CHAPTER 1: WORLD LITERATURE & HEROES AND
LEGENDS
Heroes and Legends – The written canon of literature
originally appeared as history and mythology in
Mesopotamia, China, India, and Greece. Also, epics are
prevalent.
• 3000 – 1300 BCE
• Tales of Gods and Men – portrayed the role of gods
through the deeds of a hero or a ruling family, frequently
contrasting the gods' strength with human heroes'
weakness.
• First stories were recorded in writing date back to some
4000 years ago and were based on oral traditions
➢ also called oral lore and word of mouth
• Poetic Tropes – crucial memory aids in songs and oral
histories
➢ Rhyme
➢ Rhythm
➢ Metre
• Sacred Scriptures – common first recorded manuscripts
➢ Bible – translated in several languages
➢ Qur’an - recitation Allah to Muhammad 610-632
• Writing System
➢ keep track of business and administrative
transactions
➢ conserving ancient knowledge, historical data, and
religious rituals
• Greek Drama
➢ Drama – playing the part of a character and bringing
➢ Dramatists
▪ Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound
▪ Euripides – Medea
▪ Sophocles – Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the
King)
➢ Greek Theater - a kind of writing that established
unique voices for characters, and choruses of
comments
▪ Athens – founded as a democratic nation-
state, the theater was a vital component of
its culture
➢ Myth – an individual mythical-themed story
➢ Mythology – collection of myths
• Long Narrative Poem – earliest literature
➢ Epic – combination of historical events and mythical
adventures. Heroes that have superstrength and go
to adventure
• Epic major examples
➢ The Epic of Gilgamesh (Pagan Literature)
▪ Bronze age literature
▪ Gilgamesh – king of Uruk
▪ Enkidu – best friend of Gilgamesh
▪ 2600 BCE written in clay tablet
o Upper right and middle part missing
▪ Cuneiform – writing system
▪ Sumerian – language used
▪ Humbaba – first monster that Enkidu and
Gilgamesh fought
▪ Ishtar – goddess who killed Enkidu
▪ Utnapishtim – the one who was turn immortal
▪ Siduri – lead Gilgamesh to Utnapishtim
▪ Hormuzd Rassan (1853) – Assyrian
Archeologist discovered the epic
➢ Beowulf (Pagan literature)
▪ Angels and Saxons – Germanic tribe who
bought “English” in Britain, Cleveland
(Scandinavian tribes)
▪ Earliest epic written in English
▪ Written in Christian perspective
▪ Unknown authors
o Scops – reciters of poetry, believed to
be the authors
▪ Runes – the writing system of Beowulf
▪ Extant; Old English - language
▪ Nowell Codex – manuscript
▪ 3,182 lines
▪ Alliterative version – consonant sound
repetitive
▪ Caesura – pause
▪ Kenning – compound nouns
o Hronrad (whale-road) – sea
o Hildewulf (battle-wolf) warrior
o Hildenaedre (battle-serpent) – arrow
▪ Theme – battle of good and evil; loyalty;
brotherly love; ephemeral quality of life;
danger of pride and arrogance
▪ Beowulf – a Geatish warrior from Geat[land]
▪ Hrothgar – king of Heorot of Danes citizen
▪ Grendel – monster in this epic
o Grendel’s Mother
▪ Wiglaf – Beowulf’s friend
➢ Sanskrit epics
▪ Mahabharata and Ramayana – beginning of
civilization
➢ Homer
▪ Iliad (wrath of Achilles in trojan war)
▪ Odyssey – travels home from war
▪ Western Literature – founded on the scope
and depth of Homer’s epic
➢ Virgil
 ▪ Aeneid World Literature
▪ In medias res – in the middle of things
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
➢ Filipino Epics
o World Literature – derived from German word –
▪ Bidasari
weltliteratur
▪ Biag ni Lam-Ang
• Literature – academic texts and classics
▪ Indarapatra at Sulayman
• literature – set of writings
• Prose fiction – form of prose written from author’s
• Romance literature – adventure of knights/ chivalric battles
imagination
• In northern Europe – oral storytelling until 8th century
➢ One thousand and one nights (Arabian Nights)
• Icelandic sagas – Norse Mythology
▪ Frame Narrative
• Troubadours – southern France reciting tales of
▪ Collection of Folk tales
Charlemagne during combat with Islamic Moors and
▪ Early Arabic Literature
Saracens
▪ Long tradition of story telling
• French Trouvères – recited King Arthur of Britain
▪ 2 writing style
o Lyrical and passionate tales of chivalry and courtly
o al-fus’ha – refined language
love
o al-ammiyyah – language of common
people (vernacular is the generic • Secular text is non-religious literature

term) (mostly written) • Medieval Age

▪ Combination of Ancient Indian, Persian, and • Hieroglyphics – sacred carvings from Egypt

