Literary Analysis Flashcards
The Epic of Gilgamesh 700BCE
(Ancient Literature) King Gilgamesh demi-God, angers people while young, god Anu provides guide Enkidu, journey together to find immortality and meaning of life. Gilgamesh learns inevitability of change and death and becomes wiser ruler.
Illiad 700BCE
(Ancient Literature) Trojan War between Sparta and Troy- Chilles, Hector, Agamenon, Helen
Odyssey 700BCE
(Ancient Literature) Odysseus returning from Trojan War, Cyclops
Aesop’s Fables 500BCE
(Ancient Literature) Teach lessons about life, personified animals
The Aeneid 19BCE
(Ancient Literature) (Virgil) Modeled on Homer, adventures of Aeneas as he escapes the sack of Troy, voyages to Italy, and establishes a city that is the precursor of imperial Rome
Odes 23 BCE
(Ancient Literature) (Horace) Roman life, pomp of public ceremonies and military success
Epodes 30BCE
(Ancient Literature) (Horace) satire, moral instruction
Metamorphoses 8BCE
(Ancient Literature) (Ovid) tales of gods and human being transformations into nature; source of Greek/Roman mythology
Ars Amatoria “The Art of Love” 2BCE
(Ancient Literature) (Ovid) wit to describe pleasures and pains of seduction (war//romance)
Beowulf 800-1100CE
Old English, warrior and king Beowulf wins 3 battles over Grendel (troll), Grendel’s mother, and a powerful dragon; Beowulf dies from wounds
The Divine Comedy 1321CE
(Dante Alighieri) Italian allegory split into 3 parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Narrates Dante’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven with Virgil and Beatrice as guides. Starts in the dark woods (sinful) and flows upward levels of the dead. Poet reaches vision of heaven in which soul aligned with God.
Structure based on number 3. Terza Rima- rhymed stanzas of three lines
Canterbury Tales 1380CE
(Chaucer) story-telling contest, Middle English verse, rhetoric and style to suit individual narrator
Knight’s Tale- knights battle for princess; chivalry, loyalty, valor, and courtly love
Miller’s Tale- poor seduces rich wife, humor
Wife of Bath’s Tale- rapist sentenced to discover what women want; conflict between sexes
The Summoning of Everyman
(Middle Ages) God accounting for good and evil deeds in the life of Everyman (all mankind); Allegory
The Faerie Queene
(Renaissance) One of the longest poems in English; allegory
Hamlet
(Renaissance) Danish prince charged by the ghost of his murdered father to avenge death; uncle Claudius murdered, rook crown and wife; Hamlet hesitates to take revenge until the end
Romeo and Juliet
(Renaissance) doomed young lovers caught in feud
Midsummer Night’s Dream
(Renaissance) Quarreling Kings and Queens, young lovers, fairies, and weaver named Bottom; given donkey head by Puck (servant of fairy king); Puck makes queen fall in love with Bottom
Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2
(Renaissance) Progress of Prince Hal from tavern to court; companion is Falstaff, comedian
Julius Caesar
(Renaissance) Story of Brutus; Mark Antony in it
King Lear
(Renaissance) Aging king who divides kingdom between daughters who pretend to love him while rejecting the third, who does love him; terrors of age, betrayal, and isolation
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
(Renaissance) Collection of poems about love, time, pride, loss, and regret
Jacobean Revenge Tragedy
(Renaissance) Dark explorations of human psychology with penchant for sex and violence; written in verse
Don Quixote 1605
(Renaissance) Miguel de Cervantes; chivalry leads to quests; speaks in high-flown words but refuses to give up delusions; parody
Paradise Lost 1667
(Renaissance) John Milton; mankind’s fall from grace and God’s banishment of Satan from heaven; blank verse
Pilgrim’s Progress 1678
(Renaissance) John Bunyan; Christian allegory of mankind’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City; joys and challenges of Christianity
Lyrical Ballads
(Romanticism) Rejection of rigid conventions in favor of everyday language
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
(Romanticism) Poem recounting sailor’s tragic sea voyage
Ozymandius
(Romanticism) Percy Shelley; lyric about the vanity of ancient kings whose monuments to themselves decay
Frankenstein
(Romanticism) Mary Shelley; Gothic, bring life; questions the limits of science in the modern world
Trickster Tales
The hero, an anthropomorphized animal, often is involved in mischief, deception, and treachery; Trickster may be able to change shapes or perform magic to cheat or deceive the gods, humans, or other animals.
My Dear Loving Husband
(American) Describe family life, personal loss, and the hopes for the future
Transcendentalism
Expounded the idea of a spark of divinity in man and the interconnectedness of everything in existence (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Imagist Movement
Free-verse poems phrased in common speech that addressed a wide variety of subject matter and conveyed meaning through clear, precisely described images
Symbolism
Emerged during Romantic Period; focused on moods and transient sensations instead of lucid statements and logical descriptions; transcendental
