Lit 2 Literature 2

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Lit-2 - Literature 2
English Language Teaching (University of the Visayas)
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Readings on World’s Literary Masterpieces
UNIT I AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE
Module 1
DEFINITION AND TYPES OF LITERATURE
Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Comprehend the various meaning of literature.
2. Differentiate the types of literature.
Definition of Literature
• Literature (origin of term litera which means Ietter) deals with ideas, thoughts and
emotions of man thus it can be said the literature is the story of man (Kahayon,
1998, p.5-7); Literature comes from the French phrase “belles-letters” which means
beautiful writing (Baritugo, et. al., 2004).
• Literature in its broadest sense, is everything that has ever been written,
• The best way to understand human nature fully and to know a nation completely is
to study literature. (Garcia, e.t al., 1993)
• Through literature, we learn the innermost feelings and thoughts of people the—
most real part of themselves, thus we gain an understanding not only of others, but
more importantly, of ourselves and of life itself (Garcia, et. al., 1993).
• Literature offers us an experience in which we should participate as we read and

test what we read by our own experience.
• Literature does not yield much unless we bring something of ourselves to it.
• Literature is a faithful production of life... in a sense it is a product and a

commentary on life process.
• Literature illuminates life.
• Literature is our life’s story including its struggles, ideas, failures, sacrifices and
happiness (Ang, 2006).

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• Literature appeals to man’s higher nature and its needs emotional, spiritual,
intellectual, and creative. Like all other forms of art, literature entertains and gives
pleasure; it fires the imagination and arouses noble emotions and it enriches man
by enabling him to reflect on life and by filling him with new ideas (Garcia, et al,
1993).
• Literature is one of the seven arts (i.e., music, dance, painting, sculpture, theatre
and architecture) and as such, literature is a creative product of a creative work, the
result of which is form and beauty. (Nuggets, 2004)
• Why do people read literature? For information, for amusement, for higher and
keener pleasure, for cultural upliftment and for discovery of broader dimensions in
life (Nuggets, 2004).
• The ability to judge of literature is based on the application of certain recognizable

standards of good literature. Great literature is distinguishable of the following
qualities (Garcia, 1993)
- Artistry (quality which appeals to our sense of beauty.)

- Intellectual Value (A literary work stimulates thought enriches our mental life by
making us realize fundamental truths about life and human nature)
- Suggestiveness (This is the quality associated with the emotional power of
literature, such that it should move us deeply and stir our creative imagination,
giving and evoking vision above and beyond the plane of ordinary life and
experience.)
- Spiritual Value (A good literature elevates the spirit by bringing out moral values
which makes us better persons this capacity to inspire is part of the spiritual value of
literature.
- Permanence (A great work of literature endures it can be read again and again as
each reading gives fresh delight and new insights and open new worlds of meaning
and experience.)
- Universality (Great literature is timeless and timely forever relevant in terms of its
theme and conditions.)
• A literary text can be studied in several ways: (Garcia, 1993)
-for its thematic value, for entertainment value, for the richness of its plot. for
comparison with other works, for the ideas it contains, for its emotional power, for
character analysis, as an appeal to move readers to action, for social reforms, for its
representations of literary movements and techniques, for the author’s unique use
of language (style) and most importantly for its reflection of life itself

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• All literature falls under two main divisions: (Nuggets, 2004)
PROSE POETRY
Form Written in paragraph form Written in stanza or verse form
Language Expressed in ordinary language Expressed in metrical,
rhythmical and figurative
language
Appeal To the intellect To the emotion
Aim To convince, inform, instruct, Stir the imagination and set an
imitate and reflect ideal of how life should be
Prose
1. Prose Drama - a drama in prose form. It consists entirely of dialogues in prose,
and is meant to be acted on stage.
2. Essay – a short literary composition which is expository in nature. The author

shares some of his thoughts, feelings, experiences or observations on some
aspects of life that have interested him. Example: Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s
“Where is the Patis?”
3. Prose Fiction (something invented, imagined or feigned to be true)
a. Novel – a long fictitious narrative with a complicated plot. lt may have a

main plot and one or more sub-plots that develop with the main plot.
Characters and actions representative of the real life of past or present
times are portrayed in a plot. It is made up of chapters. Example: Without
Seeing The Dawn by Stevan Javellana.
b. Short Story – A fictitious narrative compressed into one unit of time, place
and action. It deals with a single character interest, a single emotion or
series of emotions called forth by a single situation It 1s distinguished from
the novel by its compression. Example: Dead Stars by Paz, Marquez
Benitez.
4. Biography and Autobiography
Biography – a story of a certain person's life written Ly another who knows him
(the former) well. Example: Cayetano Arellano by Socorro O. Alberto
Autobiography – a written account of man’s life written by himself. Example: A
Woman with No Face by Ms. Pilar Pilapil.

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5. Letter – a written message which displays aspects of an author’s psychological

make-up not immediately apparent in his more public writings. It is a prose form
which by the force of its style and the importance of its statement becomes an
object of interest in its own right.
6. Diary – a daily written record or account of the writer’s own experience, thoughts,
activities or observations.
7. Journal – a magazine or periodical especially of a serious a. learned nature.
8. Other Prose Forms:
• Historical Prose – a prose from dealing with historical events.

• Scientific Prose – a prose form that deals with the subject science.
• Satirical Prose – a prose form that ridicules the vices and follies of men.
• Current Publications – books, magazines or newspapers that are
commonly known or accepted or in general usage at the time specified or,
if unspecified, at the present time.
• Literary Criticism – the analysis, interpretation and evaluation of literary
works; it does not mean “finding fault with”.
• Book Review – an article dealing with the contents, literary worth, etc. of a
book especially a recently published book.
• Philosophy – a prose form that deals with the processes governing
thought and conduct. It also deals with the theory of the investigation of
the principles or laws that regulate the universe and underlie all knowledge
and principles or laws that regulate the universe and underlie all
knowledge and reality.
• Travel – A written account of trips, journeys, tours, etc. taken by the writer.
• Parody – an imitation of another author’s work, where ridicule is the main
objective.
• Anecdote – a brief narrative concerning a particular individual or incident.
Example: The Moth and The Lamp
• Character Sketch – a short description of the qualities and traits of a
person.
• Parable – a short tale that illustrates principle, usually by setting forth the
application of the principle to something familiar to the hearer or reader.
• Pamphlet – a small book of topic of current interest.
• Eulogy – writing in praise of a dead person, event or thing.
• Speech – the general word for a discourse delivered to an audience
whether prepared or impromptu.

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a. Address – implies a formal, carefully prepared speech and usually

attributes importance to the speaker or the speech
b. Oration – suggests an eloquent, rhetorical sometimes merely
bombastic speech, especially one delivered on some special
occasion.
c. Lecture – a carefully prepared speech intended to inform or
instruct the audience.
d. Talk – suggests informality and is applied either to an impromptu
speech or to address or lecture in which the speaker deliberately
uses a simple conversational approach.
e. Sermon – a speech by a clergy man intended to give religious or
moral instruction and usually based on Scriptural text.
Literary Genres
a. Fiction b. Poetry c. Essay d. Drama
Fiction
a. is an imaginative recreation and re-creation of life.
b. includes short stories and novels.
c. Short story – often referred to as a “slice of life” is a fictitious narrative

compressed into one unit of time, place and action; it deals with a single
character interest, single emotion called forth by a single situation. (Example:
“Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez)
d. Novel is a fictitious narrative with a complicated plot: it may have a main plot and
one or more sub-plots that develop with the main plot; characters and actions
representative of the real life of past or present times are portrayed in a plot; it is
made up of chapters. (Example: “Dogeaters” byJessica Hagedorn)
• The novel and short story differ from each other only in length and complexity;
the novel is longer because of several complications and twists to its plot.
• Even though fiction is a make-believe world, the literary characters seem

almost real and the situations are likewise similar to real life conditions and
surroundings. (PNU Teachers Guide , 2002)
• More often than not, people see themselves in the characters or relate them to
real-life people they know. (PNU Teachers Guide , 2002)
Elements of Fiction

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1. Characters are the representation of a human being; persons involved in a conflict.

Five Ways of Revealing Literary Characters:
• What the character do along with the circumstances in which they do it? ©
How the characters are described?
• What the characters say and think?
• What other characters say about them?
• What the author says about them?
Types of Characters
a. Round Character
• Is a dynamic character the recognize changes in the circumstances.
• Is a fully develop character, with many traits had and good shown in the story.
b. Flat Character
• Also known as the stock or the stereotype character that does not grow and
develop.
• A flat character is not fully developed.
Others
1. Protagonist – hero/heroine
2. Antagonist – a foil to the protagonist
3. Deuteroganist – second in importance
4. Fringe – one who is destroyed by his inner conflict
5. Typical or minor characters
2. Setting – the locale (place) or period (time) in which the action of a short story, play,
novel or the motion picture takes place (also known as the background of the story);
local color described as local scenery, the writer uses words, mentions things in the
native language, gives names to character's Iines to create a vivid picture of a native
place.
3. Conflict – the struggle or complication involving the characters, the opposition i
persons or forces upon which the action depends in drama or fiction [There is conflict if
there is a struggle which grows out of the interplay of opposing, forces (idea/interest)).
Types of Conflict

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• Internal Conflict – occurs when the protagonist struggles within himself or

herself; the protagonist is pulled by two courses of action or by differing
emotions.
• Interpersonal Conflict – pits the protagonist against someone else; person-

against-person.
• External Conflict – happens when the protagonist is in conflict with the values of
his or her society.
4. Plot – a causally related sequence of events; what happens as a result of the main
conflict is presented in a structure format; the sequence of events which involves the
character in conflict (Beginning, Middle, Ending)
• Narrative Order – the sequence of events is called the narrative order.
• Chronological – the most common type of narrative order in children books.
• Flashback – occurs when the author narrates an event that took place before
the current time of the story.
• Time lapse – occurs when the story skips a period of time that seems unusual
compared to the rest of the plot.
PYRAMIDAL STRUCTURE OF A PLOT

Climax
Complication Denouement
Exposition Resolution
a. Exposition (beginning) introduces the time, place, setting and the main
characters.
b. Complication (rising action) unfolds the problems and struggles that would be
encountered by the main characters leading to the crisis.
c. Climax (result of the crisis) part where the problem or the conflict is the highest
peak of interest; the highest point of the story for the reader, frequently, is the
highest moment of interest and greatest emotion; also known as the crisis or the
point of no return.
d. Denouement is the untying of the entangled knots, or the part that shows a
conflict or a problem is solved, leading to its downwards movement or end.
e. Resolution (end) contains the last statements about the story.

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Qualities of the Plot

a. Exciting – It should be more exciting than the everyday reality that surrounds
us.
b. Good Structure – The episodes must be arranged effectively, but the most
important element of plot structure is tying all the incidents together, so that
one leads naturally to another.
Plot Devices
a. Flashback – something out of chronological order; to reveal information,
to understand a character's nature.
b. Foreshadowing – a device to give a sign of something, to come; its
purpose is to create suspense, to keep the readers guessing what will
happen when.
c. Suspense – this is the feeling of excitement or tension in the reader's
experiences as the action of the plot unfolds.
d. Surprise Ending – this is an ending that catches the reader off guard with
an unexpected turn of events.
e. In Media Res – the technique of beginning a story in the middle of the
action, with background information given later in flashbacks.
5. Point of View – the writer's feeling and attitude toward his subject; determines who
tells the story, it identifies the narrator of the story (the form of narration also affects the
story itself).
Classification (Point of View)

a. First Person – the writer uses the pronoun “I”. He/she could be a participant or a
character in his own work; the narrator may be the protagonist, an observer, a
minor character, or the writer himself/herself.
b. Third Person – the writer-narrator is a character in the story. He/she narrates

the based on what he observed /his opinion. On the other hand, a limited third
person is an outsider/observer who is not part of the story.
c. Omniscient – the writer-narrator sees all; he can see into the minds of
characters and even report everyone’s innermost thoughts.
Name Characteristic Pronouns

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First person Speaker part of the story, can I, me, mine, we, us our(s)
observe characters, but reveals
feelings and reactions only of self
He, him, his she, her(s),

Third Person Story told only as one character can they, them, theirs
Limited Third observe, Narrator not part of the
Person story, cannot ready any character’s He, him, his she, her(s),
mind they, them, theirs
Omniscient Narrator/author knows all and sees He, him, his she, her(s),
all they, them, theirs
6. Mood – the atmosphere or emotional effect generated by the words, images,

situations in a Literary work (the emotional ambience of the work), for example,
melancholy, joyous, tense, oppressive and so on.
7. Tone – a term used, sometimes broadly, to denote an attitude of feeling of the
speaker or author as conveyed by the language in its artful arrangement (for example,
ironic, pensive, sly, acerbic, humorous); it describes the attitude of the narrator or
persona of the work whereas MOOD refers to the emotional impact felt by the reader of
the work. Although often similar, these feelings are necessarily the same. .
8. Symbolisms – stand for something other than themselves, they bring to mind not
their own concrete qualities, but the idea or obstruction that is associated with them.
9. Images are usually characterized by concrete qualities rather than abstract meaning:
these appeal to the senses of taste, smell, feel, sound, or sight.
10. Theme the central or dominating idea in a literary work; it is the topic or subject of
the selection, which is sometimes stated by a character or by the writer himself, but
oftentimes, it is merely implied or suggested. (Note: The theme is not some familiar
saying or moral lesson).
Poetry
Poetry is derived from a Greek word poesis meaning “making or creating.”
Poetry is a kind of language that says it more intensely than ordinary language
does. Apparently, we have to remember five things about poetry. (Baritugo,
2004, p.1)
1. Poetry is a concentrated thought.
2. Poetry is a kind of word-music.

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3. Poetry expresses all the senses.

4. Poetry answers our demand for rhythm.
5. Poetry is observation plus imagination. Poetry is as varied as the nature of man-
unique in son:e sense along with man’s eccentricities, yet clings if appreciated or
if deeply imbibed by the reader. (Aguilar, 1997, p.1)
Some of the Best Definitions of Poetry:

1. Gemino Abad contends that “A poem is a meaningful organization of words.”
2. T.S. Eliot categorized poetry as “The fusion of two poles of mind, emotion and
thought.”
3. Manuel Viray states that “Poetry is the union of thoughts and feelings.”
4. William Wadsworth says, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings recorded in tranquility.”
5. Edgar Allan Poe thinks, “It is the rhythmic creation of beauty.”
6. Percy B. Shelly states, “It is the record of the best and happiest moments of the
happiest and best minds.”
7. Jaime G. Ang posits, “Poetry is the ‘essence’ of the creative imagination of man.”
Elements of Poetry
1. Sense – is revealed through the meaning of words, images and symbols.
a. diction – denotative and connotative meanings/ symbol:
b. images and sense impression – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, motion, and
emotion.
c. figure of speech – simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy,
synecdoche, hyperbole, irony, allusion, antithesis, paradox, litotes, oxymoron,
onomatopoeia.
2. Sound is the result of a combination of elements. '

a. tone color – alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, repetition, anaphora.
b. rhythm – ordered recurrent alteration of strong and weak elements in the flow of
the sound and silence: duple, triple, running or common rhyme.
c. meter – stress, duration, or number of syllables per line, fixed metrical pattern, or
a verse form: quantitative, syllabic, accentual and accentual syllabic.
d. rhyme scheme – formal arrangement of rhymes in stanza or the whole poem.
3. Structure refers to (1) arrangement of words, and lines to fit together, and (2) the
organization of the parts to form a whole.

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a. word order – natural and unnatural arrangement of words

b. ellipsis – omitting some words for economy and effect
c. punctuation – abundance or lack of punctuation marks
d. shape – contextual and visual designs: jumps, omission of spaces, capitalization,
lower case.
Types of Poetry
1. Narrative Poetry
a. Epic – a long narrative poem of the largest proportions. A tale centering about a
hero concerning the beginning, continuance, and the end of events of great
significance ~ war, conquest, strife among men who are in such a Position that
their struggles take on tribal or national significance. Example: BIAG-Ni-Lam-Ang
by Pedro Bukaneg
b. Metrical Romance – a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure, love and
chivalry. The typical hero is a knight on a quest.
c. Metrical Tale – narrative poem consisting usually of a single series of connective
events that are simple idylls or home tales, love tales, tales of the supernatural or
tales written for a strong moral purpose in verse form
d. Ballad – the simplest type of narrative poetry. It is a short narrative poem telling
a single incident in simple meter and stanzas. It is intended to be sung.
e. Popular Ballad – a ballad of wide workmanship telling some simple incidents of
adventure, cruelty, passion, or superstition, an incident that shows the primary
instincts of man influenced by the restraint of modern civilization.
f. Modern or Artistic – created by a poet imitation of the folk ballad, makes use
(sometimes with considerable freedom) of many of its devices and conventions.
g. Metrical Allegory – an extended narrative that carries a second meaning along
with the surface story Things and actions are symbolic
2. Lyric Poetry
a. Ode – a lyric poem of some length serious in subject and dignified in style It is
the most majestic of the lyric poems. It is written in a spirit of praise of some
persons or things. Example: Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind”
b. Elegy – a poem written on the death of a friend of the poet. The ostensible
purpose is to praise the friend, but the death prompts the writer to ask, “If death
can intervene, so cruelly in life, what is the point of living?” By the end of the
poem, however, we can expect that poet will have come to terms Example: The
Lover's Death by Ricardo Demetillo

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c. Song – a lyric poem in a regular metrical pattern set to music. These have twelve
syllables (dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the accompaniment of a guitar or
banduria. Example: Florante at Laura by Franciso Balagtas
d. Corridos (kuridos) – these have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and

recited to a material beat. Example: Ibong Adarna by Jose Dela Cruz (Huseng
Sisiw)
e. Sonnet – a lyric poem containing fourteen iambic lines, and a complicated

rhyme. Example: Santang Abad by Alfonso P. Santos
Literary Devices in Poetry

1. Figures of Speech
• Simile consists of comparing two things using the words like or as.
Example: Your face is as big as a seed, ‘

But you do not bar fruit...
(Lines from A Secret by Carlos Bulosan)
• Metaphor uses direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas.

Example: Dear Lard:
Let thou be the street-cleaner
Whilst I be the read
(Prayer by NVM Gonzales)
• Personification gives human traits to inanimate objects or ideas.

Example: The bullet said to the heart:
From now on we shall never part
(Lines from Communion by Gerson M. Mallillin)
• Apostrophe is a direct address to someone absent, dead, or inanimate.

Example: Little sampaguita
With the wandering eye
Did a tiny fairy
Drop you where you lie?
(Lines from The Sampaguita by Natividad Marquez)
• Metonymy substitutes a word that closely relates te a person or a thing.

Examples: 1. The pen is mightier than the sword.
2. He lives through the bottle.

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3. I have read all of Shakespeare.

4. By the sweat of our brow, you will earn your food.
• Synecdoche uses a part to represent the whole.

Examples: No busy hand provoke a tear.
No roving foot shall crush thee here.
• Hyberbole makes use of exaggeration.

Example: I know not what to name thy charms,
Thou art half human, half divine;
And if I could hold thee in my arms,
I know both heaven and earth were mine.
(Lines from The Rural Maid by Fernando M. Maramang)
• Irony says the opposite of what is meant.

Example: If all these men whose heads are with the stars,
Who dream unceasingly of blazing royalty,
Will only strive to be like you.
A dweller of the sod with the heart of loyalty!
(Lines from To A Dog by Florizel Diaz)
• Allusion refers to any Iiterary, biblical, historical, mythological, scientific event,

character or place.
Example: The pendulum
Is a thing of thread
To nervous persons like me
It reminds one of swaying Iscariot—
Suspended from a tree.
(Lines from After Palanan by Rene A. Iturralde)
• Antithesis involves a contrast of words or ideas.

Example: 1. “Love is so short.... Forgetting is so long.”
2. “You may be through it, the past but the past isn't through with
you."
3. Man proposes, God disposes. They promised freedom and
provided slavery.
• Paradox uses a phrase or statement that on surface seems contradictor, but

makes some kind of emotional sense.
Example: My dear, canst thou resolve for me
This paradox of love concerning thee
Mine eyes, when opened, with thy beauty fill

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But when they’re closed they see thee better still,

(Lines from Paradox By A.E. Litiatco)
• Litotes makes a deliberate understatement used to affirm by negating its

opposite.
Example: War is not healthy for children
And other living things
• Oxymoron puts together in one statement two conhad ictory terms.

Examples: 1. resident alien
2. silent scream
3. living dead
4. clearly misunderstood
5. butt head
• Onomatopoeia the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, but the term
is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its
meaning whether by imitation or through cultural inference.
Examples: 1. Whisper
2. Buzz
3. Boon
4. Bang
5. Crackle
Essay
• Is a prose composition of moderate length usually expository in nature, which
aims to explain or clear up an idea, a theory, an expression, or point of view.
• Is the most popular form of literature.
• Is any written text that is not a poem, is not a novel and is not a drama.
Elements of Essay
1. Theme and Content – what is the main point of the essay??
• Trivial, common place, unusual, controversial
• Appraise, criticize, expand, comment, lament, celebrate
• Human nature, social conditions, manners, politics, attitudes, art
• Creating a single impression or producing a single effect with the work
• Present ideas, describe events, interpret experiences
2. Form and Structure – how are ideas ordered to achieve a single effect?

