WORLD LITERATURE

Overview of Literature through the Ages

Ancient Period
 Characters:
o Prometheus: a titan who stole the fire from Zeus
o Polyphemus: a giant son of Poseidon; one of the Cyclops described in the
adventure of Odysseus
o Helen: considered as the most beautiful woman in the world. Her abduction
brought about the Trojan War
o Odysseus: a Greek warrior who has to join King Menalaus in a war against the
Trojan
o Penelope: wife of Odysseus
o Hera: sister and wife of Zeus, protector of marriage
o Aphrodite: goddess of love, beauty, desire, and pleasure
o Athena : goddess of wisdom, protector of the city,
 She sprang from Zeus head
 Notable Authors
 Homer: blind poet famous for Iliad and Odyssey
 Ovid: Pygmalion
 Hesiod: Works and Days
 Aesop: famous because of his animal stories
 Euclid: The Element
 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – basis of Western philosophies
 Virgil : Aenid
 Confucious: Analects ; He is a Chinese philosopher who highly influenced the
Chinese people
Medieval Period
 Other names for this period include the Dark Ages and the Age of Religion.
 “Medieval” is the Latin Term for the ‘Middle Ages’
 Elegy, religious liturgy, and narrative romance are the significant literary genres under
this period
 Significant events: blackdeath, rise of feudalism,
 Famous works: Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, The Dark Ages and the Bards
 Notable people: Geoffrey Chaucer, Martin Luther, Caedmon, Thomas Auinas
 Canterbury Tales: is a collection of tales by a group of travelers going to Canterbury
 Beowulf: oldest and longest English epic
 Geoffrey Chaucer : Father of English Literature
 Thomas Malory: Le Morte D’ Arthur
 Venerable Bede: Wrote the Ecclesiastical History of England and the scientific treatise,
De Natura Rerum;
o Father of English History
 John Wycliffe: translated bible to English
Renaissance Period
 Came from French word meaning rebirth
 Influenced by ideas of arts,politics, and literature and ideas of Greek and Rome
 Division of two outstanding period and the division between middle and Modern era.
 Believed in the concept of humanism
 Humanism: they believe that the subject matter are humans and not god; optimistic
outlook of the society
 Notable People:
o Francesco Petrarch: Father of Italian Renaissance
o Johannes Gutenberg: invention of printing press
o Queen Elizabeth: influenced a lot of renaissance author
o William Shakespeare: considered as one of the greatest all time
 Famous works are:
o Paradise Lost by John Milton
o Divine Comedy by Dante
o Decameron: Boccaccio
o Don Quixote : Miguel de Cervantes
o The Faerie Queene: Edmund Spencer
 Longest unfinish epic

17th and 18th Century

 17th Century:
o Europe went through economic, social, ideological revolution
o Society become more worldly
o Also called Age of Revolution
o Spirit of unity and patriotism
o Religious strife
o Formalism, correctness, accuracy , conciseness, and rhythmic expression of ideas
were developed
o Grammar was developed
o John Donne: known with Metaphysical poetry
o Metaphysical poetry: characteristic include intellectual playfulness, paradoxes,
irony and elaborate and unusual conceits
o John Bunyan: The Pilgrims Progress
 18th Century
o mainly referred as Enlightenment Period, Augustan Period, Age of sensibility
o age of logic and reason; scientific development
o literary genres are witty and about sarcastic criticism of society
o Samuel Johnson: wrote dictionary of the English Language
o Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travel
o Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe

Romantic Period
 gives emphasis on the individual emotions, feeling, subjectivity, and imagination
 it also focuses on the beauty of nature
  rejected rigid forms and structures
 Notable people:
o Jean Rousseau : Emile (a literary piece about child development)
o Melville Herman: Mobydick
o Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice - a story of the characters Elizabeth and Darcy
o Mary Shelley: best known for Frankenstein
o Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of Ancient Mariner
o William Wordsworth: I Wonder Lonely as A Cloud
 Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he helped to launch Romantic
movement

Age of Realism
 All about portraying real life
 Realist writers write about regular folks

Attributes of Realism
1. Detail
Detail is that special something, that je ne sais quoi that sets Realism apart from
other literary schools. Detail is the stuff that Realist writers use to weave their
magic with.
2. Transparent Language
Realist writers fit their style to their subject: given that a lot of them were writing
about ordinary people, they used ordinary language.
3. Omniscient Narrator
Omniscient narrators are sort of like the superheroes of narrators, and that's
because they know everything.
4. Verisimilitude is a sexy word meaning truthiness.
5. Novel
The novel is the one genre that is most closely associated with the rise of Realism
as a movement
6. The Quotidian
One reason Realism was so revolutionary when it emerged in the mid-19th
century was that it rejected the idea that literature had to be about larger-than-life
heroes doing heroic deeds.
7. Characters
Realist writers are really into describing, analyzing, and dramatizing personality.
8. Social Critique
Realist writers are all about critiquing the social and political conditions of the
worlds that they write about.
9. Class
Class is a huge deal in Realist literature. Sometimes Realist writers will delve into
the intricate etiquette of the upper classes, and sometimes they'll focus on the
trials and tribulations of the lower classes.
10. Rising Literacy
It was easily accessible, and it provided long-term entertainment for a growing
reading public
Contemporary Period
 Characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing in both poetry
and prose fiction
 Authors search for new style
 Tradition verse patterns were rejected

Others…
Elements of Fiction
The Voter
Author: Chinua Achebe
Characters: Roof “Rufus” Okeke – serves as campaign manager of Marcus Ibe
Marcus Ibe – the current Chief Honorable
Maduka – the candidate of the other party against Marcus
Victorian Period: a literary period during the reign of the queen of England – Queen Victoria
Juliet Capulet/Romeo Montague : the main characters in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The
two fell inlove with each other despite of their family’s rivalry.