Arabic Tales • Caedmon’s Hymn – oldest English poem

▪ Not fully completed
▪ Putted together in Syria on 15th century
▪ Retelling of story
o Antoine Galland – added Alibaba,
Sinbad, and Aladdin in 1704-1717
(Les Mille et Une Nuits)
o Richard Burton – 1885 (focus on
Islamic Culture)
▪ Scheherazade – wife of king Shahyar
o The Creation one of the poems
• Mythology of Greece and Rome became an inspiration
• Medieval Age – common are secular works, chivalric tales
and religious book written in Latin and Greek
• Frame Narrative/Framing – story within a story
• Recurring themes – repetitive themes
• Foreshadowing – glimpse of upcoming concept
• Ancients’ knowledge - humanist educational program that
included grammar, history, philosophy, and languages
• First Folio of Shakespeare – believed as first novel
• Printing press was made by Johannes Gutenberg

▪ Shahyar – king
▪ A women get killed every night so
Scheherazade save herself by telling stories
every night to king Shahyar
CHAPTER 2: RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT Birth of Novel

• 1300 – 1800 BCE o Development of printing press

• Renaissance was a cultural movement originated in o Boccaccio and Chaucer boosted public desire
Florence, Italy, starting early 18th Century for books
• Renaissance – rebirth o Novel Authors
• Enlightenment – Age of Reason ▪ François Rabelais – Gargantua and

• Further use of printing press Pantagruel

• Epics and Literature in Renaissance ▪ Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote

o Opted written in vernacular language (golden age of Spanish literature)

• Authors in Renaissance ▪ Murasaki Shikibu – Tale of Genji

o Dante Alighieri ▪ Edmund Spencer – First English writer

▪ Florentine poet ➢ Spenserian sonnet

▪ The Divine Comedy/ La Divina Comedia/ ▪ John Milton

Comedia ➢ Blind poet of English

➢ Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso ➢ Paradise of lost (regaines)

