TIMELINE OF WORLD

LITERATURE
World Literature
The Great Works
 1.
INTRODUCTION
On Literature
 What is Literature?

➢ The art of written works, literally translated

(acquaintance with letters)
➢ The most shallow definition (songs, homilies)
➢ Two functions: literature of knowledge (to teach,
mere discursive understanding), literature of
power (to move, appeals to higher understanding,
to make you feel something)

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 Types of Literature

Non-Fiction Fiction
True stories which are based on Telling of stories which are not
facts (essays, journals, diaires, real (short stories, novels,
biographies) tragedy, horror)

Prose Poetry
Resembles everyday speech Mostly has meter or rhyme
(non-poetic) (verse)

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 What is Literature?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Karl Marx

Coined the term Weltliteratur Bourgeouis literary
(world literature) due to the production (cosmopolitan
growing availability of literary character) Communist
texts from other nations in Manifesto in 1827
1827.

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 2.
EARLIEST
LITERATURE
Invention of Writing
 Earliest Literature

Oral Tradition Pictographs

Stories and songs were The sign for an object was
transmitted orally before the written to resemble the objest
invention of writing. itself (hieroglyph, cuneiform).
Writing was not invented for Cuneiform were used to
preserving stories/songs but record complicated historical
for political and legal events.
information.

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GILGAMESH
2,000 BC (first great heroic
narrative) – first written in
cuneiform then translated into
the new alphabets (Mesopotamia)

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 Earliest Literature

➢ Religious literature – Hebrews (first religion where there

was only one omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect
God
￫ They only had consonants in their alphabet and it was
the Greeks that added vowels
￫ Created the canonical version of the Pentateuch (the
first five books of the Bible)
￫ Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

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 3.
INDIAN
LITERATURE
Heroic Age
 Indian Literature – Heroic Age

Billion People Vedas

Ethnic, religious, and linguistic Primary scriptures of Hinduism
diversity gave rise to an oral and consists of 4 books of sacred
literary tradition that evolved hymns normally chanted by
over 3,500 years priests (divine revelations)

Upanishads Dharma
Philosophical meditations Guiding principle of human
conduct
The soul is a manifestation of a
single divine essence Three spheres: artha, kama,
moksha
One must understand the unity of
the self and the universe Caste system

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RAMAYANA
One of the great Indian epics
Thought to be based on historial
events

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MAHABHARATA
One of the great Indian epics
Thought to be based on historial
events

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 Indian Literature – Heroic Age

Karma Buddhism
All beings are responsible for More egalitarian and populist
their own actions and their own religion
suffering.
Gained a following among
All actions have consequences. women, artisans, and merchants

Hinduism Emperor Ashoka

Able to triumph in India because Moral and spiritual conquest is
of the Bhagavad-Gita superior to the conquest by the
sword
They believed in the triad of
gods: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

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 4.
INDIAN
LITERATURE
Classical Age
 Indian Literature – Heroic Age

Guptas Sanskrit
Great achievements were made Means, “redefined, classic,
in mathematics, logic, perfected”
astronomy, literature, and fine
Deals with courtly culture and
arts life

Kavya Literature Muktata

Court epic, short lyric, narrative, One of the most perfected forms
and drama of Classical Sanskrit poetry

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 Indian Literature – Classical Age

➢ Two important collection of tales:

￫ Pañcatantra – collection of animal fables
￫ Kathasaritsagara – uses satire and fable to
critique aspects of Indian society

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 Indian Literature – Classical Age

Women Kavya Tradition

Rarely portrayed as one- Concerned with universal
dimensional characters. ideals.
They are portrayed as Heroes and heroines
complex human beings; they represent “universal” types.
are not always victims of They must possess the
circumstance. characteristics of a nagaraka
or a cultivated person.

