World Literature

Literature

- Refers to any “written work”; derived from literature meaning writing formed with letters

World Literature

- Sum of the world’s national literature

- Shows how different cultures develop literary forms
- Hypercanon of “the best that has been thought and said” by selected writers of the world
- Paves way to the diffusion of texts around the globe through translation

Literature Periods
Old English (450-1150)

• Three Conquests
- Different Letters, Grammar, and spelling
- The Song of Beowulf

Middle English (1150-1500)

- Bible Translations
- Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

The Renaissance (1500-1650)

• Old classics rediscovered

- Sonnet
- Elegy
- Pastoral

The Restoration & 18th Century (1650-1789)

- Age of reason, enlightenment, satire, and poetry

- Rise of the novel & journalism

The Romantic Period (1789-1837)

- Use of everyday language

- Imagination is essential
- Overflowing emotions common
- Inspired by untamed nature & the exotic far east
- Folk traditions & medieval tales of knights
- Gothic novels

The Victorian Age (1837-1901)

- Queen Victoria
- Transition Period
- Melancholic and political poetry
Post Modern Age (1901-Present)

- Literature of this period exemplifies the improved crafts of masters. The novel has flourished
and writers have risen not only to popularity but to distinction as well.

Thoughts of Hanoi
Theme: what a story reveals about life or human nature.

The tragedy of civil war

Rhetorical Devices (14)

Alliteration
- The recurrence of initial consonant sounds
Ex. “dime a dozen”

Allusion
- Brief or casual reference to a famous person, historical event, place or work of art.
Ex. “It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark”

Assonance
- Refers to similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing
different consonants
Ex. “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done.”

Consonance
- Refers to a pleasing sounding caused by repetition of consonant sounds within
sentences, phrases, or in poems.
Ex. He gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s
the sweep of easy wind and downy flake.
Antithesis
- An opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.
Ex. “That’s one small step for a man; one Giant leap for mankind.”

Irony

- It is saying the opposite of what is meant in a tone or manner that shows what the speaker
thinks

Ex. “It was very kind of you to remind me of my humiliation.”

Paradox

- A statement that may seem absurd or contradictory but yet can be true, or at least makes
sense.

Ex. “Men work together whether they work together or apart.”

Hyperbole

- Deliberately exaggerates conditions for emphasis or effect.

Ex. “The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary.”

Understatement

- Deliberately expresses an idea as less important than it actually is, either for ironic emphasis or
for politeness and tact.

Ex. “You know I would be a little disappointed if you were to be hit by a drunk driver at two in the
morning, so I hope you will be home early.”

Asyndeton

- Lacks conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.

Ex. “We use words like honor, code, loyalty.”

Polysyndeton

- Use of conjunctions between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the
opposite of Asyndeton

Ex. “They read and studied and wrote and drilled. I laughed and played and talked and flunked.”

Anaphora

- The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or
sentences, commonly in conjunction with climax and parallelism.

Ex. Not time, not money, not laws, but willing diligence will get this done.

Epistrophe

- Forms the counterpart to Anaphora, because the repetition of the same words or words comes
at the end.

Ex. See no evil, hear, no evil, speak no evil.

Epanalepsis

- It repeats the beginning of the word of a clause or sentence at the end.

Ex. Our eyes saw it but we could not believe our eyes.

Persuasive Speech
- Art of using words to influence an audience by argumentation, rationalization, symbolisms,
and presenting supportive information
- Interactive
- Not coercion or force

3 Pillars

1. Ethos (Ethics)
2. Pathos (Emotions)
3. Logos (Logic)
Parts of a persuasive speech (Monroe’s motivated sequence)

1. Attention step (Intro)

2. Need step (problem)

3. Satisfaction step (solution) (Body)
4. Visualization step (Realistic conditions: Positive, Negative, Contrast)

5. Action step (conclusion)

Dante’s inferno (divine comedy)

9 Floors of Hell

1st floor
Limbo – Inhabited by those who were worthy but lived before Christianity or without Baptism
Punishment – They are not tormented; their only pain is that they have NO HOPE.

2nd floor
Lustful/Carnals
Minos – The dread and semi-bestial judge of the sinners
Punishment – They were swept by a great whirlwind, which spun them eternally.

3rd floor
Gluttonous – They made no higher use of the gifts of God than to wallow in food and drink.
Cerberus – It serves as the guard of the 3rd Circle; allows all to enter but none to escape.
Punishment – The souls here are immersed through all eternity like garbage in fetid slush.

Here, Dante speaks to a character called Ciacco who also tells him that the Guelphs (a fraction
supporting the Pope) will defeat and expel the Ghibellines (a fraction supporting the
Emperor to which Dante adhered) from Florence which happened in 1302, before the poem
was written (after 1308).

4th floor
Greed – They lacked moderation in regulating their expenses
Pluto – He guards the 4th circle of Hell.
Punishment – The avaricious and the prodigals clashed their weights against one another. They
did it over and over again.
5th floor
Wrathful and sullen – The souls of those who easily succumb to anger
Punishment – They attack one another in the foul slime-slippery, sticky matter. They also have
an eternal rage against themselves, so they attack and bite their own bodies.