o Giovanni Boccaccio ➢ Miltonic sonnet

▪ The Decameron ▪ William Shakespeare

➢ Collection of 100 prose “novellas” ➢ 154 sonnets

o Geoffrey Chaucer ➢ Comedy; tragedy; history

▪ Father/ Morning star of English Literature ➢ First Folio of Shakespeare –

▪ Most work are elegy posthoumously published

▪ Troilus and Criseyde – love story during troy ▪ Christopher Marlowe

▪ Fables – fabliau (ribald and satiric tales) ➢ Father of Drama, English tragedy

▪ Canterbury Tales ➢ Faust

➢ Collection of tales ▪ Ben Johnson

➢ Frame Narrative ➢ Greek Drama

➢ 29 pilgrims – tell stories on their own ▪ François Marie Arouet

➢ Written to read and not to listen ➢ Voltaire

➢ Late medieval society ▪ Henry Fielding

➢ Unfinished story ➢ First writer of good structure

➢ Tales ➢ Father of English novel

o Knight’s Tale ➢ Tom Jones

o Miller’s Tale ▪ Daniel Defoe

o Summoner’s Tale ➢ Autobiographical story

o Second nun’s Tale ➢ Robinson Crusoe

o Wife of Bath’s Tale ▪ Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy

o Pardoner’s Tale ▪ Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

o Friar’s Tale ▪ Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille

➢ Tone and style are appropriate to ➢ Adhere to rules of Greek drama

each respective storyteller ▪ Molière’s – comedy of manners

➢ Hengwrt manuscript – produced after ▪ Andrew Marvell

Chaucer death ➢ Metaphysical poet – sophisticated

➢ Ellesmere manuscript – 22 images of love

pilgrims ➢ Miscellaneous Poem

➢ False Dichotomy – executing what is o To his Coy Mistress

wrong but think it is right ▪ John Donne

➢ Father of metaphysical poet
➢ Holy Sonnet
CHAPTER 3: ROMANTICISM AND RISE OF NOVEL ▪ Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
o Demand for folktales and fairy tales
• Romanticism was made from the movement Strum and
▪ Popular in the society
Drang (Storm and Press)
▪ Fairy tale: coined by Madame d’Aulnoy
o Lead by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
▪ William Thoms – defined folklore in a letter to
o Friedrich Schiller
The Athenaeum (1846)
• L’art pour l’art – art for art’s sake
▪ Do not usually contain reference to religion
• Close to 18th century
▪ Real places, people, or events not cited
o Novel of manners
▪ Characteristics folklore and fairytales
o Samuel Richardson Pamela – early novelist of
➢ Ahistorical
manners
➢ Stock characters
• Creation of different characters
➢ Random magic
o Romantic hero – anti-establishment, different from
➢ Reward and revenge
previous heroic traits, rebellious spirit
➢ Happily, ever after ending
o Superfluous man – person with unconventional
➢ Plain style
beliefs that separate him from society
➢ Straightforward imagery
▪ Authors who use superfluous man
➢ Plot is key
➢ Alexander Pushkin
➢ Archetypal Characters
➢ Mikhail Lermontov
o Magical helper
➢ Ivan Turgenev
o Wicked Stepmother
• Attachment with environment/ go back to nature
o Witch
o William Wordsworth – I Wander Lonely as a
o Trickster
Cloud/Daffodils
o Transformed Animal
o Samuel Taylor Coleridge – lyrical ballads
▪ Authors
• Common in Romanticism Literature
➢ Brothers Grimm – Jacob and Wilhelm
o Subjectivity
Grimm – academics, philologists,
o Beauty of nature
cultural researchers, lexicographers,
o Imagination
and authors
• Writing of American Transcendentalists – humanitarian
o scholarly project to identify and
liberty and culminated plea “go back to nature” preserve the spirit of the people
o Ralph Waldo Emerson by recording fairy tales
o Has different version of
o Henry David Thoreau Cinderella
o Walt Whitman – master of free verse
➢ Children and Household Tales (1812
• Gothic Novels
– 1822)
o Stories that look scary but not horror ❖ Folklore Collections
o Combining human nature (science) and nature itself ❖ 1350-1410; Mabinogion
o Romantic hero in a wild setting (earliest prose)
▪ Emily Brontë – Wuthering heights ❖ 1697; Tale of Mother Goose
o Grotesque characters in gloomy metropolitan – Charles Perrault
settings ❖ Middle Ages; compilation of
▪ Charles Dicken folklore into single written
o Horrific Tales text
▪ Edgar Allan Poe ❖ nationalism and cultural
o Eerie short stories pride
▪ Herman Melville – Moby Dick ❖ greatest body of stories
• History and Identity collected in Europe and
o Thirst for romance and adventure, historical novels widely read and translated
▪ Alexandre Dumas ❖ first edition: adult audience
▪ Walter Scott ❖ Edgar Taylor – English
▪ James Fenimore Cooper translation (1823) – made
o Somber works revision to sanitize the
 German Stories to be
successful with children
❖ Rapunzel: pregnancy
(outside marriage) –
simply fattens
❖ French Cinderella
(Cendrillon) – forgives
stepsisters and finds
good husband
o Increase in writers
o Generation of Female Authors
▪ Write under aliases
➢ Brontë Sisters
o Anne Brontë – Acton Bell
o Emily Brontë – Ellis Bell
o Charlotte Brontë – Currer Bell;
Jane Eyre
➢ George Eliot of England
➢ Jane Austen
o Pride and Prejudice
❖ Gently satirizing social
mores
❖ Poking fun at the over
drama of Gothic
Romaticism
❖ Vulgarities and follies
of English Upper class
❖ Importance of rank
stigma of social
inferiority
❖ System of patronage
❖ Good marriage =
maintaining/improving
of social status
❖ Good breeding does
not equate with good
manners
❖ Good manners = good
morals
o Literature of first freed slaves – gave voice to the
oppressed black people
▪ Frederick Douglas
▪ Harriet Jacobs
▪ Solomon Northup