, sizzling famous for 'A Passage to India' (1924), a
attacks on Victorian prejudices and attitudes. splendid novel of Englishmen in India.
 Shaw began to write drama as a protest 2. Early 20th-Century Poetry
against existing conditions slums, sex a. A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was an anti-
hypocrisy, censorship, and war. Victorian who echoed the pessimism found in
Because his plays were not well Thomas Hardy. In his 'Shropshire Lad' (1896)
received, Shaw wrote their now-famous nature is unkind; people struggle without hope
prefaces. or purpose; boys and girls laugh, love, and are
 Shaw had the longest career of any untrue.
writer who ever lived. He began in the b. Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) concentrated
Victorian Age and wrote until 1950. on the wonder and fancy of the child's world
and the fantasy of the world of the
VIII. MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE supernatural. 'Peacock Pie' (1913) is
representative of his verse. As a novelist and
A. Historical Background
teller of tales, De la Mare was a
1. With new inventions upsetting old ways, it supernaturalist who believed in the reality of
became increasingly difficult to find order or evil as well as of good.
pattern in life. People began to talk of the
c. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), John
"machine age" and to ask whether it was
Millington Synge (1871-1909), and Lord
wholly good. Could man trust science to bring
Dunsany (1878-1957) worked vigorously for
about a better life?
the Irish cause. All were dramatists and all
2. Psychologists explored the mind and helped found the famous Abbey Theatre.
advanced varied and conflicting theories about
3. Impact of World War I
it. Human behavior was no longer easily
explainable.  World War I cut forever the ties with the
3. The new sciences of anthropology and past. It brought discontent and
sociology contributed to the upheaval of ideas. disillusionment. Men were plunged into
Religious controls and social conventions gloom at the knowledge that "progress" had
again were challenged. not saved the world from war.
4. Naturally, there were changes in literary taste  World War I left its record in literature.
and forms. Old values were replaced by new Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), who died during
values or were lost. Literature became the war, has been idealized for what is
pessimistic and experimental. actually a rather thin performance in poetry.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), also a war
casualty, was far more realistic about the
B. Literature heroism and idealism of the soldier.
1. Early 20th-Century Prose Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) and Edmund
a. John Galsworthy (1867-1933) depicted the Blunden (1896-1974), both survivors of the
social life of an upper-class English family in carnage, left violent accounts of the horrors
'The Forsyte Saga' (1922), a series of novels and terror of war.
which records the changing values of such a  In fiction there was a shift from novels of the
family. Galsworthy also wrote serious social human comedy to novels of characters.
plays, including 'Strife' (1909) and 'Justice' Fiction ceased to be concerned with a plot or
(1910). a forward-moving narrative. Instead it
b. H.G. Wells (1866-1946) wrote science fiction followed the twisted, contorted development
like 'The Time Machine' (1895), 'The Island of of a single character or a group of related
Dr. Moreau' (1896), 'The War of the Worlds' characters.
(1898). He also wrote social and political 4. Writers after World War I
 a. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) a. William Golding (born 1911) was one of the
wrote 'Of Human Bondage' (1915) which most significant postwar novelists. His first
portrays a character who drifts. 'The Moon novel, and the one for which he will probably
and Sixpence' (1919), based on the life of be best remembered, was 'Lord of the Flies'
the artist Paul Gauguin, continues the (1954). This story tells of a group of
examination of the character without roots. schoolboys isolated on an island who revert to
'Cakes and Ale' (1930) shows how the real savagery. It is an imaginative interpretation of
self is lost between the two masks public the religious theme of original sin.
and private that every person wears.  Among Golding's later books are 'Pincher
b. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was a man Martin' (1956), 'Rites of Passage' (1980),
trying to find himself, trying to be reborn. and 'The Paper Men' (1983).
This tragic, heroic search is reflected in his  Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for
curious novels about the secret sources of literature in 1983 for his novels.
human life. The records of his search and
b. George Orwell (1903-50) is world renown, for
torment are his great novels 'Sons and
the powerful anti-Communist satire 'Animal
Lovers' (1913) and 'Women in Love' (1920).
Farm' (1945). This was followed in 1949 with
c. James Joyce (1882-1941) was searching his attack on totalitarianism entitled 'Nineteen
for the secret places in which the real self is Eighty-Four'.
hidden. He believed he had found the way to
c. Graham Greene (1904-91) turned increasingly
it through human vocal language. To him
to Christianity. Greene lived to have a career
language was the means by which the inner,
that endured into the 1980s. Among his better-
or subconscious, feelings gained expression.
known later novels are 'The Quiet American'
Civilized man tries to control his spoken
(1955), 'Our Man in Havana' (1958), 'A Burnt-
language; natural man would let his
Out Case' (1961), 'The Human Factor' (1978),
language flow freely. If one could capture
and 'Monsignor Quixote' (1982).
this free flow of language in writing, he would
have the secret of man's nature. Thus was d. Kingsley Amis is considered by many to be
born stream of consciousness, a the best of the writers to emerge from the
technique that has been employed in much 1950s. The social discontent he expressed
contemporary literature. 'Ulysses' (1922), a made 'Lucky Jim' a household name in
vast, rambling account of 24 hours in the England.
lives of Leopold Bloom and Stephen  Lucky Jim is the story of Jim Dixon, who
Dedalus, was banned in some countries but rises from a lower-class background only
has nevertheless greatly influenced modern to find all the positions at the top of the
fiction. social ladder filled.
d. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) also believed  His later novels include 'That Uncertain
that reality, or consciousness, is a stream. Feeling' (1955), 'Take a Girl Like You'
Life, for both reader and characters, is (1960), and 'Girl, 20' (1971). His 1984
immersion in the flow of that stream. 'Mrs. novel 'Stanley and the Women' was
Dalloway' (1925) and 'To the Lighthouse' virulently antifeminist. His 'The Old Devils'
(1927) are among her best works. (1986) won the Booker Prize.
e. Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), Dorothy  While Amis was a realist, he was also a
M. Richardson (1882-1957), and Elizabeth humanist, attempting to put the writer's
Bowen (1899-1973) also wrote stream of talent in the service of society
consciousness fiction engrossed with the
realities of the mind. e. Anthony Burgess (born 1917) was a novelist
f. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) worked with the whose fictional exploration of modern
external world, which he found false, brutal, dilemmas combines wit, moral earnestness,
and inhuman. In 'Point Counter Point' and touches of the bizarre.
