Texts: Sarah Lawall, ed., The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Vol. A: beginnings to 100 AD; Vol. B: 100 to 1500; Vol. C: 1500 to 1650. Handouts.
Instructor: Bob Canary, CART 226, 595-2525
["Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you
know
that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. / For we all
make many mistakes."--James 3.1-2a -- "Anyone who
claims to know something lacks the
necessary knowledge"--1 Corinthians 8.2]
Email: canary@uwp.edu
Web Page: http://moo.uwp.edu
Purpose of Course: This course meets specific requirements for a number of programs, but it is primarily a general education course. In terms of UW-Parkside's general education goals, this course should contribute to your competency in Literacy (by testing and enhancing your ability to read complex works and by asking you to write about them), Aesthetic Skills (by having you read literature which has been a part of the culture of educated men and women for thousands of years), and Global Perspective (by making you more familiar with the cultural backgrounds that have helped shape our world). Hold on to this syllabus. It doubles as a study guide to many of the most important names and terms with which you are expected to be familiar. Beyond that, I hope that for some of you, the reading in this course will in some way change the way you look at life. For all of us, I see no reason why we shouldn't enjoy the process; I certainly intend to do so myself.
Grading: The examinations in this course will be a mixture of objective and essay questions. On both examinations and on the unannounced quizzes, objective questions will be used to measure how carefully you have read the assigned works and how well you have understood them (Literacy) and whether you have acquired the kind of cultural literacy that will help you understand our many-cultured world (Global Perspective). The essay portion of the examinations and the short papers will be used to assess your general writing skills (Literacy) and your specific ability to use your knowledge of the works we are reading in making something new of your own (Aesthetic Skills). I believe you learn more when you play an active role, and I like a noisy, even raucous classroom; you will be rewarded for class participation, a part of your grade which also includes attendance, quizzes, the papers, and required Internet work. This can make up to 40% of your grade for each portion of the course. At the same time, the real point of the course is the literature we read; the class and the instructor are only there to help you read and respond to it. Keep up with the reading, and do well on the examinations, and lack of class participation, even attendance, will not count against you. ["If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand?"--Psalm 130.2 -- "Use every man after his desert and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty"--HAMLET 2.2 -- "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" -- MERCHANT OF VENICE 4.1]
CALENDAR OF READINGS |
Wednesday, September 3 Beginnings The first day of class, the high point of the semester. Cheeseburgers and other food metaphors. Amateur photography. Second thoughts. | Friday, September 5 In the Beginning (read 10-30, 56-60) At the beginning of known literature is the story of Gilgamesh of Uruk, the wild man Enkidu, the monstrous Humbaba and an assortment of unfamiliar gods, including Gilgamesh's mother Ninsun, Enlil the father of gods, the sun god Shamash, and the love goddess Ishtar. Compare these pages with the opening passages of Genesis, dealing with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. In each case, we confront the mystery of death. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Monday, September 8 A Voyage in Search of Eternal Life (read 30-41, 60-63) Gilgamesh takes the first great mystical journey in literature, meeting along the way the wine-maker Siduri, the ferryman Urshanabi, and Utnapishtim, who survived the great Flood. Compare the latter's story with that of Noah and his sons in Genesis. |
Wednesday, September 10 Lust Wednesday: Greek Deity Edition I've changed the syllabus for this course a bit but we will continue to celebrate the sin of Lust each Wednesday, a character flaw characteristic of most of the great Greek gods, starting with the king of the gods, Zeus, whose multiple adulteries enrage his wife Hera. One could hardly expect better from deities like Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy, or the love goddess Aphrodite, married to the lame blacksmith god Hephaistos but linked with both the war god Ares and Hermes, the messenger of the gods. But Zeus's brothers are as bad as he is: the sea god Poseidon and Hades, King of the Underworld, who gets his queen by carrying off and raping his niece Persephone, the daughter of the agriculture goddess Demeter. Even Apollo, the god of light and reason, and his sister, the maiden huntress Artemis have their moments. The most respectable of the Olympians were probably Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth-fire. |
