English 2331 - Survey of World Literature
Welcome to the course. The main purpose of the site is to provide you with .pdfs of all the readings in the course. You are, of course, welcome to purchase the texts or print them out, but if you find yourself digitally adept, feel free to simply use the .pdfs. A brief word of caution on that, however, is that there are times when a web address for the .pdf moves or is removed.
Also contained on the site are the various assigments you will have during the course, discussions of the periods we are covering, and other material. These will be stable, but many find it best to print them out.
Week 1: One Way to Introduce the Course
Three Brits Looking for "Love"
John Donne 1572-1631
The Poetry Foundation introduces Donne this way:
John Donne’s standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in the early 20th century. The history of Donne’s reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In Donne’s own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For some 30 years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the 18th century, and for much of the
19th century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. Commentators followed Samuel Johnson in dismissing his work as no more than frigidly ingenious and metrically uncouth. Some scribbled notes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Charles Lamb‘s copy of Donne’s poems make a testimony of admiration rare in the early 19th century. Robert Browning became a known (and wondered-at) enthusiast of Donne, but it was not until the end of the 1800s that Donne’s poetry was eagerly taken up by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His prose remained largely unnoticed until 1919.
In the first two decades of the 20th century Donne’s poetry was decisively rehabilitated. Its extraordinary appeal to modern readers throws light on the Modernist movement, as well as on our intuitive response to our own times. Donne may no longer be the cult figure he became in the 1920s and 1930s, when T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats, among others, discovered in his poetry the peculiar fusion of intellect and passion and the alert contemporariness which they aspired to in their own art. He is not a poet for all tastes and times; yet for many readers Donne remains what Ben Jonson judged him: “the first poet in the world in some things.” His poems continue to engage the attention and challenge the experience of readers who come to him afresh. His high place in the pantheon of the English poets now seems secure.
Some Fun with Donne
This link will take you to the Shmoop version of the poem. I give it to you because Shmoop is fun and smart. You don't always get both when it comes to study guides on literature.
This link will take you to the Poetry Foundation's page and a much more printer friendly version of the text for those of you who still want a hard copy (count me in as one of those people).
On the right you have a graphic novel depiction of "The Flea" from Noah Patrick Pfarr. If you'd like to see the full thing, it is available here:
It is worth a gander to show what details are included and excluded.
Below is a diggin' it solar etching from Jo Price.
You wanted a live action, dramatic reading of the poem. Really. Just admit it. Things will go better. You'll hate it (or love it).
Andrew Marvell 1621-1678
The Poetry Foundation introduces Marvell this way:
In an era that makes a better claim than most upon the familiar term transitional, Andrew Marvell is surely the single most compelling embodiment of the change that came over English society and letters in the course of the seventeenth century. Author of a varied array of exquisite lyrics that blend Cavalier grace with Metaphysical wit and complexity, Marvell turned, first, into a panegyrist for the Lord Protector and his regime and then into an increasingly bitter satirist and polemicist, attacking the royal court and the established church in both prose and verse. It is as if the most delicate and elusive of butterflies somehow metamorphosed into a caterpillar.
To be sure, the judgment of Marvell's contemporaries and the next few
generations would not have been such. The style of the lyrics that have been so prized in the twentieth century was already out of fashion by the time of his death, but he was a pioneer in the kind of political verse satire that would be perfected by his younger contemporary John Dryden and in the next generation by Alexander Pope (both writing for the other side)—even as his satirical prose anticipated the achievement of Jonathan Swift in that vein. Marvell's satires won him a reputation in his own day and preserved his memory beyond the eighteenth century as a patriotic political writer—a clever and courageous enemy of court corruption and a defender of religious and political liberty and the rights of Parliament. It was only in the nineteenth century that his lyrical poems began to attract serious attention, and it was not until T. S. Eliot's classic essay (first published in the Times Literary Supplement, 31 March 1921), marking the tercentenary of Marvell's birth, that Marvell attained recognition as one of the major lyric poets of his age.
Once again,t his is Shmoop's version of the poem to give you a little something extra to think about and play with.
This is the much more printable version oft he poem from the Poetry Foundation. If you're so inclined, print yours today!
Some Fun with Marvell
Though it is not a dramatic reenactment, it is a reading with a more high art style mash-up from Tom O'Bedlam
Greg Wise does a reading against Edward Kim's less traditional mash-up using Armageddon, Titanic, Forrest Gump, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
I know you were thinking what would this look like up against Frozen? Well, you don't have to let it go; just watch Sandra Towers mashup.
