Midterms
stories ever told. One of the earliest pieces of literature
Lesson 5: Epic Poetry and Epic Heroes
Literary piece: How Siegfried was Slain
The Epic: Elements and Characteristics
“In its strict sense, term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work
that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long verse
narrative on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated
style;
Some epics contain thousands and thousands of lines and the
subject matter usually concerns some national or political issues
centered on a heroic or quasi divine figure (someone with both
divine and human ancestry) on whose actions depends the
fate of a tribe, a nation, or (in instance of John Milton’s
Paradise), the human race;
In the Iliad for example the victory of the Greeks over the trojans
in the war depends largely on its hero the mighty Achilles so that
when he had a tantrum and withdrew from the war, the Greeks
started to lose
the actions include heroic deeds in a battle, long, arduous
journeys, or quests;
The narrative usually starts in medias res which means in the
middle of things at a critical point in the action then a flashback
of previous events follows
gods and other supernatural beings take an interest and an
active role in human affairs.
In the Iliad again for example gods take sides in the trojan war
there are those who side with the Greeks and there are those
who side with the trojans
The epic tale and epic hero are most likely some of the oldest
discovered is the epic of Gilgamesh. It is an epic poem primarily
about a king named Gilgamesh and his struggles and
achievements in dealing with the world and the divine.
Traditional vs Literary Epics
“Traditional epics” (also called “folk epics” or “primary epics”)
were written versions of what had originally been oral poems
about a tribal or national hero during warlike age.
Among these are the Iliad and Odyssey that Greeks ascribed to
Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; the French Chanson de
Roland and the Spanish Poema del Cid in the Twelfth century;
and the thirteenth century German epic Nibelungenlied. In the
east, there is Mahabharata and the Ramayana from India, and
Biag ni Lam Ang and Indirapatra and Sulayman from the
Philippines.
“Literary epics” were composed by individual poetic craftsmen
in deliberate imitation of the traditional form.
Of this kind is Virgil’s Latin poem the Aeneid, which later served
as the chief model for Miltons literary epic Paradise Lost (1667).
Dante’s The Divine Comedy and Edmund Spenser’s Faerie
Queen are also epics poems because they are large scale and
wide ranging.
The main difference between literary and traditional epics in
that traditional epics have no known authors. the Iliad and the
Odyssey from Greece may be attributed to Homer but he is not
the author of those works, he was the mere storyteller.
The Epic Hero: Qualities and Characteristics
In the most original conception, an epic hero is the protagonist
of an epic poem. However, the role of this character in the traits
that they embody in many ways have become increasingly
defined since its creation.
This hero is meant to be the ideal of the society from which he
originates. He will possess many of the qualities that the people
of this the hero society deem important and want to emulate.
Often divinely favored, the trials undertaken by the hero are
greater than any facing an individual in normal life.
This usually means that they are:
1. physically ideal in aesthetics and capacity and will be
strongly principled;
2. most likely rather to excel in combat;
3. they are greater or superior than the common man but
they also share characteristics with them
4. they are witty and intelligent
Physically ideal means the hero is extremely handsome and
pleasing to look at charming and charismatic. The hero’s
principles will usually revolve around a strong sense of what is
right and what is wrong and will cause them to risk great
potential harm or death in the pursuit of these ideas; he is
greater than life. Beowulf is considered a classic example of the
greater than life hero. He is principled enough to fight the
monster Grendel with no weapons yet still win. He eventually
becomes king of his countrymen and dies in the end fighting a
dragon just to protect them.
He or she will also have desires and motivations for such things
as companionship, material goods, historical significance or
power. The hero may also contain flaws related to these desires
and motivations
Act 16: “How Siegfried was Slain” from the Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied (13th C.E.)
The Nibelungenlied, translated as the song of Nibelungs, is an
epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of a dragon
slayer, Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was
murdered and of his wife Krimhild’s revenge. Scholarly theories
suggest that the written version of the poem is the work of an
anonymous poet of a literary and ecclesiastical education
(Cruz 121)
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Lesson 6: The Novel
Literary piece: The Adventure with the Windmills
The novel is the most popular form of literature since the 20th
century.
What is a novel?
 A novel is a work of prose that tells a narrative over an
extended length.
 Novels date as far back as 1010’s Tale of Genji by
Murasaki Shikibu; European novels first appeared in the
early seventeenth century.
 Novels overtook epic poetry and chivalric romances as
the most popular mode of storytelling, with emphasis on
the personal reading experience.
 Today, novels come in wide array of subgenres
Characteristics of novels
 Written in prose - is in sentences and paragraphs
 Fictional content - because they are imaginary and
 Of considerable length - they are very long usually
containing more than 10 chapters
 Individualism - they emphasize the individual experience
of the reader
Types of novels
 Mystery novels – mystery novels revolve around a crime
that must be solved often a murder but not always
Example:
Agatha Christie's murder in the orient express which emphasizes