Friday, September 12 Fathers and Sons: A Voyage to Egypt (read 63-77) Before Joseph there were Abraham and Isaac, Jacob (later Israel), Esau, and their mother Rebekah . Joseph's own story is full of memorable characters--Potiphar and his wife, the butler, the baker and Pharoah, and of course, brothers like Judah and Benjamin. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Monday, September 15 Fathers and Sons: Mourning (read 166-225) Greek literature begins with the Iliad by the epic poet Homer. It deals with the Trojan War, a war begun when a Trojan prince, Paris, ran off with Wednesday, September 17 | Poems of Love and Adoration (read 41-52, 96-100, 530-33)Whether the poets are from ancient Egypt, ancient Israel (The Song of Solomon), ancient Greece, or today, the sentiments are much the same. The classical Greeks were a male chauvinist lot, but they knew that Sappho of Lesbos had been the greatest poet of their lyric age. Friday, September 19 | Fathers and Sons: And Mothers (read 612-658) Fleeing an oracle which said he would kill his father, Oedipus has become king of Thebes. Now the Delphic oracle says Oedipus must find the killer of Laius, his predecessor as King of Thebes and husband of Jocasta. Unfortunately, he feels himself unable to trust his brother-in-law Creon or the blind prophet Tiresias. Oedipus the King by Sophocles is the first great murder mystery. [The first great Greek tragic dramatist was Aeschylus. We won't be reading his work this time around, but I'd like you to know the basic plot of his Oresteia, in which Agamemnon's homecoming is spoiled by his wife Clytemnestra and his cousin, her lover Aegisthus. His son Orestes, aided by his sister Electra avenges his father, for which he is pursued by the fearsome Eumenides (aka the Furies).
Monday, September 22 | A Voyage Home 1: Fathers and Sons (read 225-78) The other great epic by Homer is the Odyssey, and we'll be reading all of it over the course of the semester. Books I-IV start with the Trojan Wars already over for ten years. Garrulous Nestor is back with his sons at Pylos.. Menelaus has brought Helen back to Argos. Even Agamemnon made it home, at least. But Odysseus is still languishing on Kalypso's island as her homesick love slave. Back in his kingdom of Ithaka, his wife Penelope is besieged by suitors who want her to declare him dead and remarry. His son Telemakhos takes off in search of the father who left when he was a mere babe. The goddess Athena takes the form of Mentor to help him evade the murderous plans of his mother's suitors.
Wednesday, September 24 | Jason's Mid Life Crisis (read 693-725) Sometimes a man will feel he's outgrown the wife who put him through medical school or law school or who helped him win a golden fleece. This not necessarily a good idea, as Euripides makes clear in Medea. If your current significant other is a witch (like Medea), that may be a very good reason not to dump her. Jason's learning this lesson is hard on his new girl friend and her father Kreon, not to mention the kids.
Friday, September 26 | A Voyage Home 2: It's Good to be an Epic Hero (read 278-319) In Books V-VIII of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus leaves the beautiful nymph Kalypso behind and washes up naked on the shore of Skheria, where the beautiful princess Nausikaa takes a fancy to him and takes him home to dad and mom (Alkinoos and Arete, the King and Queen of the Phaiakians. As is his custom, Odysseus lies to them about who he is and where he has come from, though he demonstrates his continued prowess when challenged by young Laodamas and Seareach. But when the bard Demodokos sings about the war at Troy, Odysseus weeps
Monday, September 29 | A Voyage Home 3: A Traveller's Tale (read 319-76) Books IX-XII of the Odyssey have the best known stories of the work. Odysseus now tells his hosts the story of his ten years wandering: the Sirens resisted, the one-eyed giant Polyphemos outwitted, the witch Circe bedded, the monsters Skylla and Kharybdis evaded. He has seen the herds of the sun god Helios and visited the land of the Lotos eaters. There is another voyage within this tale, a visit to the land of the dead, where he sees his mother Antikleia and former comrades. Of course, Odysseus was well-known as a liar.