Rod Stewart 1945 -
The Official Rod Stewart website begins his biography with a quote from Rolling Stone:
“Rarely has a singer had as full and unique a talent as Rod Stewart — a writer who offered profound lyricism and fabulous self-deprecating humor, teller of tall tales and honest heart breaker, he had an unmatched eye for the tiny details around which lives turn, shatter, and reform — and a voice to make those details indelible. His solo albums were defined by two special qualities: warmth, which was redemptive, and modesty, which was liberating. If ever any rocker chose the role of everyman and lived up to it, it was Rod Stewart.” –The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll (1980)
A very printable version of Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright) from AZLyrics
Songfacts is a great place to get a start on the background to a song, and much like Donne and Marvell, you'll see that the song had its detractors in the day.
Though this time Song Meanings has sparse commentary (it is pretty clear what "spread your wings and let me come inside means" (see you can read figurative language), this is often a fun place to go to see folks think of a song (and the trolls are often here, too).
More proof that the song's meaning is fairly straightforward in most folks mind, no one has even bothered to add anything on the ole' genius. But it's a great site for other songs. And, you could be the first!
I'm not sure how you can't enjoy this. Keep your eye on that rose. There is absolutely nothing subtle going on here.
A fun way to catch up on all the Rod Stewart you might have missed with Carpool Karaoke.
Week 2: Love, Death, and Dangerous Gods
Apropos of almost nothing unless you're a They Might Be Giants fan. It does give you a fine visual to go with Gilgamesh though it is a bit of an ear worm so proceed with caution.
The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation. Trans. and Ed. Andrew George. Penguin, 2000.
The Fall of Gilgamesh by Devin Maupin
Oh, the things you'll miss if you don't read the full .pdf
Tablet III: The elders give Gilgamesh and Enkidu advice for their journey. The two heroes visit the goddess Ninsun, who enlist the help of the Sun God, Shamash,and the aid of his wife, Aya. NInsun adopts the orphan Enkidu. Gilgamesh gives instructions for the governing of Uruk in his absence. The heroes depart.
Tablet IV: Every three days in the course of their journey Gilgamesh and Enkidu pitch camp on a hillside and conduct a ritual to provoke a dream. Each time Gilgamesh wakes from a nightmare, but Enkidu reassures him that his dream is favorable after all. After at least five such dreams the heroes draw near to the Forest of Cedar. Shamash advises a speedy attack in order to catch unawares the ogre Humbaba, who guards the cedar cloaked in seven auras. As the heroes anxiously try to allay each other's fears as they arrive at the forest.
One of my favorite mis-remembers of all time: The Bubble Gum Forest of Hubba Bubba
Tablet V: After admiring the mountain dense-grown with cedar, the heroes draw their weapons and creep into the forest. Humbaba confronts them, and accuses Enkidu of treachery. Enkidu urges swift action. Gilgamesh and Humbaba fight, and Shamash sends thirteen winds to blind Humbaba and win victory for his protege. Humbaba pleads for his life. Enkidu again urges haste telling Gilgamesh to kill Humbaba before the gods find out. Humbaba curses the heroes,who promptly kill him and begin felling cedar in sacred groves. From one especially magnificent cedar Enkidu vows to make a great door to adorn the temple of the god Enlil.
Tablet VI: Back in Uruk Gilgamesh's beauty provokes the desire of the goddess Ishtar and she proposes to him. Gilgamesh scorns her, reminding her oft he fates suffered by her many former conquests. Ishtar is enraged and rushes up to heaven. She persuades Anu, her father, to give her the fiery Bull of Heaven (the constellation Taurus) so that she can punish Gilgamesh with death. The Bull of Heaven causes havoc in Uruk, but Gilgamesh and Enkidu discover its weak spot and kill it. They insult Ishtar further and return to the palace in triumph to celebrate their victory.
WatchMojo's Top 10 TV Bromances
WatchMojo's Top 10 Movie Bromances
Ludmilla Zeman
Tablet VIII: Gilgamesh offers up a great lament for Enkidu. He summons his craftsmen and makes a funerary statue of his friend, and from his treasury he selects the grave goods that Enkidu will take to the Netherworld to win the goodwill of the deities who dwell there. As part of the wake a great banquet is held, and then treasures are offered to the gods of the Netherworld and ritually displayed in public.
