ENGLISH / AMERICAN LITERATURE

-Jutes, Angles, Saxons

-Language – Anglo Saxon

-Angleland – Stone age people

       Gaels/Britons

       Romans

BEOWULF (England) - Epic of more than 3,000 lines

CHAUCER – Canterbury Tales

-greatest English writer of the middle ages

-St.Thomas a Becket

-Through Harry BAilly – innkeeper – Tabard Inn

Ex. Paradoners Tale

King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table

-Sir Gawaine

-Sir Thomas Malory- Le Morte de Arthur

-rise & decline of the Round Table, quest for the Holy Grail & establishment of the first printing
press in English by William Caxton.

-Sir Thomas More – Utopia

-Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe – The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

“Come Live with me and “Be my Love” I will make thee bed of roses
Sis Walter Raleigh – The nymphs Reply to the Shepherd” If all the world and love were young
and truyth in every shepherd’s tounge

William Shakespeare – greatest writer of all times

-Venus and Adonis / Romeo and Juliet / Hamlet/Macbeth

-Sonnets

Sonnet 18 – Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thomas Campion – My Sweetest LEsbia- “Let us live & love”

Francis Bacon – Father of English Essay

Of Studies – Studies serve for delight, fir ornament & for ability

Ben Johnson- Song to Celia “Drink to me only with thines eyes and I will pledge with mine or
leave a kiss but in the cup and I’ll not look for mine.”

John Miltom – Paradise: Lost, On his Blindness

Thomas Gray – Elegy Written in Country Churchyard

Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Thyme of the Ancient Mariner

Percy Bysshe Shelley – Ode to the West Wind

Alfred Lord Tennyson – Break, Break, Break

Robert Browning – Last Duchess

Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Hpw Do I Love Thee?”

Matthew Arnold – Dover Beach

Rudyard Kipling – Madalay/Recessional John Masefield – Sea Fever

David Herbert Lawrence – Lady Chatterly’s Lover

American Literature

-Captain Jong Smith (Pocahontas)

-Vitginia
Thomas Jefferson – Declaration of Independence of the 13th United States of America

Patrick Henry – Hive me liberty or give me death

Washington Irving      - Legend of Sleepy Hollow

       -Rip Van Winkle

       -Ichabod Crane and Rose of Alhambra

Edgar Allan Poe – Annabel Lee, Tell-Tale Heart

       -Father of Horror Stories

Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self – Reliance

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – A Psalm of life

       - “Tell me not in mournfull numbers”

       -“Life is but an empty dream”

Samuel Lamghorne Clemens (Mark Twain) – Afventures of Tom Sawyer

Henry James- Tree of Knowledge

Stephen Crane – Blades of Grass

Ernest Hemingway – Old Man & the Sea

Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

William Ernest Henley – Invictus

Walt Whitman – O captain, My Captain

Charles Dickens – Christman Carol

Greek Literature
1.    Pre Homeric and Homeric Age

2.    Anthenian period – Alexander the Great

3.    Period of Decline

Qualities:

1.    Permanence & universality

2.    Essentially full of artistry

3.    Originality

4.    Diversity of talent

5.    Intellectual quality

Homer – blind poet of Greece/great epics – Illiad & Odyssey Theme- Man’s fate is the result
of his actions.

Mythological background of Iliad

Achilles – greatest Greek warrior Thetis and Peleus (Parents)

Eris – Goddess of mischief was not invited

Golden Apple – to the fairies of the Goddess

Hera – promised power

Athena – wisdom

Aphrodite – most beautiful woman in the world

Helen – married to Menelaos

-Alexandros abducted Helen and brought her to Troy

-Greeks (Achaians) banded together to restore Helen of Menealos

-10 year war – Trojan war

Iliad

-violent quarrel between Agamemnon & Achilles

-Briseis was unjustly taken by Agamemnon

-Achilles bowed not to fight & stayed on his tent; because of his absemce, the Trojans led by
prince Hecor were winning & Greeks were driven back

Patroclus – dear friend of Achilles begged to fight

-was killed by Hector

-and because of this, Achilles killed the Trojans in order to marry Penelope

-Story of Penelope

Because of Athena, he reached Ogygia

-      met the nympj Calypso, fallen in love with him

-kept for seven years

-Hermes ordered Calypso to realease Odysseus

-Poseidon got angry and Odysseus met several dangers before reaching Ithaca

Dramatist of the Athenian Age

1.    Aeschylus – father of tragedy

-theological poet

-soldier playwright

-Battle of Marathon/Salamy

2.    Sophocles

-Oedipus Rex

-Parent Laius & Jocasta (Thebe)

-      Chidless – Apollo at Delphi

-      received a prophecy that Jocasta would have a son, but will murder his father and marry his
mother
-Oedipus was born

-exposed in the mountain

-given to the childless King& Queen of Corinth

-went to oracle of Delphi and learned the truth

-left Corinth

-on his way , he met an old man & insulted him & tried to beat him

-killed the man

-reached Thebe

-people were suffering under great misfortune in the form of a Sphinx Riddle – morning walks
in 4 legs; noon – 2 legs – night – 3 legs