(1928), 'Brave New World' (1932), and 'After  'A Clockwork Orange' (1962) was both
Many a Summer Dies the Swan' (1939), his comic and violent.
cynicism reached its peak.
 His other novels include 'Enderby Outside'
6. Fiction After the World Wars (1968), 'Earthly Powers' (1980), 'The End
of the World News' (1983), and 'The
Kingdom of the Wicked' (1985).
f. Doris Lessing (born 1919) wrote novels
concerned with people involved in the social
and political upheavals of the 20th century.
 Her 'Children of Violence', a series of five
novels, begins with 'Martha Quest' (1952)
and ends with a vision of the world after
nuclear disaster in 'The Four-Gated City'
(1969).
  In 1979 she began publication of a epics, and legendary histories. Certain
science-fiction sequence entitled 'Canopus creation stories are particularly popular.
in Argos: Archives'.
B. THE LITERATURE OF EXPLORATION
g. Muriel Spark (born 1918) wrote 'The Ballad of 1. Christopher Columbus the famous Italian
Peckham Rye' (1960) and 'The Girls of Slender explorer, funded by the Spanish rulers Ferdinand
Means' (1963), which were characterized by a and Isabella, wrote the "Epistola," printed in 1493
humorous fantasy. which recounts his voyages.
 Her later books were of a sinister nature, 2. Captain John Smith led the Jamestown colony
including 'The Mandelbaum Gate' (1965), 'The and wrote the famous story of the Indian maiden,
Driver's Seat' (1970), and 'Not to Disturb' Pocahontas.
(1971).
 Whether fact or fiction, the tale is ingrained in
 Her best-known works are 'Memento Mori' the American historical imagination. The story
(1959) and 'The Prime of Miss Jean recounts how Pocahontas, favorite daughter of
Brodie' (1961). Chief Powhatan, saved Captain Smith's life
 She blended religious thought and sexual when he was a prisoner of the chief. Later,
comedy in 'The Only Problem' (1984). when the English persuaded Powhatan to give
g. Salman Rushdie wrote and 'Midnight's Pocahontas to them as a hostage, her
Children' (1981) and 'The Satanic Verses' gentleness, intelligence, and beauty impressed
(1988) which prompted Iran's Ayatollah the English, and, in 1614, she married John
Khomeini to issue a death threat against him, Rolfe, an English gentleman.
because Muslims considered the book  The marriage initiated an eight-year peace
blasphemous. between the colonists and the Indians,
ensuring the survival of the struggling new
AMERICAN LITERATURE colony.
A. Early American and Colonial Period to 1776
C. COLONIAL PERIOD IN NEW ENGLAND
 American literature begins with the orally
transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics 1. William Bradford (1590-1657) was elected
(always songs) of Indian cultures. There was governor of Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay
no written literature among the more than 500 Colony shortly after the Separatists landed.
different Indian languages and tribal cultures  He was a deeply pious, self-educated man
that existed in North America before the first who wished to "see with his own eyes the
Europeans arrived. ancient oracles of God in their native beauty."
 Tribes maintained their own religions --  He wrote Of Plymouth Plantation (1651) and
worshipping gods, animals, plants, or sacred the first document of colonial self-governance
persons. Systems of government ranged from in the English New World, the "Mayflower
democracies to councils of elders to Compact."
theocracies. These tribal variations enter into 2. Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-1672) wrote the first
the oral literature as well. published book of poems by an American which
 Indian stories are characterized by the was also the first American book to be published
following: by a woman.
o reverence for nature as a spiritual as  She wrote long, religious poems on
well as physical mother conventional subjects, but she is well loved for
o nature is rendered alive and endowed her witty poems on subjects from daily life and
with spiritual forces her warm and loving poems to her husband
and children.
o main characters may be animals or
plants, often totems associated with a  She was inspired by English metaphysical
tribe, group, or individual poetry, and her book The Tenth Muse Lately
Sprung Up in America (1650) shows the
o Accounts of migrations and ancestors
influence of Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney,
abound, as do vision or healing songs and other English poets as well.
and tricksters' tales.
 She often uses elaborate conceits or extended
 The songs or poetry, like the narratives, range metaphors. "To My Dear and Loving Husband"
from the sacred to the light and humorous: (1678) uses the oriental imagery, love theme,
There are lullabies, war chants, love songs, and idea of comparison popular in Europe at
and special songs for children's games, the time, but gives these a pious meaning at
gambling, various chores, magic, or dance the poem's conclusion.
ceremonials.
3. Edward Taylor (c. 1644-1729) was an intense,
 Examples of almost every oral genre can be brilliant poet, teacher and minister who sailed to
found in American Indian literature: lyrics, New England in 1668 rather than take an oath of
chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous loyalty to the Church of England.
anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs,
  Modest, pious, and hard working, Taylor never stirrings of European Romanticism in his lyric like
published his poetry, which was discovered "The Wild Honeysuckle" (1786), which evokes a
only in the 1930s. sweet-smelling native shrub. Not until the
 He wrote a variety of verse: funeral elegies, "American Renaissance" that began in the 1820s
lyrics, a medieval "debate," and a 500-page would American poetry surpass the heights that
Metrical History of Christianity (mainly a history Freneau had scaled 40 years earlier.
of martyrs). His best works, according to 4. Washington Irving (1789-1859) became a
modern critics, are the series of short cultural and diplomatic ambassador to Europe, like
Preparatory Meditations. Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
4. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was molded by  With the help of friends, he was able to publish
his extreme sense of duty and by the rigid Puritan his Sketch Book (1819-1820) simultaneously
environment, which conspired to make him defend in England and America, obtaining copyrights
strict and gloomy Calvinism from the forces of and payment in both countries. The Sketch
liberalism springing up around him. He is best Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Irving's
known for his frightening, powerful sermon, pseudonym) contains his two best-
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" remembered stories, "Rip Van Winkle" and
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
D. THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT 5. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) wrote the
Leather Stocking tales in which he introduced his
 Enlightenment thinkers and writers were renowned character Natty Bumppo, who embodies
devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and his vision of the frontiersman as a gentleman, a
equality as the natural rights of man. Thus, Jeffersonian "natural aristocrat."
the18th-century American Enlightenment was
a movement marked by -  Natty Bumppo is the first famous frontiersman
in American literature and the literary
 an emphasis on rationality rather forerunner of countless cowboy and
than tradition, backwoods heroes.
 scientific inquiry instead of
 He is the idealized, upright individualist who is
unquestioning religious dogma,
better than the society he protects. Poor and
and
isolated, yet pure, he is a touchstone for
 representative government in ethical values and prefigures Herman
place of monarchy. Melville's Billy Budd and Mark Twain's Huck
Finn.