Tablet IX: In mourning for Enkidu, whose death has brought home to him his own mortality, Gilgamesh leaves Uruk to wander the earth in search of the immortal Uta-napishti, whose secret he covets. Pressing onto the end of the world he comes to the mountains where the Sun sets and rises and asks the help of the scorpion-man who guards the way under the mountains. Unable to convince Gilgamesh of the danger he courts the scorpion-man allows him to pass, and Gilgamesh races against time to complete the Path of the Sun before the Sun can catch up with him. He reaches the far end of the tunnel just in time and finds himself in a garden of jewels.
Tablet X: Beyond the garden, by the sea-shore, lives a wise old goddess. She spies a forbidding figure in the distance and, taking him to be a hunter, bars the door of her tavern. Gilgamesh hears her and threatens to break in. She asks who he is. He tells her how his friend has died and how much he now fears death, and he asks her aid in crossing the sea to Uta-napishti. She warns him of the futility of his quest and the dangers of the Waters of Death, but at length tells him where to find Uta-napishti’s ferryman, Ur-shanabi, with his crew of Stone Ones. Gilgamesh rushes down on the ferryman and his strange companions. When the fighting is over he explains his quest to Ur-shanabi and asks his aid in finding Uta-napishti. Ur-shanabi reveals that Gilgamesh has hindered his own progress by smashing the Stone ones, but he instructs Gilgamesh to make punting-poles of immense length as an alternate means of propulsion. They embark on the boat with the poles. When the poles are all gone Gilgamesh uses the ferryman’s garment to make a sail, and they cross the Waters of Death. Having landed Gilgamesh tells his story to Uta-napishti. Uta-napishti reminds him of the duties of kings and discourses on the inevitability of death and the fleeting nature of life.
A map you need to know: Syria, Iran, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uruk, Tigris, Euphrates, and Persian Gulf.
Ludmilla Zeman
Eddie Vedder mourns the loss of Kurt Cobain?
Pearl Jam's Immortality
Some of the reason for the question mark. Vedder has disavowed the mourning for Cobain bit.
A funky rendering of the beginning of Gilgamesh from Kinoko Evans. Buttons below the screenshots will take you there.
History to Know and a Few Additional Texts
ca 3000 BC Mesopotamia - Sumerians writing in cuneiform
Egypt - Egyptians writing with hieroglyphics
Indus Valley - Indians writing with Indus or Harrapan script
2700 Gilgamesh is King in Uruk
ca 2575-2230 Egyptians build the Great Pyramids and Sphinx (or aliens did (or Egyptians were building grain silos)).
I always pictured them way out in the desert...not so much
ca 2200 Minoans on Crete
2000 Legends of Gilgamesh appear on clay tablets
1900 Hebrew migration from Mesopotamia begins
ca 1800 Hammurabi's Code of Laws in Babylon. Famously paraphrased as "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." This of course only is a paraphrase. What it leaves out is that if you were a higher class and took an eye of a lower class...well...just a fine then (and a relatively small one).
ca 1700 Shang Dynasty with writing on tortoise shells for divinity and on shields.
1600 Epic of Gilgamesh takes shape
1500 Egyptian Book of the Dead (funerary pieces (think spells))
The oldest of 4 Vedas (Rig Veda) and Sanskrit emerges
1375 Akenhaten "Hymn to the Sun [God, Aten]
Part I
When in splendor you first took your throne
High in the precinct of heaven,
O living God,
Life truly began!
Now from eastern horizon risen and streaming,
You have flooded the world with your beauty.
You are majestic, awesome, bedazzling, exalted,
Overlord over all earth,
Yet your rays, they touch lightly, compass the lands
To the limits of all your creation.
There in the Sun, you reach to the farthest of those
You would gather in for your Son.
Whom you love;
Though you are far, your light is wide upon earth;
And you shine in the faces of all
Who turn to follow your journeying.
1300 Gilgamesh written down
1238 Leiden Hymns and Love Poems (Egyptian)
Hymn Example: [When Being began back in days of the genesis]
When Being began back in days of the genesis,
It was Amun appeared first of all,
Unknown his mode of inflowing;
There was no god come before him,
Nor was [another] god with him there
When he uttered himself into visible form
;
There was no mother to him, that she might have borne him his name,
There was no father to father the one
Who first spoke the words, "I Am!"