Oedipus – solved the riddle

-became king of Thebe & married Jocasta

-plague came to the land

-Theban went to oracle of Delphi

-Apollo saod that they must look for the murdere of their King Lauis & punish him

People sought the help of Oedipus & promised to look for the murderer

He learned the truth and Jocasta & Oedipus realized that they were mother and son. In the end
Jocasta committed suicide while Oedipusblinded his eyes

3.    Euripides – modern playwright

4.    Aristophanes – master of Greek comedy

Rome – Virgil – ggreatest writer that Rome produced

Aeneid – Aeneas (Trojan hero)

-burning troy

-went to Latium

-landed in Carthage and welcomed by Queen Dido

-queen fell in love with Aeneas

-Aeneas great destiny was to be the founder of Rome

-oracle – only daughter Lavinia would marry a foreigner- king Nibelungelied – Siegfred/epic/of
Germany

Song of Roland – epic of France

El Cid – epics of Spain

Diving Comedy – Dante – Father of Italian Literatiore

-greatest literary production of the middle Ages

GREEK GODS AND GODDESSES

Zeus – In Greek mythology, the father of gods and men, and most powerful of immortals. He
was pre-Hellenic and was worshipped as the sky-deity, whose presence was marked by
lightning, thunder, and rain, He was theson of Kronos and Rhea: Poseidon.

       Hades, Hestia, Demeter, JHera were his brothers and sisters, Hera being also his wife, When
the world was distributed among them after the overhrow of Kronos, Poseidong obtained the
sea, Hades the underworld and Zeus the heavens and upper regions, the earth being common of
them all.

Thetis – sea goddess, mother of Achilles

Poseidon- Fierce god of the sea and of earthquakes, brother of Zeus and Hades, defender of
Greeks

Hermes – Son of Zeus and Maia. He is familiar in Roman myhology as Mercurius

His best know role was that of messenger of the gods, for which he carried a herald’s wand. He
also conducted the dead to Hades. He was commonly represented in art asa a head supported by
a tapering pillar with a phallus affixed to it. Such images were known as Hermae.

Hera – Pre-Hellenic goddess whose Greek name is no more than the title, lady. The daughter of
Kronos and Rhea, she figures in Greek mythology as wife and sister Zeus and patroness of
female life in general and of marriage in particular. Her children included Ares, Hebe and
Hephaestus. According to Homer she was jealous and quarrelsome; Zeus himself quailed at her
tounge. Argos seems to have been the most ancient place for her worship.
Hephaestus – Also called Hephaistos, in Greek Religon, the God of fire.

Originally a deity of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands, he had an important place of worship
at the Lycian Olympus, where natural gas provided both his image and his sanctuary. As god of
fire, Hephaestus became the divine smith and patron of craftsmen, the naturalvolcanic or
gaseous fires already connected with him were often considered to be his workshops.

Athena – Sometimes called Pallas. She spramg fully grown and armed from the head of Zeus,
who had swallowed her mother MEITIS (wise counsel). Although pre- Hellenic, she became
patron goddess of Athems, and personified wisdom. In Roman mythology is identified with
Minerva.

Artemis – Originally a primitive earg-goddess; she appears in Greek mythology as daughter if

Zeus and Leto and sister of Apollo; a virgin huntress and patroness of chastity.

Aphrodite – The Goddess of Beauty and Love, who beguiled all, Gods and men alik; the
laughter-loving Goddess, who stole away even the wits of the wise. She is the daughyer of Zeus
and Dione in the Iliad. She was also known as Venus in the Roman mythology.

Apollo – Archer god, main protector of the Trojans.

Ceres- Roman goddess of corn, identified with Greek Demeter

Ares – He presented the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter.

From at least the time of Homer, who established him as the son of the chief god, Zeus amd
Hera his consort, he was of the Olympiam deities, buthis fellow gods and even his

parents were not fond of him. HE was accompanied in battle, however, by his sister Eris (Strife)
and his sins (by Aphrodite) DEimos and Phobos (panic and Rout).

Achilles – was the son of Peleus and Thetis and hero of Homers Iliad by whom Greek valor and
its mightiest was exemplified in Trojan War. He was educated in war and eloquence by phoenis
amd in hunting, riding, music and medicine by Chiron. He was the greatest and bravest warrior
among the Greeks.

Agamemnon – Son of Atreus and brother of Menelaus. He was the legendary king of Mycenae.
In Homer, he appears to be commander in chief of the Greek expedition against Troy. He was
personally brave but somewhat irresolute and despondent. His quarrel with Achilles is principal
motif of the Illiad.

The Odyssey relates, on his return from the wars, he and his followers were treacherously
murdered by his wife Clythemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, Clymnestra also killed Cassandra,
thedaughter of Prian, king if Troy, whom agamemno had brought back with him.

Neptune, Neptunus – Roman god of water; later elevated to God of the Sea after his
identification with the Greek Poseidon

Vulcan – Roman God of fire and in Particular of furnaces; his festival, the Vulcania, was
observed on 23’rd August. He was identified with the Greek Hephaesthus.