ENGLISH NOTES PART
https://www.calubian.com/p/english-part-1.html
AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE
Chinese Literature – one of the major cultural heritage of the world
Confucius or Kung Fu-tze – first sage of China who wanted to make education available to all men.
SHIH CHING – first anthology of Chinese poetry
Five Books
1. Yiking (Book of Changes) divination
2. Liking (Book of Ceremonies) etiquette
3. Shuking (Book of Historical Documents) political ideas & fundamentals of good government
4. Shiking (Book of Poetry) best poems
5. Chun Chiu (Spring & Autumn) history of Confucius native province
Arabia
A Thousand & One Nights – a collection of stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic.
Ex.: Aladdin, Ali Baba and Forty Thieves and Sinbad the Sailor
Kahlil Gibran – great poet
Indian Literature – oldest scared literature is found in four VEDAS (knowledge)
a. Rigveda – oldest – Veda of Praise
b. Brahmanas – rituals and prayers
c. Upanishads – discourses between teachers and pupils
d. Puranas – history of the Aryan race
Mahabharata(Hindu epic)- longest poem in the world about the bitter quarrel of two brothers – Pandu & Kuru
Ramayana (Hindu epic) - depicts the duties of relationship portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, ideal brother, ideal wife and ideal king.
Kalidasa – poet known for Sakuntala/greatest Sanskrit playwright and poets
Rabindranath Tagore – best known of all recent writers in India;Gitanjali-masterpiece
Hebrew Literature
Bible – book of all books, 39 books Old Testament/ 27 books New Testament
Psalm of David –greatest lyric poem in the literature of the world
Persian Literature (Iran)
Rubaiyat – Omar Khayyam (tent-maker) poem of high divine and spiritual meaning.
Egyptian Literature
Pharaoh, pyramids, mummies, papyrus Book of the Dead, Hymns to the Sun-God, Rosetta Stone – reveals the antiquity of Egypt
Hieroglyphics – Egyptian writing
Japanese Literature
1. NOH DRAMA – dramatic dance with lyrical poetic texts and masked actors
2. HAIKU- 7 syllable poetic form usually about nature
3. WAKA/TANKA – 31 syllable classical poetry
4. KABUKI – Japanese dance drama
5. KOJIKI (Record of Ancient Matters) –earliest surviving work in Japan
ENGLISH/AMERICAN LITERATURE
-Jutes, Angles, Saxons
Anglo Saxon – language
Angleland – stone age people
BEOWULF (England) – epic of more than 3,000 lines
CHAUCER – Canterbury Tales
-greatest English writer of the middle ages
-St. Thomas a Becket
-Through Harry Bailly – innkeeper – Tabard Inn
King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table
-rise and decline of the Round Table, quest for the Holy Grail & establishment of the first printing press in English by William Caxton
William Shakespeare – greatest writer of all times
-Venus & Adonis/ Romeo and Juliet/ Hamlet/ Macbeth
-Sonnets
Thomas Campion – My Sweetest Lesbia – “Let us live & love”
Francis Bacon – Father of English Essay
Of Studies – Studies serve for delight, for ornament & for ability
Ben Johnson – Song to Celia “Drink to me only with thine eyes and I will pledge with mine or leave a kiss but in the cup and I’ll not look for mine.”
John Milton- Paradise Lost, On His Blindness
Thomas Gray – Elegy Written in Country Churchyard
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
Percy Blysshe Shelley – Ode to the West Wind
Alfred Lord Tennyson- Break, Break, Break
Robert Browning- Last Duchess
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – How Do I Love Thee?