Who fashioned the seed of him all on his own,
Sacred first cause, whose birth lay in mystery,
Who crafted and carved his own splendor—
He is God the Creator, self‐created, the Holy;
All other gods came after;
With Himself he began the world.
Love Poem Example: [I think I'll go home and lie very still]
I think I’ll go and lie very still,
Feigning terminal illness.
Then the neighbors will all troop over to stare,
My love, perhaps, among them.
How she’ll smile while the specialists
Snarl in their teeth!—
She perfectly well knows what ails me.
1200 Moses does his thing
1150 Troy destroyed Achaeans (major tribe of the Greeks)
1000 Torah assembled (first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
Week 3: Creating Gods, Meddling Gods, Killing Gods, and How to Behave
I offer this scene from Fiddler on the Roof because this is one of the ways Americans identify with Judaism. The other? Adam Sandler.
The button to the left will take you to Chadbad.org and Bereishit - Genesis - Chapter 1. Please do three things. 1. Make sure you show the content in English and Hebrew. 2. Turn on Rashi's commentary. 3. Read chapters 1-3.
Math is hard. Meth is hard. So is pronouncing: Chabad.
Robert Crumb, an incredibly influential alt-comix cartoonist released "The Book of Genesis in 2009. Here are a few panels for your consideration.
Not to be outdone, Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig produced an interpretation of The Torah in 2010.
History to Know and a Few Additional Texts
From Classic of Poetry
CCXLV. She Bore the Folk
She who first bore the folk--
Chiang it was, First Parent.
How was it she bore the folk? --
she knew the rite and sacrifice.
To rid her of sonelessness
she trod the god's toeprint
and she was glad.
She was made great, on her luck settled,
the seed stirred, it was quick.
She gave birth, she gave suck,
and this was Lord Millet.
When he months had come to term,
her firstborn sprang up.
Not splitting, not rending,
working no hurt, no harm.
He showed his godhead glorious,
the high god was greatly soothed.
He took great joy in those rights
and easily she bore her son.
She set him in a narrow lane,
but sheep and cattle warded him.
She set him in the wooded plain,
he met with those that logged the plain.
She set him on the cold ice,
birds sheltered him with wings.
Then the birds left him
and Lord Millet wailed.
This was long and this was loud;
his voice was a mighty one.
And then he crept and crawled,
he stood upright, he stood straight.
He sought to feed his mouth,
and planted there great beans.
The great beans'leaves were fluttering,
the rows of grain were bristing.
Hemp and barley dense and dark,
the melons, plump and round.
Lord Millet in his farming
had a way to help thins grow:
He rid the land of thick grass,
he planted there a glorious growth.
It was in squares, it was leafy,
it was planted, it grew tall.
It came forth, it formed ears,
it was hard, it was good.
Itstassels bent, it was full,
he had his household there in Tai.
He passed us down these wondrous grains:
our black millets, of one and two kernels,
Millet whose leaves sprout red or white,
hefted on shoulders, loaded on backs,
he took it home and began this rite.
And how goes this rite we have? --
at times we hull, at times we scoop,
at times we winnow, at times we stomp,
we hear it slosh as we wash it,
we hear it puff as we steam it.
Then we reckon, then we consider,
take artemisia, offer fat.
We take a ram for the flaying,
then we roast it, then we sear it,
to rouse up the following year.
We heap the wooden trenchers full,
wooden trenchers, earthenware platters.
And as the scent first rises
the high god is peaceful and glad.
This great odor is good indeed,
for Lord Millet began the rite,
and hopefully free from failing or fault,
it has lasted until now.
1000 BC While The Torah is being assembled, in China they were assembling the Classic of Poetry (finishing sometime around 600). The text to the left is part of that collection: She Bore the Folk.
900 The Sanskrit Upanisads, dialogues and meditations of philosophers, are created on the Indian subcontinent.
“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. [ Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5 ]” ― Anonymous, The Upanishads
800 Greek Alphabet
776 First Olympic Games
753 Rome Founded
750 Carthage Founded
700 Homer Illiad and Odyssey
Also Kingdoms and Republics emerge in Northern India
600 Sappho and Aesop’s Fables
Sappho [Like the very gods]
Like the very gods in my sight is he who
sits where he can look in your eyes, who listens
close to you, to hear the soft voice, its sweetness
murmur in love and
laughter, all for him. But it breaks my spirit;
underneath my breast all the heart is shaken.