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• Unity, of expression, coherence and cohesion

• Orderly, systemic, logical manner.
• Three basic parts: introduction, main body, conclusion
• Two major patterns: inductive and deductive
• Expository devices: definition, description, narration, analogy
3. Language and Style – what makes the essay literary?

• Mode or tone, attitude, sensibility of the essayist
• Whimsical, humorous, matter-of-fact, satirical, serious, optimistic
• Diction choice of topics, personal bias of attitude
Types of Essays (PNU Teacher's Guide, 2002)

There are two general types of essays:
1. Formal or Impersonal Essay – deals with serious and important tops like
philosophy, theology, science and politics. It has an authoritative and scholarly style and
shows the writer's masterful grasp of the topic. Its formal tone echoes a detached,
objective, clear straight forward expression. Mainly, its purpose, its purpose is to teach
and instruct.
2. Informal or Familiar Essay – covers the light, ordinary, even common place
subjects through a bubbling, casual, conversational, friendly, often, humorous but
equally insightful, stance as the formal essay. The familiar essay appeals more to the
emotion than to intellect, touching the sensitivity first, then the mind. Often, the
personality of the author is revealed through a fluid style and light treatment of the topic.
The modern essay was derived from the combination of these two general types.
A number of specific types such as the following:
a. Reflective – serious in tune and dignified in style, this type is mainly aphoristic its
short and sharp “quotable quotes” or choice maxims cut deep into memory like a
proverb or an adage. The subject matter spurs thinking and rouses keen
observation.
b. Narrative – uses an accident or event, not for the sake of the story but to shape
the theme. Narration is often used more to make the idea clear and endearing
than to present a plodding plot.
c. Descriptive – adds vividness, reality and animation to the narrative essay.
d. Speculative – theories or poses some questions in an interesting subject or it
may just ramble along aimlessly, merely speculating and prying into some
problems.

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e. Biographical – portrays characters or sketches of life, not simply chronicling. It

is analytical and interpretative, depending upon which side of the character or
individual is emphasized. This is also known as character essay.
f. Nature – aims to picture the world of trees, flowers, birds, mountains, animal,
and plants. It may either be pictorial or reflective or both depending upon the
mood and aim of the writer. It always possesses the human touch and
sensitiveness to the beauty of the outdoor life.
g. Critical – includes biography, literary criticism, hook reviews and other prow
compositions that aim at analytical judgement upon Iiterature.
h. Didactic – enforces a moral lesson. It is serious and has the tone of a teacher
explaining or trying to convince. It does away with moods and fancies but
concentrates wholly on driving a lesson.
i. Scientific – contains excellent logic, clarity of expression and organized
presentation of the sequence of ideas. It is purely expository in nature, objective
in method, a system that practically leaves no room for the exposition of the
writer's personality.
The Drama
• Comes from the Greek word “dran” which means to do.
• Like fiction, it is the art of make-believe, it consists in part of acting out events
that happened or that are imagined happening.
• Aristotle defines drama as “the imitation of an action ”
• Drama imitates life.
• Drama is not the same as play production, drama is the literary text, when
performed, it is called a play.
Kinds of Theater
1. Arena is the theatre style of early Greeks. The actors aim surrounded on all
sides by the audience and they make exits and entrances though the aisles. This
type of arrangement brings the audience into a special kind of intimacy.
2. Medieval is the theatre which uses playing areas called mansions inside the
churches and portable wagons wheeled about outside the churches. In some
performances, the actors came into the audience, breaking the sense of distance
or the illusion of separation. Their drama was integrated with their religion and
both helped them express their sense of belonging to the church and the
community.
3. Elizabeth is the theatre which was a wooden structure providing an enclosed

space around a country open sky. The enclosed strutting penetrated intimacy

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and involvement between actors and audience. Actors were in the habit of
speaking directly to members of the audience, and the audience rarely kept polite
silence.
4. Proscenium was the stage of the nineteenth century. This type of stage
distances the audience from the play, providing a clear frame behind which the
performances act out their scenes. The audience is a silent observer witnessing
an action, while the actors are in the world of their own, unaware of the
audience's presence.
5. Theatre of Cruelty was developed in France. This type of theatre closes the gap
between the actor and audiences. Its purpose was to confront the members of
the audience individually to make them feel uncomfortable and force them to deal
with the primary issues of the drama itself.
6. Dialogue – the speeches that the characters use to advance the action. Since
there is no description or commentary on the action, as there is in fiction, the
dialogue must tell the whole story. A highly effective dialogue reveals the
characters, unfolds the action and introduces the themes of the play.
• Soliloquy – a speech in which an actor, usually alone on the stage, utters his
or her thoughts aloud, revealing personal feelings.
• Aside – a short speech made by a character to the audience which, by
convention, the other characters onstage cannot hear.
7. Movement – in, Greek tragedies, the chorus danced in a ritualistic fashion from
one side of the stage to the other. Their movement was keyed to the structure of
their speeches. In reading a play, the stage directions give information as to
where the characters are, when they mu, and perhaps even the significance of
their movement. The stage directions enhance the actor's interpretations of the
character's action.
8. Music – is an occasional dramatic element in a play. This may either be sung
live by the characters or provided as background during the performance.
9. Theme – is the message, the central action, or what the play is about. Many
plays contain several rather than just a single theme.

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12 Literary Compositions that Influenced the World

There are many angles that can be pursued when
thinking about the Bible as literature, but two bedrock
questions underlie any discussion of the subject. Those two
questions are why we should read the Bible as literature
and how we should read it. These are the two questions
that I have set before me in this article.
The first reason to read the Bible as literature is that it is a work of literature.
Because the primary sphere in which the Bible has been read through the ages is the
religious sphere, it is easy to be misled into thinking that the Bible is a piece of doctrinal
exposition. This is a misconception. The form in which the Bible comes to us is primarily
(though not completely) a literary book.
According to conventional Islamic belief, the
Qurʾān was revealed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet
Muhammad in the West Arabian towns Mecca and
Medina beginning in 610 and ending with Muhammad’s
death in 632 CE.
The Iliad tells the final chapter in the story of two

major Bronze Age “Greek” alliances battling each other.
It ends when the Achaeans (people mainly from what we
now call Greece) sack Troy/Ilium (located in modern day
Turkey). It's a long, meandering epic, but it primarily
revolves around the "godlike Achilles'" struggle to
confront his hubris and become humanized.
The Odyssey, in contrast, mainly takes place outside of that common culture and
describes contact with pre-Mycenaean Mediterranean cultures. The story focuses on
Odysseus and his family's struggle to recover from the Trojan war's after effects and,
primarily, with Odysseus struggle to make it back home. So The Iliad describes the
clash between two equally brilliant and beautiful groups of “Greeks”, and The Odyssey
describes contact with the “Other”, represented as monsters and witches.

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The Mahabharata is an ancient Indian epic where

the main story revolves around two branches of a family
- the Pandavas and Kauravas - who, in the Kurukshetra
War, battle for the throne of Hastinapura. Interwoven
into this narrative are several smaller stories about
people dead or living, and philosophical discourses.
Krishna-Dwaipayan Vyasa, himself a character in the
epic, composed it; as, according to tradition, he dictated the verses and Ganesha wrote
them down.
The Canterbury Tales consists of the General
Prologue, The Knight’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, The
Reeve’s Tale, The Cook’s Tale, The Man of Law’s Tale,
The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, The
Summoner’s Tale, The Clerk’s Tale, The Merchant’s
Tale, The Squire’s Tale, The Franklin’s Tale, The
Second Nun’s Tale, The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, The
Physician’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Shipman’s Tale, The Prioress’s Tale, The
Tale of Sir Thopas, The Tale of Melibeus (in prose), The Monk’s Tale, The Nun’s
Priest’s Tale, The Manciple’s Tale, and The Parson’s Tale (in prose), and ends with
“Chaucer’s Retraction.” Not all the tales are complete; several contain their own
prologues or epilogues.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) published
more than 30 books, but it was her best-selling anti-
slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin that catapulted her to
international celebrity and secured her place in history.
In 1851, Stowe offered the publisher of the
abolitionist newspaper The National Era a piece that
would “paint a word picture of slavery.” Stowe expected to write three or four
installments, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin grew to more than 40.
At the age of thirty-five, on the night of Good
Friday in the year 1300, Dante finds himself lost in a
dark wood and full of fear. He sees a sun-drenched
mountain in the distance, and he tries to climb it, but
three beasts, a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf, stand in
his way. Dante is forced to return to the forest where
he meets the spirit of Virgil, who promises to lead him
on a journey through Hell so that he may be able to enter Paradise. Dante agrees to the
journey and follows Virgil through the gates of Hell.
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar was a Spanish knight born in the
year 1043, and he is the national hero of Spain. He is

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perhaps more widely known as “El Cid Campeador,” (El Cid meaning The Lord, or
Master, and Campeador meaning The Champion, an honorable title rarely given to a
man during his lifetime).
Once he became a knight, Rodrigo soon distinguished himself in such a manner
that he was appointed to be the commander of the Castilian army under King Sancho II.
Rodrigo proved himself in several battles in which the Castilian army was always
victorious under his capable leadership, and it was during this time that he earned the
title El Cid, as well as the honorific title of Campeador.
Historically, Charlemagne (742?-814), was king
of the Franks and a committed, militant Christian. A
loyal ally of the pope and a great conqueror, he forced
conversions as he expanded the boundaries of his
empire outward from his central territory, straddling
present-day France and Germany. In 800 he was
crowned emperor by the pope, legitimizing his rule over
the former Roman empire in western Europe. After his death, he became legendary; it is
this legendary Charlemagne, the most perfect Christian king, symbol of the spirit of the
Crusades, and favorite of heaven, who is presented in The Song of Roland as leader of
the Frankish troops and Roland's uncle and avenger. His name means literally, "Charles
the Great."
The Book of the Dead prevails in both popular
culture and current scholarship as one of the most
famous aspects of ancient Egyptian culture. This
funerary text provides some of the most vivid and
enduring images from the ancient world - there are few
who have not heard some version of the Book of the
Dead’s afterlife mythology. Familiar scenes - like a
scale weighing a heart of the deceased against a feather or the eternal destruction of a
soul by a deity composed of animal parts - originate from the Book of the Dead. With
such impressive narratives, it is clear why Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife are so
thoroughly ingrained in our collective memory.
Today is generally accepted to be the birthday
(551 BCE) of the Chinese philosopher known in
English as Confucius. Confucius is traditionally
credited with having written or edited numerous
Chinese classic texts, but modern scholars are
cautious about attributing specific works to Confucius
himself. Confucius’ stated principles have much in
common with Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty,
ancestor veneration, and respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their

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wives, recommending the family as a basis for ideal government. His teaching and
philosophy have influenced people around the world. If you wish you can skip down
below the biography which follows here and read about Confucian philosophy and its
application to cooking.
The primary story is about Shahryar and
Shahrazad. When Shahryar discovers that his queen at
the beginning of the tale is being unfaithful, he declares
that all women are the same and vows to take a new bride
each night and have her killed the next morning.
Aids to the Study of Literature

How to Read a Short Story
1. Read carefully. Your understanding of the story depends on what you can infer
as well as what is directly said.
2. Decide who is telling the story. Does the narrator take part in the action? Is the
narrator outside the story? If so, does he or she know everything or only a limited
amount?
3. Keep track of what happens and why it happens.
How to Read an Essay

1. Decide who is speaking. Is the piece written from the first person or the third
person point of view?
2. Determine the writer's attitude toward the subject. Is the writer admiring? Critical?
3. Make use of your own experience on the topic. What you know will help you
understand what you read. .
How to Read a Play

1. Picture the play being acted out. Pay special attention to the stage directions. ‘
2. Try to enter into the world of the play. Try to see, hear and feet the play in your
mind.
How to Read a Poem

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1. Read each poem aloud. Hearing the sounds of a poem makes the mean ng clear
and adds to your enjoyment.
2. Read the poem slowly, carefully and attentively. A poem should not be read
cursorily. Some poems may be understood at first reading but must have to be
read several times for deeper understanding and appreciation.
3. Identify the speaker. Does the speaker use I and me or remain a general voice
speaking to the reader?
4. Take time to imagine, to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell what the poet is
describing
5. Give each poem a chance. Remember that each poem has something to give, if
you want to take it.
Reading and Interpreting the Literary Text

Ways of Looking at Literature
The Triangle Approach

Literary Work
Writer Reader
Critical Perspective on Literature
ideas
characters
life Previous
THE WORK
Interpretation
structures
THE WRITER CONNECTIONS
Historical
culture Content
Artistic/literary
Culture
THE READER
life
Categories of Observation Kinds of Questions and Comments

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The Writer
The Writer’s life Who wrote this?

What kind of person was he or she?
How old was the writer when the poem was
written?
The Writer’s culture In what place and time was it written?

What was going on that time?
What events and ideas were important?
What was the world view?
Tthe Work
Structure, Techniques How many parts are there to this work?

How are they related?
What key words, images, figures of speech are
important?
Characters or Speaker Who is talking here? To whom?

What is their relationship like?
What motivates them?
What conflict do they have?
Ideas, Lessons, Philosophy What idea or lessons are expressed or implied

here?
What values?
What forces have determined these events?
What are we supposed to learn?
The Reader
Yourself as a Reader How does it make me feel?

What features of the work stand out?
What in me those features stand out?
What happens to me if I read this?
Your Culture What is the present world view in the place?

Where am I situated?
What events and ideas are important?
Connections
Historical Perspective Does this refer to historical events?

Is it about something or somebody in the past?

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Artistic/Literary Tradition What does this remind me of?

How is it related to other works, storylines,
characters, or myths?
Three Basic Approaches to Interpret Literature

1. Text – Oriented Approach A reader may analyze a work of literature as
complete in itself without relating it to the outside
world.
2. Author – Oriented Approach A reader may study an author’s life, time and culture
to better understand the author’s work. This approach
requires research.
3. Reader – Oriented Approach Each reader brings a unique set of experiences and
expectations to literature in tis extreme form.
Literary Appreciation
Literary Appreciation is a form of close reading that involves the analysis and
evaluation of a literary work. All literary works are inscribe in language, the readers must
have sufficient understanding of linguistic elements before they can make that
judgment.
Any literary text is a contrived utterance that addresses several levels of reality.
To communicate through this text, the writer and reader must put into operation certain
process that will make the text intelligible.
But the utterance, it must be remembered, is first of all, a linguistic construction,
fixed and specific, thus demanding of both writers and readers an expertise in language.
There are three levels of reality that the readers must consider:
1. First level – clears ways impediments to the comprehension of the work's
literalness, that is, human condition as articulated through proper language.
2. Second level – produces additional meanings when harmonized with the literal
elements.
3. Third level – compels the heart and mind to examine things in a newer manner.
How to “Read” a Literary Text

1. A text requires meaning only in the imagination of an actual reader, which is you,
with your experience, memories and dreams.
2. One of the ways you can read a text is to look at readings made by other people.
You can read reviews or critical accounts of the text. You can try to step away

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from yourself, and see how you are reading, you may even go a step further and
try to be sensitive to the role of language in the way you read.
3. A lot depends on why you are reading a text. If you are reading only to satisfy a
class requirement, you may want to look into the uses of power in the classroom.
You could look at the way certain texts working together exert power over all
other readers. You may even look at certain imperialist countries exert power
over postcolonial minds such as yours. If you are reading in order to gain
knowledge, you could look into how the text reveals this knowledge, how it
relates to the world that you live in, how it interacts with other texts in society.
4. You are not the first person to read a literary text. There have been many others
who have asked the kinds of questions you now ask of the text. Literary history is
the branch of knowledge that deals with these questions.
5. Everyone who reads a literary text necessarily adopts one of these theories even
without knowing it, It is like the difference between someone who plays the piano
by ear and someone who has taken music lessons; the former may appreciate a
musical piece, but the Later knows why musical piece is so appealing.
6. You can understand novel, a poem, oral play if you do not study literary theory,
but if you study literary theory or at least some aspects of literary criticism, you
will understand why you understand, bow you understand, and maybe even shat
you understand.

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Module 3
THE EARLY WRITERS OF GREECE
Objectives:
1. Identify the early writers of Greece and their literary pieces.
1. Explain the summary of the literary pieces from the early writers of Greece.
Introduction
Greek literature has influenced not only its Roman neighbours to the west but
also countless generations across the European continent. Greek writers introduced
such genres like poetry, tragedy, comedy and western philosophy to the world. The
Greeks were passionate people and this can be seen in their literature. They had a rich
history of both war and peace, leaving an indelible imprint on the culture and people.
Author and Historian Edith Hamilton believed that the spirit of life abounds
throughout Greek history. In her The Greek Way she wrote, “Greek literature done in
gray or with a low palette. It is all black and shining white or black and scarlet and gold.
The Greeks were keenly aware, terribly aware, of life’s uncertainty and the imminence
of death. Over and over again, they emphasize the brevity and the failure of human
endeavour, the swift passing of all that is beautiful and joyful. Joy and sorrow, exultation
and tragedy, stand hand in hand in Greek literature, but there is no contradiction
involved thereby.”
Homer (1000 B.C.)

The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between 12th and 8th centuries BC,
possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems The
Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but
very little are known about their alleged author.
Homer is thought to have been blind, based solely on a character in The
Odyssey, a blind poet or minstrel called Demodokos. A long disquisition on how
Demodokos was welcomed into a gathering and regaled the audience with music and
epic tales of conflict and heroes to much praise has been interpreted as Homer’s hint as
to what his own life was like. As a result, many busts and statues have been carved of
Homer with thick curly hair and beard and sightless eyes.
The early Greeks insisted that there was a single individual named homer, to
whom they ascribed The Iliad, The Odyssey, and several minor works called the
Homeric Hymns. However, around the third century B.C., the so-called Homeric

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Question was first propounded. Several of the grammarians of the time asserted that
the Iliad and the Odyssey were actually composed by two different writers. At various
times, later European critics supported this view.
Another school of thought, especially popular in the nineteenth century, claims
that Homer never lived, and that the two epics are the collective works of groups of
anonymous bards to whom the name Homer was later applied. These scholars suggest
that the two poems were constantly revised and added to whenever they were recited
and did not reach their present form until the 6th century B.C. when, in Athens, they
were written down for the first time.
Homer’s, whoever he is, style falls more in the category of minstrel poet or
balladeer, as opposed to a cultivated poet who is the product of a fervent literary
movement, such as a Virgil or a Shakespeare. The stories have repetitive elements,
almost like a chorus or refrain, which suggests a musical element. However, Homer’s
works are designated as epic rather than lyric poetry, which was originally recited with a
lyre in hand, much in the same vein as spoken-word performances.
The Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem by the ancient Greek poet Homer, which recounts
some of the significant events of the final weeks of the Trojan War and the Greek siege
of the city Troy (which was also known as Ilion, Ilios or Ilium in ancient times). Written in
the mid-8th Century BCE, The Iliad is usually considered to be the earliest work in the
whole Western literary tradition, and one of the best known and loved stories of all time.
Through its portrayal of the epic subject matter of the Trojan War, the stirring
scenes of bloody battle, the wrath of Achilles and the constant interventions of the gods,
it explores themes of glory, wrath, homecoming and fate, and has provided subjects and
stories for many other later Greek, Roman and Renaissance writings.
The epic poem revolves in the tenth year of the Trojan War. Tensions are
running high among the Achaians (a super-ancient name for the Ancient Greeks). First,
the priest Chryses comes to ask their leader, King Agamemnon, to release his
daughter, whom Agamemnon was holding captive. When Agamemnon refuses, the
priest prays to the god Apollo to send a plague against the Achaians.
After nine days of plague, the Achaians assemble again and demand that
Agamemnon give the girl back. Agamemnon eventually agrees, but only if he gets to
take Briseis, the girlfriend of Achilleus, the greatest warriors of the Achaians. Even
though Achilleus gives her up, he becomes so enraged that he refuses to fight anymore.
That and he prays to his mother, Thetis, who happens to be a goddess, to pull some
strings with the other gods so that the Achaians will starts getting defeated in battle and
realize how much they depend on him.