Wednesday, October 1 | Make Love Not War (read 725-78)What if they gave a war and nobody came? In Aristophanes's Lysistrata, the men of Greece go off to war, and the women declare a sex strike to bring peace. Their leader is Lysistrata, but she is ably assisted by her neighbor and drinking buddy Kleonike, the massive Lampito of Sparta (with which Athens was at war when this play was written), and young Myrrhine, whose teasing charms her husband Kinesias urgently misses. Adult language, some nudity, not to be read during the Family Hour. Bonus: review for Friday's examination
Friday, October 3 | FIRST EXAMINATION Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. Vows to study harder next time. Monday, October 6 | Voyage Home 4: Father Finds Son (read 376-429) Homer, Odyssey, XIII-XVI: Odysseus returns home but he does so cautiously, for his palace is occupied by men anxious to marry his widow and rule in his place. Still in disguise, he takes shelter with the loyal Eumaios (usually referred to as "Eumaios--O my swineherd!"). Meanwhile, Telemakhos is coming home, giving a ride to the seer Theomakhos. Telemakhos prudently gets off his ship before reaching town, so that father and son are reunited, while the suitors' plans for an ambush are defeated. Amphinomos persuades his fellow suitors that killing Telemakhos out of hand might not be a good idea.
Wednesday, October 8 | More Poems of Love, Lust, and Adoration (read 1046-1051, 1337-42, 1541-48) You should have no trouble recognizing the emotions felt by the Roman poet Catullus (1st century BC) or the Sanskrit poet Amaru (7th century AD). Rumi (13th c. AD) is the greatest of Sufi mystic poets. Friday, October 10 | Voyage Home 5: A Beggar at the Door (read 429-83) In books XVII-XX of the Odyssey, Odysseus comes to his own palace, but disguised as a beggar. The disguise does not fool his old dog Argos or his old nurse, Eurykleia. The suitors show their arrogance, though, with their leaders Antinoos and Eurymakhos the worst of all. For sport, they have him fight a rival beggar, Iros. Not all of Odysseus's servants have remained loyal, either. The goatherd Melanthios curries favor with the suitors, and Melantho is not the only one of Penelope's maids to be sleeping with a suitor. Monday, October 13 | Voyage Home 6: Father-Son Reunions (read 429-83) In books XXI-XXIV of the Odyssey, the story comes to a satisfying (and bloody) conclusion in scenes that would go well in a video game, as our father and son slaughter one and all and then go pay a visit to Odysseus's father, Laertes, where more fighting is threatened until Athena intervenes. The herald Medon and bard Phemios survive the slaughter. The secret of the olive tree shows that Penelope is as wary and clever as her long-lost husband. Wednesday, October 15 | Dating Dido (read 1052-1106) Virgil was a lyric poet, but Augustus Caesar decided that Rome needed an epic to rival Homer's. Caesar got a lot better than he deserved in the Aeneid. What makes this epic different from its models and qualifies it for Lust Wednesday is the idyll of Aeneas and Dido. the queen of Carthage, All of our familiar deities now have Latin names: Zeus and Hera are now Jupiter and Juno. Aeneas's mother Aphrodite is now Venus. And divine messages are delivered by Mercury rather than Hermes.
Friday, October 17 | Fathers and Sons: Another Visit to the Underworld (read 1106-1134) If Odysseus could go see his mother, Aeneas can go see his father Anchises, who prophecies that his descendants will be noble romans like Augustus Caesar. Dido, on the other hand, is back with her husband Sychaeus and won't speak to him. After this, he is off to Italy, where he weds Princess Lavinia of the Latins, which forces him to kill off her former suiter, Turnus.
Monday, October 20 | Fathers and Sons: Exile to the Forest (read 883-922) The Indian subcontinent has two great epics. One of them, the Mahabhabrata, includes a major religious work, the Bhagavad Gita. We'll be reading selections from the other great epic, Valmiki's Ramayana. It has religious overtones as well, since its hero Rama is an avatar of the god Vishnu. Even so, he has his troubles. His mother Kausalya has been replaced in King Dasaratha's affections by a younger wife, Kaikeyi, and she has tricked the king into making her son Bharata his successor instead of Rama, who is to go into the forest as a hermit exile. On top of that, his wife is abducted by a demon who killed his vulture friend Jatayu in the process. Wednesday, October 22 | Demon Love (read 922-53) Rama and his loyal half-brother Laksmana must rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana who has carried her off to this kingdom of Lanka Actually, Ravana is not bad for a demon. He has strong family feeling and has been spurred to this by his sister Surpanakha. He would like Sita to come to him willingly. He inspires devotion in his demon wives. And he is a brave fighter. Fortunately, Rama is a god and has handy friends like Hanuman, the original flying monkey. In the end, dharma (virtue, order, duty) triumphs.