Let me only glance where you are, the voice dies,
I can say nothing,
but my lips are stricken to silence, under-
neath my skin the tenuous flame suffuses;
nothing shows in front of my eyes, my ears are
muted in thunder.
And the sweat breaks running upon me, fever
Shakes my body, paler I turn than grass is;
I can feel that I have been changed, I feel that
death has come near me.
Odyssey
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. Orange Street Press, 1998. Print.
Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
152. THE MERCHANT, THE DONKEY AND THE SALT
A merchant who owned a donkey heard that salt was cheaper by the seashore, so he decided to go into the salt business. He went and loaded his donkey with salt and then headed back home. At a certain moment, the donkey accidentally lost his footing and fell straight into a stream. This caused the salt to dissolve, making his load lighter. The donkey was thus able to rise easily to his feet and enjoy a less taxing journey home. The merchant sold what was left of the salt and led the donkey back again to load him with an even greater cargo than before. As the donkey made his way with difficulty back to the stream where he had fallen before, he sank to his knees on purpose this time. Then, after his cargo had dissolved in the water, he leaped nimbly to his feet, delighted to have turned the situation to his advantage, or so he thought. The merchant realized what was happening and decided that the next time he would bring back home a big load of porous sponges. On their way back across the stream, the wicked donkey fell down on purpose as before. This time the sponges grew heavy with water and the cargo expanded. As a result, the donkey had to carry a burden that was twice as heavy as it had been to begin with.
Note: An epimythium probably added by a later editor reads: 'It often happens that the same things which brought us luck can also get us into trouble.' Aelian, Characteristics of Animals 7.42, tells this same story about a mule who tries to trick Thales, one of the legendary seven sages of Greece.
Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
The Fox and the Crow
A FOX once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree. “That’s for me, as I am a Fox,” said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree. “Good-day, Mistress Crow,” he cried. “How well you are looking today: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds.” The Crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox. “That will do,” said he. “That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future—
“DO NOT TRUST FLATTERERS.”
Week #4: Home, Intelligence/Wisdom, and a Big Ole' Cyclops Week
The Analects of Confucius
The Analects of Confucius: An Online Teaching Translation. Trans. Robert Eno. Indiana U, 2015. Web. 4 Feb 2015.
History to Know and Key Terms
551-479 Confucius and The Analects
Ren -- A comprehensive ethical virtue. Think of benevolence, goodness, and so on. The term resists simple definition and The Analects show the disciples trying to pin Confucius down throughout (never happens).
Junzi -- An ideally ethical and capable person.
Dao -- Teaching/Skill path or way to some action: art, self-perfection, rule.
Li -- Ritual institutions. The body of religious, political, and common ceremonial forms, as well as, daily etiquette.
Wen -- Refinements of culture.
Tian -- Literally "sky" but suggests a supreme diety and thus often seen as "Heaven."
Loyalty -- Loyalty to superiors and peers but also to office and social group as a whole.
Respectfulness/Attentiveness -- Alertness and action in respect of subordinate to superior.
Filiality -- A traditional cultural imperative, obedience to parents, raised to a subtle level of self-discipline and character building.
Confucius in Pop Culture
Week 5: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll (Greek Style) Week
Euripides. The Bacchae. Trans. Ian Johnston. 2003. Print.
History to Know
458 Aeschylus "The Oresteia"
441 Sophocles "Antigone"
431 Euripides "Medea"
431-404 Peleponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (Athens surrenders)
429-347 Plato "The Apology of Socrates"
426 Sophocles "Oedipus the King"
411 Aristophenes "Lysistrata"
400 BC - 400 AD Mahabharata.
From "The Apology"
At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and in this I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and
Greece is very small compared to her eastern neighbor, the Persian Empire. Today's Turkey was the westernmost outpost of the Persians, who wanted to expand farther west—by conquering Greece. The threat of foreigners from the east is played out in The Bacchae, when Dionysus circles through Persian lands and then takes a direct line to Greece, bringing with him the strange new religion that will destroy the city of Thebes.
Know: Greece, Persian Empire, and Mediterranean Sea
Episode 1 of 94 of "The Mahabharat
this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom - therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was.