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Achilleus’ mom definitely spoils him. She gets Zeus, the king of the gods, to
agree to Achilleus’ request. Sure enough, the next day, the Trojans make a successful
counterattack, led by Hektor, their greatest warrior. Several days of violent fighting
follow, at the end of which the Trojans have Achaians pinned against the beach, and
are threatening to burn their ships.
At this point, Achilleus’ best friend Patroklos asks for permission to go into battle
in Achilleus’ place. Achilleus grants Patroklos’ request, and even lets him wear his
armor. Patroklos’ gambit is successful—when the Trojans see him, they think he must
be Achilleus and become absolutely terrified. The plan goes off the rails, however, when
Hektor kills Patroklos—with the help of the god Apollo and a minor Trojan warrior
named Euphorbos. Hector then takes the armor off Patroklos’ body.
When Achilleus learns of the death of his friend, he experiences terrible grief and
sears revenge. He sends of his mother, Thetis, to get a new suit of armor made
especially for him by the fire-god, Hephaistos. The next day, Achilleus rejoins the battle
and kills many Trojans, including Hektor in a one-on-one battle.
But Achilleus isn’t satisfied. For the next few days, he continually abuses
Hektor’s body in gruesome ways, even after Patroklos has received a proper funeral.
The gods don’t like this, and send a message down to Achilleus telling him to give up
the body. When the Trojan King Priam—Hektor’s father—comes unarmed, by night, to
ask for his son’s body, Achilleus agrees. The two men eat together and experience a
moment of shared humanity. Achilleus grants the Trojans a grace period to perform
their funeral rituals. The poem ends with the funeral of Hektor—though we know that
soon Achilleus will die and Troy will be captured.
The Odyssey
The Odyssey is Homer’s epic of Odysseus’ 10-year struggle to return home after
the Trojan War. While Odysseus battles mystical creatures and faces the wrath of the
gods, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus stave off suitors vying for Penelope’s
hand and Ithaca’s throne long enough for Odysseus to return. The Odyssey ends as
Odysseus wins a contest to prove his identity, slaughters the suitors, and retakes the
throne of Ithaca.
The three most important aspects of the Odyssey:
• The Odyssey is an epic, a very long poem on a single subject. Some epics were
composed in order to be performed from memory, and so they include poetic
devices to make them more memorable. And many epics, probably including The
Odyssey, were written to be performed to musical accompaniment.
• The journey of Odysseus from Troy to Ithaca taken ten years—the same amount
of time that the Trojan War itself lasted. The extraordinary length of Odysseus

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return trip, which should take a matter of weeks, is due to his many antagonists,
including the god Poseidon, the many mythical creatures he encounters, and
Odysseus’ often greedy and lazy crewmen.
• Odysseus’ most memorable quality is not his bravery or strength—though he is
brave and strong—but rather his cleverness. In fact, Homer refers to his
protagonist throughout the epic as “wily Odysseus.”
Sappho (630-612 B.C.)

Sappho of Lesbos (c. 620-570 BCE) was a lyric poet whose work was so popular
in ancient Greece, and beyond, that she was honored in statuary and praised by figures
such as Solon and Plato. Very little is known of her life and of the nine volumes of her
work which were widely read in antiquity only fragments survive. Contrary to popular
opinion on the subject, her works were not destroyed by closed-minded Christians
seeking to suppress lesbian love poetry but were lost simply through time and
circumstance.
Some kind of written works were composed concerning her during her lifetime or
shortly after because the outline of her life was known by later writers but, aside from
inscriptions such as the Parian Marble (a history of certain events in Greece between
1582-299 BCE) it is not known what these works were. Her name has leant itself to
`lesbian' and `Sapphic', both relating to homosexual women, because of her extant
poetry which concerns itself with romantic love between women.
The simplicity of construction in her work concentrates the reader's attention on
the emotional moment itself and, like all great poetry, creates an experience which is
easily recognizable. The intimacy and honesty of this poem is characteristic of all
Sappho's surviving work. She was not only a brilliantly honest poet, however, but also a
virtuoso of technique. She invented a completely new meter for poetry, now known as
Sapphic Meter or the Sapphic Stanza which consists of three lines of eleven beats and
a concluding line of five. Sappho’s works include Sappho 31, Ode to Aphrodite,
Brothers Poem, Sappho 16, Midnight Poem, Tithonus Poem, Sappho 2, Sappho 44 and
Sappho 94.
Anacreon (570-488 B.C.)

Anacreon ((570 BC – 488 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking
songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. He
wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was
composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre.
Anacreon's verses were primarily in the form of monody, which means that they were to
be performed by a single voice rather than by a chorus.

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In keeping with Greek poetic tradition, his poetry relied on meter for its
construction. Metrical poetry is a particularly rhythmic form, deriving its structure from
patterns of phonetic features within and between the lines of verse. The phonetic
patterning in Anacreon's poetry, like all the Greek poetry of the day, is found in the
structured alternation of "long" and "short" vowel sounds.
His poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment,
revelry, parties, festivals, and the observations of everyday people and life. It is the
subject matter of Anacreon's poetry that helped to keep it familiar and enjoyable to
generations of readers and listeners. His widespread popularity inspired countless
imitators, which also kept his name alive. Anacreon poems include Old Age, Beauty, As
Late I Sought the Spangled Bowers, I Pray Thee By the Gods Above, Listen to the
Muse’s Lyre and many more.
Old Age by Anacreon
The women tell me every day
That all my bloom has passed away.
‘Behold,’ the pretty wantons cry,
‘Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And, like the rest, they’re withering too!’
Whether decline has thinn’d my hair,
I’m sure I neither know nor care;
But this I know, and this I feel,
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I’d give!
Greek Myth
Greek mythology is a body of stories concerning the gods, heroes, and rituals of
the ancient Greeks. The myths contained a considerable element of fiction was
recognized by the more critical Greeks, such as the philosopher Plato in the 5th–4th
century BCE. In general, however, in the popular piety of the Greeks, the myths were
viewed as true accounts. Greek mythology has subsequently had extensive influence
on the arts and literature of Western civilization, which fell heir to much of Greek culture.
Although people of all countries, eras, and stages of civilization have developed
myths that explain the existence and workings of natural phenomena, recount the deeds
of gods or heroes, or seek to justify social or political institutions, the myths of the
Greeks have remained unrivaled in the Western world as sources of imaginative and
appealing ideas. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived

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inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and
relevance in Classical mythological themes.
Orpheus and Eurydice

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most famous and beloved Greek
myths. It is a myth about love and passion, and also about the weaknesses of the
human spirit. The story revolves between the two lovers mentioned in its title.
Orpheus, son of Muse Calliope and Thracian prince, was gifted with an
enchanting music. The melody that he played was extraordinary. It could charm and no
one could resist the power of the music his lyre could create. The trees, flowers, and
rocks were led with enchantment. The beasts in the wilderness were tamed. When
Orpheus sailed and got tired of rowing, he could strike his lyre and would regain energy
and would smite the sea together in time to the melody. The sea could change its
course and the fiercest spirit grew calm from the soothing melody.
Orpheus married Eurydice. After the wedding, she walked in the meadow where
she was stung by a venomous snake and died. Orpheus grieved the maiden that he
loved so dearly. He went to many different places playing sad songs.
Orpheus took the journey to the underworld to seek favor from Hades and
Persephone as he wanted to be reunited with Eurydice. Charmed and soothed by his
music, the king and queen granted the will of his heart. Orpheus could take Eurydice
back to the earth on one condition. That he would not look back at her as she followed
him until they had reached the earth. As Orpheus and Eurydice were climbing up the
way to the upper world, the darkness was turning gray and finally there was daylight.
Orpheus stepped out joyfully and quickly look back at Eurydice but it was too soon
because Eurydice was still in the cavern, a few steps from the earth. Orpheus stretched
out his hand to reach for Eurydice but she had slipped back to the darkness. All he
heard was, “Farewell”.
Pygmalion and Galatea

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea is an enchanting myth about a Cypriot
sculptor who fell in love with his own sculpture. He prays to goddess Aphrodite to bring
the sculpture to life for it to be his wife. The goddess grants his wish, and the bottom
line is, Pygmalion and his creation lived happily ever after.
The myth was turned into an erotic novelette when Ovid (43 BCE-17 AD)
adapted the story in his Metamorphosis (8 AD). But even this perfumed version gives
away the inconspicuous hope of an artist that his creation might spring to life one day
and so been inspiring many since its Ancient Greek origin. Franz von Stuck (1863 –

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1928), Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) and François Boucher (1703-1770) are among
those in line. But one of the most favoured versions was portrayed by the Pre-
Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) in his series of four panels
shown below.
Pygmalion and Galatea I: The Heart Desires
Pygmalion is seen here in his studio, with a look of deep thought etched
on his face. Disgusted by the debauched lifestyle of the local women, he decided
to stay celibate and devote his life to his craft. Oblivious to the women peering
through his doorway, nor to his previous statues that remind us of the Three
Graces, he sees in his mind an image of the perfect woman he’s yet to create.
Pygmalion and Galatea II: The Hand Refrains
One day, Pygmalion has completed his creation of a woman of his dreams
and hopelessly falls in love with it. In the moment of inspiration, he names the
figurine, Galatea, meaning “she who is white like milk”. Countless were the nights
and days he spent staring at her. Tools and instruments, including the almost
translucent soft brush, scattered beneath its feet show the work he’s put into
perfecting it.
Pygmalion and Galatea III: The Godhead Fires
In the meantime, the city was celebrating the festival in the name of the
goddess Aphrodite. While making offerings to Aphrodite, Pygmalion prayed with
all his heart and soul, for the goddess to bring his statue to life. Touched by his
deep veneration, the goddess visits his studio and was amazed by the beauty
she’d discovered and grants the artists his wish.
Pygmalion and Galatea IV: The Soul Attains
Upon returning home Pygmalion noticed a flush on the cheeks of the
sculpture, and slowly he realised that his prayer was heard. He embraces
Galatea, and life breathed into the cold marble.
Their love blossomed and wedding vows were exchanged. With the
blessings of the goddess Aphrodite, they lived happily ever after. The couple had
a son, Paphos, who later founded the city Paphos in Cyprus.

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Module 4
THE MAJOR WRITERS OF GREECE
Objectives:
1. Identify the major writers of Greece and their literary pieces.
2. Explain the summary of the literary pieces from the major writers of Greece.
3. Compose a paragraph analyzing a literary piece.
Aeschylus (525-177 BC)

The Greek playwright Aeschylus was the first European dramatist whose plays
were preserved. He was also the earliest of the great Greek tragedians (writers of
serious drama involving disastrous events), and was concerned with the common
connection between man and the gods more than any of the other tragedians.
Aeschylus was born to a noble and wealthy Athenian family in the Greek town of
Eleusis. His father was Euphorion, a wealthy man of the upper class. Aeschylus's
education included the writings of Homer. In fact it was Homer who proved most
inspiring to Aeschylus when he began to write as a teen. He entered his tragedies into
the annual competition in Athens and won his first award as a young adult in 484 B.C.E.
Aeschylus' writings were strongly Athenian and rich with moral authority. He carried
home the first place award from the Athens competition thirteen times.
Because Aeschylus was writing for the Greek theater in its beginning stages, he
is credited with having introduced many features that are now considered traditional.
Formerly plays were written for only one actor and a chorus. Aeschylus added parts for
a second and a third actor as well as rich costumes and dance.
Corresponding with his grand style were his grand ideas. Mighty themes and
mighty men crossed his stage. Aeschylus has been described as a great theologian (a
specialist in the study of faith) because of his literary focus on the workings of the Greek
gods.
The Story of Agamemnon

Agamemnon is the first of the three linked tragedies which make up “The
Oresteia” trilogy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, followed by “The Libation
Bearers” and “The Eumenides”. The trilogy as a whole, originally performed at the
annual Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BCE, where it won first prize, is considered to
be Aeschylus‘ last authenticated, and also his greatest, work.

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Agamemnon describes the homecoming of Agamemnon, king of Argos, from the

Trojan War, and his return to his wife, Clytemnestra, who had been planning his murder
(in concert with her lover, Aegisthus) as revenge for Agamemnon‘s earlier sacrifice of
their daughter, Iphigenia
The play opens as a watchman joyously recognizes the signal indicating that
Troy has fallen, and that Agamemnon will therefore soon be headed home. The Chorus
of old men briefly recounts the story of the Trojan War in all its fateful relations.
Agamemnon‘s wife, Clytemnestra, however, is far from joyful at the news. She
has been nursing a grudge for many years since Agamemnon had sacrificed their
daughter, Iphigenia, at the start of the Trojan War in order to to appease the offended
god Artemis. To make matters worse, in Agamemnon‘s absence, she has taken as her
lover his cousin, Aegisthus, who also has pretentions to the throne of Argos.
Worse still, when Agamemnon does return, he brings with him Cassandra, an
enslaved Trojan priestess of Apollo, as his concubine, further angering Clytemnestra.
After the Chorus of old men, much of the main action of the play revolves around the
antagonism and debate between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. When Clytemnestra
finally convinces Agamemnon to enter their home, she kills him with an axe while he is
undefended in his bath, like an animal killed for sacrifice. Agamemnon‘s fortunes have
therefore taken a complete reversal from the very summit of prosperity and renown to
the abyss of ruin and an ignominious death.
Cassandra (who had been cursed by Apollo with the gift of clairvoyance but the
curse that no-one will believe her prophesies) discusses with the Chorus whether or not
she ought to enter the palace, knowing that she too will be murdered. Eventually, after
describing some of the atrocities that have already been perpetrated within the cursed
House of Atreus, she chooses to enter anyway, knowing that she cannot avoid her fate.
The palace is thrown open, displaying the gruesome dead bodies of Agamemnon
and Cassandra, along with a defiant and unrepentant Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra‘s
lover Aegisthus also comes out and delivers an arrogant speech to the Chorus (which is
composed of elders of Argos), who react angrily to him. The play closes with the Chorus
reminding the usurpers that Agamemnon‘s son Orestes will surely return to exact
vengeance.
Sophocles (496-406 BC)

Sophocles was the second of the three great ancient Greek tragedians (after
Aeschylus and before Euripides) whose work has survived. Only seven of his 123 plays
have survived in a complete form but, for almost fifty years, he was the most-awarded
playwright in the Dionysia dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens. Sophocles
was an important influence on the development of the drama, most importantly by

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adding a third actor (and thereby reducing the importance of the Chorus in the
presentation of the plot) and by developing his characters to a greater extent than
earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.
He became a man of importance in the public halls of Athens as well as in the
theatres, and he was elected as one of ten strategoi, high executive officials that
commanded the armed forces, as a junior colleague of Pericles. In 443 BCE, he served
as one of the hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, helping to manage the finances of
the city during the political ascendancy of Pericles, and in 413 BCE, he was elected one
of the commissioners crafting a response to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian
expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.
Oedipus the King

Aware that a terrible curse has befallen Thebes, he sends his brother-in-law,
Creon, to seek the advice of Apollo. Creon informs Oedipus that the curse will be lifted if
the murderer of Laius—the former king—is found and prosecuted. Laius was murdered
many years ago at a crossroads.
Oedipus dedicates himself to the discovery and prosecution of Laius’s murderer.
Oedipus subjects a series of unwilling citizens to questioning, including a blind prophet.
Teiresias, the blind prophet, informs Oedipus that Oedipus himself killed Laius. This
news really bothers Oedipus, but his wife Jocasta tells him not to believe in prophets—
they've been wrong before.
As an example, she tells Oedipus about how she and King Laius had a son who
was prophesied to kill Laius and sleep with her. Well, she and Laius had the child killed,
so obviously that prophecy didn't come true, right?
Jocasta's story doesn't comfort Oedipus. As a child, an old man told Oedipus that
he was adopted, and that he would eventually kill his biological father and sleep with his
biological mother. Not to mention, Oedipus once killed a man at a crossroads... which
sounds a lot like the way Laius died.
Jocasta urges Oedipus not to look into the past any further, but he stubbornly
ignores her. Oedipus goes on to question a messenger and a shepherd, both of whom
have information about how Oedipus was abandoned as an infant and adopted by a
new family. In a moment of insight, Jocasta realizes that she is Oedipus’s mother and
that Laius was his father. Horrified at what has happened, she kills herself. Shortly
thereafter, Oedipus, too, realizes that he was Laius’s murderer and that he’s been
married to (and having children with) his mother. In horror and despair, he gouges his
eyes out and is exiled from Thebes.

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Euripides (485-407 BC)

Euripides was one of the best-known and most influential dramatists in classical
Greek culture; of his 90 plays, 19 have survived. His most famous tragedies, which
reinvent Greek myths and probe the darker side of human nature, include Medea, The
Bacchae, Hippolytus, Alcestis and The Trojan Women.
Over his career as a poet and dramatist, Euripides wrote approximately 90 plays,
19 of which have survived through manuscripts. Of the three most famous tragic
dramatists to come out of ancient Greece — the others being Aeschylus and Sophocles
— Euripides was the last and perhaps the most influential.
Like all the major playwrights of his time, Euripides competed in the annual
Athenian dramatic festivals held in honor of the god Dionysus. He first entered the
festival in 455, and he won the first of his four victories in 441. He was acquainted with
many of the important philosophers of the 5th century B.C., including Socrates,
Protagoras and Anaxagoras, and he owned a large personal library.
Euripides left Athens in 408 when he was invited to live and write in Macedonia,
Greece, by Archelaus, the Macedonian king. He never returned to Athens.
The Trojan Women

The Trojan Women is one of the most powerful dramas in all of literature. Widely
considered the greatest anti-war play ever written, it remains both timeless and timely, a
poignant meditation on the aftermath of battle. This version, ideal for one-act festivals,
has won numerous awards. The play centers on Hecuba, the fallen queen of Troy, and
her grief at the loss of her city and her family at the conclusion of the Trojan War. Her
daughter, Cassandra, mourns the loss of her service as maiden priestess in the temple
of Apollo and captivates the audience as the mysterious and frenzied priestess. She
prophesies the future of Odysseus' long journey following the defeat of Troy and
promises revenge in her hated marriage to Agamemnon. Andromache, Hecuba's
daughter-in-law, offers a heart-rending scene as she shares with all the death of her
son. Finally the beautiful, but much detested, Helen of Troy begs her wronged husband,
Menelaus, to spare her life. Through dance and (optional) original music, the Greek
chorus mirrors the sorrow of the loss of Troy. The Trojan Women is a wonderful
complement to the study of classic literature, mythology, history and theater.
Aristophanes (450-388 BC)

Aristophanes was a Greek comic playwright and poet who wrote 40 plays in his
lifetime during the 5th century B.C.E. 11 of those plays have been preserved and are
still performed today. He is known by many as the "Father of Comedy" from this era,

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and often included many different elements in his plays, including fantastical scenarios,
sexual frankness, satirical critique, and physical comedy. His plays include The Clouds,
The Wasps, The Birds, Lysistrata, The Women at the Thesmophoria Festival, and The
Frogs.
Born in Athens at some point between 450 and 445, Aristophanes came from a
wealthy family and was well-educated in Athenian literature and philosophy. When he
was 17, he began submitting his plays to dramatic competitions. His plays belong to the
Greek tradition of Old Comedy. His primary way of satirizing events was by making the
actions of people in elevated positions seem ridiculous and poorly thought out. He often
wrote plays that reflected the political realities of Athens. In The Knights, he wrote a
character that was meant to stand in for an Athenian leader. The character is an
avaricious slave to a rather unintelligent master, who represents the Athenian people.
The play was well-received, even though it included a scathing critique of the
government.
Aristophanes' plays, though comedic and ridiculous, were always a comment on
the political realities of the time in which they were written. During a pre-war conflict
between Sparta and Athens, Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata, a satire about the
unnecessariness of war. Then, after the Peloponnesian War and the plague,
Aristophanes wrote The Frogs, about Dionysus traveling to the underworld to bring
Euripides back from the dead to write a tragedy. After the war ended, Athens had lost
some of its spirit, and New Comedy, which was more conservative and less bawdy or
vivacious, replaced Old Comedy. Aristophanes died in Athens around 386 BC.
Clouds
The Clouds is a comedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, originally
produced at the Athens City Dionysia of 423 BCE. It is perhaps the world’s first extant
“comedy of ideas”• and lampoons intellectual fashions in classical Athens. In the play,
Strepsiades, an elderly Athenian mired in debt, enrolls his son Pheidippides in Socrates’
philosophy school so that he might learn the rhetorical skills necessary to defeat their
creditors in court, although all he really learns is cynical disrespect for social mores and
contempt for authority, which leads to Strepsiades burning the school down in disgust.
The play begins with Strepsiades sitting up inbed, too worried to sleep because
he is faced with legal action for non-payment of debts. He complains that his son,
Pheidippides, blissfully asleep in the bed next to him, has been encouraged by his
aristocratic wife to indulge an expensive taste in horses and the household is living
beyond its means.
Strepsiades wakes his son to tell him of his plan to get out of debt. At first
Pheidippides goes along with his father’s plan but soon changes his mind when he
learns that he must enroll in the Phrontisterion (which may be translated as “The

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Thinkery“฀ or “Thinking Shop“฀), a philosophy school for nerds and intellectual bums
that no self-respecting, athletic young man like Pheidippides cares to be involved with.
Strepsiades’ idea is for his son to learn how to make a bad argument look good and
thereby beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides will not be persuaded,
though, and Strepsiades eventually decides to enrol himself, in spite of his advanced
age.
At The Thinkery, Strepsiades hears about some of the recent important
discoveries made by Socrates, the head of the school, including a new unit of
measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea, the exact cause of the
buzzing noise made by a gnat and a new use for a large pair of compasses (for stealing
cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Stepsiades begs to be
introduced to the man behind these discoveries, and Socrates appears overhead in a
basket he uses to observe the Sun and other meteorological phenomena. The
philosopher descends and inducts the new elderly student in the school in a ceremony
which includes a parade of the majestic singing Clouds, the patron goddesses of
thinkers and other layabouts (which become the Chorus of the play).
Plutarch (c. 46-after 119)

L. Mestrius Plutarchus, better known simply as Plutarch, was a Greek writer and
philosopher who lived between c. 45-50 CE and c. 120-125 CE. A prodigious and
hugely influential writer, he is now most famous for his biographical works in his Parallel
Lives which present an entertaining history of some of the most significant figures from
antiquity.
Plutarch was born to an ancient aristocratic Theban family in Chaeronea in
central Greece sometime before 50 CE. His father was called Autobulus and his
grandfather Lamprias, both of whom are mentioned in his work. Although Plutarch
visited Athens often, studying there philosophy under Ammonius, and he travelled to
both Alexandria in Egypt and Italy, he lived the first part of his life in Chaeronea where
he participated in public life and held several magistracy positions. He married a woman
named Timoxena with whom he had at least five children. From middle age, Plutarch
was a priest at the sacred site of Delphi with its famous oracle of Apollo. He is credited
with aiding the revival of interest in such ancient cults during the reigns of Trajan and
Hadrian. Indeed, Plutarch supervised the new building projects of both emperors at
Delphi.
The Life of Julius Caesar

The concise biographies of famous Greek and Roman men (Parallel Lives)
written by the Greek philosopher and priest Plutarch under the early Roman Empire are

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true classics in the literature of Western civilization. Following the Renaissance’s

rediscovery of ancient Greek literature, his Parallel Lives inspired leading authors and
thinkers. Montaigne, Shakespeare, Dryden, Rousseau, and Emerson––all were avid
readers of Plutarch. The public loved Plutarch, too: from the founding of this country
until well into the nineteenth century, a translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives was the
second most likely book to be found in American homes, following only the Bible.
Plutarch’s biographies were regarded as essential reading for young people because
they revealed in dramatic fashion just how much character mattered in moral choices.
Plutarch writes biographies focused on individual character, not the details of
history. Therefore, he explores his subjects’ characters and their responses as free and
responsible individuals to moral challenges, whether posed by small things or
momentous events. Plutarch concentrates on crucial moments in their lives at which
they face difficult decisions. When right and wrong are not obvious in these situations,
Plutarch is not reluctant to judge his subjects, but in the end he expects his readers to
shoulder the task of evaluating the wisdom of the choices his subjects make. Plutarch’s
goal in his biographies is to present readers with examples of conduct to imitate and to
avoid in their own lives. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives therefore has important insights into
liberty and responsibility. These qualities combine to make the Parallel Lives a worthy
candidate for a Liberty Fund colloquium for high school teachers, who daily face issues
of character and morality and thus can bring some important insights into these texts.