Friday, October 25 | Voyage to Hell 1: Lost in the Woods (read 1826-52) In the first 5 cantos of Dante's Inferno, the woman he adored, Beatrice, sends the poet he most admired, Virgil, to guide Dante out of the dark wood he finds himself in and through hell. Outside its gates, he sees those who sought neither good nor evil, including Pope Celestine V, who made "the great refusal" by resigning his papacy. Inside, in Limbo, he is greeted as one of them by great classical poets like Homer, Horace, and Ovid and glimpses other classic figures like Plato and Socrates. In the Second Circle (the Lustful) he hears the tragic story of the lovers Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta and swoons.
Monday, October 27 | Voyage to Hell 2: More Big Sins (read 1852-69) Dante completes his trip through upper hell and passes through the gate of Dis to the Sixth Circle, where Virgil lectures on the structure of hell (canto XI). Flattery is worse than lust in Dante's book. See why. Hell seems to be full of Dante's fellow Florentines: Ciacco among the Gluttons, Filippo Argenti among the Wrathful, Farinata and Calvacanti among the Heretics.
Wednesday, October 29 | Laura's Lover (read 2476-2490) The sonnet is an ubiquitous form in English, Italian, and Spanish literature. Petrarch did not invent it, but he deserves chief credit for its worldwide popularity.
Friday, October 31 | Voyage to Hell 3: Slogging Through Hell (read 1869-1929) The pace slows, and it takes Dante cantos XII through XVII to get through the Seventh Circle. The Eighth takes even longer, or does it just seem that way? Even this deep in Hell, Dante finds friends whom he admired, like his mentor Brunetto Latini, here among the Sodomites. Classical figures also continue to appear; one of the great passages is the encounter with Ulysses (the Roman name for Odysseus), now lodged among the False Counselors.
Monday, November 3 | Voyage to Hell 4: The Last Circle (read 1929-42) We read the last four cantos of Dante's Inferno. This coming Friday there's an examination. Coincidence? I think not. Remember the story of Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri. Remember who is trapped in the jaws of Lucifer and why.
Wednesday, November 5 | More Poems of Love (read 2160-74) Our text has lyric poems from many cultures. These Kokinshu selections are from Japan. They would have been known and often quoted by both the characters and the first readers of The Tale of Genji, which we'll be reading in the last third of the course. would have known and often quoted. Japanese poetry starts out with minatures and gets smaller. The oldest form of waka (song) has alternating lines of 5 and 7 syllabic characters (or syllables in English) ending with 5-7-7. A shorter form, now called the tanka reduces this to 5-7-5//7-7. The best known Japanese lyric form, the haiku, is just 5-7-5, but it is a more modern development. In our Kokinshu selections, notice that some of the best are by women poets like Ono no Komachi and Lady Ise. Among the male poets Ariwara Narihira is sometimes cited as one of the models for The Tale of Genji.
Friday, November 7 | SECOND EXAMINATION
Monday, November 10 | The World of Genji The world's first great novel of love and lust was The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, an eleventh century Japanese noblewoman. We'll be reading selections on it for the next few Wednesdays. The courtiers depicted in this novel seem to have nothing better to do than to drink and sleep around, and yet they are very unlike modern-day college students. It's another very different world, and today is your orientation talk.
Wednesday, November 12 | Guy Talk Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji, 2 (read 2174-2204) In our first selection, we meet Prince Genji and a bunch of other teenage guys discussing (surprise) women. Genji was married (at age 12) to Aoi, the daughter of the Minister of the Left, and his best friend and brother-in-law To no Chujo is also married, but marriage has not much dulled their interest in or expanded their knowledge of the opposite sex. Rich, high-ranking, and multi-talented, they have their successes, though the lady of the locust shell (the wife of a governor of Kii) puts up more resistance than most. Friday, November 14 | Brave New World At the turn of the first millenium, high in the jungles of Central America, the Maya built a civilization with writing and cities larger than any in continental Europe, though they had only a Stone Age technology to work with. The civilization was on its last legs by the time the Spanish arrived, but it's worth knowing about. A spring break in Cancun would get you near late sites like Tulum or even Chichen Itza, but you'll have to go to Guatemala to see the great classic site of Tikal.