1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was America's 6. Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) is the first
"first great man of letters," who embodied the African-American author who wrote of religious
Enlightenment ideal of humane rationality. themes. Just like that of Philip Freneau, her style
 Writer, printer, publisher, scientist, is neoclassical.
philanthropist, and diplomat, he was the most  Among her best-known poems is "To S.M., a
famous and respected private figure of his Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works,"
time. He was the first great self-made man in which confronts white racism and asserts
America, a poor democrat born in an spiritual equality.
aristocratic age that his fine example helped to  Wheatley was the first to address such issues
liberalize. confidently in verse, as in "On Being Brought
 Franklin's Autobiography is, in part, another from Africa to America":
self-help book. Written to advise his son, it
covers section describing his scientific scheme
E. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD, 1820-1860
of self- improvement. Franklin lists 13 virtues,
some of which are temperance, silence,  The Romantic Movement, which originated in
resolution, industry, sincerity, justice, and Germany but quickly spread to England, France,
moderation, and beyond, reached America around the year
1820, some 20 years after William Wordsworth
 He was an important figure at the 1787
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had revolutionized
convention at which the U.S. Constitution was
English poetry by publishing Lyrical Ballads.
drafted. In his later years, he was president of
an antislavery association. One of his last  Romanticism in America coincided with the period
efforts was to promote universal public of national expansion and the discovery of a
education. distinctive American voice.
2. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) is known for his  Romantic ideas centered around art as inspiration,
political pamphlets. Thomas Paine's pamphlet the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of nature,
Common Sense sold over 100,000 copies in the and metaphors of organic growth.
first three months of its publication. It is still rousing  Art, rather than science, could best express
today. "The cause of America is in a great universal truth. The Romantics underscored the
measure the cause of all mankind." importance of expressive art for the individual and
3. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) was the poet of the society. In his essay "The Poet" (1844), Ralph
American Revolution who incorporated the new
 Waldo Emerson, perhaps the most influential enacts the collective American
writer of the Romantic era, asserts: experience of the 19th century: living
For all men live by truth, and on the frontier.
stand in need of expression.  He also wrote "Civil Disobedience,"
In love, in art, in avarice, in with its theory of passive resistance
politics, in labor, in games, we based on the moral necessity for the
study to utter our painful just individual to disobey unjust laws.
secret. The man is only half This was an inspiration for Mahatma
himself, the other half is his Gandhi's Indian independence
expression. movement and Martin Luther King's
 The development of the self became a major struggle for black Americans' civil
theme; self- awareness a primary method. The rights in the 20th century.
idea of "self" -- which suggested selfishness to 3. Walt Whitman (1819-1892 was a part-time
earlier generations -- was redefined. New carpenter and man of the people, whose brilliant,
compound words with positive meanings emerged: innovative work expressed the country's
"self-realization," "self-expression," "self- reliance." democratic spirit.
 As the unique, subjective self became important,  Whitman was largely self-taught; he left school
so did the realm of psychology. Exceptional artistic at the age of 11 to go to work, missing the sort
effects and techniques were developed to evoke of traditional education that made most
heightened psychological states. The "sublime" -- American authors respectful imitators of the
an effect of beauty in grandeur, produced feelings English.
of awe, reverence, vastness, and a power beyond  His Leaves of Grass (1855), which he rewrote
human comprehension. and revised throughout his life, contains "Song
 Romanticism was affirmative and appropriate for of Myself," the most stunningly original poem
most American poets and creative essayists. ever written by an American.
America's vast mountains, deserts, and tropics 4. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a radical
embodied the sublime. The Romantic spirit individualist. She was born and spent her life in
seemed particularly suited to American Amherst, Massachusetts - a small Calvinist village.
democracy:
 She loved nature and found deep inspiration in
the birds, animals, plants, and changing
Transcendentalists seasons of the New England countryside. She
 The Transcendentalist movement was a wrote 1,775 poems but only one was
reaction against 18th century rationalism published in her lifetime.
and a manifestation of the general  Dickinson's terse, frequently imagistic style is
humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. even more modern and innovative than
 The movement was based on the belief in the Whitman's. She never uses two words when
unity of the world and God. one will do, and combines concrete things with
abstract ideas in an almost proverbial,
 The doctrine of self- reliance and compressed style.
individualism developed through the belief in
the identification of the individual soul with  She sometimes shows a terrifying existential
God. awareness. Like Poe, she explores the dark
and hidden part of the mind, dramatizing death
and the grave.
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) had a
 She had an excellent sense of humor, and her
Romantic belief in intuition and flexibility.
range of subjects and treatment is amazingly
 In his essay "Self-Reliance," Emerson wide.
remarks: "A foolish consistency is the
 Her poems are replete with odd capitalizations
hobgoblin of little minds."
and dashes.
 He calls for the birth of American individualism
inspired by nature.
The Brahmin Poets
 Most of his major ideas -- the need for a new
national vision, the use of personal 1. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was
experience, the notion of the cosmic Over- responsible for the misty, ahistorical, legendary
Soul, and the doctrine of compensation -- are sense of the past that merged American and
suggested in his first publication, Nature European traditions.
(1836).  He wrote three long narrative poems
2. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote Walden, popularizing native legends in European
or Life in the Woods (1854), which was the result meters "Evangeline" (1847), "The Song of
of two years, two months, and two days (from Hiawatha" (1855), and "The Courtship of Miles
1845 to 1847) he spent living in a cabin he built at Standish" (1858). A
Walden Pond on property owned by Emerson.  lthough conventionality, sentimentality, and
 In Walden, Thoreau not only tests the facile handling mar the long poems, haunting
theories of Transcendentalism, he re- short lyrics like "The Jewish Cemetery at
 Newport" (1854), "My Lost Youth" (1855), and novel that contains a series of meditations on
"The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" (1880) the human condition. Whaling, throughout the
continue to give pleasure. book, is a grand metaphor for the pursuit of
2. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was a knowledge. Realistic catalogues and
physician and professor of anatomy and descriptions of whales and the whaling
physiology at Harvard. Of the Brahmin poets, he is industry punctuate the book, but these carry
the most versatile. His works include collections of symbolic connotations. In chapter 15, "The
humorous essays (e.g., The Autocrat of the Right Whale's Head," the narrator says that
Breakfast-Table, 1858), novels (Elsie Venner, the Right Whale is a Stoic and the Sperm
1861), biographies (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885), Whale is a Platonian, referring to two classical
and verses ("The Deacon's Masterpiece, or, The schools of philosophy.
