Burma

 Buddhism
 Anti-government, expose’ of government corruption

Basic textual and contextual reading approach in the study and appreciation of literature

1. Reader-Response—Focuses on the reader (or "audience") and his or her experience of a

literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or
the content and form of the work.

2. Feminist Criticism—focuses on female representation in literature, paying attention to female

points of view, concerns, and values. Three underlying assumptions in this approach are:
Western Society is pervasively patriarchal, male centered and controlled, and is organized in such
a way as to subordinate women; the concept of gender is socially constructed, not biologically
determined; and that patriarchal ideology pervades those writings which have been considered
“great works of literature.”

3. Queer Theory—Combined area of gay and lesbian studies and criticism, including studies of
variations in biological sex, gender identity, and sexual desires. Emphasis on dismantling the key
binary oppositions of Western culture: male/ female, heterosexual/ homosexual, etc. by which the
first category is assigned privilege, power, and centrality, while the second is derogated,
subordinated, and marginalized.

4. Marxist Criticism—focuses on how literary works are products of the economic and ideological
determinants specific to that era. Critics examine the relationship of a literary product to the actual
economic and social reality of its time and place (Class stratification, class relations, and dominant
ideology).

5. Historical Criticism—focuses on examining a text primarily in relation to the historical and

cultural conditions of its production, and also of its later critical interpretations. Cultural materialism,
a mode of NHC, argues that whatever the “textuality” of history, a culture and its literary products
are always conditioned by the real material forces and relations of production in their historical era.

6. Psychological Criticism—focuses on a work of literature primarily as an expression, in

fictional form, of the state of mind and the structure of personality of the individual author. In other
words, a literary text is related to its author’s mental and emotional traits. Furthest extension is
Psychoanalytic Criticism, emphasis on phallic symbols, wombs, breasts, etc. Theorists include
Lacan and Klein.

7. New Criticism—the proper concern of literary criticism is not with the external circumstances or
effects or historical position of a work, but with a detailed consideration of the work itself as an
independent entity. Emphasis on “the words on the page.” Study of poetry focuses on the
“autonomy of the work as existing for its own sake,” analysis of words, figures of speech, and
symbols. Distinctive procedure is close reading and attention to recurrent images; these critics
delight in “tension,” “irony,” and “paradox.” (Similar to Formalism or Neo-Aristotelian)

8. Deconstruction—focuses on the practice of reading a text in order to “subvert” or “undermine”

the assumption that the text can be interpreted coherently to have a universal determinate
meaning. Typically, deconstructive readings closely examine the conflicting forces/meanings
within the text in order to show that the text has an indefinite array of possible
readings/significations.

9. Archetypal/Mythic Criticism—focuses on recurrent narrative designs, patterns of action,

character types, or images which are said to be identifiable in a wide variety of literary works,
myths, dreams, and even ritualized modes of behaviour. Critics tend to emphasize the mythical
patterns in literature, such as the death-rebirth theme and journey of the hero.

10. Cultural Criticism—This lens examines the text from the perspective of cultural attitudes and
often focuses on individuals within society who are marginalized or face discrimination in some
way. Cultural criticism may consider race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or other
characteristics that separate individuals in society and potentially lead to one feeling or being
treated as “less than” another. It suggests that being included or excluded from the dominant
culture changes the way one may view the text.

11. Modernism/Post-Modernism—Modernism is a rejection of traditional forms of literature

(chronological plots, continuous narratives, closed endings etc.) in favour of experimental forms.
They have nostalgia for the past that they feel is lost so Modernist texts often include multiple
allusions. Post-Modernists follow the same principles but celebrate the new forms of fragmentation
rather than lamenting them.
 Look for ironies within a text
 Analyse fragmentation and a mixing of genres and forms
 Blurs the line between “high” literature (classics) and popular literature (NY Times
Bestsellers)

12. Mythological Criticism—This approach emphasizes “the recurrent universal patterns

underlying most literary works.” Combining the insights from anthropology, psychology, history, and
comparative religion, mythological criticism “explores the artist’s common humanity by tracing how
the individual imagination uses myths and symbols common to different cultures and epochs.” One
key concept in mythological criticism is the archetype, “a symbol, character, situation, or image that
evokes a deep universal response,” which entered literary criticism from Swiss psychologist Carl
Jung. According to Jung, all individuals share a “‘collective unconscious,’ a set of primal memories
common to the human race, existing below each person’s conscious mind”—often deriving from
primordial phenomena such as the sun, moon, fire, night, and blood, archetypes according to Jung
“trigger the collective unconscious.” Another critic, Northrop Frye, defined archetypes in a more
limited way as “a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be
recognizable as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole.” Regardless of the definition of
archetype they use, mythological critics tend to view literary works in the broader context of works
sharing a similar pattern.