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 5.
ISLAMIC
LITERATURE
The Rise of Islam
 Islamic Literature

Muhammad Koran Islamic Civilization

Received God’s first Forbids coercion so Ruled by a succession of
revelations around 610 Muslim leaders were caliphs drawn from the
His followers later tolerant of other prophet’s family
collected them into the religions Divided during the 10th
Koran which became the Made to be recited century: Muhammed’s
basis for Islam Literally the word of god bloodlines (shi’ites) and
so Muslims do not his clan, the Quraysh
accept the Koran in (sunnis)
translation from Arabic

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 Islamic Literature

Arabic Baghdad
Became the lingua franca for The center of translation
the Muslim world Thousand and One Nights
was excluded from the
classical canon of Arabic
Literature because of the
Koranic intolerance of fiction

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THOUSAND
AND ONE
NIGHTS
Was excluded from the classical
canon of Arabic Literature
because of the Koranic
intolerance of fiction

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 8.
ANCIENT GREECE
Formation of the Western Mind
 Ancient Greece - Formation

➢ Ancient Greeks or Hellenes

￫ The Minoan civilization flourished on the island of
Crete
￫ The great places were destroyed by fires and written
literature vanished (Dark Age of Greek Literature)
￫ Most of what we know are because of oral tradition and
these are the raw materials for Homer’s epic poems, the
Iliad and Odyssey

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ILIAD
Played an important role in the
development of Greek civilization
No mention of Home’s identity in
the poem except for his name

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ODYSSEY
Played an important role in the
development of Greek civilization
No mention of Home’s identity in
the poem except for his name

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 9.
THE ROMAN
EMPIRE
Rise of an Empire
 The Roman Empire

Rome The Fall Latin literature

Military victories in The concept of world- Began with a translation
North Africa, Spain, state was appropriated of the Greek Odyssey
Greece, and Asia Minor by the medieval Church Borrowing of Greek
This gave rise to the The Christian Church sources by Roman
importation of slaves helped to preserve much writers
and creation of poor of the Latin and Greek
urbanities literature

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AENID
Written by Virgil

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 The Roman Empire - Rise

Catullus Ovid Petronius

Wrote 116 poems on Focused on themes of Satyricon (satirical work
imitation of Greek poets the lives of the Roman about the pragmatism
Lyric poem he wrote urban elite and materialism of the
about his love affair with Extraordinary subtlety Roman Empire)
a married women named and psychological depth Dinner with Trialmacho-
Lesbia Erotic poetry, the Art of they discuss about death
Love, and the and he asks for a
Metamorphoses (Anti- preemptive funeral
Aenid) practice

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 10.
WESTERN
LITERATURE
The Formation
 Western Literature

Middle Ages Medieval Europe

Emergence of consensual Known as the busy millenium
government, recognition of Literature concerned with
religious difference, and religious faith and
individualism appropriate use of physical
National literature in the force
vernacular appeared Due to disparate differences,
their literature is diverse

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BEOWULF
Composed around 850 (Anglo-
Saxon poem
Emerged from oral tradition and
explored heroism and violence

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SONG OF
ROLAND
Set the foundation for the French
literary tradition
Established the narrative about
the foundation of France itselfw

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LAIS
Written by Marie de France, the
first woman writer in France
Established the major themes for
romances

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THORSTEIN
THE STAFF-
STRUCK
An Icelandic saga tradition

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DIVINE
COMEDY
Composed of Inferno, Purgatorio,
Paradiso, written by Dante
Alighieri
Written in terza rima (original)

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 Western Literature

➢ Divine Comedy – Virgil serves as Dante’s guide throughout

Inferno and Purgatorio
￫ Canto 1: Dante gets lost in the Dark Woods of Error. He
tries to climb up the mountain of Joy but he is stopped
by Three Beasts of Worldliness: The Leopard of Malice
and Fraud, The Lion of Violence and Ambition, The She-
Wolf of Incontinence. Virgil appears and chases him
away. He then leads Dante through Hell.

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 Nine Circles of Hell

➢ Circle I: Limbo
➢ Circle II: Lust
➢ Circle III: Gluttony
➢ Circle IV: Greed
➢ Circle V: Wrath
➢ Circle VI: Heresy
➢ Circle VII: Violence
➢ Circle VIII: Fraud
➢ Circle IX: Treachery

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