Wonderful One-Hoss Shay). 3. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) refined the short
story genre and invented detective fiction.
The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Fiction  Many of his stories prefigure the genres of
science fiction, horror, and fantasy so popular
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) set his stories
today.
in Puritan New England. His greatest novel, The
Scarlet Letter (1850) has become the classic  His famous works are “The Cask of
portrayal of Puritan Americas. Amontillado,” “include Masque of the Red
Death,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,
 It tells of the passionate, forbidden love affair
“Purloined Letter,” and the “Pit and the
linking a sensitive, religious young man, the
Pendulum.”
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the
beautiful townsperson, Hester Prynne.  He also wrote poetry like “Anabel Lee,” “The
Raven,” and “The Bell.”
 Set in Boston around 1650 during early Puritan
colonization, the novel highlights the 4. Sojourner Truth (c.1797-1883) epitomized the
Calvinistic obsession with morality, sexual endurance of the women reformers.
repression, guilt and confession, and spiritual  Born a slave in New York, she escaped from
salvation. slavery in 1827, settling with a son and
 In The House of the Seven Gables (1851), he daughter in the supportive Dutch-American
again returns to New England's history. The Van Wagener family, for whom she worked as
crumbling of the "house" refers to a family in a servant.
Salem as well as to the actual structure. The  She worked with a preacher to convert
theme concerns an inherited curse and its prostitutes to Christianity and lived in a
resolution through love. progressive communal home. She was
 As one critic has noted, the idealistic christened "Sojourner Truth" for the mystical
protagonist Holgrave voices Hawthorne's own voices and visions she began to experience.
democratic distrust of old aristocratic families: To spread the truth of these visionary
"The truth is, that once in every half-century, at teachings, she sojourned alone, lecturing,
least, a family should be merged into the great, singing gospel songs, and preaching
obscure mass of humanity, and forget about its abolitionism through many states over three
ancestors." decades
 These themes, and his characteristic settings 5. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote Uncle
in Puritan colonial New England, are Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly which
trademarks of many of Hawthorne's best- became the most popular American book of the
known shorter stories: "The Minister's Black 19th Century. Its passionate appeal for an end to
Veil," "Young Goodman Brown," and "My slavery in the United States inflamed the debate
Kinsman, Major Molineux." that, within a decade, led to the U.S. Civil War
(1861-1865).
2. Herman Melville (1819-1891) went to sea when
he was just 19 years old. His interest in sailors'  Uncle Tom, the slave and central character, is
lives grew naturally out of his own experiences, a true Christian martyr who labors to convert
and most of his early novels grew out of his his kind master, St. Clare, prays for St. Clare's
voyages. soul as he dies, and is killed defending slave
women.
 Melville's had a wide, democratic experience
and he hated tyranny and injustice.  Slavery is depicted as evil not for political or
philosophical reasons but mainly because it
 His first book, Typee, was based on his time
divides families, destroys normal parental love,
spent among the supposedly cannibalistic but
and is inherently un-Christian.
hospitable tribe of the Taipis in the Marquesas
Islands of the South Pacific.
 Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is Melville's F. THE RISE OF REALISM: 1860-1914
masterpiece. It is the epic story of the whaling 1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910)
ship Pequod and its "ungodly, god-like man,"  Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen
Captain Ahab, whose obsessive quest for the name of Mark Twain, grew up in the
white whale Moby-Dick leads the ship and its
men to destruction. It is a realistic adventure
 Mississippi River frontier town of Hannibal,  His wrote a haunting Civil War novel, The Red
Missouri. Badge of Courage which was published in
 Ernest Hemingway's famous statement that all 1895, before he died, at 29, having neglected
of American literature comes from one great his health.
book, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,  Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) is
indicates this author's towering place in the one of the best, if not the earliest, naturalistic
tradition. American novels. It is the harrowing story of a
 Twain's style is vigorous, realistic, colloquial poor, sensitive young girl whose uneducated,
American speech, gave American writers a alcoholic parents utterly fail her. In love and
new appreciation of their national voice. eager to escape her violent home life, she
allows herself to be seduced into living with a
 Huckleberry Finn has inspired countless young man, who soon deserts her. When her
literary interpretations. Clearly, the novel is a self-righteous mother rejects her, Maggie
story of death, rebirth, and initiation. The becomes a prostitute to survive, but soon
escaped slave, Jim, becomes a father figure commits suicide out of despair.
for Huck; in deciding to save Jim, Huck grows
morally beyond the bounds of his slave-owning  Crane's earthy subject matter and his
society. It is Jim's adventures that initiate Huck objective, scientific style, devoid of moralizing,
into the complexities of human nature and give earmark Maggie as a naturalist work.
him moral courage. 6. Jack London (1876-1916) is a naturalist who set
2. Bret Harte (1836-1902) is remembered as a local his collection of stories, The Son of the Wolf
colorist and author of adventurous stories such as (1900). in the Klondike region of Alaska and the
"The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Canadian Yukon. His best-sellers The Call of the
Poker Flat," set along the western mining frontier. Wild (1903) and The Sea-Wolf (1904) made him
the highest paid writer in the United States of his
3. Henry James (1843-1916) wrote that art,
time.
especially literary art, "makes life, makes interest,
makes importance." 7. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) his 1925 work An
American Tragedy, explores the dangers of the
 With Twain, James is generally ranked as the American dream.
greatest American novelist of the second half
of the 19th century.  The novel relates, in great detail, the life of
Clyde Griffiths, who grows up in great poverty
 James is noted for his "international theme" -- in a family of wandering evangelists, but
that is, the complex relationships between dreams of wealth and the love of beautiful
naive Americans and cosmopolitan women.
Europeans, which he explored in the novels
The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1879), and  An American Tragedy is a reflection of the
a masterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady (1881). dissatisfaction, envy, and despair that afflicted
many poor and working people in America's
4. Edith Wharton (1862-1937) descended from a
competitive, success-driven society. As
wealthy family in New York society and saw
American industrial power soared, the
firsthand the decline of this cultivated group and, in
glittering lives of the wealthy in newspapers
her view, the rise of boorish, nouveau-riche
and photographs sharply contrasted with the
business families. This social transformation is the
drab lives of ordinary farmers and city workers.
background of many of her novels.
