Asian literature

Asia is known to be the most populous and largest continent of the planet. Asia is a cradle of the
human race, world religions and civilization which is composed of a widespread variety of ethnic
groups, diverse cultures, environments, economics, historical linkages and varied governmental
systems making it rich in written literature. Since it’s the biggest continent, a wealth of written or
spoken text have been

1. 1. Prepared by: GILBERT N. BERSOLA, BSEd4 ASIAN LITERATURE

2. 2. It refers to the study of the literature of the people in: 1. China 2. India 3. Japan 4. Other
small nations surround them ASIAN LITERATURE
3. 3. Chinese civilization is the oldest civilizations in the world that dates back to the Shang
Dynasty in 1765 B.C. It is known as “The Red Dragon”. CHINA
4. 4. The Chou Dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty of great intellectual activity and was in
this period when the philosophies of the Confucianism, Taoism and legalism originated. It is
the longest dynasty in Chinese history which lasted from 1122 B.C. To 256 B.C.
5. 5. The Han Dynasty which succeeded after the collapse of the Chou strengthened the unity
within the bureaucracy but Confucianism was substituted for Legalism.
6. 6. 1. THE BOOK OF CHANGES 2. THE BOOK OF HISTORY 3. THE BOOK OF RITES 4.
THE BOOK OF ODES 5. THE SPRING AND AUTUMN ANNALS THE FIVE CLASSICS
7. 7. Confucius- perhaps the greatest philosopher of the world has known. One of the truly
great men that China has produced. The word Confucius is the westernized form of his
name, which is Kung Fu-tze, Kung being his proper name, Fu signifying revered, and tze
signifying teacher.
8. 8. Li Po (701 – 761), or Li tai Po, was one of the leading Chinese poets of the eighth century.
His writings deal with the good things of life and with the pathos of human destiny. With a
striking vividness they treat of love, friendship, wine, nature, and simple village living.
9. 9. Po – Chu – I (722 – 846) was a well-known Chinese poet who represented the classical
tradition in Chinese literature, politics and morality.
10. 10. India is the vast land in Southern Asia, extending from the Himalayan Mountains south to
the tip of a great peninsula that reaches from out into the Indian Ocean. It is known as “Land
of prayer”. INDIAN LITERATURE
11. 11. The first characteristic we notice about Indian literature is that it is based on piety, a
deeply religious spirit.
12. 12. Dravidians- earliest people in India dating back to 3000 – 2500 B.C. Towards 2000 B.C.
13. 13. Sanskrit- literature of India. The word “sanskrit” means cultivated or perfected. Vedas –
the bible of the Indians.
14. 14. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the most important epics of India. Ramayana – is about
the reincarnation of the creator god Vishnu in the person of Rama, who is the hero of the
epic. Mahabharata – deals with the other reincarnation of Vishnu in the person of Krishna. It
is considered as the greatest epic of India.
15. 15. The Indians believe in reincarnation. The reincarnation of Vishnu are called Avatars,
descending from the god.
16. 16. 1. Rig-Veda – made up of hymns in praise of the gods. The hymns are strong, energetic
religions expressions comparable to the Old Testament Psalms. ROOTS OF INDIAN
LITERATURE
17. 17. 2. Upanishads- consists of a group of sketches, illustrations, explanations and critical
comments on the religious thoughts suggested by the poetic hymns of Rig-Veda.
18. 18. The first great name in Indian drama is Bhasa. (13 plays are attributed to him.) INDIAN
DRAMA
19. 19. Kalidasa – the greatest writer of plays. He is the author of Shakuntala. - he is called the
brightest of the “nine gems of genius”.
20. 20. Shakuntala – it is a story of a king who goes hunting in the woods and meets a beautiful
maiden named Shakuntala with whom he falls in love.
21. 21. Panchatantra (Five headings) – a book that said to contain the first fables ever written.
Fables are stories of animals who behave like human beings.
22. 22. Rabindranath Tagore – was a great Indian poet and dramatist. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 and was knighted by the british government in 1915.
23. 23. Also known as “The Land of the Rising Sun”. The earliest writings from ancient Japan
are: 1. The Records of Ancient Matters in Kojiko (A.D. 712) 2. The Chronicles of Japan or
Nihongi (A.D. 720) JAPAN
24. 24. It is one of the major Oriental Literatures. Katakana – basic alphabet in Japan which
consists 47 characters. JAPANESE LITERATURE
25. 25. Earliest Japanese Literary works: 1. Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) 2. Nihongi
(Chronicles of Japan)
26. 26. Drama – favorite form of amusement. Three Types of Japanese Drama: 1. Noh play 2.