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Module 5
THE MAJOR WRITERS OF ROME
Objectives:
1. Recognize the major writers of Rome and their literary pieces.
2. Analyzing the literary works by answering the questions given.
Virgil (70-19 BC)

Publius Vergilius Maro, known in English as Virgil or sometimes Vergil, was born
on October 15, 70 B.C. in Andes, near Mantua, Italy. Born into a peasant family, the
Italian countryside and its people influenced him early on and was later reflected
through his poetry. With his father marrying into a clan of economic means, Virgil
received his education at Cremona in Milan and Rome where he studied Greek and
Roman authors and poets.
During his younger years, political and military strife afflicted Italy when the
Roman Republic dispelled. A civil war between Marius and Sulla was followed by
turmoil between Pompey and Julius Caesar. Caesar began a series of civil wars that
lasted until the victory of Caesar Augustus (also known as Octavian) in 31 B.C. These
experiences seared Virgil deeply, creating an abhorrence and fear of civil war that was
often reflected in his text.
Virgil's last and most notable work was the epic poem the Aeneid, where he
strove to exemplify what he positioned as Rome’s divine destiny. Written in 12 books,
the poem is still regarded as a literary masterpiece today, with some questioning
whether the poet also exhibited ambivalence over the cost of empire. After his death,
Virgil’s influence continued to inspire other poets throughout the ages.
The Aeneid
Virgil’s last and most notable work was the epic poem the Aeneid, where he
strove to exemplify Rome’s divine destiny. Written in 12 books, the poem heavily relied
upon Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey from the eighth century B.C. It told the saga of an
exiled hero Trojan prince named Aeneid after the destruction of Troy by the Greeks in
the 12th century B.C. The poem reflected on the realm of Roman history from its
earliest days, foretelling significant events leading to its current reign by Augustus. And
here’s the story goes.
On the Mediterranean Sea, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans flee from their home
city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They sail for Italy, where Aeneas

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is destined to found Rome. As they near their destination, a fierce storm throws them off
course and lands them in Carthage. Dido, Carthage’s founder and queen, welcomes
them. Aeneas relates to Dido the long and painful story of his group’s travels thus far.
Aeneas tells of the sack of Troy that ended the Trojan War after ten years of
Greek siege. In the final campaign, the Trojans were tricked when they accepted into
their city walls a wooden horse that, unbeknownst to them, harbored several Greek
soldiers in its hollow belly. He tells how he escaped the burning city with his father,
Anchises; his son, Ascanius; and the hearth gods that represent their fallen city.
Assured by the gods that a glorious future awaited him in Italy, he set sail with a fleet
containing the surviving citizens of Troy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their
journey. Twice they attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens
and plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed them, but
they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly. Finally, after the loss of
Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they made their way to Carthage.
Impressed by Aeneas’s exploits and sympathetic to his suffering, Dido, a
Phoenician princess who fled her home and founded Carthage after her brother
murdered her husband, falls in love with Aeneas. They live together as lovers for a
period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to
set sail once again. Dido is devastated by his departure, and kills herself by ordering a
huge pyre to be built with Aeneas’s castaway possessions, climbing upon it, and
stabbing herself with the sword Aeneas leaves behind.
As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather blows them to Sicily, where they hold
funeral games for the dead Anchises. The women, tired of the voyage, begin to burn the
ships, but a downpour puts the fires out. Some of the travel-weary stay behind, while
Aeneas, reinvigorated after his father visits him in a dream, takes the rest on toward
Italy. Once there, Aeneas descends into the underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae,
to visit his father. He is shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of Rome,
which helps him to understand the importance of his mission. Aeneas returns from the
underworld, and the Trojans continue up the coast to the region of Latium.
The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins peacefully. King Latinus, the Italian ruler,
extends his hospitality, hoping that Aeneas will prove to be the foreigner whom,
according to a prophecy, his daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. But Latinus’s wife,
Amata, has other ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor. Amata
and Turnus cultivate enmity toward the newly arrived Trojans. Meanwhile, Ascanius
hunts a stag that was a pet of the local herdsmen. A fight breaks out, and several
people are killed. Turnus, riding this current of anger, begins a war.
Aeneas, at the suggestion of the river god Tiberinus, sails north up the Tiber to
seek military support among the neighboring tribes. During this voyage, his mother,
Venus, descends to give him a new set of weapons, wrought by Vulcan. While the
Trojan leader is away, Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his countrymen embroiled

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in battle. Pallas, the son of Aeneas’s new ally Evander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies
into a violent fury, and many more are slain by the day’s end.
The two sides agree to a truce so that they can bury the dead, and the Latin
leaders discuss whether to continue the battle. They decide to spare any further
unnecessary carnage by proposing a hand-to-hand duel between Aeneas and Turnus.
When the two leaders face off, however, the other men begin to quarrel, and full-scale
battle resumes. Aeneas is wounded in the thigh, but eventually the Trojans threaten the
enemy city. Turnus rushes out to meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas
nearly spares Turnus but, remembering the slain Pallas, slays him instead.
Horace (68-6 BC)

Horace, Latin in full Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (born December 65 BC, Venusia,
Italy—died Nov. 27, 8 BC, Rome), outstanding Latin lyric poet and satirist under the
emperor Augustus. The most frequent themes of his Odes and verse Epistles are love,
friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry.
Horace was probably of the Sabellian hillman stock of Italy’s central highlands.
His father had once been a slave but gained freedom before Horace’s birth and became
an auctioneer’s assistant. He also owned a small property and could afford to take his
son to Rome and ensure personally his getting the best available education in the
school of a famous fellow Sabellian named Orbilius (a believer, according to Horace, in
corporal punishment). In about 46 BC Horace went to Athens, attending lectures at the
Academy. After Julius Caesar’s murder in March 44 BC, the eastern empire, including
Athens, came temporarily into the possession of his assassins Brutus and Cassius, who
could scarcely avoid clashing with Caesar’s partisans, Mark Antony and Octavian (later
Augustus), the young great-nephew whom Caesar, in his will, had appointed as his
personal heir. Horace joined Brutus’ army and was made tribunus militum, an
exceptional honour for a freedman’s son.
To Licinius
Horace counsels Licinius, Maecenas's troubled brother-in-law, to avoid behaving
either too rashly or too cautiously. "Cherishing the golden mean" is the best way to live.
The tallest trees are the likeliest to topple in a gale, and the highest mountains are
struck by lightning. Good luck may follow bad—and vice versa. One should be brave in
adversity and modest in felicity.

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Ode 2.10. To Licinuis

By Horace
A better plan of life you form

Not wholly launching out from land,
Nor over-jealous of a storm,
Too much for shore to stand.
Whoever loves the golden mean,
From sordid want himself supports
Nor, safe and sober, is he seen
In envy-moving courts.
Tall pines are shaken, and the tow’r
Comes heaviest from the highest wall,
And thunderbolts, with greater pow’r
On topmost mountains fall.
Hearts, well prepar’d, will see a dawn
Of hope in woe – in wealth will pray
‘Gainst change – heav’n brings the winter on,
And drives the hag away.
If times are evil, by and by
They shall be better – Phoebus plays
At times upon his minstrelsy,
Not always shoots his rays.
When times are hardest, then a face
Of constancy and spirit wear;
But wise contract your sails apace,
When once the wind’s too fair.
Martial (A.D. 43-104)

Martial, Latin in full Marcus Valerius Martialis, (born Mar. 1, ad 38-41, Bilbilis,
Hispania [Spain]--died c. 103), Roman poet who brought the Latin epigram to perfection
and provided in it a picture of Roman society during the early empire that is remarkable
both for its completeness and for its accurate portrayal of human foibles.
Martial was born in a Roman colony in Spain along the Salo River. Proudly
claiming descent from Celts and Iberians, he was, nevertheless, a freeborn Roman
citizen, the son of parents who, though not wealthy, possessed sufficient means to
ensure that he received the traditional literary education from a grammarian and
rhetorician. In his early 20s, possibly not before AD 64, since he makes no reference to
the burning of Rome that occurred in that year, Martial made his way to the capital of
the empire and attached himself as client (a traditional relationship between powerful
patron and humbler man with his way to make) to the powerful and talented family of

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the Senecas, who were Spaniards like himself. To their circle belonged Lucan, the epic
poet, and Calpurnius Piso, chief conspirator in the unsuccessful plot against the
emperor Nero in ad 65. After the latter incident and its consequences, Martial had to
look around for other patrons. Presumably the Senecas had introduced him to other
influential families, whose patronage would enable him to make a living as a poet. Yet
precisely how Martial lived between ad 65 and 80, the year in which he published Liber
Spectaculorum (On the Spectacles), a small volume of poems to celebrate the
consecration of the Colosseum, is not known. It is possible that he turned his hand to
law, although it is unlikely that he practiced in the courts either successfully or for long.
Martial is virtually the creator of the modern epigram, and his myriad admirers
throughout the centuries, including many of the world's great poets, have paid him the
homage of quotation, translation, and imitation. He wrote 1,561 epigrams in all. Of
these, 1,235 are in elegiac couplets, each of which consists of a six-foot line followed by
a five-foot line. The remainder are in hendecasyllables (consisting of lines 11 syllables
long) and other metres. Though some of the epigrams are devoted to scenic
descriptions, most are about people--emperors, public officials, writers, philosophers,
lawyers, teachers, doctors, fops, gladiators, slaves, undertakers, gourmets, spongers,
senile lovers, and revolting debauchees. Martial made frequent use of the mordant
epigram bearing a "sting" in its tail--i.e., a single unexpected word at the poem's end
that completes a pun, antithesis, or an ingenious ambiguity. Poems of this sort would
later greatly influence the use of the epigram in the literature of England, France, Spain,
and Italy.
What Makes a Happy Life

by Martial
What makes a happy life, dear friend,

If thou wouldst briefly learn, attend—
An income left, not earned by toil;
Some acres of a kindly soil;
The pot unfailing on the fire;
No lawsuits, seldom town attire;
Health; strength with grace; a peaceful mind;
Shrewdness with honesty combined;
Plain living; equal friends and free;
Evenings of temperate gayety;
A wife discreet yet blithe and bright;
Sound slumber that lends wings to night.
With all thy heart embrace thy lot,
Wish not for death, and fear it not.

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Epictetus (A.D. 50-138)

A Greek philosopher of 1st and early 2nd centuries C.E., and an exponent of
Stoic ethics notable for the consistency and power of his ethical thought and for
effective methods of teaching. Epictetus’s chief concerns are with integrity, self-
management, and personal freedom, which he advocates by demanding of his students
a thorough examination of two central ideas, the capacity he terms ‘volition’ and the
correct use of impressions. Heartfelt and satirical by turns, Epictetus has had significant
influence on the popular moralistic tradition, but he is more than a moralizer; his lucid
resystematization and challenging application of Stoic ethics qualify him as an important
philosopher in his own right.
Though much cultivated in person by the nobles of local Greek cities (as Brunt
1997 describes), Epictetus exerted far more influence through the written works
produced by Arrian. The emperor Marcus Aurelius was never in fact his pupil, but was
so deeply impressed with what he had read as to consider himself a follower of the
freedman philosopher. In the early third century Origen remarks on the popularity of
Epictetus with his own contemporaries, which he finds to rival that of Plato (Contra
Celsum 6.2). Whether Origen was himself much influenced by Epictetus’s version of
Stoicism is another matter, for Origen had studied the writings of Chrysippus on his own
account and the strands cannot easily be separated. More demonstrable is the homage
paid to Epictetus by Simplicius, the sixth-century Aristotle commentator, who composed
a long philosophical commentary on the Encheiridion combining Stoic elements with his
own Neoplatonism.
The Encheiridion was translated into Latin by Poliziano in 1497 and during the
subsequent two centuries became exceptionally popular in Europe. Spanneut (1972)
traces its use in monasteries in superficially Christianized form. Seventeenth-century
intellectuals like Guillaume du Vair, Justus Lipsius, and Thomas Gataker generally
found Epictetus’s Stoicism to be fully compatible with Christianity; see the discussion in
Brooke (2006). Pascal reacted against this perception; he admired Epictetus as a
moralist but regarded it as sheer arrogance to believe that the human psyche is part of
the divine and can be perfected by one’s own efforts. Descartes adopted a recognizably
Epictetan value system as part of his personal ethics. An engagingly satirical portrayal
of the potential impact of Epictetus’s philosophy in contemporary American life may be
found in Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel A Man in Full.
Ovid (43 BC-AD 18)

On March 20, 43 BC, Publius Ovidius Naso, better known to modern readers as
Ovid, was born at Sulmo, 90 miles from Rome. Ovid's father, who was a respected
member of the equestrian order, expected Ovid to become a lawyer and official and had
him schooled extensively for that purpose. After working in various judicial posts, Ovid

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made the decision to dedicate himself to a life of poetry instead. Ovid's elegance, both
in verse and comportment, made him a favorite among the moneyed class of Rome,
and it was not long before Ovid was widely hailed as the most brilliant poet of his
generation. His elegant verses on love appealed to a society being forced into a period
of moral reformation by the emperor, Augustus. It may have been these same poems,
namely those of his The Art of Love (3 BC), that caused Ovid to be exiled to the barren
region of Tomi in AD 8.
The reason for Ovid's exile by Augustus is unknown. What is certain is that in AD
8 Ovid was sent to the bleak fishing-village of Tomi for what he describes as "a poem
and a mistake", Ovid attempted on numerous occasions to find his way back into the
good graces of Augustus, writing poems to the emperor and other influential friends.
The poems, which were far less polished and elegant than his previous works, had little
effect on Augustus, and Ovid remained in exile until his death in AD 17.
Ovid's poetic influence continued long after his death. His most famous work,
The Metamorphoses (AD 8), had a great influence upon writers of the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, and the 12th century was named the Ovidian age for the numerous
poets writing in Ovidian hexameter.
Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe are a couple of young Babylonians in love. Unfortunately,
their families totally hate each other. The star-crossed lovers whisper sweet nothings
through a crack in the wall that separates their houses, until they eventually can't take it
anymore and decide to elope.
But when Thisbe shows up under the mulberry tree where they're supposed to
meet, a bloody-jawed lioness is hanging out there. Thisbe screams and runs, leaving
her shawl behind. Pyramus arrives a little while later and finds the bloody lioness ripping
apart the shawl. Uh oh—we can see where this is headed.
Assuming Thisbe has been devoured, he stabs himself with his sword. Later,
Thisbe returns, figures out the horrible thing that's happened, and stabs herself with
Pyramus's sword, too. To this day, the formerly white berries of the mulberry tree are
stained red with the blood of these tragic lovers.

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UNIT II THE AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE
Background
Afro-Asian Literature mirrors not only the customs and traditions of African and
Asian countries but also their philosophy of life which on the whole are deeply and
predominantly contemplative and hauntingly sweet. Afro-Asian Literature is the
reflection of the storm and the stress of developing nations seeking a place under the
sun which every student must understand so he may know how this literature affects the
history and culture of a nation.
In a simpler thought, Afro-Asian literature refers to the literary output of the
various countries and cultures in Africa and Asia. This includes their oral traditions and
from the first to the contemporary written and/or published prose and poetry.
Africa
• It is the second largest continent (after Asia), covering about one-fifth of the total
land surface of Earth. The continent is bounded on the west by the Atlantic
Ocean, on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Red Sea and
the Indian Ocean, and on the south by the mingling waters of the Atlantic and
Indian oceans.
• ETMOLOGY: The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who
used the name Africa terra—“land of the Afri” (plural, or “Afer” singular)) – for the
northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage,
corresponding to modern-day Tunisia.
Asia
• Asia is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east,
the Indian Ocean to the south, the Red Sea (as well as the inland seas of the
Atlantic Ocean—the Mediterranean and the Black) to the southwest and, Europe
to the west.
• ETYMOLOGY: The word Asia is originated from the Ancient Greek word Aoia,
first attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BCE) in reference to Anatolia or to the
Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt. It originally was a name for the
east bank of the Aegean Sea, an area known to the Hittites as Assuwa.

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Afro-Asian Literature
• It is a term for writing written by people from mixed African-Arab ethnicity, or

African-Asian ethnicity.
• It is the reflection of the storm and the stress of developing nations seeking a
place under the sun which every student must understand so he may know how
this literature affects the history and culture of a nation.
• It refers to the literary output of the various countries and cultures in Africa and
Asia. This includes their oral traditions and from the first to contemporary written
and/or published prose and poetry.
• Asian Literature alone is diverse and vibrant. Add to that the splendor of African
Literature, and you get enriching Afro-Asian Literature.
• The background of Afro-Asian literature dates to the very beginning when the first
mixed race individual began writing.
• Earlier written documents were based on stories passed by word of mouth.
• Literary works were handed by mouth from generation to generation to entertain,
educate and remind the people about their past heroic deeds of their people,
ancestry and culture.
• Afro-Asian literature is a sign of new and modern times. It also teaches people
and allows them to learn about different experiences and cultures from all over
the world.
• Generally, literary works of Afro-Asian tell people about the unique struggles and
successes of Afro-Asian people.
• GENRES: playwriting, poems, prose
POEMS – tell about the history and culture of the Afro-Asian people. Today, Afro-
Asians still express their creativity and honor their culture by crafting beautiful
poems such as haikus, ballads or sonnets.
PLAYWRIGHTS – celebrate their own culture and ancestry by setiing plays in the
past and referencing historical events in their storylines. When performed, this
will feature backdrops and costumes which will reflect the culture and unique
spirit of Afro-Asian people.
PROSE – it is used to expose truth, to describe objects, places and people, to
draw a reader deeper into a story.
Norms and Culture
• NORMS – a standard or pattern, especially of social behavior, that is typical or

expected of a group

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• CULTURE – is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions,

cognitive constructs and affective understanding that learned through a process
of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group
while also distinguishing those of another group.
• The highest degree of culture is embodied within a virtue of respecting other
humans, either as an individual or a part of community. It is no surprise that, in
this phase, people of Asia and Africa adapt the culture of mutual cooperation.
Norms and Culture: AFRICA
• AFRICA – Africa has 300 distinct ethnic groups, 2000 language. Home to the
most genetically diverse people on Earth. So diverse that two Africans are more
genetically different from each other than a Chinese and European are from each
other. Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent.
There are generations, which do define Africa, but none that are exclusive.
• Sense of Community – A popular African proverb comes to mind here to
express the African sense of community. It says: “Go the way that many people
go; if you go alone, you will have reason to lament”. The African idea of security
and its value depends on personal identification.
• Sense of Good Human Relations – The art of dialogue and conversation is a
cherished value in African human. People freely discuss their problems and look
for suggestions and solutions together. The unwillingness to talk to people about
either private or public affairs can be interpreted as bad manners or sign of
enmity.
• Sense of hospitality – The African sense of hospitality is one of the African
values that are still quite alive. The Africans easily incorporate strangers and give
them lands to settle hoping that would go one day, and the land would revert to
the owner. Africans have symbolic ways of expressing welcome. These are in
forms of presentation of kola nuts, traditional gin, coconuts, etc. in various
communities.
Norms and Culture: ASIA
• ASIA – Asian values are very much inter-related. They all support the view of the
individual as being a part of a much larger group or family, and place great
importance on the well-being of the group, even at the expense of the individual.