 Muckraking novels used eye-catching
 The core of her concern is the gulf separating
journalistic techniques to depict harsh working
social reality and the inner self. Often a
conditions and oppression. Populist Frank
sensitive character feels trapped by unfeeling
Norris's The Octopus (1901) exposed big
characters or social forces.
railroad companies, while socialist Upton
 Edith Wharton had personally experienced Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) painted the
such entrapment as a young writer suffering a squalor of the Chicago meat-packing houses.
long nervous breakdown partly due to the Jack London's dystopia The Iron Heel (1908)
conflict in roles between writer and wife. anticipates George Orwell's 1984 in predicting
 Wharton's best novels include The House of a class war and the takeover of the
Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country government.
(1913), Summer (1917), The Age of Innocence 8. Willa Cather (1873-1947) grew up on the
(1920), and the beautifully crafted novella Nebraska prairie among pioneering immigrants --
Ethan Frome (1911). later immortalized in O Pioneers! (1913), My
5. Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was a journalist who Antonia (1918), and her well-known story
also wrote fiction, essays, poetry, and plays. "Neighbour Rosicky" (1928).
 Crane saw life at its rawest, in slums and on  During her lifetime she became increasingly
battlefields. His short stories -- in particular, alienated from the materialism of modern life
"The Open Boat," "The Blue Hotel," and "The and wrote of alternative visions in the
Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" -- exemplified that American Southwest and in the past.
literary form.  Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
evokes the idealism of two 16th-century priests
 establishing the Catholic Church in the New and banks failed; farmers, unable to harvest,
Mexican desert.. transport, or sell their crops, could not pay their
9. Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was a poet, historian, debts and lost their farms.
biographer, novelist, musician, essayist, but a 8. In literature –
journalist by profession.  Vision and viewpoint became an essential
 To many, Sandburg was a latter-day Walt aspect of the modernist novel as well. No
Whitman, writing expansive, evocative urban longer was it sufficient to write a
and patriotic poems and simple, childlike straightforward third-person narrative or
rhymes and ballads. (worse yet) use a pointlessly intrusive narrator.
 He traveled about reciting and recording his The way the story was told became as
poetry, in a lilting, mellifluously toned voice important as the story itself.
that was a kind of singing. At heart he was  Henry James, William Faulkner, and many
totally unassuming, notwithstanding his other American writers experimented with
national fame. What he wanted from life, he fictional points of view (some are still doing
once said, was "to be out of jail...to eat so). James often restricted the information in
regular...to get what I write printed,...a little the novel to what a single character would
love at home and a little nice affection hither have known. Faulkner's novel The Sound and
and yon over the American landscape,...(and) the Fury (1929) breaks up the narrative into
to sing every day." four sections, each giving the viewpoint of a
10. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) is the different character (including a mentally
best U.S. poet of the late 19th century. Unlike retarded boy).
Masters, Robinson uses traditional metrics.  To analyze such modernist novels and poetry,
Robinson's imaginary Tilbury Town, like Masters's a school of "new criticism" arose in the United
Spoon River, contains lives of quiet desperation. States, with a new critical vocabulary. New
 Some of the best known of Robinson's critics hunted the "epiphany" (moment in which
dramatic monologues are "Luke Havergal" a character suddenly sees the transcendent
(1896), about a forsaken lover; "Miniver truth of a situation, a term derived from a holy
Cheevy" (1910), a portrait of a romantic saint's appearance to mortals); they
dreamer; and "Richard Cory" (1896), a somber "examined" and "clarified" a work, hoping to
portrait of a wealthy man who commits suicide. "shed light" upon it through their "insights."

G. MODERNISM AND EXPERIMENTATION: 1914- H. POETRY 1914-1945: EXPERIMENTS IN FORM

1945 1. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was one of the most
1. Many historians have characterized the period influential American poets of this century.
between the two world wars as the United States'  Pound's interests and reading were universal.
traumatic "coming of age," despite the fact that His adaptations and brilliant, if sometimes
U.S. direct involvement was relatively brief (1917- flawed, translations introduced new literary
1918). possibilities from many cultures to modern
2. John Dos Passos expressed America's postwar writers.
disillusionment in the novel Three Soldiers (1921),  His life-work was The Cantos, which he wrote
when he noted that civilization was a "vast edifice and published until his death. They contain
of sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling, was brilliant passages, but their allusions to works
its fullest and most ultimate expression." of literature and art from many eras and
3. In the postwar "Big Boom," business flourished, cultures make them difficult.
and the successful prospered beyond their wildest  Pound's poetry is best known for its clear,
dreams. The middle-class prospered. visual images, fresh rhythms, and muscular,
4. Americans of the "Roaring Twenties" fell in love intelligent, unusual lines, such as, in Canto
with other modern entertainments. Dancing, LXXXI, "The ant's a centaur in his dragon
moviegoing, automobile touring, and radio were world," or in poems inspired by Japanese
national crazes. American women, in particular, haiku, such as "In a Station of the Metro"
felt liberated. (1916):
5. Freudian psychology and to a lesser extent The apparition of these faces
Marxism (like the earlier Darwinian theory of in the crowd;
evolution) became popular. Petals on a wet, black bough.
6. Despite outward gaiety, modernity, and
unparalleled material prosperity, young Americans 2. T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) wrote influential essays and
of the 1920s were "the lost generation" -- so dramas, and championed the importance of literary
named by literary portraitist Gertrude Stein. and social traditions for the modern poet. He received
Without a stable, traditional structure of values, the the best education of any major American writer of his
individual lost a sense of identity. generation at Harvard College, the Sorbonne, and
7. The world depression of the 1930s affected most Merton College of Oxford University.
of the population of the United States. Workers lost  He studied Sanskrit and Oriental philosophy,
their jobs, and factories shut down; businesses which influenced his poetry.
