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What problem did the Egyptian pharaohs face around 2000 BC regarding their slaves?
They could not pass down written orders to their enslaved prisoners of war because the slaves could not read hieroglyphics.
Why were early writing systems like Egyptian hieroglyphics difficult to use?
They had thousands of characters, with each symbol representing an idea or word, making them cumbersome and time-consuming to learn.
What major innovation did the Egyptians create to communicate with their slaves?
They devised a simplified version of hieroglyphics where each character represented only a sound, reducing the number of characters from thousands to dozens.
How did the development of the alphabet change communication in ancient times?
It made writing systems easier to learn and use, enabling broader literacy and more efficient communication.
What happened to the complicated hieroglyphic language over time?
It was eventually forgotten, and scholars could not translate it until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799.
How did the alphabet spread beyond Egypt?
Enslaved people who migrated back to their home countries took the alphabet with them, and it spread across the Near East. The Phoenicians further spread it along the Mediterranean coast.
Which modern alphabets are based on the ancient Phoenician script?
The Greek and Roman alphabets, which are the foundation for most Western languages, including English.
What is an example of a modern English letter that derives from an ancient Egyptian character?
The letter “B” derives from the Egyptian character for the word “house.”
How many words does the most recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contain?
It contains 171,476 words in current usage, one of the highest counts of any language.
What role did the Phoenicians play in the spread of the alphabet?
As seaborne traders, they introduced the alphabet to tribes along the Mediterranean coast, helping it spread to other civilizations.
What was the significance of the Rosetta Stone?
It allowed scholars to decipher and translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, which had been forgotten for centuries.
How did the alphabet contribute to the development of modern languages?
It became the foundation for many writing systems, including Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, which influenced most Western languages.
What is Ulysses by James Joyce widely regarded as?
It is widely regarded as the greatest novel written in English in the twentieth century.
What ancient work does Ulysses retell, and in what context?
It retells Homer’s Odyssey in the context of a single day - June 16, 1904 - in Dublin, Ireland.
Who is the modern-day counterpart to Homer’s Odysseus in Ulysses?
Leopold Bloom, an aging, cuckolded ad salesman, is the modern-day counterpart to Odysseus.
How does Leopold Bloom embody heroism in Ulysses?
He displays compassion, forgiveness, and generosity toward others, practicing an everyday heroism that is perhaps the only heroism possible in the modern world.
Why does Leopold Bloom feel like an outsider in Dublin?
He is a Jew in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland, which makes him feel like an outsider.
What literary technique is Ulysses most famous for?
It is most famous for its extensive use of stream-of-consciousness narrative, which attempts to render the inner thoughts of characters exactly as they occur.
How does stream-of-consciousness narrative influence modernist literature?
It became a hallmark of modernist literature and influenced writers like Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, who also experimented with the technique.
What is notable about the final chapter of Ulysses?
It recounts the thoughts of Bloom’s wife, Molly, in a 24,000-word reverie divided into only eight mammoth sentences.
What is the significance of Molly Bloom’s final lines in Ulysses?
They reaffirm her love for her husband, Leopold, despite her infidelity, ending with the famous lines: “yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Why was Ulysses banned in the United States for nearly twelve years?
It was banned for obscenity due to its (mostly indirect) sexual imagery.
What makes Ulysses a challenging read for many readers?
Its rich character portraits, vast array of literary and cultural allusions, innovative language use, and stream-of-consciousness technique make it a complex and demanding novel.
How does Ulysses reflect modernist literature?
It experiments with literary genres, forms, and narrative techniques, breaking away from traditional storytelling to explore the inner lives and thoughts of its characters in a fragmented, realistic way.