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• Family and Education – A number of Asian students have done conspicuously

well in terms of test scores, gifted student programs, admissions to prestigious
schools, academic awards, and in classical music. Though obviously not all
Asians fit this pattern, this trend can be attributed primarily to the basic notion of
the family, and the central role that education is a fundamental aspect pf this.
Asian parents are more likely to spend much more tie with their children, and
drive them harder, sometimes even at the expense of their personal time and
ambitions of the parents themselves.
• Reserve Conformity and Harmony – Since the well-being of the larger group is
most important in Asian culture, great importance is placed on maintaining
harmony. The greatest virtue that can achieve is not greatness of one’s self,
which is viewed as being selfish and self-centered, but of fulfilling his or her role
in the whole of the family or group.

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Module 6
THE AFRICAN LITERATURE
Objectives:
3. Name the literature in East Africa, West Africa, South Africa and Russia.
4. Differentiate literature in East Africa, West Africa, South Africa and Russia.
5. Recall the writers East Africa, West Africa, South Africa and Russia.
Introduction
African literature consists of a body of work in different languages and various
genres, ranging from oral literature to literature written in colonial languages. Oral
literature, including stories, dramas, riddles, histories, myths, songs, proverbs, and other
expressions, is frequently employed to educate and entertain children. Oral histories,
myths, and proverbs additionally serve to remind whole communities of their ancestors'
heroic deeds, their past, and the precedents for their customs and traditions. Essential
to oral literature is a concern for presentation and oratory. Folktale tellers use call-
response techniques. A griot (praise singer) will accompany a narrative with music.
Literature of East Africa

The literature of the people of East Africa, who speak the Swahili language and
live in Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Malawi and on the island
of Mafia, have long maintained trade and cultural relations with Arabia, India, Iran, and
Indonesia, so that the influence exerted by the cultures of these latter countries on
Swahili literature is appreciable. There is a rich Swahili-language folklore, the spiritual
heritage of all Africans speaking that language. Twentieth-century Swahili-language
literature has become fragmented because of the rise in national consciousness and the
formation of independent states in East Africa.
The oldest forms of folklore include mashaira songs, now firmly established in the
literature. Folk stories combine African motifs, motifs from the Arabian “Thousand and
One Nights” tales, and motifs from the Panchatantra legends in an intriguing way. The
earliest known literary productions in Swahili are the Liongo songs (dating to the ninth
through 14th centuries; Liongo was a hero from the Lamu region, a historical
personage).
Later historical chronicles (habari) and epic poems with a historical and religious
content (tenzi) have been preserved in fragmentary form. Poems of a religious nature
are associated with the propagation of Islam in East Africa. The early 20th century saw

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the appearance of the poem “Majimaji” by Abdel-Kerim bin Jamaldini, centered on an

episode in the resistance of the African peoples to European colonizers.
The first newspapers, Habari and Kiongozi, appeared in the early 20th century.
The periodicals Tazama and Mambo leo appeared in East Africa after World War II as
vehicles for translated and original literature.
Hadisi fupi (short stories) and hadisi ndefu (tales) are among the most popular
genres in original literature. Works in these genres attest to a lack of professionalism in
East African literature. The usual short-story plot has two people in love, elements of the
detective story, and sometimes religious moralizing. One characteristic tendency is to
remain within the scope of minor topics and intimate life experiences.
A special place is reserved in Swahili literature for sketches and travel notes
compiled by individual African travelers—for example, Swahili Travels, notes of three
natives of Dar es Salaam providing detailed information on the customs and mores of
inland tribes. There are also works in larger genres in Swahili that depict life
realistically—for example, Liberation of Slaves, a novel by James Mbotela.
Poetic works still preserve forms characteristic of folklore. Both narrative poems
and short poetry are written in accentual verse with an equal number of accented
syllables. Versification exhibits the ghazal structure.
East African Writers

1. Nuruddin Farah. A Somali writer who was known for his rich imagination and
refreshing and often fortuitous use of his adopted language, English. He was
widely considered the most significant Somali writer in any European language.
In his next novel, A Naked Needle (1976), Farah used a slight tale of interracial
and cross-cultural love to reveal a lurid picture of postrevolutionary Somali life in
the mid-1970s. He next wrote a trilogy—Sweet and Sour
Milk (1979), Sardines (1981), and Close Sesame (1983)—about life under a
particularly African dictatorship, in which ideological slogans barely disguise an
almost surreal society and human ties have been severed by dread and terror.
2. Jomo Kenyatta. Early in his life penned a book on the cultural and historical
traditions of the Kikuyu people of central Kenya, then known as the Gikuyu
people.
3. Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi. A Somali-Canadian scholar, linguist, writer,

translator and professor. Abdullahi is fluent
in Somali, Arabic, English and French. His research interests include the study

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of the Afro-Asiatic languages in general (particularly its Cushitic branch), as well

as Somali history and culture.
He has also written numerous books, notably Culture and Customs of

Somalia published by Greenwood Publishing Group in 2001, where he
addresses the obscure origins of the Somali people, among other topics.
4. Brian Chikwava. A writer and musician from Zimbabwe who currently lives in
London. He was the first Zimbabwean to win Caine Prize. He continues to write
in England and put out an album titled Jacaranda Skits. His works include Hare
North and Seventh Street Alchemy.
Literature of West Africa

The roots of English-language literature in West Africa may be traced to the
formation of various cultures in reaction to external contacts during successive
overlapping historical periods. The literary traditions of the region have been shaped by
these interlocking cultural histories, just as the cultural identities of the region are
products of its many-layered history.
These cultural strata have had such a strong influence, and writers borrow so
freely across cultures that it is not always possible to determine the essential African
element from the invasive or the syncretic product. Each of the major literatures is the
product, not of any one tradition – not even of one as dominant as English colonial
culture – but of live traditions that are always available to creative writers even when
they are inactive: as Wole Soyinka puts it, “the past exists now” (1988: 19).
The dominance of English as a linguistic medium has tended to obscure this fact.
Only the colonial connections of the culture are implied in categories like “Common
wealth literature” – where the literature is seen as an extension of the English tradition,
or “postcolonial literature” as a product of European cultural imperialism to which it is a
counter discourse. Femi Osofisan sees in the latter category a revival of the “grand
myth of [precolonial African] Absence” (1991: 1). The exclusion of indigenous traditions
is inherent in such language-based classifications of Europhone African literatures. The
continuing influence of the different traditions is an essential part of the literary history.
West African Writers

1. Chinua Achebe. A Nigerian novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions
of the social and psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of
Western customs and values upon traditional African society. His particular

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concern was with emergent Africa at its moments of crisis; his novels range in
subject matter from the first contact of an African village with the white man to the
educated African’s attempt to create a firm moral order out of the changing
values in a large city.
Things Fall Apart (1958), Achebe’s first novel, concerns traditional Igbo life at the
time of the advent of missionaries and colonial government in his homeland. His
principal character cannot accept the new order, even though the old has already
collapsed. In the sequel No Longer at Ease (1960) he portrayed a newly
appointed civil servant, recently returned from university study in England, who is
unable to sustain the moral values he believes to be correct in the face of the
obligations and temptations of his new position.
2. Kwame Nkrumah. A Ghanaian nationalist leader who led the Gold Coast’s drive
for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new
nation of Ghana. He headed the country from independence in 1957 until he was
overthrown by a coup in 1966.
3. Teju Cole. Born in the US in 1975 to Nigerian parents, Teju Cole is a writer, art
historian, and photographer. Although soon after he was born his family moved
back to Nigeria, he later returned to the US at the age of 17 to study at Western
Michigan University. He currently resides in Brooklyn and is the author of four
books. His novella, Every Day is For The Thief, was named a book of the year by
the New York Times, while his novel, Open City, won the PEN/Hemingway
Award, the New York City Book Award for Fiction, the Rosenthal Award of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Internationaler Literaturpreis.
Cole also went on to write an essay collection, Known and Strange Things, and
his most recent work, Blind Spot (published in 2017), is a photobook named as
one of the best books of the year by Time magazine.
4. Chinelo Okparanta. Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, before moving to
the US with her family at the age of 10. She has a BSc degree from
Pennsylvania State University, MA from Rutgers University, and an MFA from the
Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her debut book was a collection of short stories,
Happiness Like Water, which was listed on The Guardian’s Best African Fiction
of 2013 and was also nominated for the Nigerian Writers Award. Her second
book, Under The Udala Tree, published in 2015, is a riveting tale about a young
lesbian woman’s coming of age during Nigeria’s civil war.
5. Chika Unigwe. The sixth of seven children born in Enugu, Nigeria, where she
obtained her BA in English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Following her
marriage to a Belgian engineer in 1995, she moved to Turnhout, Belgium, where

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she resided until 2013 when she emigrated to the US. While in Europe, she
earned an MA in English from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), and then
a PhD from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. She has written four
books, two children’s books published by Macmillan, and many other short
stories and essays.
Unigwe’s first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch in September 2005 and
is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin. Her second
novel, On Black Sisters’ Street, was first published in Dutch as Fata Morgana,
and won the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature valued at $100,000.
She is creative director of the Awele Creative Trust, and was a judge for the Man
Booker International Prize in 2016.
Literature in South Africa

South African literature, the body of writings in either Afrikaans or English
produced in what is now the Republic of South Africa. The rest of African literature is
treated in African literature.
South Africa was colonized by Europeans against the resistance of Africans and
was for some time afterward a battlefield between Briton and Boer. Although South
Africa became independent in 1910, the nation’s varied ethnic constituents have not yet
been unified in a harmonious whole, and the tension arising from the unequal relations
between blacks and whites is the authentic note of much South African literature.
Indigenous South African literature effectively began in the late 19th century and
became fairly copious in the 20th century. Much of the work by persons born in South
Africa was limited in its viewpoint; often these writers only dimly apprehended the
aspirations, perceptions, and traditions of South Africans belonging to a people other
than their own. English-speaking South African writers are mainly urban and
cosmopolitan; their culture is English, and they often have a wider audience among
English-speaking communities abroad. By contrast, Afrikaans writers belonged for many
decades to a close-knit community—born of a defensive posture—with shared
experiences (including rural roots), shared aspirations and religion, and a strong sense
of nationhood. Only in the 1960s did a major break with this tradition become apparent.
The twin 20th-century phenomena of urbanization and apartheid greatly affected
the psychological makeup and thus the literary expression of English- and Afrikaans-
speaking whites, as well as of indigenous Africans. The moral and artistic challenges
inherent in South Africa’s situation stimulated writing up to a point, but the South African
preoccupation with “race” problems may ultimately have proven inimical to the creation
of an authentic national literature.

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Although Afrikaans had diverged sufficiently from its parent Dutch by about 1750
to be considered a language on its own, the first Afrikaans texts were not published until
more than a century later. In 1875 a group of nationally conscious men established the
Association of True Afrikaners, which eventually published the first newspaper, the first
magazine, and the first literary texts in Afrikaans. The leader of the so-called First
Afrikaans Language Movement was S.J. du Toit, a Dutch Reformed pastor and a
versatile and prolific author. The writings of the First Language Movement were
propagandist, aiming to break down prejudice against the new language and to prove
that it could be an effective means of communication.
Afrikaans prose writing made important strides in the 1920s and ’30s. In the
genre of local realism, two novelists achieved success with their delineations of the folk
of farms and villages—Jochem van Bruggen and Jan van Melle. The two foremost
Romantic novelists were D.F. Malherbe, who wrote numerous prolix narratives on
Biblical themes and South African pioneering history; and C.M. van den Heever, whose
work is based mostly on the Afrikaner’s conflicts in the transition from a rural to an
urban society and implies a natural bond between the farmer and the soil. Toon van den
Heever was the outstanding new poet of the 1920s, and his anticonformist verse
foreshadowed the great upsurge of “new” Afrikaans poetry in the 1930s.
The supreme event in Afrikaans literature was the appearance of a group of
talented poets, the Dertigers (“Poets of the ’30s”), begun by W.E.G. Louw with Die ryke
dwaas (1934; “The Rich Fool”). This sensitive poet, with his searing conflicts between
God and Eros, exemplified qualities soon to become the new generation’s hallmark. He
was followed by his elder brother, N.P. van Wyk Louw, the principal creative artist and
theoretician of the new movement. Van Wyk Louw achieved mastery in every form,
writing the finest odes, sonnets, modern ballads, and love lyrics in Afrikaans. His
dramatic monologue “Die Hond van God” (1942; “The Hound of God”) was unsurpassed
in the Dutch literatures, his epic poem Raka (1941) became a classic, and in the poetry
collection Tristia (1962) he mourned the exile of the individual searching for signs of
God in earthly existence.
South African Writers

1. Nadine Gordimer. A South African novelist and short-story writer whose major
theme was exile and alienation. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1991.
Gordimer’s first book was Face to Face (1949), a collection of short stories. In
1953 a novel, The Lying Days, was published. Both exhibit the clear, controlled,
and unsentimental style that became her hallmark. Her stories concern the
devastating effects of apartheid on the lives of South Africans—the constant
tension between personal isolation and the commitment to social justice, the

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numbness caused by the unwillingness to accept apartheid, the inability to

change it, and the refusal of exile.
2. Alan Paton. A South African writer, best known for his first novel, Cry, the
Beloved Country (1948), a passionate tale of racial injustice that brought
international attention to the problem of apartheid in South Africa.
Paton studied at the University of Natal (later incorporated into the University of
KwaZulu-Natal) and then taught school from 1925 to 1935. In 1935 Paton left his
teaching position to direct Diepkloof Reformatory for delinquent urban African
boys, near Johannesburg. The success of Cry, the Beloved Country, which he
wrote during his tenure at the reformatory, led him to resign his post for full-time
writing. The book vividly portrays the anguish suffered by an elderly black
minister who must come to terms with his faith when his son is convicted of
murdering a white man. Paton wrote the screenplay for the 1951 film adaptation.
Both Cry, the Beloved Country and Paton’s next novel, Too Late the
Phalarope (1953), exhibit a characteristic balanced, economical, rhythmic prose,
which has, especially in dialogue, a singing psalmodic tone. The Diepkloof period
provided additional material for some short stories. During that period of his life,
Paton became involved in South African politics. In 1953 he helped found
the Liberal Party of South Africa to offer a nonracial alternative to apartheid;
Paton was its national president until its enforced dissolution in 1968. His active
opposition to the policy of apartheid led to confiscation of his passport from 1960
to 1970.
3. Olive Schreiner. The writer who produced the first great South
African novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883). She had a powerful intellect,
militantly feminist and liberal views on politics and society, and great vitality that
was somewhat impaired by asthma and severe depressions. Her brother William
Philip Schreiner was prime minister of Cape Colony from 1899 to 1902.
4. Lewis Nkosi. A South African author, critic, journalist, and broadcaster. The
Rhythm of Violence (1964), a drama set in Johannesburg in the early 1960s,
handles the theme of race relations. Nkosi produced the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) radio series “Africa Abroad” from 1962 to 1965 and worked
from 1965 to 1968 as literary editor of The New African.
Nkosi’s later works included essays on South Africa in The Transplanted

Heart (1975) and the collections Tasks and Masks: Themes and Styles of African
Literature (1981) and Home and Exile and Other Selections (1983). His
first novel, Mating Birds (1983), brought Nkosi to the attention of a wider
audience for its subtle examination of an interracial affair.

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5. Bessie Head. African writer who described the contradictions and shortcomings
of pre- and postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories.
Head’s novels evolved from an objective, affirmative narrative of an exile finding

new meaning in his adopted village in When Rain Clouds Gather (1969) to a
more introspective account of the acceptance won by a light-coloured San
(Bushman) woman in a black-dominated African society in Maru (1971). A
Question of Power (1973) is a frankly autobiographical account of disorientation
and paranoia in which the heroine survives by sheer force of will. The Collector of
Treasures (1977), a volume of short fiction, includes brief vignettes of traditional
Botswanan village life, macabre tales of witchcraft, and passionate attacks on
African male chauvinism.
Literature in Russia
Russian literature, the body of written works produced in the Russian language,
beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century.
The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous
controversies. Three major and sudden breaks divide it into four periods—pre-Petrine
(or Old Russian), Imperial, post-Revolutionary, and post-Soviet. The reforms of Peter I
(the Great; reigned 1682–1725), who rapidly Westernized the country, created so sharp
a divide with the past that it was common in the 19th century to maintain that Russian
literature had begun only a century before. The 19th century’s most influential critic,
Vissarion Belinsky, even proposed the exact year (1739) in which Russian literature
began, thus denying the status of literature to all pre-Petrine works. The Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the Bolshevik coup later in the same year created another major
divide, eventually turning “official” Russian literature into political propaganda for the
communist state. Finally, Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascent to power in 1985 and the collapse
of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 marked another dramatic break. What is important in this
pattern is that the breaks were sudden rather than gradual and that they were the
product of political forces external to literary history itself.
The most celebrated period of Russian literature was the 19th century, which
produced, in a remarkably short period, some of the indisputable masterworks of world
literature. It has often been noted that the overwhelming majority of Russian works of
world significance were produced within the lifetime of one person, Leo Tolstoy (1828–
1910). Indeed, many of them were written within two decades, the 1860s and 1870s, a
period that perhaps never has been surpassed in any culture for sheer concentrated
literary brilliance.
Russian literature, especially of the Imperial and post-Revolutionary periods, has
as its defining characteristics an intense concern with philosophical problems, a

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constant self-consciousness about its relation to the cultures of the West, and a strong
tendency toward formal innovation and defiance of received generic norms. The
combination of formal radicalism and preoccupation with abstract philosophical issues
creates the recognizable aura of Russian classics
Russian Writers
1. Leo Tolstoy. The Russian novelist and moral philosopher (person who studies
good and bad in relation to human life) Leo Tolstoy ranks as one of the world's
great writers, and his War and Peace has been called the greatest novel ever
written.
The first portion of War and Peace was published in 1865 (in the Russian
Messenger ) as "The Year 1805." In 1868 three more chapters appeared, and in
1869 he completed the novel. His new novel created a fantastic out-pouring of
popular and critical reaction.
Tolstoy's War and Peace represents a high point in the history of world literature,
but it was also the peak of Tolstoy's personal life. His characters represent
almost everyone he had ever met, including all of his relations on both sides of
his family. Balls and battles, birth and death, all were described in amazing detail.
In this book the European realistic novel, with its attention to social structures,
exact description, and psychological rendering, found its most complete
expression.
From 1873 to 1877 Tolstoy worked on the second of his masterworks, Anna
Karenina, which also created a sensation upon its publication. The concluding
section of the novel was written during another of Russia's seemingly endless
wars with Turkey. The novel was based partly on events that had occurred on a
neighboring estate, where a nobleman's rejected mistress had thrown herself
under a train. It again contained great chunks of disguised biography, especially
in the scenes describing the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin. Tolstoy's
family continued to grow, and his royalties (money earned from sales) were
making him an extremely rich man.
2. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. He was born in Moscow in 1821. His debut,

the epistolary novella Poor Folk (1846), made his name. In 1849 he was arrested
for involvement with the politically subversive 'Petrashevsky circle' and until 1854
he lived in a convict prison in Omsk, Siberia. From this experience came The
House of the Dead (1860-2). In 1860 he began the journal Vremya (Time).
Already married, he fell in love with one of his contributors, Appollinaria Suslova,

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eighteen years his junior, and developed a ruinous passion for roulette. After the
death of his first wife, Maria, in 1864, Dostoyevsky completed Notes from
Underground and began work towards Crime and Punishment (1866). The major
novels of his late period are The Idiot (1868), Demons (1871-2) and The Brothers
Karamazov (1879-80). He died in 1881.
3. Alexander Pushkin. Russia’s most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin was born
into one of Russia’s most famous noble families. His mother was the
granddaughter of an Abyssinian prince, Hannibal, who had been a favorite of
Peter I, and many of Pushkin’s forebears played important roles in Russian
history. Pushkin began writing poetry as a student at the Lyceum at Tsarskoe
Selo, a school for aristocratic youth. As a young man, Pushkin was immersed in
French poetry and Russian Neoclassicism. His early output was generically
diverse and included elegies, songs, and epistles.
At the end 1823, Pushkin began work on his masterpiece, Evgeny

Onegin (Eugene Onegin). Written over seven years, the poem was published in
full in 1833. In it, Pushkin invented a new stanza: iambic tetrameter with
alternating feminine and masculine rhymes. The poem is also notable for its
inventive and exuberant language and social critique. And while Pushkin played
with autobiography, the verse novel turned out to be more autobiographical than
even he knew: like Pushkin himself, Onegin gets involved in a duel, though
Onegin survives by killing his opponent, while Pushkin would die at the hand of
his own. In general, Pushkin’s life was marked by political and romantic scandal.
Though Nicholas I eventually released him from exile, Pushkin’s work was
frequently censored, his letters intercepted, and his status with the court
remained tenuous until his death.
4. Vladimir Nabokov. Russian-born American novelist and critic, the foremost of

the post-1917 émigré authors. He wrote in both Russian and English, and his
best works, including Lolita (1955), feature stylish, intricate literary effects.
Nabokov published two collections of verse, Poems (1916) and Two

Paths (1918), before leaving Russia in 1919. He and his family made their way to
England, and he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, on a scholarship provided
for the sons of prominent Russians in exile. While at Cambridge he first
studied zoology but soon switched to French and Russian literature; he
graduated with first-class honours in 1922 and subsequently wrote that his
almost effortless attainment of this degree was “one of the very few ‘utilitarian’
sins on my conscience.” While still in England he continued to write poetry,
mainly in Russian but also in English, and two collections of his Russian

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poetry, The Cluster and The Empyrean Path, appeared in 1923. In Nabokov’s
mature opinion, these poems were “polished and sterile.”
5. Maxim Gorky. Alexander Peshkov (later known as Maxim Gorky was born in
Nizhny Novgorod on 16th March, 1868. His father was a shipping agent but he
died when Gorky was only five years old. His mother remarried and Gorky was
brought up by his grandmother.
In 1891 Gorky moved to Tiflis where he found employment as a painter in a

railway yard. The following year his first short-story, Makar Chudra, appeared in
the Tiflis newspaper, Kavkaz. He story appeared under the name Maxim Gorky
(Maxim the Bitter). The story was popular with the readers and soon others
began appearing in other journals such as the successful Russian Wealth.
Gorky also began writing articles on politics and literature for newspapers. In
1895 he began writing a daily column under the heading, By the Way. In this
articles he campaigned against the eviction of peasants from their land and the
persecution of trade unionists in Russia. He also criticized the country's poor
educational standards, the government's treatment of the Jewish community and
the growth in foreign investment in Russia.