  Like his friend Pound, he went to England urban settings make his poetry attractive and
early and became a towering figure in the accessible. "The Red Wheelbarrow" (1923),
literary world there. like a Dutch still life, finds interest and beauty
 As a critic, Eliot is best remembered for his in everyday objects.
formulation of the "objective correlative," which  Williams cultivated a relaxed, natural poetry.
he described, in The Sacred Wood, as a was to capture an instant of time like an
means of expressing emotion through "a set of unposed snapshot -- a concept he derived
objects, a situation, a chain of events" that from photographers and artists he met at
would be the "formula" of that particular galleries like Stieglitz's in New York City.
emotion.  He termed his work "objectivist" to suggest
 Poems such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred the importance of concrete, visual objects. His
Prufrock" (1915) embody this approach, when work often captured the spontaneous, emotive
the ineffectual, elderly Prufrock thinks to pattern of experience, and influenced the
himself that he has "measured out his life in "Beat" writing of the early 1950s.
coffee spoons," using coffee spoons to reflect 6. Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), commonly
a humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime known as e.e. cummings, wrote attractive, innovative
verse distinguished for its humor, grace, celebration of
3. Robert Frost (1874-1963) read an original work at love and eroticism, and experimentation with
the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 punctuation and visual format on the page.
that helped spark a national interest in poetry.  A painter, he was the first American poet to
 He wrote of traditional farm life, appealing to a recognize that poetry had become primarily a
nostalgia for the old ways. visual, not an oral, art;
 His subjects are universal -- apple picking,  His poems used much unusual spacing and
stone walls, fences, country roads. indentation, as well as dropping all use of
capital letters.
 He rarely employed pedantic allusions or
ellipses. And he combines sound and sense  He used colloquial language and took creative
in his frequent use of rhyme that also liberties with layout. For instance, His poem "in
appealed to the general audience. Just " (1920) invites the reader to fill in the
missing ideas:
 Frost's work is often deceptively simple. Many
poems suggest a deeper meaning. For 8. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a talented poet
example, a quiet snowy evening by an almost of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
hypnotic rhyme scheme may suggest the not  He embraced African- American jazz rhythms
entirely unwelcome approach of death. and was one of the first black writers to
attempt to make a profitable career out of his
writing.
4. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) lived a double life,
one as an insurance business executive, another as a  Hughes incorporated blues, spirituals,
renowned poet. His associates in the insurance colloquial speech, and folkways in his poetry.
company did not know that he was a major poet.
 Some of his best known poems are "Sunday I. PROSE WRITING, 1914-1945: AMERICAN
Morning," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "The REALISM
Emperor of Ice-Cream," "Thirteen Ways of 1. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is known for his
Looking at a Blackbird," and "The Idea of novel The Great Gatsby (1925), a brilliantly written,
Order at Key West." economically structured story about the American
 Stevens's poetry dwells upon themes of the dream of the self-made man.
imagination, the necessity for aesthetic form,  The protagonist, the mysterious Jay Gatsby,
and the belief that the order of art corresponds discovers the devastating cost of success in
with an order in nature. His vocabulary is rich terms of personal fulfillment and love.
and various: He paints lush tropical scenes but
 Tender Is the Night (1934) talks of a young
also manages dry, humorous, and ironic
psychiatrist whose life is doomed by his
vignettes.
marriage to an unstable woman.
 Some of Stevens's poems draw upon popular
 The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)
culture, while others poke fun at sophisticated
continued to explore the self-destructive
society or soar into an intellectual heaven. He
extravagance of his times
is known for his exuberant word play: "Soon,
with a noise like tambourines / Came her 2. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) the most popular
attendant Byzantines." American novelist of this century. His sympathies are
basically apolitical and humanistic, and in this sense
5. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) championed
he is universal.
the use of colloquial speech; his ear for the natural
rhythms of American English helped free American  The Old Man and the Sea (1952), a short
poetry from the iambic meter that had dominated poetic novel about a poor, old fisherman who
English verse since the Renaissance. heroically catches a huge fish devoured by
sharks, won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953; the
 His sympathy for ordinary working people,
next year he received the Nobel Prize.
children, and everyday events in modern
  Discouraged by a troubled family background, graduating first in her class, and winning a Fulbright
illness, and the belief that he was losing his gift grant to Cambridge University in England.
for writing, Hemingway shot himself to death in  She married poet Ted Hughes, with whom she
1961. had two children and settled in a country
 Hemingway wrote of war, death, and the "lost house in England.
generation" of cynical survivors. His characters  Unresolved psychological problems, clearly
are not dreamers but tough bullfighters, reflected in her novel The Bell Jar (1963),
soldiers, and athletes. If intellectual, they are ruined her life.
deeply scarred and disillusioned.
 Some of these problems were personal, while
3. William Faulkner (1897-1962) experimented with others arose from repressive 1950s attitudes
narrative chronology, different points of view and toward women. Among these were the beliefs
voices (including those of outcasts, children, and -- shared by most women themselves -- that
illiterates), and a rich and demanding baroque style women should not show anger or ambitiously
built of extremely long sentences full of complicated pursue a career, and instead find fulfillment in
subordinate parts. tending their husbands and children.
 Created an imaginative landscape,  According to Robert Lowell, “Plath's early
Yoknapatawpha County, mentioned in poetry is well-crafted and traditional, but her
numerous novels, along with several families late poems exhibit a desperate bravura and
with interconnections extending back for proto-feminist cry of anguish.”
generations.
7. Richard Wright (1908-1960) was born into a poor
 His best works include The Sound and the Mississippi sharecropping family that his father
Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930), two deserted when the boy was five.
modernist works experimenting with viewpoint
 He was the first African-American novelist to
and voice to probe southern families under the
reach a general audience, even though he had
stress of losing a family member;
barely a ninth grade education.
 Faulkner's themes are southern tradition,
 His harsh childhood is depicted in one of his
family, community, the land, history and the
best books, his autobiography, Black Boy
past, race, and the passions of ambition and
(1945). He later said that his sense of
love.
deprivation, due to racism, was so great that
4. Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) became the first only reading kept him alive.
American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.
 His outspoken writing blazed a path for
 Sinclair. Lewis's Main Street (1920) satirized subsequent African-American novelists.
monotonous, hypocritical small-town life in
8. Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960) is known as one
Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. His incisive
of the lights of the Harlem Renaissance. She first came
presentation of American life and his criticism
to New York City at the age of 16 - having arrived as
of American materialism, narrowness, and
part of a traveling theatrical troupe.
hypocrisy brought him national and
international recognition.  She uses colorful language in comic, or tragic
stories from the African- American oral
 In 1926, he was offered and declined a
tradition.
Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith (1925), a novel
tracing a doctor's efforts to maintain his  Hurston was an impressive novelist. Her most
medical ethics amid greed and corruption. important work, Their Eyes Were Watching
God (1937), is a moving, fresh depiction of a
5. John Steinbeck (1902-1968) combines realism with
beautiful mulatto woman's maturation and
romanticism that finds virtue in poor farmers who live
renewed happiness as she moves through
close to the land.
three marriages.