Joruri or puppet play 3. Kabuki play JAPANESE DRAMA
27. 27. It is the national theater of Japan. NOH PLAY
28. 28. The puppets are beautifully made and lifelike in size. The strings are expertly
manipulated and the dialogue reastically interpreted. THE PUPPET PLAY (DOLL THEATER)
29. 29. The play of the masses. It is less intellectual, more realistic, even sensational. KABUKI
PLAY
30. 30. Manyo Shu (Collection of myriad leaves) – oldest collection of poetry. It was compiled in
800 A.D. The collection titled One Hundred Persons was compiled much later. JAPANESE
POETRY
31. 31. Shortest form of Japanese poetry but most popular. It has seventeen- syllable poem in
three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. HAIKU
32. 32. Example: Poetry and love will fill your heart forever, or rip it to shreds!
33. 33. A five-line poem. The first and third line lines have five syllables each and the others
seven, making a total of thirty-one syllables per poem. TANKA
34. 34. Example: O pine tree standing At the side of the stone house, When I look at you, It is
like seeing face to face The men of old time. - Hakutsu, from the Manyo Shu

1. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name ENGLALAND, which means
“LAND OF THE ANGLES" ignatius joseph n estroga
2. 3. •Few surviving texts with little in common. •Language closer to modern German than
modern English. •Frequently reflect non-English influence. •Beowulf, “The Wanderer”ignatius
joseph n estroga
3. 4. I. The Anglo – Saxon Period: Britain before the Anglo- Saxons The Germanic Invasions
Anglo- Saxon Society Anglo – Saxon Literature ignatius joseph n estroga
4. 5. England before the English • When the Romans arrived, they found the land inhabited by
“Britons.” • known as the Celts • Stonehenge • no written language • absorbed into the Latin
speaking Roman society Romans withdraw, leaving the Britons/Celts behind Invasions from
the Northern Europe Anglo-Saxon bring Germanic languages ignatius joseph n estroga
5. 6. • By 600, Anglo-Saxons conquer the Britons • language becomes more Germanic • still
retains some Latin • The Anglo-Saxons’ two urgings--war and wandering become part of the
oral tradition • Beowulf is an example of an Anglo-Saxon hero taleBeowulf battles Grendel’s
mother ignatius joseph n estroga
6. 7. •Literature: Beowulf , the earliest literature, the national epic of the Anglo-Saxon, one of
the striking features - the use of alliteration •Alliteration ignatius joseph n estroga
7. 8. • By 700, Christian missionaries arrive to convert the pagans • Latin (the language of the
Church) returns • King Alfred • the Britons become organized • first true king of the Britons •
period of prosperity King Alfred brings an age of prosperity ignatius joseph n estroga
8. 9. •Works frequently of a religiously didactic content. •Written for performance at court or for
festivals. ignatius joseph n estroga
9. 10. Trivia Who is the Father of English Literature? ignatius joseph n estroga
10. 11. Geoffrey Chaucer His family name derives from the French chausseur, meaning
"shoemaker".