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Module 7
THE OTHER AFRICAN LITERATURE
Objectives:
1. Discuss the literature in Senegal, Egypt, Benin, Nigeria, Kenya and Madagascar.
2. Differentiate literature in Senegal, Egypt, Benin, Nigeria, Kenya and Madagascar.
3. Identify the writers in Senegal, Egypt, Benin, Nigeria, Kenya and Madagascar.
Literature of Senegal
The introduction of French into Senegal goes back to the 1800s and the few
books written in French by Senegalese authors in the 19th century signal the modest
beginnings of a written tradition that complemented a flourishing oral tradition. In fact,
Senegalese writing goes back to the 18th century and Phillis Wheatley's poetry (1753-
84). This young Senegalese woman, snatched from her native land and sold as a slave
in America, is considered to be the first black woman to have published a literary work
(in English).
In 1850 Lépold Panet, from Gorée published his Relation de voyage de Saint-
Louis à Souiera [The Chronicle of Saint-Louis' Voyage to Souiera] in the Revue
Coloniale [The Colonial Review]. A few years later, the Abbé Bouillat provided a wealth
of information about his era in Esquisses Sénégalaises [Senegalese Sketches]. In 1920,
the school teacher Amadou Mapaté published Les Trois volontés de Malic [Malic's
Three Wishes] for his pupils. In 1925, Bakari Diallo told of his experiences as a
"tirailleur-sénégalais" [Senegalese Infantryman] in Force-Bonté. In the 1930s, both
Senghor's poetry and the Negritude Movement gave Senegalese literature an
international reputation. After the Second World War, novelists such as Ousmane Soce,
Sembene Ousmane (who later also made films), Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Abdoulay Sadji
and others developed further a lively literary tradition and popularised Senegalese
literature, both within and beyond their own country. Other writers include: Lamine
Diakhate, Birago Diop, Cheik Aliou Ndao , Abdoulaye Sadji, Ibrahima Sall and Boubacar
Boris Diop who is possibly the best known Senegalese writer of today.
It was only after Independence that women began to publish literary material. At
first it was only modest booklets such as Annette Mbaye d'Erneville's poetry. But in the
mid 1970s, the autobiography of Nafissatou Diallo, poetry by Kiné Kirama Fall and
novels by Aminata Sow Fall and Mariama Bâ followed. Also worth mentioning, is a
manuscript by Mame Younousse Dieng that was shelved for 20 years by the publisher.
From the beginning of the 1980s, a large number of women have contributed to a
significant expansion of Senegalese literature : Myriam Warner Vieyra, Aminata Maïga
Ka, Tita Mandeleau (who lived for many years in New York), Amina Sow Mbaye, Ken
Bugul (who currently lives in Benin), Ndèye Boury Ndiaye, Mariama Ndoye (who

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currently lives in Tunisia), Khadi Fall, Khady Sylla etc.. At the beginning of the new
millenium, women authors continue to published strongly as illustrated by the recent
novels of Sokhna Benga, Aïssatou Cissé, Jacqueline Fatima Bocoum, Nafissatou Dia
Diouf, Khady Hane, Fama Diagne Sène, Madjiguène Niang, Fatou Diome, Aminata
Zaaria, Sanou Lô, ... and also Marie NDiaye (notwithstanding the fact that she was born
in France and only retains loose links with her father's country of origin.)
Senegalese Writers
1. Mariama Ba. One of the pioneers of Senegalese literature. Born in Dakar in
1929, she lost her mother soon after, and was raised by her maternal
grandmother, who was of Muslim confession and strongly attached to traditional
culture. Through the insistence of her father, an open-minded politician, the
young Mariama attended French school, obtained her school-leaving certificate,
and won admission to the École Normale for girls in Rufisque, from where she
graduated as a schoolteacher in 1947.
2. Ousmane Sembene. The Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène

(born 1923) is one of Africa's great contemporary novelists and the father of
African cinema. His work is characterized by a concern with ordinary decent
people who are victimized by repressive governments and bureaucracies.
Several of his films have been censored in Senegal because of their political
criticism.
Ousmane Sembène was born on Jan. 8, 1923, at Ziguinchor in the southern
region of Casamance in colonial French West Africa, now Senegal. Among
Francophone African writers, he was unique because of his working-class
background and limited primary school education. Originally a fisherman in
Casamance, he worked in Dakar as a plumber, bricklayer, and mechanic. In
1939 he was drafted into the colonial army and fought with the French in Italy
and Germany and then participated in the liberation of France. He settled in
Marseilles, where he worked on the piers and became the leader of the long-
shoremen's union. His first novel, Le Docker noir (1956; translated into English in
1981 as The Black Docker), is about his experiences during this period.
Sembène soon turned to writing full-time. He returned to Senegal a few years
before it gained independence in 1960. He became an astute observer of the
political scene and wrote a number of volumes on the developing national
consciousness. In Oh pays, mon beau peuple!, he depicts the plight of a
developing country under colonialism. God's Bits of Wood (1960) recounts the
developing sense of self and group consciousness among railway workers in
French West Africa during a strike. L'Harmattan (1964) focuses upon the difficulty
of creating a popular government and the corruption of unresponsive politicians
who postpone the arrival of independence.

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3. Leopold Senghor. Senegalese poet, writer, and statesman Léopold Sédar

Senghor was born near Dakar in the town of Joal to a Fulbe mother and a Serer
trader father. He was educated at the École Nationale de la France d’Outre-Mer
in Paris, where he became friends with Aimé Césaire and future French
president George Pompidou. After earning his French citizenship, Senghor
taught in Tours and Paris. He joined the French army during World War II and
spent 18 months in a German prison camp. After serving successive terms
representing Senegal in the French National Assembly, Senghor returned to his
native land, where he led his nation’s independence movement in 1960. He
eventually became Senegal’s first democratically elected president, a post which
he held for the next 20 years.
Senghor’s political and literary careers were inextricably linked. Residing part-
time in France, he wrote poems of resistance in French which engaged his
Catholic spirituality even as they celebrated his Senegalese heritage. Senghor is
the author of several collections of poetry, including Chants
d’ombre (1945), Nocturnes (1961), and The Collected Poetry (1991, translated
by Melvin Dixon). He also edited an anthology of work by African poets in French
colonies, Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poésie Négre et Malagache (1945, with an
introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre). His nonfiction work includes numerous
volumes on politics, philosophy, sociology, and linguistics.
4. Birago Diop. African Francophone poet and storyteller Birago Diop was born
outside Dakar, Senegal, in 1906. Encouraged by his family from a young age to
pursue his literary and scholarly aspirations, he earned a BA from Lycée
Faidherbe in Saint-Louis, Senegal, before eventually moving to France to pursue
veterinary medicine at the University of Toulouse. In Paris, Diop encountered
many other African, black American, and Caribbean expatriates and fell into the
emerging negritude literary and artistic movement.
In 1933, Diop returned to Senegal, where his career as a veterinarian led him
throughout rural West Africa. On these excursions, he encountered indigenous
Wolof traditions and oral literature, which greatly informed his later work. African
subject matter treated in classically French forms characterizes his unique style.
A recipient of the Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique-Occidentale Francaise and an
Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, Diop died in Dakar in 1989.
5. Fatuo Diome. She was born on Niodior, an island off the coast of Senegal in
1968. She grew up with her grandmother and, despite difficult circumstances,
managed to attend school, learning French – the language of her later works.
She left her village at the age of thirteen in order to go to secondary school in the

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nearest city. Up until the start of her degree course in Dakar she lived with three
foster families in different cities. In 1990 she met a Frenchman working in
Senegal and married him four years later, going back to France with him that
same year, where she experienced racism even from her own parents in law.
Following her divorce she embarked on a literature degree in Strasbourg,
financed by cleaning jobs.
Self-determination, exile and ostracism are the main themes in Diome’s work.
Following a collection of short stories and a novella, she published her first novel,
»Le Ventre de l’Atlantique« (Eng. »The Belly of the Atlantic«, 2006), in 2003. She
achieved international recognition for the work, winning the Prix des
Hémisphères Chantal Lapicque, the LiBeraturpreis and the young readers’ book
prize of the »Jury der jungen Leser«. The largely autobiographical story-line tells
of a young African immigrant in France who bonds with her younger brother, the
latter having remained in Senegal, as they simultaneously watch football on
television. She tries to talk him out of his unrealistic dreams of a career as a
footballer in France. Through vivid language full of humour, irony and filmic
immediacy, her thorough and sophisticated critique makes apparent the causes
and conditions of suppression. »I had had enough of the clichés: immigration is
not only about the exploitation of poor people. It’s also about people who leave in
order to emancipate themselves, who leave in the name of freedom and who
leave for an abundance of other reasons.« In this respect, the critique not only
focuses on Europe, but also on Africa, where the protagonist experiences the
disapproval of the village community because of being illegitimate, as well as the
restrictions of a solidified tradition, as people mistrust their own strength.
Literature of Egypt
Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms
including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and
legends; religious writings; philosophical works; autobiographies; biographies; histories;
poetry; hymns; personal essays; letters and court records. Although many of these
forms are not usually defined as "literature" they are given that designation in Egyptian
studies because so many of them, especially from the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782
BCE), are of such high literary merit.
The first examples of Egyptian writing come from the Early Dynastic Period (c.
6000- c. 3150 BCE) in the form of Offering Lists and autobiographies; the autobiography
was carved on one's tomb along with the Offering List to let the living know what gifts,
and in what quantity, the deceased was due regularly in visiting the grave. Since the
dead were thought to live on after their bodies had failed, regular offerings at graves
were an important consideration; the dead still had to eat and drink even if they no
longer held a physical form. From the Offering List came the Prayer for Offerings, a
standard literary work which would replace the Offering List, and from the
autobiographies grew the Pyramid Texts which were accounts of a king's reign and his

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successful journey to the afterlife; both these developments took place during the period
of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-c.2181 BCE).
These texts were written in hieroglyphics ("sacred carvings") a writing system
combining phonograms (symbols which represent sound), logograms (symbols
representing words), and ideograms (symbols which represent meaning or sense).
Hieroglyphic writing was extremely labor intensive and so another script grew up beside
it known as hieratic ("sacred writings") which was faster to work with and easier to use.
Hieratic was based on hieroglyphic script and relied on the same principles but was less
formal and precise. Hieroglyphic script was written with particular care for the aesthetic
beauty of the arrangement of the symbols; hieratic script was used to relay information
quickly and easily. In c. 700 BCE hieratic was replaced by demotic script ("popular
writing") which continued in use until the rise of Christianity in Egypt and the adoption of
Coptic script c. 4th century CE.
Most of Egyptian literature was written in hieroglyphics or hieratic script;
hieroglyphics were used on monuments such as tombs, obelisks, stele, and temples
while hieratic script was used in writing on papyrus scrolls and ceramic pots. Although
hieratic, and later demotic and Coptic, scripts became the common writing system of the
educated and literate, hieroglyphics remained in use throughout Egypt's history for
monumental structures until it was forgotten during the early Christian period.
Although the definition of "Egyptian Literature" includes many different types of
writing, for the present purposes attention will mostly be paid to standard literary works
such as stories, legends, myths, and personal essays; other kinds or work will be
mentioned when they are particularly significant. Egyptian history, and so literature,
spans centuries and fills volumes of books; a single article cannot hope to treat of the
subject fairly in attempting to cover the wide range of written works of the culture.
Egyptian Writers
1. Naguib Mahfauz. Born in Cairo in 1911, Naguib Mahfouz began writing when he
was seventeen. His first novel was published in 1939 and ten more were written
before the Egyptian Revolution of July 1952, when he stopped writing for several
years. One novel was republished in 1953, however, and the appearance of the
Cairo Triology, Bayn al Qasrayn, Qasr al Shawq, Sukkariya (Between-the-
Palaces, Palace of Longing, Sugarhouse) in 1957 made him famous throughout
the Arab world as a depictor of traditional urban life. With The Children of
Gebelawi (1959), he began writing again, in a new vein that frequently concealed
political judgements under allegory and symbolism. Works of this second period
include the novels, The Thief and the Dogs (1961), Autumn Quail (1962), Small
Talk on the Nile (1966), and Miramar (1967), as well as several collections of
short stories.

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2. Yusuf Idris. Egyptian playwright and novelist who broke with traditional Arabic
literature by mixing colloquial dialect with conventional classical Arabic narration
in the writing of realistic stories about ordinary villagers.
Idrīs’ first anthology of stories, Arkhas layali (The Cheapest Nights), appeared in
1954 and was quickly followed by several more volumes, including A-laysa
kadhalik (1957; Isn’t That So?). In the 1960s he sought to create a uniquely
Egyptian dramatic form using colloquial language and elements of traditional
folk drama and shadow theatre. He presented this plan in a series of three
essays entitled “Towards a New Arabic Theatre,” and he tried to put it into
practice in his own plays, notably Al-Lahzat al-harija (1958; The Critical
Moment), Al-Farafir (1964; The Farfoors, or The Flipflap), and Al-
Mukhatatin (1969; The Striped Ones). Idrīs’ other major works included the
novels Al-Haram (1959; The Forbidden) and Al-ʿAyb (1962; The Sin). In the Eye
of the Beholder: Tales of Egyptian Life from the Writings of Yusuf Idris (1978)
and Rings of Burnished Brass (1984) are two collections of his works published
in translation.
3. Taha Hussein. One of the most influential 20th century Egyptian writers and
intellectuals, and a figurehead for the Arab Renaissance and the modernist
movement in the Arab World. His sobriquet was "The Dean of Arabic Literature".
4. Tawfiq al-Hakim. A well-known Egyptian writer, Tawfiq al-Hakim is renowned as

the father of modern Arab drama. He began writing under a pseudonym Husayn
Tawfiq, to avoid the wrath of his family who, similar to many others at the time,
did not think much of writers, considering it a frivolous endeavor unworthy of
middle-class society. Most of the plays were written for the popular theater of the
Ukasha brothers (Zaki, Abd al-Hamid, and Abdullah). These early plays touched
on political and social themes couched in melodrama and comedy, favorite forms
with enthusiastic audiences of the early twentieth century. 'Al-Dayf al-Thaqil (The
Unwelcome Visitor) touched on the rising nationalist themes prevalent around the
1919 revolution that took Egypt by storm.
5. Gamal al-Ghitani. Egyptian novelist and editor was a major figure in the avant-
garde Egyptian literary movement called Gallery 68. Ghitani was best known for
his debut novel, Al-Zaynī Barakāt, a historical parable set in early 16th-
century Mamluk Cairo, in which the central character, Zayni Barakat, is a
respected government official who eventually joins forces with the head of
the secret police to stay in power. The novel was perceived as a thinly
disguised critique of Nasser, whose administration had arrested Ghitani, a fierce
defender of freedom of speech, for public dissent and had jailed him in 1966–67
for six months. Ghitani graduated (1962) in Oriental carpet design from the

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College of Arts and Crafts, Cairo, and apprenticed as a carpet maker (1962–66)
before turning to a career in journalism, including a stint as a newspaper
correspondent covering the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Literature of Benin
Benin, like much of Africa, has a long history of storytelling. And like much of
Africa, this was an oral tradition, that is, passing the stories verbally from one generation
to another.
The arrival of the French changed things drastically. First of all, there was the
obvious influence from the addition of the French language. The first novel written from
a Beninese author, called L'Esclave, was written in 1929 by Felix Couchoro. Since then
many authors have carved their niche in Beninese literature.
Most writers are employed in either the education field, in some aspect of
government, or in journalism. One name that came up is feminist poet Colette Sénami
Agossou Houeto. Not only has she been an educator, but she has written scores of
poems. Another female writer is Adelaide Fassinou. She is Benin's Secretary General
for UNESCO, yet has still managed to churn out four French-language novels. Paulin
Joachim is a journalist and editor who have also published two sets of poetry. He was
also the recipient of the W.E.B. Du Bois medal in 2006.
Beninese Writers
1. Richard Dogbeh born Gbèmagon Richard Dogbeh in what is now Benin, was a
novelist and educator. He served as Benin's Directeur de Cabinet of the National
Ministry of Education from 1963 to 1966. He was also active in the Comité
Consultatif International de Documentation des Bibliothèques et des Archives
and then from 1968 to 1979 served as a UNESCO expert on educational
systems for much of West Africa. After that he spent his life in Benin. As an
author Dogbeh started early and at 16 won the nation's "Institut Français
d'Afrique Noire" prize for a novel. He also published essays, poems, and stories.
He died in Cotonou.
2. Paul Hazoume. Although a staunch supporter of French colonialism, Paul
Hazoume's narrative captures the customs and traditions of Dahomey. This
novel, set in the first half of the 19th century, depicts a pattern of war, slave trade
and human sacrifice - practices that earned Dahomey a reputation for brutality.
3. Jean Pliya. Playwright from Dahomey (Benin). The first agrégé in geography of
the present Benin Republic, Pliya has held a number of important government
offices including that of vice‐chancellor of the Université du Bénin.

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4. Olympe Bhêly-Quénum. His major works included the novels Un Piège sans
fin (1960; Snares Without End), in which a man’s life is ruined when he is unjustly
accused of adultery; Le Chant du lac (1965; “The Song of the Lake”), which
illustrated the modern conflict between educated Africans and their superstitious
countrymen; and L’Initié (1979; “The Initiate”), the protagonist of which is a
French-trained doctor who is also an initiate of a faith-healing cult. A collection of
short stories (Liaison d’une été [1968; “Summer Affair”]), many of which were
written before the novels, introduced his major theme of the supernatural. Bhêly-
Quénum was praised in France for his elegant, poetic use of the French
language. His novels and stories are for the most part violent episodes tied
together by powerful narrative flow.
5. Adelaide Fassinou was born on the 15th of September 1955 in Porto-Novo,

Benin. In 1986 she graduated in contemporary literature and became a French
teacher. In subsequent years, she taught in various secondary schools and
colleges. After further studies and research at the National University of Benin,
Adelaide was granted a DEA in Stylistics. In 1999, she became the officer in
charge of evaluations at the National Institute for Training and Research in
Education and in 2005, was working as Benin General Secretary for UNESCO.
Literature of Nigeria
In the beginning was oral literature, the root of African literature. Nigerian
literature, in particular, began with the oral tradition, pioneered by the unsung heroes of
her literary past, like royal bards, warriors, story tellers, priests and many others.
Literary elements like folklore and proverbs were originated by these unknown literary
soldiers.
According to Bade Ajuwon in his article, ‘Oral and Written Literature in Nigeria’, in
Nigerian History and Culture, pre-literate Nigeria once enjoyed a verbal art civilization
which, at its high point, was warmly patronised by traditional rulers and the general
public. “At a period when writing was unknown, the oral medium served the people as a
bank for the preservation of their ancient experiences and beliefs. Much of the evidence
that related to the past of Nigeria, therefore, could be found in oral traditions.”
He cited the instance of Yoruba community where “as a means of relaxation,
farmers gather their children and sit under the moon for tale-telling... that instruct the
young and teach them to respect the dictates of their custom”. This was the practice
across the cultural groupings that form Nigeria today. A literary work must, therefore,
derive from these basic traditional elements to be adjudged as African literature.