about the murder of a passenger and the investigation of the
passengers who are considered suspects.
 Science fiction and fantasy – one of the more popular
genres of novels is science fiction and fantasy, which
both deal with speculative world building. The lines
between the two are often blurred, but in general,
science fiction tends to imagine a world that’s different
because of technology, while fantasy imagines a world
with magic.
Example:
The hunger games trilogy and harry potter series are examples
of science fiction and fantasy respectively.
 Horror/thriller novels – thriller novels are occasionally
combined with other genres, most often with mystery or
science fiction. The defining characteristic is that these
novels are often designated to induce a sense of fear,
suspense, or psychological horror in the reader.
Example:
The exorcist is the most terrifying novel ever written.
 Romance – romance novels of the present day have
some things in common with “romances” of the past: the
idea of romantic love as an end goal, the occasional
scandal, intense emotions at the center of it all.
Example:
all these are found in Julia Quinn’s series of romances involving
the aristocratic Bridgeton family in England.
 Historical fiction – just like its name suggests, historical
fiction is simply a fictional story that takes place at some
real, past time in human history
Example:
War and peace by Leo Tolstoy is set during the Napoleonic wars
in the 1600s while Empire of the sun by JJ ballard is set during
world war 2 in the 1940s
 Realist fiction – realist fiction is, quite simply, fiction
eschews heightened genre or style to attempt to tell a
story that “could” take place in the world as we know it.
The focus is on representing things truthfully, without
romanticization or artistic flourishes.
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Lesson 7: The Three Hermits
The short story: definition and characteristics
A short story is a brief work of prose fiction, and is most of the
terms for analyzing the component elements, the types, and
the narrative techniques of the novel are applicable to the
short story as well.
The short story: history and early forms
 The short narrative, in both verse and prose, is one of the
oldest and most widespread of literary forms.
 Some of the narrative types which preceded the modern
short story, are the fable, the exemplum, the folktale, and
the parable.
Example:
The Hebrew bible for example includes the short story stories of
Jonah, Ruth, and Esther.
Author in focus: Leo Tolstoy
 Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy also spelled Tolstoi, Russian in full Lev
Nikolayevich, Graf (count) Tolstoy, (born August 1828,
Tula Province, Russian Empire-died November 7, 1910,
Ryazan Province).
 He is a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s
greatest novelists.
The significance of Leo Tolstoy
 Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works War and
Peace and Anna Karenina, which are commonly
regarded as among the finest novels ever written. War
and Peace, in particular, seems virtually to define this
form for many readers and critics.
 Tolstoy also achieved world recognition as a moral and
religious teacher his. His doctrine of non-resistance to evil
had an important influence on Gandhi.
 Although Tolstoy’s religious ideas no longer command
the respect they once did, interest in his life and
personality has
if anything increased over the years.
Tolstoy and The Three Hermits: Overview of the story
 A rare, perfectly formed tale conveyed in a simple,
charming narrative, which manages to reveal the very
profoundest of truths.
 Conveyed Tolstoy’s loathing of organized religion (in
particular the Russian orthodox church for sanctioning
social oppression)
 Also conveyed Tolstoy’s divine vision for human salvation
 The Russian novelist was a deep spiritual man and it as his
duty to write didactic literature in order to educate and
illuminate his readers with a moralistic attitude to life.
 Tolstoy became fascinated with creating stories around
the theme of holy poverty and The Three Hermits is the
pinnacle of his quest.
Narrative devices in The Three Hermits
 Tolstoy also employs the device triplication: The Holy
Trinity, the three hermits, etc. in this narrative
 Another narrative device that stands out in this story is the
use of epigraph- a short statement or that could be a
sentence a paragraph a poem that comes at the
beginning of a literary text but the words belong to a
different author.
 The whole story is also a metaphor for a spiritual journey.
 Tolstoy proposes through this story the road to salvation
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Lesson 8: Free Verse
Poem: Love is a Surgeon
A free verse is sometimes referred to as an “open form” verse or
by the French term verse libre. Like traditional verse, it is printed
in short lines instead of in continuous lines of prose but it differs
from such verse by the fact that its rhythmic patterns is not
organized into a regular metrical form that is into feet or
recurrent units of weak and strong stressed syllables. Most free
verse also have irregular line lengths and either lux rhyme or else
use it uses it only sporadically (Abrams, 129).
(Blank verse differs from unrhymed free verse in that is metrically
regular)
The lines in free verse often flow more naturally than rhyme
metrical lines and thus achieve a rhythm more like that of
everyday human speech. Much 20th century poetry is written in
free verse (Cruz 317).
Ex:
It is difficult
To get the news from poems
Yet men die miserably everyday
For lack
Of what is found there
- William Carlos Williams, The Greeny Flower
Spotlight on Figures of Speech based on Comparison
 1. A simile states a comparison (usually formed with “like”, 3. Personification is an attribution of human qualities or
“than”, or “as”) between two fundamentally dissimilar or abilities to an inanimate object an animal or an idea. The
unlike things that have certain qualities in common. A giving of human qualities to the object animal or idea
simile is direct comparison implies that there are common qualities between them.