11. 12. • known as the Father of English literature • is widely considered the greatest English
poet of the middle Ages • was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of
Westminster Abbey. ignatius joseph n estroga
12. 13. • Social background: the Norman conquest under William, Duke of Normandy, the battle
of Hastings in 1066; the mark of establishment of feudalism • Literature: Langland; Chaucer •
Allegory • Ballad • Romance ignatius joseph n estroga
13. 14. The 3 Estates in the Middle Ages • The idea of estates, or orders, was encouraged
during the Age, but this ordering was breaking down. • Clergy • Latin chiefly spoken, those
who pray, purpose was to save everyone’s soul • Nobles • French chiefly spoken, those who
fight, purpose was to protect—allow for all to work in peace—and provide justice •
Commoners • English spoken, those who work, purpose was to feed and clothe all above
themignatius joseph n estroga
14. 15. feudalism • The economic system of much of the Middle Ages (800-1100) • Commoners
(peasants) lived on a feudal manor. The lord of the manor gave his vassals (the peasants)
land to farm. • In return, the vassals received protection from roving bandits. Yet they were
taxed and had to surrender a portion of their crops to the lord. • it was better to be a lord than
a vassal! • Feudalism is important as it created ties of obedience and fostered a sense of
loyalty between the vassals and their lord.A tenant (vassal) renews his oath of fealty to his
lordignatius joseph n estroga
15. 16. Chivalry • A product of feudalism, chivalry was an idealized system of manners and
morals • Restricted to nobility • The Medieval knight was bound to the chivalric code to be
loyal to… • God • his lord • his lady • Chivalric ideals include... • benevolence • brotherly love
• politeness • Sir Gawain is an example ignatius joseph n estroga
16. 17. Characteristics of Medieval Literature • Heroism • from both Germanic and Christian
traditions, sometimes mingled • Presentations of idealized behavior • literature as moral-
loyalty to king -Chivalry • Romance • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight • A narrative in prose
or verse that tells of the adventures and heroic exploits of chivalric heroes • exploits of
knights- often a supernatural element involved • Christian message • concern with salvation
and the world to come • no interest in social change • until the late 14th century • Chaucer
signals new thinking, up-ending social order ignatius joseph n estroga
17. 18. The High Middle Ages • These people wrote music, but they also wrote poetry. Cretien
de Troyes, Walter von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Marie de France are
examples. a. Arthur and his knights, the Song of Roland, the Niebelungenlied, b.and literary
material based on the lives of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne. c. The movement was
important in promoting the idea of a code of chivalry.ignatius joseph n estroga
18. 19. The High Middle Ages d. During the High Middle Ages, other works became important,
such as ancient Greek philosophy, translated into Latin from Arabic. This brought about a
new interest in philosophy, religion, and science. e. Religion remained important. One
example was the works of Thomas Aquinas. Another was Bonaventure's Life of Francis of
Assisi. ignatius joseph n estroga
19. 20. The Late Middle Ages • This had truly great products with a. the Divine Comedy, by
Dante, and b.The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Interest in Arthurian legends also
continued, and both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Thomas Malory's Le Morte
d'Arthur were products of this time. ignatius joseph n estroga
20. 21. •Influence of Aristotle, Ovid, and other Greco-Roman thinkers, as well as science and
exploration. •Primarily texts for public performance (plays, masques) and some books of
poetry. •William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, John
Fletcher, Francis Beaumont.ignatius joseph n estroga
21. 22. • Renaissance- marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world; • It means
rebirth or revival of letters; a historical period in which thinkers and scholars made attempts
 to get rid of those old feudalist ideas, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interest of
the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the
Roman Catholic Church. • Two features are striking of this movement: thirsting curiosity for
the classical literature and the keen interest in the activities of humanity.ignatius joseph n
estroga
22. 23. • Humanism-key-note of the Renaissance; emphasis on the dignity of human beings and
the importance of the present life; belief in the right to enjoy the beauty of this life and the
ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders. • Thomas Moore- Utopia • Francis Bacon-
Of Studies ignatius joseph n estroga
23. 24. Francis Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), an English philosopher, statesman,
scientist, jurist, orator, essayist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord
Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works,
especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the
scientific revolution. Francis Bacon ignatius joseph n estroga
24. 25. Trivia What are the three important uses of studies according to Francis Bacon? • A. for
happiness, for truth, and for knowledge • B. for delight, for ornament, and for ability • C. for
judgment, for disposition, and for wisdom • D. for personal, social, and transcendental
inclinations ignatius joseph n estroga
25. 26. • Drama---the highest glory of the English Renaissance with Christopher Marlowe,
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson ignatius joseph n estroga
26. 27. Christopher Marlowe- • --the most gifted of the “university wits”, Doctor Faustus, blank
verse first used in his drama. ignatius joseph n estroga
27. 28. *Shakespeare---his life, his works, his status *His life---born in 1564 in Stratford- on
Avon, died in 1616 *His works---38 plays, 154 sonnets ignatius joseph n estroga
28. 29. TRIVIA What phrase appears on William Shakespeare’s gravestone? A. “May the great
author rest in peace” B. “He wrote so much that man will take years to understand
everything.” C. “He arrived on this earth with nothing. When he died, he left everything to us.”