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Nigeria, therefore, owes her present giant strides in the international literary scene to
her rich oral tradition.
The written tradition was introduced to Northern Nigeria in the 15th century by
Arab scholars and traders. The intellectual and religious interaction between them and
the indigenous community led to the adaptation of Hausa into Arabic script; a genre
known as Ajami. The subsequent arrival of missionaries in the 1930s with the Roman
script further enhanced the written tradition and gave rise to the emergence of many
indigenous poets and prose writers. The novels in particular were based on folktales
featuring fantastic characters of humans, animals and fairies. According to available
records, the earliest literature in Hausa written in Arabic and Ajami, were by Islamic
scholars such as Abdullahi Suka who wrote Riwayar Annabi Musa in Ajami, and Wali
Danmasani Abdulajalil who wrote the Hausa poem Wakir Yakin Badar also in Ajami.
The works of these pioneers marked a literary landmark, which came to its height in the
nineteenth century when the Islamic Jihadist, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, wrote hundreds
of poems in Arabic, Fulfulde and Hausa.
The Hausa novel genres in Roman script were published from the winning
entries of a writing competition in the 1930s. The works, which have become classics,
include Shehu Umar by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Ruwan Bagaja by Abubakar Imam,
Gandoki by Bello Kagara, Idon Matambayi by Mohammadu Gwarzo and Jiki Magayi by
M. Tafida and Dr. East. In terms of plays, the Six Hausa Plays edited by Dr. R. M. East
and published in 1930 were the first plays in Hausa. It consists of three plays; Kidan
Ruwa, Yawon Magi and Kalankuwa.
Southern Nigeria owes its literary legacy to missionary activities in the area
around 1840s which went hand in hand with inculcation of literacy. The need to
translate the bible for the new converts necessitated a number of publications by the
missionaries. Prominent among such publications were, A Grammar of the Ibo
Language (1840) by the pioneer missionary, Rev. J.F. Schon and A Vocabulary of the
Yoruba Language (1843) by Samuel Ajayi Crowther, an ex-slave and the first African
Bishop of the Niger Diocese of the Church Missionary Society. Such publications
eventually served not only the primary religious purpose but also as a sound foundation
for the written indigenous literature, in which folklores and other genres of oral tradition
were recorded and woven into poetry, short stories and novels, especially in the Igbo
and Yoruba languages.
Nigerian Writers
1. Wole Soyinka is best known as a playwright. Alongside his literary career, he
has also worked as an actor and in theaters in Nigeria and Great Britain. His
works also include poetry, novels, and essays. Wole Soyinka writes in English,
but his works are rooted in his native Nigeria and the Yoruba culture, with its

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legends, tales, and traditions. His writing also includes influences from Western
traditions - from classical tragedies to modernist drama.
2. Femi Osofisan is an internationally lauded playwright, scholar, poet, novelist,

actor, director, songwriter, and activist. Based in Ibadan, Nigeria, he has enjoyed
a long career of writing, directing, and teaching in his home country and abroad,
including the Guthrie Theatre (1997). His work has been described as “cries for
personal freedom and political action.” A member of the Advisory Board of the
International Research Centre at Freire Universitat in Berlin, Osofisan was
awarded the prestigious Thalia Prize in 2016, the first African to be so honored
by the International Association of Theatre Critics. Under his given name and his
pseudonym, Okinba Launko, he has published five novellas, six volumes of
poetry, and more than 50 plays, including Once Upon Four Robbers and A
Nightingale for Dr. Dubois. Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts at the University of
Ibadan, Osofisan spent his time at Camargo working on The Africa-Diaspora
Triad: Three Plays on African Americans and the Beginnings of African
Independence (2): Maya Angelou.
3. Ben Okri. Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, and poet who used magic
realism to convey the social and political chaos in the country of his birth. His first
novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981),
employ surrealistic images to depict the corruption and lunacy of a politically
scarred country. Two volumes of short stories, Incidents at the Shrine (1986)
and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), portray the essential link in
Nigerian culture between the physical world and the world of the spirits.
4. Buchi Emecheta. Much of her fiction has focused on sexual politics and racial
prejudice, and is based on her own experiences as both a single parent and a
black woman living in Britain. Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical In the
Ditch, was published in 1972. It first appeared in a series of articles published in
the New Statesman magazine, and, together with its sequel, Second Class
Citizen (1974), provides a fictionalised portrait of a poor young Nigerian woman
struggling to bring up her children in London. She began to write about the role of
women in Nigerian society in The Bride Price (1976); The Slave Girl (1977),
winner of the New Statesman Jock Campbell Award; and The Joys of
Motherhood (1979), an account of women's experiences bringing up children in
the face of changing values in traditional Ibo society.
5. Sefi Atta. A former chartered accountant and CPA, she is a graduate of the
creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her short stories

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have appeared in journals like Los Angeles Review and Mississipi Review and
have won prizes from Zoetrope and Red Hen Press. Her radio plays have been
broadcast by the BBC. She is the winner of PEN International's 2004/2005 David
TK Wong Prize and in 2006, her debut novel Everything Good Will Come was
awarded the inaugural Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Her short story
collection, Lawless, received the 2009 Noma Award For Publishing in Africa.
Lawless is published in the US and UK as News From Home.
Literature of Kenya
Kenya has a strong tradition of oral literature, which continues today in several
languages. As a result of Kenya's position as a former colony of England, the national
literature concurrently belongs to several bodies of writing, including that of the
Commonwealth of Nations and of Africa as a whole. Most written literature is in English;
some scholars consider Swahili to be marginalized as a language, despite Kenya's
independence from Britain.
Kenyan literature includes a large body of oral and written folklore, much of the
latter collected by British anthropologists. During the colonial era, writers of European
origin residing in Kenya, such as Elspeth Huxley (The Flame Trees of Thika, 1959) and
Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa, 1937), introduced indigenous themes and settings to broad
audiences. The Swahili literary tradition (see also Swahili literature), both oral and
written, dates to the 18th century and is represented by authors such as Muyaka bin
Haji al-Ghassaniy and Kupona Mwana. Contemporary novelists, including Ngugi wa
Thiong’o, Grace Ogot, Meja Mwangi, Hilary Ngweno, Margaret Ogola, and R. Mugo
Gatheru, address problems in colonial and postcolonial society. Many of these writers
publish in English, although Thiong’o has insisted on publishing first in his native
Kikuyu, saying:
Only by a return to the roots of our being in the languages and cultures and
heroic histories of the Kenyan people can we rise up to the challenge of helping in the
creation of a Kenyan patriotic national literature and culture that will be the envy of
many foreigners and the pride of Kenyans.
Kenyan Writers
1. Grace Ogot. A Kenyan author of widely anthologized short stories and novels
who also held a ministerial position in Kenya’s government. One of the few well-
known woman writers in Kenya, Ogot was the first woman to have fiction
published by the East African Publishing House. Her stories—which appeared in
European and African journals such as Black Orpheus and Transition and in

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collections such as Land Without Thunder (1968), The Other Woman (1976),
and The Island of Tears (1980)—give an inside view of traditional Luo life and
society and the conflict of traditional with colonial and modern cultures.
Her novel The Promised Land (1966) tells of Luo pioneers in Tanzania and
western Kenya.
2. Francis D. Imbuga. A Kenyan playwright and literature scholar whose works,

including Aminata and Betrayal in the City, have become staples in the study of
literature schools in Kenya. His works have consistently dealt with issues such as
the clashes of modernity and tradition in the social organisation of African
communities. His play Betrayal in the City was Kenya's entry to FESTAC.
3. Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye was an English/Kenyan novelist, essayist and poet.

Born Marjorie King in 1928 in Southampton, England, and died on 1st December
2015 in Kenya. Marjorie travelled to Kenya to work as a missionary in 1954. She
worked at the S.J. Moore Bookshop on Government Road, now Moi Avenue in
Nairobi, for some years. There she organised readings which were attended by,
among others, Okot P'Bitek, the author of Song of Lawino, and Jonathan Kariara,
a Kenyan poet. She met Macgoye, a medical doctor, and the two were married in
1960. In 1971, an anthology entitled Poems from East Africa included the
acclaimed poem "A Freedom Song". Her 1986 novel Coming to Birth won the
Sinclair Prize and has been used as a set book in Kenyan high schools. She has
been called the "mother of Kenyan literature". Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye died on
December 1, 2015, at her home in Nairobi.
4. Margaret Atieno Ogola was not a full-time writer, but a pediatrician, the medical
doctor of Cottolengo Hospice for HIV/AIDS orphans. But she became a
household name for The River and the Source, KCSE set book for many years
and which has been translated into Italian, Lithuanian and Spanish.
5. Elspeth Huxley, who died in 1997, is chiefly remembered for her lyrical and
evocative memoir The Flame Trees of Thika (1959). Yet this was only one of the
thirty books she wrote, and it took just a few months of her remarkably active life
to compose.
Literature of Madagascar
One of the island's foremost artistic traditions is its oratory, as expressed in the
forms of hainteny (poetry), kabary (public discourse) and ohabolana (proverbs). An epic
poem exemplifying these traditions, the Ibonia, has been handed down over the

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centuries in several different forms across the island, and offers insight into the diverse
mythologies and beliefs of traditional Malagasy communities. In addition to these artistic
traditions, oral histories were passed down across generations. Many stories, poems
and histories were retold in musical form; the concept of poetry in traditional Malagasy
oral literary traditions is inseparable from song, as demonstrated by the Malagasy words
for "poem" - tononkira and tononkalo - which are formed by combining tonony (words)
with hira/kalo (song).
Arcane knowledge of various kinds, relating to religious rites, herbal medicine
and other privileged knowledge, were traditionally recorded by ombiasy (wise men)
using the sorabe, an Arabic script adapted to transcribe the Malagasy language, it was
introduced by Arab sailors between the 7th and 10th centuries. These earliest written
works were only made to be seen by the ombiasy and were not disseminated. Malagasy
sovereigns customarily kept ombiasy advisers and were occasionally instructed to read
and write in the sorabe script, and may have used it for a wider range of purposes,
although few sorabe documents survive to the present.
Elements of oral history and traditional oratory were documented by British and
French visitors to the island; the first Malagasy historian was Raombana (1809–1855),
one of the first pupils of the London Missionary Society school at the Rova of
Antananarivo,who documented early 19th century history in English and Malagasy. The
Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagasikara, a compilation of the oral history of the Merina
sovereigns, forms another major source of knowledge about traditional highland society
and was collected and published in the late 19th century by a Catholic priest residing in
the highlands.
Malagasy Writers
1. Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo. A Malagasy writer, one of the most important of
African poets writing in French, considered to be the father of modern literature in
his native land. Rabéarivelo, a largely self-educated man who earned his living
as a proofreader for the Imerina Printing Press, wrote seven volumes
of poetry before his tragic death. Presque-Songes (1934; “Nearly Dreams”)
and Traduit de la nuit (1935; “Translation of the Night”) are considered to be the
most important. His early work is closely imitative of late 19th-century French
poetry, especially that of Charles Baudelaire and of a literary group known as the
Fantaisites, who wrote melancholy verse expressing a sense of futility. His later
work is more remote and impersonal, retaining a Baudelairean sense of form but
exhibiting a more mature, individual style. A final collection of poems, Vieilles
Chansons du pays Imérina (“Old Songs of the Imerina Country”), published two
years after his death, is based on poetic love dialogues (hain-teny) adapted from
Malagasy vernacular tradition.

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2. Esther Nirina. She was born in 1932 on the central highlands of Madagascar.
She worked as a librarian at Orleans from 1953 to 1983. She returned to
Madagascar in 1990 and became an important figure in the Malagasy literary
scene. A member of the Malagasy Academy, she served as a president of the
Society of Writers of the Indian Ocean (SEROI). Her books include Silencieuse
respiration (1975), Simple voyelle (1980), Lente spirale (1990), Multiple solitude
(1997), Rien que tune: ceuvres poetiques (1998) and Mivolana an-tsoratra. She
died in 2004.
3. David Jaomanoro (1953–2014) was a master poet, playwright, and fiction writer.
Following studies in France, he taught literature at the University of Antsiranana
before moving to Mayotte, where he held many artistic positions, including
president of a dance theater company and director of the national youth literature
center. His work has been widely published in France and awarded several
prizes, including the Grand Prize of the RFI-ACCT in 1993. Two of his short
stories and several of his poems were translated into English for the
anthology Voices from Madagascar.
4. Jacques Rabemananjara, a Malagasy politician, playwright, and poet.

Rabemananjara began writing in the early 1940s and published his first volume
of verse, Sur les marches du soir (“On the Edges of Evening”), in 1942. A death
sentence imposed on him for his alleged participation in the 1947 revolt
in Madagascar embittered him, despite a later reprieve, and the poems
of Antidote, written while he was imprisoned in 1947–50 and published in 1961,
reflect his anger at the injustice imposed on him and his political hopes for the
future.
5. Elie Rajaonarison founded “Sandratra,” an association of young Malagasy

poets, and joined with others to found the Malagasy National Committee of
ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites). In addition to his work
as a poet—Mr. Rajaonarison has authored many poetry collections, including
Voyage Sur Les Hautes Terres (Trip to the Highlands, 2002)—he makes
translations, contributes to local newspapers, and often appears on radio and
television programs. He is participating courtesy of the U.S. Department of State.

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Module 8
THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN PROSE
Objectives:
1. Recognize the literature of the Philippines, China, India and Japan.
2. Differentiate literature in the Philippines, China, India and Japan.
3. Recite the writers in Philippines, China, India and Japan.
4. Explain the similarities and differences of the Southeast Asian literature.
Literature of the Philippines

Philippine literature is literature associated with the Philippines from prehistory,
through its colonial legacies, and on to the present.
Pre-Hispanic Philippine literature was actually epics passed on from generation
to generation, originally through an oral tradition. However, wealthy families, especially
in Mindanao, were able to keep transcribed copies of these epics as family heirloom.
One such was the Darangen, an epic of the Maranaos.
There are various Filipino writers and interpreters who define literature in their
views as citizens of the Philippines. These included Jose Arrogante, Zeus Salazar, and
Patrocinio V. Villafuerte, among others.
In 1983, for Arrogante, literature is a book of life in which a person reveals things
related to his inexplicable color of life and life in his world. It makes a person through
creative methods.
In 1995, Salazar described literature as a force that motivated society. He added
that it was a powerful tool that could free one of the rushing ideas to escape. For him, it
is also a unique human experience unique to mankind.
Moreover, literature caresses the senses of man: the viewer, the hearing, the
sensation, the taste, and the senses. In 2000, Villafuerte attributed this to a life but a
simple word flowing into the human body. The literature has its own existence because
it has its own throbbing and hot blood flowing into the arteries and nena of every
creature and a whole society. In this case, the Filipinos and their society. When
literature is read, it is a source of emotion to a person or group of people, because they
are written by fellow humans.
Currently, the method of spreading and distributing literature in the Philippines is
easy and easy. This is because of modern technological developments. Besides the
written word in books, radio, and television, also spread the literature furnished by
electronics, such Grabador of voices and sounds (tape recorder), disc kompakto

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(compact disk), plaque, the tape of VHS, and computers. Due to the internet, getting
literary information was easy and convenient. This is an instrument for Filipino readers
with an appreciation and pride in their origin, history, culture and culture.
Literacy is for all Filipinos. It is a kind of valuable remedy that helps people plan
their own lives, to meet their problems, and to understand the spirit of human nature. A
person’s riches may be lost or depleted, and even his patriotism, but not literature. One
example is the advancement of other Filipinos. Although they left their homeland,
literature was their bridge to their left country. In the social, national, and global
affiliation, literature is one of the basics of gaining the success and failure of a nation
and the relations of nations.
Studying and having a curriculum on Philippine literature is a big and important
part of Philippine education. As a school, expert, or university course, the use of
Philippine Literature studies a historical perspective. It covers the history of Philippine
Literature in the various periods of the Philippines. It also covers the types and forms of
Philippine Literature, its development, writers, heroes, and the goals of the countryside.
Notable Filipino Writers

1. Jose Rizal. From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned
the alphabet from his mother at 3, and could read and write at age 5.[14] Upon
enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped the last three names
that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Pacianoand the
Mercado family, thus rendering his name as “José Protasio Rizal”. Of this, he
later wrote: “My family never paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal],
but now I had to use it, thus giving me the appearance of an illegitimate
child!”[17] This was to enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his
brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino priests Mariano
Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who
had been accused and executed for treason.
Most Remarkable Pieces Rizal:

• El Filibusterismo
• Noli Me Tangere
2. Bob Ong, is the pseudonym of an anonymous Filipino contemporary author

known for using conversational Filipino to create humorous and reflective
depictions of life as a Filipino. A Filipino Literary critic once commented, “Filipinos
really patronize Bob Ong’s works because, while most of his books may have an
element of comedy in them, this is presented in a manner that replicates Filipino
culture and traditions. This is likely the reason why his first book – and those that
followed it, can be considered true Pinoy classics.”

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The six books he has published thus far have surpassed a quarter of a million
copies. His words of wisdom were applied by some of the Filipinos to their daily
lives.
Most Remarkable Piece:

• Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas
• Alamat ng Gubat
3. Francisco Balagtas learned to write poetry from José de la Cruz (Huseng

Sisiw), one of the most famous poets of Tondo, in return of chicks. It was De la
Cruz himself who personally challenged Balagtas to improve his writing. Balagtas
swore he would overcome Huseng Sisiw as he would not ask anything in return
as a poet.
Upon his deathbed, he asked a favor that none of his children become poets like
him, who had suffered under his gift as well as under others. He even went as far
as to tell them it would be better to cut their hands off than let them be writers.

• Florante at Laura
4. F. Sionil Jose. José attended the University of Santo Tomas after World War II,
but dropped out and plunged into writing and journalism in Manila. In subsequent
years, he edited various literary and journalistic publications, started a publishing
house, and founded the Philippine branch of PEN, an international organization
for writers.[1][2] José received numerous awards for his work. The Pretenders is
his most popular novel, which is the story of one man’s alienation from his poor
background and the decadence of his wife’s wealthy family.
José Rizal‘s life and writings profoundly influenced José’s work. The five volume
Rosales Saga, in particular, employs and interrogates themes and characters
from Rizal’s work.[7] Throughout his career, José’s writings espouse social
justice and change to better the lives of average Filipino families. He is one of the
most critically acclaimed Filipino authors internationally, although much
underrated in his own country because of his authentic Filipino English and his
anti-elite views.
Most Remarkable Pieces:

• Po-on (Source) (1984)
• The Pretenders (1962)
• My Brother, My Executioner (1973)
• Mass (December 31, 1974)
• Tree (1978)
5. Lualhati Bautista. Bautista was born in Tondo, Manila, Philippines on December

2, 1945 to Esteban Bautista and Gloria Torres. She graduated from Emilio

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Jacinto Elementary School in 1958, and from Torres High School in 1962 being a
lowest in her class. She was a journalism student at the Lyceum of the
Philippines, but dropped out for the reason of failed grades. She started her
writing career in the Liwayway magazine.
Despite a lack of formal training, Bautista as the writer became known for her
honest realism, courageous exploration of Philippine women’s issues, and her
compelling female protagonists, who confront difficult situations at home and in
the workplace with uncommon grit and strength.

• Bulaklak sa City Jail
• Dekada ’70
• Bata, Bata… Pa’no Ka Ginawa?
• ‘GAPÔ
• Sixty in the City
• In Sisterhood
6. Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín was a Filipino writer, historian and journalist, best
known for his short stories and novels in the English language. He also wrote
using the pen name Quijano de Manila. Joaquín was conferred the rank and title
of National Artist of the Philippines for Literature.
He is considered one of the most important Filipino writers in English, and the
third most important overall, after José Rizal and Claro M. Recto.

• May Day Eve (1947)
• Prose and Poems (1952)
• The Woman Who had Two Navels (1961)
• La Naval de Manila and Other Essays (1964)
• A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (1966)
7. Gilda Olvidado, from Cebu City, Cebu, is a Filipino movie and television writer,
and melodrama novelist. Her novels have been turned into live-action movies
by VIVA Films, and also been remade for television through Sine Novela.
Olvidado had contributed greatly in Entertainment Industry through her novel-

turned movies. She had kept us well-entertained by making absolute pieces.