AND
Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same. I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Week #7: Back to the Grind
History to know
Ooops. ca 550 BC "The Ramayana of Valmiki"
400BC-400AD "The Mahabhrata" ("The Bhagavad Gita" is added in the 1st century BC)
384-322 Aristotle "Poetics"
369-286 Chuang Chou "Chuang Tzu"
334 Alexander conquers Persian Empire
323 Euclid writes "Elements" (geometry)
307 Library established at Alexandria
105 Earliest paper made in China
100 Buddhism introduced in China
70-19 Virgil "The Aeneid"
44 Julius Caesar murdered
43-17AD Ovid "Metamorphosis"
31 Augustus Caesar defeats Cleopatra and Antony
ca. 6 Birth of Jesus
ca.33 Crucifixion of Jesus
Last Map before the Midterm
Know the countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan,China, Nepal, and India, as well as, the two seas: Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal
Aristotle From "The Poetics" Part IV
Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type- not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.
The successive changes through which Tragedy passed, and the authors of these changes, are well known, whereas Comedy has had no history, because it was not at first treated seriously. It was late before the Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were till then voluntary. Comedy had already taken definite shape when comic poets, distinctively so called, are heard of. Who furnished it with masks, or prologues, or increased the number of actors- these and other similar details remain unknown. As for the plot, it came originally from Sicily; but of Athenian writers Crates was the first who abandoning the 'iambic' or lampooning form, generalized his themes and plots.
Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is a second point of difference; though at first the same freedom was admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.
Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to Tragedy: whoever, therefore knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic poem.
The Aeneid by Virgil
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
To persecute so brave, so just a man;
Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!
Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?
From "Metamorphosis" by Ovid
Book the First
The Creation of the World
Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end:
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv'n,
And grosser air sunk from aetherial Heav'n.
Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;
The next of kin, contiguously embrace;
And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.
Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num'rous throng
Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts, unruly waters roar;
And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded Earth into a spacious round:
Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;
And bad the congregated waters flow.
He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part, in Earth are swallow'd up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogu'd, are lost.
He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
From the "Chuang Tzu"
Immortality
3 Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Day and night they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. How can we hope in the spur of the moment to lay our finger upon their true cause?
Without these emotions I would not be. Without me, they would not exist. So far we can go. But we do not know what brings these emotions into play. It would seem to be something in charge, but the clue to its existence is wanting. That something is actively in charge is credible enough, though we cannot see its form. Perhaps it has functions without form.
4 Think of the human body with all its manifold divisions. Which part of it does a man love best? Does he treat them all with equal affection, or does he have favorites? Don’t they all serve him equally? And do these servants then govern themselves, or are they subdivided into rulers and subjects? Surely there is some thing in charge that rules them all.
But whether or not we ascertain its functions matters little to the thing itself. For coming into existence with my mortal body, its mandate will also terminate with the exhaustion of my body. To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without possibility of arresting one’s course—is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, worn out and not living to enjoy the fruit, to depart, suddenly, to one knows not where—is not that a just cause for grief ?
5 What advantage is there in what men call immortality? The body decomposes, and the mind goes with it. This is our real cause for sorrow. Can the world be so dull as not to see this? Or is it I alone who am dull, and others not so?
Week #8: Empires
History to know
100 Four Gospels complete
200ish Visnusarman completes Pancatantra
200-300 Roman empire tries and fails to destroy Christianity
367 Final canon of NT established
391 Christianity official religion of Rome
393-405 Bible translated into Latin
397 Augustine begins Confessions
History to Know
570 Birth of Muhammad
653 Koran
Tiang Poets
600-800 Han-Shan
699-761 Wang Wei
701-762 Li Po
ca 800 Beowulf
973-1016 Murasaki Shikibu "The Tale of Genji"
1100 The Song of Roland
1207-1283 Jalaloddin Rumi
1265-1321 Dante Alighieri "The Divine Comedy"
1304-1374 Petrarch
1313-1375 Giovanni Boccaccio "The Decameron"
1340-1400 Chaucer "The Canterbury Tales"
1348 Bubonic Plague kills almost half of the population
1380 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
History to Know
1350 The Epic of Son-Jara
1455 Gutenberg prints the Bible (First printed book)
1466-1536 Desiderius Erasmus "The Praise of Folly"
1469-1532 Niccolo Machiavelli "The Prince"
1492 Columbus sails the ocean blue
1495-1553 Francois Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel"
1533-1592 Michel de Montaigne "Essays"
1547-1616 Miguel de Cervantes "Don Quixote"
1554-1558 Popol Vuh
1564-1616 William Shakespeare
1608-1674 John Milton "Paradise Lost"