13. Post-Colonialism Criticism—Post-colonialism literature is most commonly written about

countries that have been previously colonized. A post-colonial lens would approach literature and
look for what effects colonization has left on a society or on individual characters. This criticism
looks through literature with the post-colonial theory. It shows history and the effects that
colonization can leave on a civilization even after they have gained independence. The post-
colonialism critical lens interprets the challenges and changes of a previously colonized nation as
the effects of colonization. The major important symbols are oppression and power. There is an
identity between the colonizer and the colonized. The goal of the critical lens is to seek to
understand the behaviour of characters or the society. It can be analysed by the setting and the
actions or behaviours depicted by characters in literature can be attributed to their country being
previously colonized. Characters or society can feel torn between the identities of their native
culture and the culture of the colonizing country. A reader needs to have a good grasp of historical
knowledge in order to fully apply the post colonialism lens to literature. A reader has to be aware of
the previous or current colonial status of any countries or societies that are presented in a work of
literature.

14. Moral/Ethical Criticism—The moral/intellectual critical approach is concerned with content

and values.  The approach is as old as literature itself, for literature is a traditional mode of
imparting morality, philosophy, and religion.  The concern in moral/intellectual criticism is not only
to discover meaning but also to determine whether works of literature are both true and significant.
To study literature from the moral/intellectual perspective is therefore to determine whether a work
conveys a lesson or message and whether it can help readers’ lead better lives and improve their
understanding of the world: What ideas does the work contain?  How strongly does the work bring
forth its ideas?  What application do the ideas have to the work’s characters and situations?  How
may the ideas be evaluated intellectually?  Morally?  Discussions based on such questions do not
imply that literature is primarily a medium of moral and intellectual exhortation.  Ideally,
moral/intellectual criticism should differ from sermonizing to the degree that readers should always
be left with their own decisions about whether to assimilate the ideas of a work and about whether
the ideas—and values—are personally or morally acceptable. Sophisticated critics have
sometimes demeaned the moral/intellectual approach on the grounds that “message hunting”
reduces a work’s artistic value by treating it like a sermon or political speech; but the approach will
be valuable as long as readers expect literature to be applicable to their own lives. 
ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE

Anglo” refers to English or British literature — from its beginnings (Beowulf is a prime example) to the
contemporary period (Zadie Smith, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman). British literary history is divided into
periods:

 Old English - kennings, Beowulf

 Medieval - Chaucer, Margery Kempe, Geoffrey of Monmouth; histories, poetry (forms like the
rhyme royal, iambic), saints' tales, the lai/romance
 Renaissance - drama (Shakespeare, Kyd, Marlowe), poetry
 17th-century - nonfiction
 Augustan Era - essays, poetics, correspondence, poetry
a) Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison (and as for female writers, if I'm not
mistaken, we have Mary Wollstonecraft and Aphra Behn.)
 Victorian
a. Romantic poetry (Blake, Rosetti, the Brownings, etc.)
b. Fiction (Hardy, Austen [although some classify her as a Regency-era author who straddles the
boundaries between a pre-Victorian period and this present one], the Brontë Sisters)
 Modern - James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad (we can also
divide this further into early 20th and late 20th like Huxley)
 Contemporary - Zadie Smith, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman
 Commonwealth - literatures from the Commonwealth (Canadian or Australian)
 Popular literature may and should have a special place

As for American literature, it isn't exactly about literary periods as much as it is about finding identity.
Perhaps a pre-period would be the Old-World perceptions about the New World; Shakespeare’s The
Tempest is a wonderful example of this, and so is More's Utopia. John Smith's correspondence and
so do other explorers' correspondence concerning America are considered works which seem to
'endorse' living in the New World.

Now that we have that clarified, here's another rough timeline:

 Puritan - sermons (the Mathers) documents of the witch trials, poetry (Phillis Wheatley, Ann
Bradstreet)
 Benjamin Franklin, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ralph
Waldo Emerson
 Cultural critics still trying to figure the main problem of the previous point: R. Herrick, H.L.
Mencken, E. Wharton, etc. + early 20th c. American
a. Fiction: E. Hemingway, E. Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, J. Steinbeck, W. Faulkner + the
Harlem Renaissance (Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston)
b. Poetry: the Harlem Renaissance (L. Hughes, C. McKay, Cullen), Eliot, Pound, Stevens,
Williams, Frost, cummings
 Late 20th century
a. Fiction - Heller, Vonnegut, Wolfe, Auster, Roth, Updike, Cheever
b. Poetry
i. Whitmanians and Dickinsonians
ii. Imagists (part of the Whitmanian vs. Dickinsonian tradition) - G. Stein's Tender Buttons
iii. Confessional poetry - Plath, Sexton, Roethke (also, the Beats)
Popular literature - comics (and superheroes, in particular) and songs