 Steinbeck set much of his writing in the
 A forerunner of the women's movement,
Salinas Valley near San Francisco.
Hurston inspired and influenced such
 His fiction demonstrates the vulnerability of contemporary writers as Alice Walker and Toni
such people, who can be uprooted because of Morrison through books such as her
political unrest and economic depression. autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942).
 He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1963.
J. 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN DRAMA
 His best-known work is the Pulitzer Prize-
1. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is the first American
winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939),
playwright to be honored with the Nobel Prize for
which follows the travails of a poor Oklahoma
Literature in 1936.
family that loses its farm during the Depression
and travels to California to seek work. Family  O'Neill's earliest dramas concern the working
members suffer conditions of feudal class and poor, but his later works explore
oppression by rich landowners. subjective realms, such as obsessions, sex
and other Freudian themes.
 His play Desire Under the Elms (1924)
6. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) lived an outwardly
recreates the passions hidden within one
exemplary life, attending Smith College on scholarship,
family.
  The Great God Brown (1926) uncovers the  Loneliness at the top was a dominant theme.
unconsciousness of a wealthy businessman. The 1950s actually was a decade of subtle
 Strange Interlude (1928), a winner of the and pervasive stress. Novels by John O'Hara,
Pulitzer Prize, traces the tangled loves of one John Cheever, and John Updike explore the
woman. stress lurking in the shadows of seeming
satisfaction.
 O'Neill continued to explore the Freudian
pressures of love and dominance within  Some of the best works portray men who fail in
families in a trilogy of plays collectively entitled the struggle to succeed, as in Arthur Miller's
Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), based on Death of a Salesman and Saul Bellow's
the classical Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles. novella Seize the Day (1956).
2. Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) is known for his  Some writers went further by following those
plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth who dropped out, as did J.D. Salinger in The
(1942), and for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey Catcher in the Rye (1951), Ralph Ellison in
(1927). Invisible Man (1952), and Jack Kerouac in On
 Our Town has all the elements of the Road (1957).
sentimentality and nostalgia -- the archetypal  Philip Roth arrived with a series of short
traditional small country town, the kindly stories reflecting his own alienation from his
parents and mischievous children, the young Jewish heritage (Goodbye, Columbus, 1959).
lovers.  The fiction of American Jewish writers Bellow,
 It shows Wilder’s innovative elements such as Bernard Malamud, and Isaac Bashevis Singer
ghosts, voices from the audience, and daring – are most noted for their humor, ethical
time shifts. concern, and portraits of Jewish communities
3. Arthur Miller (1915- ) is New York-born dramatist- in the Old and New Worlds.
novelist-essayist-biographer.
 Arthur Miller reached his personal pinnacle in 1. Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) is known for his
1949 with Death of a Salesman, a study of one highly-acclaimed book the Invisible Man (1952).
man's search for merit and worth in his life and  The story of a black man who lives a
the realization that failure invariably looms. subterranean existence in a hole brightly
 Miller also wrote All My Sons (1947) and The illuminated by electricity stolen from a utility
Crucible (1953) which are both political satires. company. The book recounts his grotesque,
4. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) focused on disenchanting experiences.
disturbed emotions and unresolved sexuality within  The novel attacks society for failing to provide
families -- most of them southern. its citizens -- black and white -- with viable
 He was known for incantatory repetitions, a ideals and institutions for realizing them.
poetic southern diction, weird Gothic settings,  It embodies a powerful racial theme because
and Freudian exploration of sexual desire. the "invisible man" is invisible not in himself
 One of the first American writers to live openly but because others, blinded by prejudice,
as a homosexual, Williams explained that the cannot see him for who he is.
sexuality of his tormented characters 2. Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) created fiction
expressed their loneliness. organized around a single narrator telling the story
from a consistent point of view.
 Williams wrote more than 20 full-length
dramas, many of them autobiographical.  Her first success, the story "Flowering Judas"
(1929), was set in Mexico during the
 He became famous for his The Glass
revolution.
Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Named
Desire (1947).  Often she reveals women's inner experiences
and their dependence on men.
 Porter's story collections include Flowering
K. THE AFFLUENT BUT ALIENATED 1950s
Judas (1930), Noon Wine (1937), Pale Horse,
 The 1950s saw the delayed impact of Pale Rider (1939), The Leaning Tower (1944),
modernization and technology in everyday life and Collected Stories (1965).
left over from the 1920s -- before the Great  Though not a prolific writer, Porter nonetheless
Depression. has influenced other writers like Eudora Welty
 World War II brought the United States out of and Flannery O'Connor.
the Depression, and the 1950s provided most 3. Eudora Welty (1909- ) was born in Mississippi to a
Americans with time to enjoy long-awaited well-to-do family of transplanted northerners.
material prosperity.
 Welty modeled after Katherine Ann Porter, but
 Business, especially in the corporate world, she is more interested in the comic and
seemed to offer the good life (usually in the grotesque characters.
suburbs), with its real and symbolic marks of
 Like the late Flannery O'Connor, she often
success -- house, car, television, and home
takes subnormal, eccentric, or exceptional
appliances.
characters for subjects.
  Her much-anthologized work "Why I Work at  When asked what he would like to be,
the P.O.," shows a stubborn and independent Caulfield answers "the catcher in the rye," In
daughter who moves out of her house to live his vision, he is a modern version of a white
in a tiny post office. knight, the sole preserver of innocence.
 Her collections of stories include The Wide  His other works include Nine Stories (1953),
Net (1943), The Golden Apples (1949), The Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the
Bride of the Innisfallen (1955), and Moon Roof-Beam, Carpenters (1963), a collection of
Lake (1980). Welty has also written novels stories from The New Yorker.
such as Delta Wedding (1946), which is 7. Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was the son of an
focused on a plantation family in modern impoverished French-Canadian family, Jack Kerouac
times, and The Optimist's Daughter (1972). also questioned the values of middle-class life.