Sullen – In life, they refused to welcome the sweet light of the sun (spiritual awakening).
Punishment – They were buried forever in the stinking water of the Styx (The river of the
underworld) (A stinking swamp) (Slimy and thoroughly unpleasant).
Phlegyas – The boatman of Styx

While passing through, the poets are approached by Filippo Argenti, a prominent Florentine
politician who confiscated Dante’s property after his expulsion from Florence.

They travel the River of Styx, Dante saw DIS, THE CAPITAL OF HELL.

Dis – separates the Upper Hell and the Lower Hell.

The 1st to 5th Circles belong to the area of Incontinence.

6th floor
Heresy – They believed that the highest good was temporal. They denied the immortality of the
soul and the afterlife.
Punishment – Placed in tombs with flames of glowing heat with the lid of every tomb lifted up.
Inability of the damned to see the present although they can foresee the future.

When reaching the Sixth Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil see heretics who are condemned to
eternity in flaming tombs. Here, Dante talks with a couple of Florentines – Farinata degli Uberti
and Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti – but he also sees other notable historical figures including the
ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and Pope Anastasius II.
The latter, however, is according to some modern scholars condemned by Dante as heretic by a
mistake. Instead, as some scholars argue, the poet probably meant the Byzantine Emperor
Anastasius I.
7th floor
The violent – The Seventh Circle of Hell is divided into three rings. The Outer Ring houses
murderers and others who were violent to other people and property. Here, Dante sees
Alexander the Great (disputed), Dionysius I of Syracuse, Guy de Montfort and many other
notable historical and mythological figures such as the Centaurus, sank into a river of boiling
blood and fire. In the Middle Ring, the poet sees suicides who have been turned into trees and
bushes which are fed upon by harpies. But he also sees here profligates, chased and torn to
pieces by dogs. In the Inner Ring are blasphemers and sodomites, residing in a desert of
burning sand and burning rain falling from the sky.

Phlegethon – The boiling river of blood. The third river of hell. Its smell is overpowering, fresh
blood and clotted blood, copper bright and polluted foul.
Minotaur – The guardian of the 7th circle

8th floor
Fraud – The souls of those who easily succumb to
Punishment – Contains 10 Bolgias (Check Phone images for more details)
Geryon – Guardian of the 8th gate. He is the symbol of fraud (human face, body of serpent, 2
paws and a pointed tail).

9th floor
Treachery – The souls of those who easily succumb to
Punishment – Check phone images.
Cocytus – It is the last of the infernal rivers, frozen river
Passageway – Montereggioni, the giant wall with 14 towers.

Argumentation and Debate

Argumentative Essay about Death Penalty – Argumentation

Two groups of students exchanging opinions and ideas on Death Penalty – Debate

Argumentation
generally defined as “the art of influencing others, through the medium of reasoned discourse,
to believe or act as we wish them to believe or act.” It is the process of influencing the belief or
behavior of a hearer or reader.

Debate
formal direct oral contest in argumentation between two or more persons on a definite
proposition at a definite time. The two sides are the AFFIRMATIVE and the NEGATIVE.
•In argumentation, the medium is either the written or spoken word. In a debate, the medium
is the spoken word.
•In argumentation, the opposing speakers may not be in each other’s presence; in a debate,
the speakers must be in each other’s presence.

Methods of Argumentation

Conviction – The appeal to reason

Persuasion – The appeal to Emotion

The purpose of the appeal to the intellect is to create belief, or intellectual agreement, while
the purpose of the appeal to the emotions is to stir those one desires to influence to act in the
way one wishes to act.

Conviction – is that phase of argumentation whereby the arguer directs his words to the
reasoning faculty of a man.

Persuasion – is that phase or argumentation whereby the disputant directs his words to the
heart, to the feelings, to the sentiments, and to the emotions.

Logic and reasoning in debate

Logic – Branch of philosophy which deals with the study of correct thinking and reasoning.
Reasoning – The logical organization of ideas to prove a particular point. It is to talk to another
so as to influence his opinions with the use of systematically arranged reasons. In debate, it is
the skill of proving your contention by arranging your examples and reasons.

3 kinds of Reasoning

Inductive Reasoning – It is often used in applications that involve prediction, forecasting, or

behavior.

Example:
My friend Richard had a problem.

He wanted a friend to come along and watch a movie with him. He wanted to forget his
problems.

That is why I am late.

Deductive Reasoning – It is a logical process in which a conclusion Is based on the concordance
of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true.

Example:
All the participants in the annual school production had practice.

The production included clubs, such as English Club.

That is why I am late.

Cause and Effect Reasoning – It is the relationship between a cause and its effect.

Example:
Two vehicles collided with each other along Taft Avenue.

All the vehicles on both lanes were stalled.

Because of the traffic, I arrived late.

Structure of Deductive Argument

Cause and Effect Reasoning – is a form of deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn
(whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which
shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the
Conclusion.

Example:
All dogs are animals.

All animals have four legs.

Therefore, all dogs have four legs.

An argument can be defined as an opinion that is supported with evidence.

The premises of the argument are other claims which are assumed or otherwise accepted as
providing support or justification for accepting the conclusion.

The conclusion of the argument is the concluding claim arrived at after the basis of other
claims.

Premises and conclusions require each other. A proposition (or a claim) alone is neither a
premise nor a conclusion.

Example: (Check Phone)