Literary genres, traditions and forms from Europe

 Renaissance – 1485- 1680
 Enlightenment – 1650- 1800
 Romanticism – 1798 – 1870
 Realism – 1820-1920
 Victorian Period – 1837- 1901
 Modernism – 1910 – 1965
 Post-Modernism – 1965- Present

Renaissance
 The creation of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg in 1440 allowed for much of the
literature during this time to be read by a much larger audience.
  With the new wave of knowledge, many writers of this time period drew on classical methods
and styles from the ancient greats. These included Aristotle, Homer, Plato, and Socrates.
Some Romans that were modelled were Cicero, Horace, Sallust, and Virgil.
 Politics were often an influence on Renaissance literature. Some writers wrote directly about
politics, and gave advice to rulers, seen by Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous work, The Prince.
 Another source of inspiration was Christianity, which had immense influence during this time.

Important Renaissance Works

 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
 Niccolo Michiavelli, The Prince
 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
 Petrarch, Canzoniere, Trionfi
 Sir Francis Bacon, New Atlantis
 Sir Thomas More, Utopia
 John Milton, Paradise Lost
 Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

The Enlightenment Period

 This period in literature is marked by new emphasis on logic and intellectualism.
 Writers put more attention to useful rather than abstract thought, and expressed desires for
improving the conditions of humanity through tolerance, freedom, and equality.
 With the reason of reason and logic, many writers began to question the established churches
of the time, and a rise of deism was seen during this time.
 The philosophies in France during this time were important to the period and contributed many
new thoughts characteristic of the Enlightenment.
 The rising middle class during this time made their preferences of prose novels and short
stories significant literary genres.

Works of the Enlightenment

 Montesqueiu, Spirit of the Laws
 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
 Marry Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
 Voltaire, Candide
 Denis Diderot, Encyclopedie

Romanticism
 This period was a movement away from the enlightenment focus of reason and logic, focusing
more on imagination and emotions instead.
 Key characteristics of this period include an interest in the common man and childhood,
emotions and feelings, the awe of nature, emphasis on the individual, myths, and the
importance of the imagination.
 Symbolism was seen as superior because they could suggest many things instead of the direct
interpretations of allegories
 Instead of the scientific view of the universe as a machine, romanticism saw it as organic, such
as a living tree.

Romantic authors
 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads
 Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde
 Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
 Sir Walter Scott, Tales of the Crusaders
 Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship
 Chateaubriand, Genius of Christianity
 Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind
Realism
 The realist movement portrayed the hypocrisy, brutality, and dullness of life for the bourgeois.
 Scientific objectivity and observation were used to influence literature during the period of
realism.
 Realism often confronted readers with the harsh realities that life had to offer.
 This movement rejected the idealization of nature, the poor, love, and polite society during the
romantic period and instead showed the dark side of life.
 Some writers portrayed the cruelty of the developing industrialism in Europe during this time.

Realist writers
 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
 Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
 George Benard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession
 Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Oliver Twist
 Claude Bernard, Introduction to the Study of Experimental Science
 Emile Zola, L’Assommoir
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Victorian Period
 The Victorian Period showed a much more sober view of idealism than the visionary view seen
in Romanticism.
 The Victorian saw nature as harsh and cruel, contrasting the kind and harmonious view during
the Romantic era.
 Some focuses of this era were the middle class, reality, work, and nations as a whole instead
of the individual.
 The trinity of the Victorian period was religion, science and morality.
 Some of the values were earnestness, respectability, utilitarianism, and a strong emphasis on
duty.
 Major ideas of this period of literature included the glorification of war, expansion of empires,
industrialism, economic prosperity, and reform.

Victorian Period writers

 Robert Browning
 Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
 George Eliot
 Elizabeth Barret Browning
 Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
 Thomas Hardy
 Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
 Matthew Arnold
 Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Anthony Trollope, Chronicles of Barsetshire
 Lord Alfred Tennyson

Modernism
 Like the period of Realism, Modernism was also critical of middle class society and morality,
but wasn’t concerned by social issues like Realism was.
 Modernism was characterized as having a concern for the aesthetic and beautiful.
 Many English writers challenged the values of the Victorian time period.
 While it arose before World War I, it would flourish after it because of the immense turmoil and
social problems it created.
 Experimentation and individualism become virtues, while they had been discouraged in the
past.
 This period was marked by quick and unexpected shifts from traditional ways of viewing the
world.