D. “…curst be he that moves my bones.”ignatius joseph n estroga
29. 30. Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man
that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. ignatius joseph n estroga
30. 31. V. The Restoration Period: (17th Century) ignatius joseph n estroga
31. 32. • Social background: the clash between the King and Parliament; the Civil War between
1642-1649; Charles I was executed in 1649; the declining of Cromwell’s Commonwealth and
the compromise with the feudal remnants. ignatius joseph n estroga
32. 33. John Milton- • --a revolutionary poet, political both in his life and his art; Paradise Lost,
Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes ignatius joseph n estroga
33. 34. •John Bunyan---The Pilgrim’s Progress, a religious allegory, the spiritual pilgrimage of
Christian •John Dryden---the most distinguished literary figure of the Restoration period; use
of heroic couplet in his writing •*heroic couplet---two successive lines of verse, equal in
length and with rhyme. ignatius joseph n estroga
34. 35. • Metaphysical school of poetry------break away from the convention; simple diction,
common speech words and cadences, actual life imagery, argument with the poet’s beloved,
with god, or with himself; John Donne and Andrew Marvell. • *John Donne---leading figure of
the Metaphysical school of poetry, • *Marvel---“To his Coy Mistress” ignatius joseph n
estroga
35. 36. England 1660-1785 America 1750-1800 •Reaction to the expansiveness of the
Renaissance in the direction of order and restraint. •Developed in France (Moliere,
Rousseau, Voltaire). ignatius joseph n estroga
36. 37. •Emphasized classical ideals of rationality and control (human nature is constant through
time). •Art should reflect the universal commonality of human nature. (“All men are created
equal.”) •Reason is emphasized as the highest faculty (Deism).ignatius joseph n estroga
37. 38. •Writing should be well structured, emotion should be controlled, and emphasize qualities
like wit. •England: John Locke,, Alexander Pope (Essay on Man), Jonathon Swift (Gulliver’s
 Travels), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Jane Austen (Sense
and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice). ignatius joseph n estroga
38. 39. DANIEL DEFOE: 1660-1731 was born in London, England. His real name was Daniel
Foe, later changed his name to Daniel Defoe, wanting to sound more gentlemanly. He went
into business, having given up an earlier intent on becoming a dissenting minister. He
traveled often, selling such goods as wine and wool, but was rarely out of debt. He went
bankrupt. He wrote his world famous novel “The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe”. ignatius joseph n estroga
39. 40. •America: Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard’s Almanac, autobiography), Thomas Paine
(“Common Sense”), Thomas Jefferson (“The Declaration of Independence”), James Madison
(“The Constitution of the United States”). ignatius joseph n estroga
40. 41. England 1785-1830America 1800-1860 •Reaction against the scientific rationality of
Neoclassicism and the Industrial Revolution. •Developed in Germany (Kant, Goethe).
•Emphasized individuality, intuition, imagination, idealism, nature (as opposed to society &
social order). ignatius joseph n estroga
41. 42. • *Romanticism---It designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the
individual as the very center of all life and all experience. • It also places the individual at the
center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings
and particular attitudes; • Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also
provides the dominant subject matter; Romantics also tend to be nationalistic.ignatius joseph
n estroga
42. 43. Trivia •Who is the Father of Romanticism? ignatius joseph n estroga
43. 44. William Wordsworth ignatius joseph n estroga
44. 45. •Elevation of the common man (folklore, myth). •Mystery and the supernatural. •England:
Robert Burns (“To a Mouse”), William Blake (Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience),
William Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads, “Tintern Abbey,” “Intimations of Immortality,” “I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”
“Kubla Kahn”), Lord Byron (“Don Juan”), Percy Bysshe Shelley (“Ozymandias”), Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein), John Keats (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”), Sir Walter Scott
(Ivanhoe). ignatius joseph n estroga
45. 46. America: • Washington Irving (“Rip Van Winkle,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), • Edgar
Allan Poe (“The Raven,” Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, “The Murders in the Rue
Morgue,” “The Philosophy of Composition”), • James Fennimore Cooper (The Last of the
Mohicans), • Herman Melville (Moby-Dick, Billy Budd), • Nathaniel Hawthorne (Twice-Told
Tales, The Scarlet Letter), • William Cullen Bryant (“To a Waterfowl”), • Oliver Wendell
Holmes (“The Chambered Nautilus”), • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“Paul Revere’s Ride”),
• James Russell Lowell (“The First Snowfall”). ignatius joseph n estroga
46. 47. Trivia Who is the Father of Short Stories? ignatius joseph n estroga
47. 48. • American writer, known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the
short-story form, especially tales of the mystery. • The literary merits of Poe's writings have
been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major
American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him. • El Dorado
videoignatius joseph n estroga
48. 49. WASHINGTON IRVING:1783-1859 was born to a wealthy New York family and received
an excellent education. He was the first American writer to gain international attention. He
began his writing career by creating satires about New York society. He later wrote about the