Ex: Ex:

I wandered as lonely as a cloud – Daffodils, William Wordsworth The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean.

2. A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit A Travelling Flake of Snow

implied or hidden comparison between two things that
Across a Barn or through a Rut
are unrelated, but which share some common but which
share some common characteristics so in other words a Debates if it will go —
resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is
made based on a single or some common A Narrow Wind complains all Day
characteristics. How someone treated him
Ex: Nature, like Us, is sometimes caught
Billy Collins Without her Diadem.
Divorce - Emily Dickinson
Once, two spoons in bed Author in focus: Gunnar Ekelöf
Now tined forks Gunnar Ekelöf (September 15, 1907-March 16, 1968) was a
Across a granite table Swedish poet. His lifelong interest in mysticism was evident in his
first book, Late Arrival on Earth, a collection of surrealists [unreal
And the knives they have hired and bizarre] poems. In the 1940s and 50s he experimented with
the application of musical forms to verse. His work is admired for
This poem consists entirely of metaphor as the title tells us this
diversity and seriousness; its influence on Swedish poetry has
poem is about a couple divorcing so the poet makes an
been great (Cruz 317).
implied comparison or metaphor about the deterioration of the
couple's relationship when they were still in love and together,
they were like spoons but now that they are divorcing, they
have become forks who are ready to stab each other. The Love is a surgeon.
granite table alludes to the lawyer’s office where divorce Love can cut into your flesh like a scalpel
negotiations, proceedings and settlements are ironed out. The
knives refer to their lawyers who will cut their ties officially Love can operate upon your heart

Love can circumcise you

Perhaps you don't believe it

But I know. Love operates

Upon your skin, your hair, your gait

For Love there is no remedy

Except the surgeon's scalpel.

I’ve held lovebefore and even boast to met it,

But it was never even close to this,

Where my body inhales you,

And shivers with bliss.

When these hopeless orbs laid on you, it took every ounce of

me not to desire you.

When I saw your radiant smile, it took every ounce of me not to

gaze at you.

When I saw you through me, it took every ounce of me not to

fall and yet,

When I saw everything about you, it took every ounce of me.