21st Century Lit. Flashcards
What aspect of Asian society was mirrored?
war; religion; politics
the world’s cradle of civilization
Ancient China, Mesopotamia, ancient India, ancient Egypt
story set during the Han dynasty’s twilight
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
“Yi” concept means?
Righteousness
leader of the Shu (Han) kingdom
Liu Bei
Who are the 3 followers of the Buddhist monk XuanZang in Journey to the West?
Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing
Who are Rama and Sita? What story are they from?
Ramayana
basis of Journey to the West
romanticized history / glorification of the past / Chinese religion & mythology, Confucianism, Daoism, & Buddhism
name of Sun Wukong’s origin stone
accdg to Internet - magical rock (burlywood)
mua stone
c stone (general term daw)
the majority of Indian lit. is written in what language?
Sanskrit
what are the different African lit. that utilizes writing as its form?
stories and folk lit.
Two great colonizing movements have made an impact on the literary traditions of Africa. These movements are that of Islamic Arabs in the 7th century and of Christian Europeans in the 19th century. Oral tradition in African dialects have been the prevailing form until the Swahilis (Kenya and Tanzania) transcribed their stories and folk literature. African literature may simply be categorized into two – ORAL TRADITION and WRITTEN TRADITION.
Oral Tradition. Included in this category are African myths, stories, poems, folktales and riddles.
• Myths – each tribe has its own version of how the world and everything in it came to be. What was common among the versions is the story that a “god first agreed to give man eternal life, but his message was perverted through the stupidity or malice of the messenger.”
• Poetry – purposes of on-the-spot oral poems include “praising a chief, mourning the dead, making fun of an unfriendly town, and get favors from the gods to cure a disease.” Priests are also required to study the Ifa oracle which is a massive poem about pleasing the gods.
• Folktales, proverbs and riddles – Folktales are usually heard in the evening for family’s entertainment. Dilemma tales are also popular where the ending is up to the listeners to find the best solution to a conflict in the story. African proverbs are known to be amusing because of the surprising way they put ideas into words. For example, instead of saying “Be careful,” they say “The housefly does not play a sticky drum.” Or when they say “The staring frogs do not prevent cattle from drinking,” they mean “Do not worry about other people’s opinions.” African riddles are often “intended to display the questioner’s imagination rather than to test the cleverness of the audience.” (Smith, n.d.)
A. Written Tradition. Since African languages are only spoken, they owe their writing traditions to the influence of Muslim Arabs in Africa. East African writing were first written in the Arabic script and later adopted the Roman Alphabet.
• Swahili Literature – shairi poems are non-religious poems which have grown out of poetry contests where the first poet comes up with two lines and other poets must continue adding two lines each with the same rhyme and rhythm. Uhuru wa Watumwa (Freedom for the Slaves, 1934) was the first Swahili novella by James Mbotela.
• Hausa Literature – Islamic scholars living among the locals in northern Africa wrote the first poems in Hausa using Arabic alphabets. They call these religious poems as ajami. Eventually, themes of poems from this region are conflicts between Islamic ways and European culture and beliefs.
• Yoruba Literature – The fantasy Igbo Olodumare (The Forest of the Lord, 1947) made Chief D.O. Fagunawa one of Nigeria’s most popular writers. Yoruba has also produced social and political satires by Hubert Ogunde as well as tragedies by Duro Lapido.
• Other African-language Literature – Christian texts became models for most African provinces which did not have an earlier written tradition. Spiritual books such as the Bible, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Christian hymns were translated to African languages, while natives were taught by converted Africans the English language.
In 1906, Thomas Mokopu Mofolo of Lesotho published the first Christian- inspired novel Moeti oa Bochabela (Traveller of the East). His book was originally produced in a missionary printing press. However, his third novel which came out in 1925 (Chaka) written in the Sotho language had to be revised upon the advice of the missionaries. Chaka contained war and witchcraft themes which were strongly disapproved by the publishers. From then on, African writers had to adjust their writings to suit not only their local readers but also their religious influences.
• French-language literature – French colonizers imposed their culture and language on the natives and brought African scholars to their universities in France. However, scholars realized that no culture could ever replace their own. So, they began to write poems about their longings for Africa and their anger toward losing their identity as a nation. This became a movement and it was recognized in 1930s as “negritude” or a celebration of their blackness and the African traditions. In 1960, a poet turned the first president of Senegal used the color black as a symbol of magical life rather than of death.
• Portuguese-language literature – Among the writers during this period were Caetano da Costa Alegre of Sao Tome who wrote about his loneliness in the midst of a white society while living in Portugal as a medical student; Agostinha Neto and Mario de Andrade of Angola who were both political poets who thrived in the Angolan liberation movement; Valente Malangatana and Jose Craveirinha of Mozambique, who were tortured and imprisoned by Portuguese because of their writings that exposed the problems of racial discrimination and the difficulties of black laborers.
• English-language literature – Around the 18th century, freed slaves who have settled in England and America wrote in the English language. Since then, writers expressed through poetry their love for their race and country while at the same time commemorated the European and Christian values. In 1911, the first African novel in English, Ethiopia Unbound by Joseph Ephraim Casley-Hayford of Ghana was published. Onitsha novels, which are short popular fiction, became in demand especially in western African night markets.
▪ Amos Tutuola – was the first Nigerian who was recognized internationally by reinventing Yoruban folklore in the English language. Because he lacked formal language education, he often relied on Yoruba’s orality rather than on standard English (goodreads.com)
▪ Chinua Achebe – He was the most widely read African novelist and has one of the biggest contributions in letting the world enter into an understanding of African literature (Brucker, 1992). New York Times described him as Africa’s Literary Giant especially for his first novel, “Things Fall Apart.” This work of art unveils the story of a man named Okonwo from the Igbo tribe who struggled both against his own folks and the European missionaries.
Which among the African countries use Swahili as their language?
Kenya and Tanzania
largest body of literature
European lit.
Who is Aeneas?
From “Aeneid”
Trojan hero Aeneas, the protagonist went on a journey to search for the land he was destined to build which will one day become the great Roman Empire.
Italian poet who was able to perfect the Italian sonnet
Francisco Petrarch