Dutch influences upon the city in its early days. He attempted to give America a sense of a
romantic past like that found in Europe. His most popular work by far was “The Sketch
Book”, which contains two of his most beloved stories: “The legend of Sleepy Hollow: and “
Rip van Winkle”. ignatius joseph n estroga
49. 50. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW: 1807-1882 was one of the most widely read
American poets of the 19th century. From 1835 to 1854 he was Smith Professor of Modern
Languages at Harvard. In 1884, 2 years after his death, he became the first American to be
 honoured with a bust in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, London. He is best
remembered for poems such as “The Song of Hiawatha” and “Paul Revere’s Ride”. ignatius
joseph n estroga
50. 51. American Transcendentalism (Romantic philosophy) Named for the core belief that our
spiritual nature transcends rationality and religious doctrine; thus, it is found in intuition.
Developed in New England, influenced by Eastern philosophy. Pro-suffrage & abolitionist. •
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature, “The American Scholar”), • Henry David Thoreau (Walden,
“Civil Disobedience”), • Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass).ignatius joseph n estroga
51. 52. Romantic Period video ignatius joseph n estroga
52. 53. •Named for the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest reigning monarch. •Period of
stability and prosperity for Britain. •British society extremely class conscious. •Literature seen
as a bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. •Generally emphasized realistic
portrayals of common people, sometimes to promote social change. ignatius joseph n
estroga
53. 54. • Charles Dickens (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations), • George Eliot
(Middlemarch), • Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D’Ubervilles), • Robert Louis Stevenson (The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), • Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book), • Lewis Carroll
(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), • Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), Emily Brontë (Wuthering
Heights), • Alfred, Lord Tennyson (In Memoriam), • Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from
the Portuguese), • Robert Browning (“My Last Duchess”), Matthew Arnold (“Dover Beach”),
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest). ignatius joseph n estroga
54. 55. CHARLES DICKENS: 1812-1870 was a novelist who provided Victorian England with
one of its greatest champions of reform. Dickens used his novels to identify and address
many problems of the nineteenth century, such as child abuse, unfair labour practices,
injustices in the legal system, and weaknesses in education. Dickens had experienced many
of these problems in his own childhood, and so on. He dedicated his life to brining about
social reform. Some of his most popular novels include: “David Copperfield”, “Oliver Twist”,
“A Tale of two Cities”, Christmas Carol and “Great Expectations”. ignatius joseph n estroga
55. 56. Trivia In Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, who were the visitors of Scrooge? ignatius joseph n
estroga
56. 57. 1. Ghost of Christmas Past 2. Ghost of Christmas Present 3. Ghost of Christmas Yet to
Come ignatius joseph n estroga
57. 58. RUDYARD KIPLING: 1865-1936 was born in Bombay, India, but attended school in
England. He was an English novelist, shot- story writer and poet. After completing his
education, he returned to India where he worked as a newspaper reporter for several years.
Many of Kipling’s stories and novels reflect his experiences in India and convey the
importance of duty and unselfishness. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Kipling
is most widely known for his works for children, especially the “Jungle Book”. ignatius joseph
n estroga
58. 59. Alfred Tennyson(6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) • was Poet Laureate of Great Britain
and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular
British poets. • Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break",
"The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar".ignatius joseph
n estroga
59. 60. Elizabeth Barrett Browning(6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) • was one of the most
prominent English poets of the Victorian Era. Her poetry was widely popular in both Britain
and the United States during her lifetime • At 15 Browning became ill, suffering from intense
head and spinal pain for the rest of her life, rendering her frail. • During this time she
contracted a disease, possibly tuberculosis, which weakened her further. • They had one
son, Robert Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Towards the end of her life, her lung
function worsened, and she died in Florence in 1861 ignatius joseph n estroga
60. 61. ignatius joseph n estroga
61. 62. •Reaction against Romantic values (Civil War). •Developed in France (Balzac, Flaubert,
Zola). •Emphasized the commonplace and ordinary (as opposed to the romanticized
individual). •Sought to depict life as it was, not idealized. •Mark Twain (The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn), •Ambrose Bierce (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), •William Dean
Howells (A Modern Instance), •Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie). ignatius joseph n estroga
62. 63. MARK TWAIN: 1835-1910 was born in a small village of Florida. His real name was
Samuel Clemens, but he took his penname from a term used by the men who operated the
river boats. They would call, “By the mark, twain!” This meant that the river was two (twain)
feet deep. Samuel Clemens left his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri at the age of eighteen.
