GUESS THAT

FLAG!
BRAZIL
UNITED
KINGDOM
CANADA
VIETNAM
CHINA
KOREA
GEORGIA
 Introduction and
Overview of World
Literature
European
Literature
– In the early time of European literature, traditional
Latin was the language manifested in literary works.
– Prestige Papacy began to decline and national
consciousness began to increase in different states.
– Nationalism was manifested in literature written in
National Languages or Vernacular instead of
traditional Latin.
– Their literature involved the Nobility.
– In late 1600s, when the Enlightenment was well
under the way in Britain and France, Germany was
highly fragmented both politically and culturally.
Famous Writers
and their
Masterpieces
• Homer – was a legendary early Greek poet and traditionally
credited with authorship of the major Greek epics.
 Iliad and Odyssey
 Phocais
 Capture of Oechalia
• Sophocles – was an ancient Greek playwright, dramatist, priesto
and politician in Athens.
 Oedipus the King
 Ajax
 Antigone
• Giovanni Boccaccio – was an Italian author and poet, the greatest
Petrarch’s disciples.
 Decameron
 On famous Women
• Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra – his influence on the Spanish language
has been so great that Spanish often called “la lengua de Cervantes.”
 Don Quixote
 La Galatea
• William Shakespeare - his ability to capture and convey the most profound
aspects of human nature is regarded by many as unequalled.
 Hamlet
 Macbeth
 Romeo and Juliet
Voltaire – is remembered and honored in France as a courageous polemicist,
who fought for civil rights.
 Candide
 The Maid of Orleans
 Henriade
• Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – well known for publishing collections of
German fairy tales.
 The Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel
• Victor Hugo – a French author, the most important of the Romantic authors
in the French language.
 Les Miserables
 Les Contemplations
 The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Russian writer, one of the major figures in Russian
literature.
 Crime and Punishment
 The Brothers Karamazov
• Leo Tolstoy – notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance and his
contributions to Russian literature and politics.
 War and Peace
 Anna Karenina
• Guy de Maupassant - French naturalist writer of short stories and
novels who is by general agreement the greatest French short-
story writer.
 The Necklace
North and South
American
Literature
– The earliest North and South American literature
was mainly sermons by men like Cotton Mather
written in the 1600s and 1700s.
– African-American people who had come over
from Africa as slaves met local Cherokee people
and translated traditional African and Cherokee
stories into English as Br’er Rabbit stories.
– By the 1800s people were beginning to write
novels or fictional stories.
Famous Writers
and their
Masterpieces
• James Fenimore Cooper
 The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

• Melville
 Moby Dick (1851)

• Harriet Beacher Stowe

 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1987)

• Mark Twain
 Tom Sawyer (1987)
• Frances Hodgson Burnett
 The Secret Garden (1909)

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

 I have a Dream

• O. Henry
 The Gift of Magi
 Asian
Literature
(China)
– Mature fictional novel arose during the Ming Dynasty to
entertain the masses of literate Chinese.
– Introduction of woodblock printing during the Tang
Dynasty. Invention of movable type printing by Bi Sheng.

– Two forms of literature in China:

• Poetry
• Prose
Famous Writers
and their
Masterpieces
• Guo Maruo
 The Goddesses
 Translated Geothe’s Sorrow of Young Wether

• Wen Yiduo
 Red Candle (Hong zhu)
 The Dead Water (Sishui)
 The Great River Collection (Dajiang ji)

• Mo zi
 Against Confucianism
 The Ethical and Political Works of Motse
 Book of Odes
• Zhuang Zi
 The Great Happiness
 On Arranging Things
 Zhuangzi Dreamed He was a Butterfly

• Sima Qian
 Annals of Spring and Autumn
 The Records of Grand Historian (Shijii)
 Rhapsody in the Lament for Gentlemen who do not Meet their Time

• Ezra Pound
 The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
 African
Literature
– Africa has a long literary tradition. Little Of this literature
was written down until the 20th Century.
– Rudimentary forms of writing were developed and used
by Secret Societies and Other Exlusive Groups
– The first African writing were focues on Slavery.
Newspapers served as vehicles for expressing nascent
nationalist feelings.
– Contemporary African literature reveals disillusionment
and dissent with Current events.
– Literary Compositions were Generally copied on Papyrus
paper. Literature also constitutes and important Cultural
Element in the life of Egypt.
Africa’s Form Of Literature are:
a. Myth- Typically Explain the creation of the universe, The
activities of gods at the beginning of creation.
b. Legend- Describes such heroic human feats as
establishing dynasties or preventing disasters and has much
in common with epics, both focuses on heroism
c. Folktale- Told for night time entertainment; often
employed for social commentary and instruction and served
as a potent means of affirming group values and discouraging
antisocial behavior.
d. Tricksters Tale- Features a small but witty animal that
employs its cunning traits to protect itself against much larger
and more powerful animals .
e. Epigram, Proverbs and Riddles- Effective Speech and
social success depend on a good command or proverbs, it
usually based on principles of analogy that require the l
istener to decipher the intended meaning.
Famous Writers
and their
Masterpieces
• Chinua Achebe
 Things Fall Apart

• Ben Okri
 Flowers and Shadows
 The Landscapes Within

• Ayi Kwei Armah

 The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born