World Literature: Historical Development

• World Literature refers to any written literary genre embodying the most outstanding characteristics of particular national literatures.
• It is harder to define, and only a few regional or national writers are classified as belonging to world literature.

Historical Development of Literature

• Primitive Literature includes everything that happened before the glory of Greece and Rome.
• It refers to oral or written narratives, myths, legends, rituals, and other cultural expressions produced by preliterate or early literate societies.

Primitive Literary Pieces

• The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving epic, dating back to ancient Sumer.
• Gilgamesh is the king of Uruk, a Sumerian god, and the Euphrates River is an important river in the world
• It is attributed to the scribe Sin-Leqi-Unninni.
• The Story telling includes: Enkidu, Utnapishtim, Humbaba, Innana, and Bull of Heaven

Libraries

• Ashurbanipal, Beijing Imperial Library, and the Library of Congress are important libraries.
• Books are classified using either the Dewey Decimal System in small libraries (001-099) or the Library of Congress Classification (A-Z) in big libraries.

Indian Literature

• Ramayana is attributed to Rishi Valmiki and dates to 300 B.C.
• Featured characters include Rama (a demigod), Sita, Laksmana (best friend/brother), Ravanna, Monkey, King Hanunan (Monkey King), and Golden Deer.
• Ramayana consists of 7 Kandas (books): Bala Kanda, Ayodhya Kanda, Arranya Kanda, Kishkinda Kanda, Sundara Kanda, Yuddha Kanda, and Uttara Kanda.
• Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa and dates to 200 B.C; it is narrated by the priest Vaisanpayana.
• Featured are two groups (cousins) battling: the Pandava Brothers (King Pandu), who are good, and the Kaurava Brothers (King Dhritarastra), who are bad.
• Other characters: Arjuna (Pandava champion), and Draupati/Draupadi.
• The Bhagavad Gita (Song of Gods) is one scene concluding the Mahabharata.
• Key figures include Krishna (Avatar of Vishnu), Arjuna, the Pandavas, and the Kauravas.
• The 3 Major Gods are Bhrama the creator, Vishnu the protector and Shiva the destroyer.
• Shakuntala is written by Kalidasa, often considered the counterpart of Shakespeare for drama.
• It details the story of Shakuntala and the Ring of Recognition
• The two main characters are King Dusyanta and Shakuntala.

Japanese Literature

• The Tale of Genji, composed by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, is considered the first novel in the world.
• Prince Genji's journal of his life makes up the story.

Arabian Literature

• A Thousand and One Nights includes tales: Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, and Aladdin.
• Shahryar, the tyrant King of Samarkand, and Scheherazade are featured.

Greek Literature

• Socrates believed that education must be free and that truth is in the soul of every individual, he also values self-thinking.
• Plato advocated for Platonic love; he believed that The Republic – democracy is the worst form of government and described The Allegory of the Cave.
• Aristotle emphasized experience as key and wrote "Poetics" – literary criticism/drama.
• Greek drama start would often start In Medias Res (Middle), and featured Destiny
• Deus ex machina, intervention of the gods.
• Thepsis, a priest of Dionysus in the 6th century BC, brought a new element to theatre by engaging in dialogue with the chorus.
• Sophocles wrote The Oedipus Cycle, Oedipus Rex, Queen Jocasta and King Laius, Queen Merope and King Polybus, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.
• Euripides wrote Electra, Orestes, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Agamemnon, Cassandra, Medea, Jason, and Creon.
• Aeschylus wrote Agamemnon, Clytemnestra (wife), Aegisthus (Clytemnestra's lover), and Cassandra (mistress).

Roman Literature

• In Greek plays, performers are professionals and there is dialogue with peaceful themes
• In Roman plays, performers are slaves with actions and it is violent
• Virgil's "The Aeneid" tells the story of a Trojan hero named Aeneas and incorporates historic events in the history of Rome.
• Horace is known for lyric poems called the Odes and works including Satires and Epistles.
• Ovid's most famous work was the epic Metamorphoses, telling the history of the world from creation to when Julius Caesar was made a god and he was also famous for writing love poems.

English Literature

• Henry VIII's wives include: Catherine of Aragon (Spain), Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves (Germany), Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr.
  • Catherine of Aragon: Older, failed to give a boy heir and had a daughter Mary, was divorced.
  • Anne Boleyn: A mistress who led to the start of the Anglican Church of England (own church), mother to Elizabeth; she was the first to be beheaded in the Tower of London.
  • Jane Seymour: One true love.
    • Had a son Edward, she died while giving birth.
  • Anne of Cleves: Became his honorary sister.
  • Catherine Howard: Was 17 years old and was caught with another guy and beheaded.
  • Catherine Parr: Survived and Henry VIII died.
• Elizabeth I had a good heart, and was a Virgin Queen who never married and she presided over the Golden Age of English Literature, which featured William Shakespeare
• Her 45-year reign is considered one of the most glorious in English history as the Church of England was established and the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
• James I called all the Bible scholars to write a new version of the Bible, the King James Version.
• Queen Victoria reigned for 62 years; during this time, the Brontë sisters produced work: Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Action (Anne).
• Emily Brontë's only novel, "Wuthering Heights", is now a great Victorian-era novel and possibly the most famous novel from any of the Brontë sisters.
• William I, also known as the conqueror, was the first king
  • Started the Domesday Book
• During the war of Roses, Lancaster (Red Rose) won against York (White Rose).
  • Mary ordered to kill everyone who refuses to be a Catholic, later known as Bloody Mary as England smelled like burned flesh.
• 19th-century Literature featured Mary Shelley’ Frankenstein; Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How do I love thee (Sonnet 43).
• 20th Century Literature included stream of consciousness and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

Elements of World Literature

• Includes Tackles universal theme to which wider audiences/readers can relate or identify with.
• love and romance
• family and marriages
• individual struggles toward success (Cinderella and underdog stories)
• humanitarian values
• coping with tragedy (wars, famine, disasters, etc.)
• life cycles

Overview of Selected Writers from World Literature

• William Shakespeare (England) was a poet and playwright considered "the father of the modern English language" and pioneered the couplet and Shakespearean sonnet style.
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French aristocrat, pilot, poet and writer whose novella, The Little Prince extolls the virtues of love, inner beauty and friendship.
• Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades during apartheid.
• After his release, he became the president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and all of his struggles can be read in his autobiography/memoir, Long Walk to Freedom.
• Rabindranath Tagore (India) was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his book anthology of more than one hundred Bengali verses, the Gitanjali which includes Song Offerings.
• Octavio Paz was a Mexican diplomat, poet and writer who won the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1980) and the Nobel Prize (1990).
• Ernest Hemingway was an American short story writer and novelist who wrote firsthand accounts of both WW1 and WW2.
• Anton Chekhov was a Russian physician, playwright and writer who is considered to be one of the greatest in the short story genre.
• Oscar Wilde said LITERATURE MUST REST ALWAYS ON A PRINCIPLE, AND TEMPORAL CONSIDERATIONS ARE NO PRINCIPLE AT ALL, FOR, TO THE POET, ALL TIMES AND PLACES ARE ONE; THE STUFF HE DEALS WITH IS ETERNAL AND ETERNALLY THE SAME: NO THEME IS INEPT, NO PAST OR PRESENT PREFERABLE. “