Modernist writers
  Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
 Leonard Woolf
 James Joyce, Ulysses
 Franz Kafka
 William Butler Yeats, The Tower
 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
 D. H. Lawrence
 Alfred Doblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Postmodernism
 Postmodernism developed after World War II and utilized techniques such as fragmentation,
paradox, and questionable narrators.
 This was a reaction against Enlightenment ideas that were seen in literature from Modernism
 Postmodernism tended to stray from the neatly tied-up ending in modernism, and celebrated
chance over craft.
 Questioning of the distinctions between low and high culture through a jumble of various
ingredients, known as pastiche, that before wasn’t seen as appropriate for literature.
 Metafiction was also often employed to undermine the writer’s authority.

Postmodernist works
 Vladimir Nabokov, Mother Night
 John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
 Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow-Petushki
 Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
 George Perec, Life: A User’s Manual
 Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
 Alasdair Gray, Lanark: A Life in Four Books
 Alan Moore, Watchmen
 Dmitry Galkovsky, The Infinite Deadlock
 Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
 Walter Abish, How German Is It

Latin American Literature

(History and Background)

Latin America
 Latin is the base language of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French.
 For example, in Spanish the word for cave is “cueva,” in Portuguese “cova,” Italian “cava.”
 Latin America is a geographic location
 Every nation from Mexico to the tip of South America is considered “Latin America”
 Approx. 21 countries

Four Main Population Groups

 Indian (Native American)
 Black
 White
 Mixed Heritage
(Mestizo= Indian and White)
(Mulatto= Black and White)

INTERESTING FACT:
 People from Latin America are all Latin, but not all Hispanic.
 For example, Brazilians speak Portuguese, making them Latin not Hispanic.

Languages
 Spanish
 Portuguese
 Many speak a dialect of the country's official language
 Many speak a mixture of languages or traditional ones
Latin American Literature: Common Topics
 Like many cultures, Latin American stories revolve around universal themes and explore
interpersonal relationships.
 Roots in legends and myths
 Oral tradition
 Often, Latin American stories have religious or political content.

Common Themes:
 Family and relationship loyalties
 Poverty
 Gender Roles
 Social Protest & Exploitation
 Religion
 Magical Realism

1. Family
Family is considered one's strongest bond and loyalty

2. Poverty
Poverty is largely an issue because of the desperate situations in which many Latin American
countries find themselves.

3. Gender Roles
Traditionally, older customs and cultural traditions prevail. Women were expected to be obedient and
uphold the family honor.

Political: social protest and exploitation

 Many Latin American countries have gone through periods of social unrest.
 Cuba = communism
 Dominican Republic = dictatorship

Religion: Catholicism
Many Latin American countries have large Catholic populations.

The Boom
(Starting in late 1950‘s)
 A huge BOOM in number of important novels produced.
 Used literary invention in narratives to express cultural heritage.
 Experimented with language and structure, often injecting fantasy and fragmenting time and
space.

Latin American literature is rich with culture and social commentary.

Themes are based on life experiences
We will use the term “Latin Americans”

Introduction to African Literature

Important Facts about the African continent
 Second to Asia in size.
 12 million square miles.
 Humans originated in Africa.
 1,000 languages are spoken by hundreds of ethnic groups.
 5,000 years ago, earliest civilization developed in Egypt.

Religious Beliefs
 Hundreds of different religious systems.
 Polytheistic with a supreme god and lesser gods.
 Belief in ancestral spirits; souls of ancestral spirits spoke on their behalf.
 Personal god (chi) controls a person’s destiny.
 Christianity came to Ethiopia in 350.
 Islam came to northern Africa in 640-710
African Music
 Polyrhythmic- complex, interlocking rhythms by beating drums, striking bells, clapping hands,
and stamping feet
 Call and response- chorus repeats a lead singer’s words in response

Masked Dances
 Events in agricultural year
 Ceremonies marking rites of passage
 Rites of secret societies
 Curing the sick

Oral Literature
 The griot is a learned storyteller, poet, entertainer and historian.
 They have been handing down their oral culture for over 4,000 years.
 Griots accompany their stories with music.
 It takes those years to learn the vast repertoire of traditional songs, melodies and rhythms.

Transmission of the Stories

 Use of mnemonic devices
 Refrains- repeated lines
 Repeat and vary- lines or phrases are repeated with slight variations
 Tonal assonance- tones in which syllables are spoken determines the meaning of words
 Call and response

Different Themes of Oral Tradition

 Histories of ethnic and kingship devices
 Legends of cultural heroes
 Trickster stories
 Animal fables
 Proverbs and riddles
 Songs of praise for chiefs and kings

Chinua Achebe
 Born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on Nov 16,1930 in a large village in Nigeria
 Child of a Protestant missionary
 Received early education in English
 Went to college and studied history and theology
 In college, he dropped Christian name for native name
 One of the founders of Nigerian literary movement that drew upon indigenous culture

Things Fall Apart

 Written in 1950’s but set in the 1890’s (just before colonization)
 A backlash to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which represents African culture as primitive
Uses simple sentences, imagery, and African proverbs and folktales