 Kerouac's best-known novel, On the Road
4. Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) lived a life cut (1957), describes "beatniks" wandering
short by lupus, a deadly blood disease. through America seeking an idealistic dream of
 Still, she refused sentimentality, as evident in communal life and beauty.
her extremely humorous yet bleak and  The Dharma Bums (1958) also focuses on
uncompromising stories. peripatetic counterculture intellectuals and
 Unlike Porter, Welty, and Hurston, O'Connor their infatuation with Zen Buddhism.
most often held her characters at arm's length,  Kerouac also penned a book of poetry, Mexico
revealing their inadequacy and silliness. City Blues (1959), and volumes about his life
 The uneducated southern characters who with such beatniks as experimental novelist
people her novels often create violence William Burroughs and poet Allen Ginsberg.
through superstition or religion, as we see in 8.John Barth (1930- ) is more interested in how a
her novel Wise Blood (1952), about a religious story is told than in the story itself. Barth entices his
fanatic who establishes his own church. audience into a carnival fun-house full of distorting
 The black humor of O'Connor links her with mirrors that exaggerate some features while
Nathanael West and Joseph Heller. Her works minimizing others.
include short story collections (A Good Man Is  Realism is his enemy. Many of his earlier
Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises works were in fact existential.
Must Converge (1965); the novel The Violent  In Lost in the Funhouse (1968), 14 stories that
Bear It Away (1960); and a volume of letters, constantly refer to the processes of writing and
The Habit of Being (1979). Her Complete reading. Barth's intent is to alert the reader to
Stories came out in 1971. the artificial nature of reading and writing, and
5. Saul Bellow (1915- ) is of Russian-Jewish to prevent him or her from being drawn into the
background. In college, he studied anthropology and story as if it were real.
sociology, which greatly influence his writing even 9. Norman Mailer (1923- ) follows in the tradition of
today. Ernest Hemingway. His ideas are bold and innovative.
 He has expressed a profound debt to  He is the reverse of a writer like Barth, for
Theodore Dreiser for his openness to a wide whom the subject is not as important as the
range of experience. way it is handled. Unlike the invisible Pynchon,
 He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Mailer constantly courts and demands
1976. attention.
 Bellow's Seize the Day (1956) is a brilliant  A novelist, essayist, sometime politician,
novella often used as part of the high school or literary activist, and occasional actor, he is
college curriculum because of its excellence always on the scene. From such "New
and brevity. It centers on a failed Journalism" exercises as Miami and the Siege
businessman, Tommy Wilhelm, who tries to of Chicago (1968), an analysis of the 1968
hide his feelings of inadequacy by presenting a U.S. presidential conventions, and his
good front. The novella begins ironically: compelling study about the execution of a
"When it came to concealing his troubles, condemned murderer, The Executioner's Song
Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the (1979), he has turned to writing such
next fellow. So at least he thought...." ambitious, heavyweight novels as Ancient
 Seize the Day sums up the fear of failure that Evenings (1983), set in the Egypt of antiquity,
plagues many Americans. and Harlot's Ghost (1992), revolving around
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
6. J.D. Salinger (1919- ) achieved huge literary
success with the publication of his novel The Catcher 10. Toni Morrison (1931- ) won the Nobel Prize for
in the Rye (1951). Literature in 1993.
 The novel centers on a sensitive 16-year-old,  She treats the complex identities of black
Holden Caulfield, who flees his elite boarding people in a universal manner. In her early work
school for the outside world of adulthood, only The Bluest Eye (1970), a strong-willed young
to become disillusioned by its materialism and black girl tells the story of Pecola Breedlove,
phoniness. who survives an abusive father. Pecola
believes that her dark eyes have magically
 become blue, and that they will make her Pyramid text – chambers of pyramids
lovable. Book of the Dead – funeral ritual, 106 chapters
 Some of her novels include: Sula (1973), Song Hymn to the Sun – ode, written by Ikhnaton
of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981) and
- there is only one God – sun god
Beloved (1987).
Manetho – Egyptian priest, 31 dynasties
11. Alice Walker (1944- ) is an African-American and
the child of a sharecropper family in rural Georgia, Maxims of Patohep – wise sayings of Paohep – a
graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, where one of philosopher
her teachers was the politically committed female poet
Muriel Rukeyser.
 Walker uses heightened, lyrical realism to
ARABIAN
center on the dreams and failures of
accessible, credible people.
 Her work underscores the quest for dignity in - Saudi Arabia – Cradle of Islam
human life. A fine stylist, particularly in her Mohammed – founder of Muslim faith
epistolary dialect novel The Color Purple, her rawis –oral recitation
work seeks to educate. In this she resembles
Kasidah – rhyme poem
the black American novelist Ishmael Reed,
whose satires expose social problems and The Thousand and One Nights – Arabian Nights –
racial issues. Mameluks
 Walker's The Color Purple is the story of the Sinbad and Sailor – Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves
love between two poor black sisters that Aladdin and His Lamp
survives a separation over years, interwoven Arabian Nights – most famous Arabian stories
with the story of how, during that same period,
the shy, ugly, and uneducated sister discovers Koran – gretest book of Arab
her inner strength through the support of a Kahlil Gibran – Syrian writer
female friend. The theme of the support
women give each other recalls Maya
Angelou's autobiography, I Know Why the PERSIAN
Caged Bird Sings (1970), which celebrates the Acesta or ZendAvesta – Bible of Zoroastrian faith
mother-daughter connection, and the work of Shah Namah or Book of Kings – epic covered history
white feminists such as Adrienne Rich. of Persia
Rubaiyat – Omar Khayyam – Iranian writer
Gulistah and Bustan – Sadi – moral purity

HEBREW
KOREAN
-oldest living literature Korea – treasure land
- twin foundation Bible and Talmud hyangga – oldest poem in Indu
Sijo – longest enduring poetry
BIBLE – noblest monument of ancient literature Kasa – barrowed poem of Chinese lyric
Old testament – 39 books Akchang – small group of poetic songs
New Testament – 27 books Sandae – Koreas mask play
Haeso – a play w/ 7 acts
TALMUD – lamad in Hebrew Hahoo – 5 acts
- collection of numerous treatises

Love of God – outstanding quality FROM REVIEWER:

Moses Mendelssohn – father of periodical literature A parent who values education – The happiest boy
- father of Hebrew in the world – NVM Gonzales
Enlightenment
Karma (Khushwant Singh) – Sir Mohan pictures a
citizen who dreams of being an Englishman
EGYPTIAN
Flashback – techinique of Francisco Arcellana in the
Flowers of May
- known as the Gift of the Nile
-The weather reflects denial on the part of the father
-religious and solemn
Proud and heacy dinkers – American soldiers in We
Flipinos are Mild Drinkers by Alejandro R. Roces

The Picture Wife – Keigo Seki

Businessman fool their clients and customers – in

Say it With Flowers by Toshio Mori

Honesty – Gee .. feel rotten

HOPE – Africa black men fly airplanes last line

SLAVERY – in Africa black men fly airplanes line