He began his carrier as a newspaper writer. Later in life he used memories from his
childhood to create some of his most popular novels, including “The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Mark Twain used humor to develop
many serious themes in his novels and to help society see itself more clearly. ignatius joseph
n estroga
63. 64. O’HENRY: 1862-1910 was a well-known American short –story writer. He had to jam his
living from age of fifteen and he educated himself with the help of friends. O’Henry knew
people very well., especially the ordinary people of New York. In his stories you can feel
satirical criticism of the American way of life. Most of his short stories are full of warm
sympathy for ordinary American people. O’Henry was the penname used by author William
Sydney Porter. O’Henry wrote many popular stories and earned a reputation as the master
of surprise endings. He was especially talented at developing his characters, and at
portraying city life accurately. He wrote over 600 stories, the most famous of them “The
Ransom of Red Chief”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”.ignatius joseph n
estroga
64. 65. •Naturalism – hyper-realism •Named for the belief that man is simply a higher order
animal, and thus under the same natural constraints and limitations as other animals.
•Controlled by heredity and environment. •Stephen Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Street, The
Red Badge of Courage), Jack London (“To Build a Fire”), Upton Sinclair (The
Jungle).ignatius joseph n estroga
65. 66. •Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness), H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds), E.M.
Forster (A Room with a View, A Passage to India), George Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara),
A.C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy). ignatius joseph n estroga
66. 67. •Reaction against the values which led to WWI. •Influenced by Schopenhauer (“negation
of the will”), Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil), Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling), as well
as Darwin and Marx. •If previous values are invalid, art is a tool to establish new values
(Pound: “Make it new”). •Writers experiment with form. •Form and content reflect the
confusion and vicissitudes of modern life. •Expositions and resolutions are omitted; themes
are implied rather than stated. ignatius joseph n estroga
67. 68. Poetry: Ezra Pound (The Fourth Canto), T.S. Eliot (Prufrock and other Observations, The
Waste Land, “The Hollow Men”), W.B. Yeats (The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems,
The Swans at Coole), H.D. (“Pear Tree”), Wallace Stevens (Harmonium), William Carlos
Williams (“The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is Just to Say”), Robert Frost (Mending Wall, The
Road Not Taken). ignatius joseph n estroga
68. 69. To whom did Frost dedicate his poem The Road Not Taken? ignatius joseph n estroga
69. 70. Edward Thomas ignatius joseph n estroga
70. 71. Fiction: James Joyce (Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Franz Kafka
(The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle), Ernest Hemingway (In Our Time, The Sun Also
Rises), William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The
Great Gatsby), John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath), Thornton Wilder (Our Town, The
Bridge at San Luis Rey), D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow), Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To
the Lighthouse). ignatius joseph n estroga
71. 72. •Critical dispute over whether an actual period or a renewal and continuation Modernism
post- WWII. •Influenced by Freud, Sartre, Camus, Derrida, and Foucault. •Deconstruction:
 Text has no inherent meaning; meaning derives from the tension between the text’s
ambiguities and contradictions revealed upon close reading. •Some believe it leads directly
to the counter- cultural revolution of the 1960s. ignatius joseph n estroga
72. 73. Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Gabriel Garcia Marques (One Hundred Years of
Solitude), William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), J.D. Salinger (A Catcher in the Rye), Kurt
Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow), John Updike
(Rabbit Run), Phillip Roth (Portnoy’s Complaint, American Pastoral), J.M. Coetzee (Life &
Times of Michael K), Joyce Carol Oates (“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”),
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaiden’s Tale), Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian), Allen
Ginsberg (Howl and Other Poems), Charles Bukowski (The Last Night of the Earth Poems).
ignatius joseph n estro