Matthew Arnold – Dover Beach
Rudyard Kipling – Mandalay/Recessional
John Masefield- Sea Fever
David Herbert Lawrence- Lady Chatterly’s Lover
American Literature
-Captain John Smith (Pocahontas)
-Virginia
Thomas Jefferson- Declaration of Independence of the 13th United Sates of America
Patrick Henry – Give me liberty or give me death
Washington Irving – Legend of Sleepy Hollow
-Rip Van Winkle
-Ichabod Crane
-Rose of Alhambra
Edgar Allan Poe- Annabel Lee, Tell-Tale Heart
-Father of Horror Stories
Ralph Waldo Emerson- Self-Reliance
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- A Psalm of Life
-“Tell me not in mournful numbers”
-“Life is but an empty dream”
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) – Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Henry James – Tree of Knowledge
Stephen Crane-Blades of Grass
Ernest Hemingway – Old Man & the Sea
Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken
William Ernest Henley – Invictus
Walt Whitman – O Captain, My Captain
Charles Dickens – Christmas Carol
Greek Literature
1. Pre Homeric and Homeric Age
2. Athenian period – Alexander the Great
3. Period of Decline
Homer – blind poet of Greece/great epics – Iliad & Odyssey
theme- Man’s fate is the result of his actions
Mythological background of Iliad:
Achilles – greatest Greek warrior
Thetis and Peleus (parents)
Eris – goddess of mischief
Golden Apple – to the fairest of the goddess
-Hera, Athena, Aphrodite claimed
Alexandros or Paris – Prince of Troy
Hera- promised power
Athena-wisdom
Aphrodite – most beautiful woman in the world
Helen- married to Menelaus
-Alexandros abducted Helen and brought her to Troy
Trojan War – 10-year war
Iliad – violent quarrel between Agamemnon & Achilles
Odyssey- return of Odysseus or Ulysses from the Trojan war
Dramatist s of the Athenian Age
1. Aeschylus – Father of Tragedy
-theological poet
-soldier playwright
-Battle of Marathon/Salamy
2. Sophocles
- Oedipus Rex/Oedipus the King
3. Euripides – modern playwright
4. Aristophanes - master of Greek comedy
Rome – Virgil – greatest writer that Rome produced
Aeneid- Aeneas (Trojan hero)
-great destiny was to be the founder of Rome
Nibelungenlied – Siegfred/epic of Germany
Song of Roland – epic of France
El Cid – epic of Spain
Divine Comedy- Dante – Father of Italian Literature
-greatest literary production of the middle ages
Greek Gods and Goddesses
Zeus – father of gods and men
Hades-god of the dead and the king of the underworld
Thetis – sea goddess, mother of Achilles
Poseidon- fierce god of the sea and of earthquakes
Hermes- Son of Zeus and Maia; messenger of the gods
Hera- wife and sister of Zeus; patroness of female life in general and of marriage in particular
Hephaestus- god of fire; divine smith and patron of craftsmen
Athena (Pallas) – patron goddess of Athens, and personified wisdom; Minerva in Roman mythology
Artemis- primitive earth-goddess; a virgin huntress and patroness of chastity
Aphrodite- goddess of beauty and love; Venus in Roman mythology
Apollo- archer god, main protector of the Trojans
Ceres- Roman goddess of corn; identified with the Greek Demeter
Ares – represented the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter
Achilles – greatest and bravest warrior among the Greeks
Agamemnon- legendary king of Mycenae; commander-in-chief of the Greek expedition against Troy
Neptune, Neptunus – Roman god of water; later elevated to god of the sea after his identification with the Greek Poseidon
Vulcan – Roman god of fire and in particular of furnaces; identified with the Greek Hephaestus
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Figurative Language -a language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation.
1. Simile - An indirect association and comparison between two things.
Example: She is like a flower.
2. Metaphor - A direct comparison.
Example: You are the sunshine of my life.
3. Personification - Giving human attributes to an inanimate object (animal, idea, etc…)
Example: The sun is looking down on me.
4. Oxymoron - A self-contrasting statement.
Examples: Loud silence
The sound of silence is indeed deafening.
5. Metonymy - An association wherein the name of something is substituted by something that represents it.
Example: The crown prefers taxes from the underlings to support his expenses.
6. Irony - The contrast between what was expected and what actually happened.
Examples: No smoking sign during a cigarette break.
You’re so beautiful; you look like a Christmas tree!
7. Hyperbole - An exaggeration
Example: Cry me a river.
8. Synecdoche - An association of some important part with the whole it represents.
Example: The face who launched a thousand ships.
9. Euphemism - Creating a positive connotation out of something negative.
Examples: Loved child (illegitimate child).
She’s on the streets. (meaning ‘She’s homeless”)
10. Asyndeton - Not putting any connectors (conjunctions or prepositions).
Examples: I came, I played, I won.
The car crashed, exploded, burned, melted.
11. Apostrophe - A direct address to an abstract things or a person who passed away.
Example: Love, please come and take me!
12. Litotese – a deliberate understatement used to affirm by negating its opposite.
Example: Edgar Allan Poe is no mean writer.
13. Periphrasis- the substitution of a descriptive phrase for a name or vice-versa.
Example: The sleeping Giant has broken ties with its neighbors.
14. Climax – the arrangement of words or ideas according to their degree of importance; thus, the last set appears most valuable.
Example: “ I came, I saw, I conquered.” (Julius Caesar)
15. Anti-Climax – a real apparent or ludicrous decrease in the importance or impressiveness of what is said. Opposed to climax.
Example: He lost his shoelace, his house charred to ashes, his wife even abandoned him.
16. Anti-thesis- equating or balancing two opposing ideas.
Example: There is a time to sow and there is a time to reap.
17. Parallelism or Juxtaposition- placing two comparable ideas side by side.
Example: “Yea! Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff thy comfort me.”
18. Pun- a play on words with humorous, witty effects.
Example: House’s everything for all Filipinos.
19. Paradox – a seemingly, contradictory but true example.
Example: There is grief in happiness.