Monday, November 17 | Voyage to an Underworld: Fathers and Sons (read 3076-3092) The Spanish burnt almost all the Mayan books, but some of their sacred stories are preserved in the Popul Vuh. They take us into a very different mythic world, in which the hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque travel to the underworld of Xibalba to avenge the death of their father, One Hunahpu, and their uncle Seven Hunahpu, and the hand of its lords, One Death and Seven Death. Along the way, they defeat the evil Seven Macaw. Their mother, Blood Moon, was herself the daughter of a lord of Xibalba, Blood Gatherer. Our selections also tell of the creation of the world and men under the direction of the Sovreign Plumed Serpent.
Wednesday, November 19 | How Was Your Date Last Night? Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji, 4 (read 2204-2224): Success has dulled Genji's interest in the lady of Rokujo and his love for his stepmother Fujitsubo seems hopeless, so he is intrigued when he and his attendant Koremitsu come across the curiously submissive lady of the evening faces, though it takes him quite a while to discover her true identity from her nurse Ukon. The affair does not turn out well. Genji mourns sincerely, though not without trying to give some other women the idea that they are the cause of his sorrow.
Friday, November 21 | A Lady of the Court (read 2270-2300) Sei Shonagon was a contemporary of Lady Murasaki. Her Pillow Book and its attitudes toward love and romance may help you understand Genji's amorous career. She and Lady Murasaki knew (and did not much like) each other. Monday, November 24 | A City Boy at Seaside Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji, 12 (read 2224-43) Genji's beds the wrong woman once too often--Oborozukiyo, sister of his great enemy Kokiden, a woman promised to Kokiden's son, the new emperor. Genji must go into exile at Suma, where he mopes around and actually attempts to be faithful to his beloved Murasaki..
Wednesday 26 | A Visit to Denmark (read 1626-81) Greek literature begins with Homer, English literature begins with the anonymous Anglo Saxon poet who wrote the epic tale of Beowulf. Our text has a wonderful new translation by a Nobel laureate contemporary poet, Seamus Heaney. In the first part, our hero, a warrior of the Geats, comes to the aid of the Danish king Hrothgar, whose great hall (Hereot) is being terrorized at night by the monster Grendel. He is received well by Hrothgar and Queen Wealtheow, though taunted by an inhospitable warrior named Unferth. Beowulf kills Grendel and then Grendel's avenging mother and returns in triumph with gifts for his own king, Hygelac.
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
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Monday, December 1 | Into the Depths (read 1681-1702) In our second episode, Beowulf is now an old man and king of the Geats. For his people's sake, he must battle a dragon. Of his thanes, only Wiglaf is any help when the showdown comes.
Wednesday, December 3 | The Ex Governor's Daughter Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji, 13 (read 2243-2260) Boredom and a vision prompt Genji to move his place of exile to the Akashi coast. His host has a daughter. Genji finds his exile less boring. Given his overall character, it is surprising he stayed faithful as long as he did.
Friday, December 5 | Fathers and Sons: Revenge (read 2821-2886) Shakespeare's Hamlet fits the theme too well to omit. In the first three acts, we begin with Hamlet mourning the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother Gertrude to his uncle Claudius and end with his killing Polonius, the father of his girlfriend Ophelia and Laertes.
Monday, December 8 | Fathers and Sons: More Revenge (read 2886-2918) By the end of Hamlet the stage is littered with bodies, though his friend Horatio and his other self, Fortinbras, survive. Who have we forgotten here? Oh, Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, of course. They're dead, too. Wednesday, December 10 | One Last Glimpse Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji, 25 (read 2260-70) Back at court, Genji is once more raising a young woman while coveting her himself. This time it is Tamakazura, the daughter of To no Chujo and the lady of the evening faces. She plays with Yugiri, Genji's son by Aoi, and he dangles the girl in front of his brother, Prince Hotaru. In the meantime, Murasaki is now busy raising the Akashi lady's daughter. The discussion of fiction may give us a hint as to what Lady Murasaki thought she herself was doing.
Friday, December 12
What Ever Happened to Genji? | Catch up on your reading while your professor gives you the rest of the story--or parts of it. Monday, December 15
Review | Your kindly old professor won't assign you any more reading this close to final examinations. On the other hand, he is giving you a final.
Wednesday, December 17 | 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM |