Literary Analysis

Question 1

The Epic of Gilgamesh 700BCE

Answer 1

(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.

Question 2

Illiad 700BCE

Answer 2

(Ancient Literature) Trojan War between Sparta and Troy- Chilles, Hector, Agamenon, Helen

Question 3

Odyssey 700BCE

Answer 3

(Ancient Literature) Odysseus returning from Trojan War, Cyclops

Question 4

Aesop’s Fables 500BCE

Answer 4

(Ancient Literature) Teach lessons about life, personified animals

Question 5

The Aeneid 19BCE

Answer 5

(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

Question 6

Odes 23 BCE

Answer 6

(Ancient Literature) (Horace) Roman life, pomp of public ceremonies and military success

Question 7

Epodes 30BCE

Answer 7

(Ancient Literature) (Horace) satire, moral instruction

Question 8

Metamorphoses 8BCE

Answer 8

(Ancient Literature) (Ovid) tales of gods and human being transformations into nature; source of Greek/Roman mythology

Question 9

Ars Amatoria “The Art of Love” 2BCE

Answer 9

(Ancient Literature) (Ovid) wit to describe pleasures and pains of seduction (war//romance)

Question 10

Beowulf 800-1100CE

Answer 10

Old English, warrior and king Beowulf wins 3 battles over Grendel (troll), Grendel’s mother, and a powerful dragon; Beowulf dies from wounds

Question 11

The Divine Comedy 1321CE

Answer 11

(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

Question 12

Canterbury Tales 1380CE

Answer 12

(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

Question 13

The Summoning of Everyman

Answer 13

(Middle Ages) God accounting for good and evil deeds in the life of Everyman (all mankind); Allegory

Question 14

The Faerie Queene

Answer 14

(Renaissance) One of the longest poems in English; allegory

Question 15

Hamlet

Answer 15

(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

Question 16

Romeo and Juliet

Answer 16

(Renaissance) doomed young lovers caught in feud

Question 17

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Answer 17

(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

Question 18

Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2

Answer 18

(Renaissance) Progress of Prince Hal from tavern to court; companion is Falstaff, comedian

Question 19

Julius Caesar

Answer 19

(Renaissance) Story of Brutus; Mark Antony in it

Question 20

King Lear

Answer 20

(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

Question 21

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Answer 21

(Renaissance) Collection of poems about love, time, pride, loss, and regret

Question 22

Jacobean Revenge Tragedy

Answer 22

(Renaissance) Dark explorations of human psychology with penchant for sex and violence; written in verse

Question 23

Don Quixote 1605

Answer 23

(Renaissance) Miguel de Cervantes; chivalry leads to quests; speaks in high-flown words but refuses to give up delusions; parody

Question 24

Paradise Lost 1667

Answer 24

(Renaissance) John Milton; mankind’s fall from grace and God’s banishment of Satan from heaven; blank verse

Question 25

Pilgrim’s Progress 1678

Answer 25

(Renaissance) John Bunyan; Christian allegory of mankind’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City; joys and challenges of Christianity

Question 26

Lyrical Ballads

Answer 26

(Romanticism) Rejection of rigid conventions in favor of everyday language

Question 27

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Answer 27

(Romanticism) Poem recounting sailor’s tragic sea voyage

Question 28

Ozymandius

Answer 28

(Romanticism) Percy Shelley; lyric about the vanity of ancient kings whose monuments to themselves decay

Question 29

Frankenstein

Answer 29

(Romanticism) Mary Shelley; Gothic, bring life; questions the limits of science in the modern world

Question 30

Trickster Tales

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

My Dear Loving Husband

Answer 31

(American) Describe family life, personal loss, and the hopes for the future

Question 32

Transcendentalism

Answer 32

Expounded the idea of a spark of divinity in man and the interconnectedness of everything in existence (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Question 33

Imagist Movement

Answer 33

Free-verse poems phrased in common speech that addressed a wide variety of subject matter and conveyed meaning through clear, precisely described images

Question 34

Symbolism

Answer 34

Emerged during Romantic Period; focused on moods and transient sensations instead of lucid statements and logical descriptions; transcendental