• Huwag Mo Kaming Isumpa (1981, novel)
• Sinasamba Kita (1982, novel)
• Kung Mahawi Man Ang Ulap (1984, novel)

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8. Dr. Louie Mar Gangcuangco is an HIV researcher, best-selling novelist, and

one of the youngest licensed physicians from the Philippines. He is the author of
the multi-awarded Filipino novel Orosa-Nakpil, Malate and is currently working as
a clinical research associate for the Hawaii Center for AIDS.
He made a novel mainly about erotica, but gave lessons and reflected on what’s
happening in our generation.

• Orosa-Nakpil, Malate
9. Mars Ravelo was a Filipino graphic novelist who created the characters Darna,
Dyesebel, Captain Barbell, Lastikman, Bondying, Varga, Wanted: Perfect
Mother, Hiwaga, Maruja, Mariposa, Roberta Rita, Buhay Pilipino, Jack and Jill,
Flash Bomba, Tiny Tony, and Dragonna among others.
Mars Ravelo had greatly contributed countless literary pieces mainly in

entertainment industry. He helped mold our imagination and even told the Filipino
youth, “Be what you want to be. Make your imagination as the source of your
success.”

• Darna
• Dyesebel
• Lastikman
10. Magno “Carlo” Jose Caparas, widely known as Carlo J. Caparas, is a Filipino
comic strip creator/writer-turned director and producer, who is best known for
creating such Filipino superheroes and comic book characters as Panday,
Bakekang, Totoy Bato, Joaquin Bordado, Magaong, Elias Paniki, Tasya
Fantasya, Gagambino, Pieta and Ang Babaeing Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang,
among others. He is also known as a director of numerous massacres movies
such as Kuratong Baleleng, The Cory Quirino Kidnap: NBI Files
Caparas was awarded the 2008 Sagisag Balagtas Award.
His contribution to Philippine History and Entertainment Industry are beyond

compare. He has contributed numerous literary works that bought smiles and
brough about lessons that we can use and apply in real-life situations. He took a
large step in moulding Philippine History that will ever remain in every Filipino’s
Heart.
A few examples of his works that mainly contributed to Entertainment Industry;

• Panday
• Kamandag

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• Bakekang, and such
Literature in China
Chinese literature, the body of works written in Chinese, including lyric poetry,
historical and didactic writing, drama, and various forms of fiction.
Chinese literature is one of the major literary heritages of the world, with an
uninterrupted history of more than 3,000 years, dating back at least to the 14th
century BCE. Its medium, the Chinese language, has retained its unmistakable identity
in both its spoken and written aspects in spite of generally gradual changes in
pronunciation, the existence of regional and local dialects, and several stages in the
structural representation of the written graphs, or “characters.” Even the partial or total
conquests of China for considerable periods by non-Han Chinese ethnic groups from
outside the Great Wall failed to disrupt this continuity, for the conquerors were forced to
adopt the written Chinese language as their official medium of communication because
they had none of their own. Since the Chinese graphs were inherently nonphonetic,
they were at best unsatisfactory tools for the transcription of a non-Chinese language,
and attempts at creating a new alphabetic-phonetic written language for empire building
proved unsuccessful on three separate occasions. The result was that after a period of
alien domination, the conquerors were culturally assimilated (except the Mongols, who
retreated en masse to their original homeland after the collapse of the Yuan [or
Mongol] dynasty in 1368). Thus, there was no disruption in China’s literary
development.
Through cultural contacts, Chinese literature has profoundly influenced the
literary traditions of other Asian countries, particularly Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Not
only was the Chinese script adopted for the written language in these countries, but
some writers adopted the Chinese language as their chief literary medium, at least
before the 20th century.
The graphic nature of the written aspect of the Chinese language has produced a
number of noteworthy effects upon Chinese literature and its diffusion: (1) Chinese
literature, especially poetry, is recorded in handwriting or in print and purports to make
an aesthetic appeal to the reader that is visual as well as aural. (2) This visual appeal of
the graphs has in fact given rise to the elevated status of calligraphy in China, where it
has been regarded for at least the last 16 centuries as a fine art comparable to painting.
Scrolls of calligraphic renderings of poems and prose selections have continued to be
hung alongside paintings in the homes of the common people as well as the elite,
converting these literary gems into something to be enjoyed in everyday living. (3) On
the negative side, such a writing system has been an impediment to education and the
spread of literacy, thus reducing the number of readers of literature, for even
a rudimentary level of reading and writing requires knowledge of more than 1,000
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language, even with its obvious disadvantages, has been a potent factor in perpetuating
the cultural unity of the growing millions of the Chinese people, including assimilated
groups in far-flung peripheral areas. Different in function from recording words in an
alphabetic–phonetic language, the graphs are not primarily indicators of sounds and
can therefore be pronounced in variant ways to accommodate
geographical diversities in speech and historical phonological changes without damage
to the meaning of the written page. As a result, the major dialects in China never
developed into separate written languages as did the Romance languages, and,
although the reader of a Confucian Classic in southern China might not understand the
everyday speech of someone from the far north, Chinese literature has continued to be
the common asset of the whole Han Chinese people. By the same token, the graphs of
China could be utilized by speakers of other languages as their literary mediums.
The pronunciation of the Chinese graphs has also influenced the development of
Chinese literature. The fact that each graph had a monophonic pronunciation in a
given context created a large number of homonyms, which led to misunderstanding and
confusion when spoken or read aloud without the aid of the graphs. One corrective was
the introduction of tones or pitches in pronunciation. As a result, metre in Chinese
prosody is not concerned with the combination of syllabic stresses, as in English, but
with those of syllabic tones, which produce a different but equally pleasing cadence.
This tonal feature of the Chinese language has brought about an intimate relationship
between poetry and music in China. All major types of Chinese poetry were originally
sung to the accompaniment of music. Even after the musical scores were lost, the
poems were, as they still are, more often chanted—in order to approximate singing—
than merely read.
Chinese poetry, besides depending on end rhyme and tonal metre for its
cadence, is characterized by its compactness and brevity. There are no epics of either
folk or literary variety and hardly any narrative or descriptive poems that are long by the
standards of world literature. Stressing the lyrical, as has often been pointed out, the
Chinese poet refrains from being exhaustive, marking instead the heights of his
ecstasies and inspiration or the depths of sorrow and sympathy. Generally, pronouns
and conjunctions are omitted, and one or two words often allude to highly complex
thoughts or situations. This explains why many poems have been differently interpreted
by learned commentators and competent translators.
The line of demarcation between prose and poetry is much less distinctly drawn
in Chinese literature than in other national literatures. This is clearly reflected in
three genres. The fu, for example, is on the borderline between poetry and prose,
containing elements of both. It uses rhyme and metre and not infrequently
also antithetic structure, but, despite occasional flights into the realm of the poetic, it
retains the features of prose without being necessarily prosaic. This accounts for the
variety of labels given to the fu in English by writers on Chinese literature—poetic prose,
rhyme prose, prose poem, rhapsody, and prose poetry.

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Another genre belonging to this category is pianwen (“parallel prose”),

characterized by antithetic construction and balanced tonal patterns without the use of
rhyme; the term is suggestive of “a team of paired horses,” as is implied in the Chinese
word pian. Despite the polyphonic effect thus produced, which approximates that of
poetry, it has often been made the vehicle of proselike exposition and argumentation.
Another genre, a peculiar mutation in this borderland, is the baguwen (“eight-legged
essay”). Now generally regarded as unworthy of classification as literature, for centuries
(from 1487 to 1901) it dominated the field of Chinese writing as the principal yardstick in
grading candidates in the official civil-service examinations. It
exploited antithetical construction and contrasting tonal patterns to the limit by requiring
pairs of columns consisting of long paragraphs, one responding to the other, word for
word, phrase for phrase, sentence for sentence.
Chinese prose writing has been diverted into two streams, separated at least for
the last 1,000 years by a gap much wider than the one between folk songs and so-
called literary poems. Classical, or literary, prose (guwen, or wenyan) aims at the
standards and styles set by ancient writers and their distinguished followers of
subsequent ages, with the Confucian Classics and the early philosophers as supreme
models. While the styles may vary with individual writers, the language is always far
removed from their spoken tongues. Sanctioned by official requirement for the
competitive examinations and dignified by traditional respect for the cultural
accomplishments of past ages, this medium became the linguistic tool of practically all
Chinese prose writers. Vernacular prose (baihua), in contrast, consists of writings in the
living tongue, the everyday language of the authors. Traditionally considered inferior,
the medium was piously avoided for creative writing until it was adopted by novelists
and playwrights from the 13th century on.
Chinese Writers
1. Qu Yuan (339-278 BC) was a statesman and poet during the Warring States
period. He has been attributed to the first seven poems of the Chu ci (Songs of
Chu). He served under King Huai but was banished after composing the poem
“Li Sao” (Encountering Sorrow), which attacked the court for failing to listen to
his advice. He committed suicide by throwing himself in a river.
2. Wang Wei (701-761) was a painter, musician, poet, and devout Buddhist. He
composed “landscape poems” while roaming the lands near the Wang River,
exchanging verses with his friend Pei Di. A Zen Master taught him the doctrine
of dunwu (instantaneous enlightenment), and Wei’s later poetry reflects his
devotion. He was referred to as Shi fo, or the Buddha of Poetry. The poet Su
Shi said of his works: “There is painting in his poetry, and poetry in his painting.”

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3. Shi Nai’en (1296-1372) was the author of the first of the “four great classical
novels,” though some historians believe his mentor Luo Guanzhong played a
role its writing. Not much is known about Shi, but the work attributed to
him, Shuihu zhuan (Water Margin), about a rebellious leader of outlaws, has
been equally banned and celebrated over hundreds of years. Water Margin was
written in popular vernacular and expanded on its characters in contrast to the
historical writings of the time, advancing the art of the novel.
4. Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400) was a prolific writer who has had many
anonymous works attributed to him over the years. Historians agree that the
second of the “four great classical novels,” Sanguo yani (Romance of the Three
Kingdoms), was written by Luo. Over 750,000 Chinese characters long, the
novel told the story of three kingdoms over the course of a century. It was
based on a historical account and contained historical figures, but also
incorporated folk stories and plots from popular dramas of the time.
5. Not much is known about Wu Cheng’en (c. 1500-1582), the author to whom
the third of the “four great classical novels,” Xi you ji (Journey to the West), is
attributed. Loosely based on the historical account of the Buddhist monk,
Xuanzang, the novel humorously followed a group of pilgrims on a journey to
India and back. The novel contained religious themes, witty dialogue, and
elegant poems, as well as critical commentary on contemporary Ming-era
China.
6. The Laughing Scholar of Lanling was the pseudonym of the unknown author
of the controversial novel Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase). It has
been frequently banned for its pornographic nature since its publication around
1610. American translator David Todd Roy suspected poet Xu Wei (1521-1593)
to be its author. Wei was famous for his painting and calligraphy, and he was an
early proponent of women’s rights, writing a popular play on the legend of
Mulan; however, he was also imprisoned for the murder of his second wife.
7. Cao Xueqin (1715-1763/64) was the author of the fourth of the “four great
classical novels,” Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), which told the
story of an aristocratic family and its downfall. The novel was written in
vernacular and published in two editions: the 80-chapter version reportedly
based on Cao’s life, and the 120-chapter “Cheng edition,” published
posthumously in 1791 and believed to have been enhanced by the scholar Gao

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E. Cao’s novel is so important to Chinese literature that an entire field of study

called hongxue (redology) arose in the 1920s.
8. Lu Xun (1881-1936) studied medicine in Japan as a young man but ultimately
concluded that he was better served as a writer. In 1918, he published his first
short story, A Madman’s Diary, the first colloquial story in modern Chinese
literature. His writings comprised many genres, from fiction to zawen (satire) to
a historical account of Chinese fiction. Mao Zedong called Lu “the standard-
bearer” of the new Chinese culture that arose after the May Fourth Movement.
9. Ba Jin (1904-2005), born Li Yaotang, began his career as a poet but achieved
fame as a novelist. His most famous novel was Jia (The Family); in addition to
these novels, he also translated Russian, British, German, and Italian works. Ba
Jin’s most famous later work was Suixiang lu (Random Thoughts), a painful
reflection on the Cultural Revolution in which he was persecuted as a “counter-
revolutionary.”
10. Zhang Ailing (or Eileen Chang) (1920-1995) was a student during the
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. She returned to her
home in Shanghai and supported herself by publishing short stories and
novels about the plight of women in difficult romantic relationships. She wrote
the anti-communist novel Rice Sprout Song in 1952 and moved to the United
States three years later, where she wrote novels and screenplays. In 2007,
Ang Lee directed a movie adaptation of her novel Lust, Caution.
Literature in India
Indian literature, writings of the Indian subcontinent, produced there in a variety
of vernacular languages,including Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Bengali, Bihari, Gujarati, Hindi
Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Lahnd
a, Siraiki, and Sindhi, among others, as well as in English. The term Indian literature is
used here to refer to literature produced across the Indian subcontinent prior to the
creation of the Republic of India in 1947 and within the Republic of India after 1947.
The earliest Indian literature took the form of the canonical Hindu sacred writings,
known as the Veda, which were written in Sanskrit. To the Veda were added prose
commentaries such as the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. The production of Sanskrit
literature extended from about 1500 BCE to about 1000 CE and reached its height of
development in the 1st to 7th centuries CE. In addition to sacred and philosophical
writings, such genres as erotic and devotional lyrics, court poetry, plays, and narrative
folktales emerged.

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Because Sanskrit was identified with the Brahminical religion of the Vedas,
Buddhism and Jainism adopted other literary languages (Pali and Ardhamagadhi,
respectively). From these and other related languages emerged the modern languages
of northern India. The literature of those languages depended largely on the ancient
Indian background, which includes two Sanskrit epic poems,
the Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as the Bhagavata-purana and the
other Puranas. In addition, the Sanskrit philosophies were the source of philosophical
writing in the later literatures, and the Sanskrit schools of rhetoric were of great
importance for the development of court poetry in many of the modern literatures. The
South Indian language of Tamil is an exception to this pattern of Sanskrit influence
because it had a classical tradition of its own. Urdu and Sindhi are other exceptions.
Beginning in the 19th century, particularly during the height of British control over
the subcontinent, Western literary models had an impact on Indian literature, the most
striking result being the introduction of the use of vernacular prose on a major scale.
Such forms as the novel and short story began to be adopted by Indian writers, as did
realism and an interest in social questions and psychological description. A tradition of
literature in English was also established in the subcontinent.
Indian Writers
1. Chetan Bhagat. Cited by The New York Times in 2008 as the biggest selling
English language novelist in India’s history, Chetan Bhagat is author,
screenwriter, columnist and TV personality. He is known for Comedy-drama
novels about young urban middle-class Indians. Some of his famous work
includes Five Point Someone, 2 States, Half Girlfriend and One Indian Girl.
2. Amrita Pritam. Pritam indulged in poetry and literature at a very young age
which influenced her to become a poet and novelist later in her life. She was a
courageous woman who did not fear writing controversial texts during the pre-
partition era. She suffered through tough times during the partition of India which
influenced her to write the Punjabi novel ‘Pinjar’ (skeleton) which describes the
helplessness of the women during that era and the discrimination they had to go
through. The novel later was made into a Bollywood movie which was a hit
throughout the nation.
3. Khushwant Singh. He was a journalist, editor and novelist born in Hadli during
the time of British India. He received his degree at St. Stephen’s College in New
Delhi and King’s College in London. He initially started his career as a lawyer
after which he got the opportunity to become the editor of important journals and
magazines. As an author he wrote some outstanding novels like Train to

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Pakistan (1956), Delhi: A Novel (1990), The Company of Women (1999), Truth,
Love and a Little Malice (2002), The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous (2013).
4. Jhumpa Lahiri. Laihiri is well known for her novels, essays and short stories.
She was born in London but relocated to the United States to get her education
from the Barnard College. She went ahead for her masters and attained her
degree from the Boston University. She was a struggling writer and her work was
initially rejected by the publishers until her biggest success, ‘The interpreter of
Maladies’. This was a compilation of all her short stories about the life of
immigrants in post-partition India. After the runaway success she wrote many
other novels which are famous throughout the Indian continent and the world.
Some of the most famous ones being; The namesake, Unaccustomed Earth and
The lowland.
5. R. K. Narayan. He was born in Chennai and due to his father’s transfers had to
move around therefore changed many schools. His interest in reading was
evident since a very young age and his hobby soon became a habit. He later
graduated and decided to become a stay at home writer. His initial books were
not that popular until his third novel, ‘The dark room’. Narayan wrote many novels
after this which were published and soon became a well renowned author during
his time in India.
6. Rabindranath Tagore. Even though Tagore received his education in law he

took great interest in Shakespeare and his literature. Therefore following his
works he became a poet and author. His first poem ‘Mansai’ was published in
1890 after which he gained immense popularity amongst Bengali readers. His
most significant works include ‘Gitanjali’ which was a collection of poems and
‘Galpaguchchha’ which are eighty short stories.
7. Ruskin Bond. Bond was born in Punjab, British Indian and attained his
education in Shimla and after completion of high school he moved to the U.K to
enhance his writing career. He started his career as a freelance writer and
eventually got jobs as editor in various magazines. It wasn’t until 1980 his novel
was published which became widely admired amongst readers. His best known
work is ‘The blue umbrella’, a heartwarming story read worldwide.
8. Vikram Seth. Seth born in Calcutta, graduated from high school, and studied
Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and
graduated with a B. A. Degree in 1975. From 1975 to 1986, he pursued his Ph.D.
at Stanford University, California, U.S.A. He is best known for his epic novel ‘The
Suitable boy’.

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9. Arundhati Roy. Writer, essayist and political activist, Arundhati Roy, is best
known for her novel The God of Small Things which won her the Man Booker
Prize for Fiction in 1997. Some of her other works include, The Algebra of Infinite
Justice, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom and Capitalism: A Ghost Story.
10. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. He belonged to a poverty-stricken family as his

father had irregular jobs. However his father was a dreamer and a writer and it
was his exuberance that inspired Sarat to become a novelist himself. He wrote
his first famous essays only when he was in his teens. Later, he made
contributions to magazines from time to time. Since he was a feminist
Chattopadhyay seemed it was urgent to write about the bigotry and patriarchal
society. His most popular works are; ‘Devdas’ (1901, published 1917), ‘Parineeta’
(1914), Biraj Bau (1914), and Palli Samaj (1916).
Literature in Japan
Japanese literature, the body of written works produced by Japanese authors in
Japanese or, in its earliest beginnings, at a time when Japan had no written language,
in the Chinese classical language.
Both in quantity and quality, Japanese literature ranks as one of the major
literatures of the world, comparable in age, richness, and volume to English literature,
though its course of development has been quite dissimilar. The surviving
works comprise a literary tradition extending from the 7th century CE to the present;
during all this time there was never a “dark age” devoid of literary production. Not only
do poetry, the novel, and the drama have long histories in Japan, but some
literary genres not so highly esteemed in other countries—including diaries, travel
accounts, and books of random thoughts—are also prominent. A considerable body of
writing by Japanese in the Chinese classical language, of much greater bulk and
importance than comparable Latin writings by Englishmen, testifies to the Japanese
literary indebtedness to China. Even the writings entirely in Japanese present an
extraordinary variety of styles, which cannot be explained merely in terms of the natural
evolution of the language. Some styles were patently influenced by the importance of
Chinese vocabulary and syntax, but others developed in response to the internal
requirements of the various genres, whether the terseness of haiku (a poem in 17
syllables) or the bombast of the dramatic recitation.
The first writing of literature in Japanese was occasioned by influence
from China. The Japanese were still comparatively primitive and without writing when, in
the first four centuries CE, knowledge of Chinese civilization gradually reached them.
They rapidly assimilated much of this civilization, and the Japanese scribes adopted
Chinese characters as a system of writing, although an alphabet (if one had been

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available to them) would have been infinitely better suited to the Japanese language.
The characters, first devised to represent Chinese monosyllables, could be used only
with great ingenuity to represent the agglutinative forms of the Japanese language. The
ultimate results were chaotic, giving rise to one of the most complicated systems of
writing ever invented. The use of Chinese characters enormously influenced modes of
expression and led to an association between literary composition and calligraphy
lasting many centuries.
The difficulties of reading Japanese literature can hardly be exaggerated; even a
specialist in one period is likely to have trouble deciphering a work from another period
or genre. Japanese style has always favored ambiguity, and
the particles of speech necessary for easy comprehension of a statement are often
omitted as unnecessary or as fussily precise. Sometimes the only clue to the subject or
object of a sentence is the level of politeness in which the words are couched; for
example, the verb mesu (meaning “to eat,” “to wear,” “to ride in a carriage,” etc.)
designates merely an action performed by a person of quality. In many cases, ready
comprehension of a simple sentence depends on a familiarity with the background of a
particular period of history. The verb miru, “to see,” had overtones of “to have an affair
with” or even “to marry” during the Heian period in the 10th and 11th centuries, when
men were generally able to see women only after they had become intimate. The long
period of Japanese isolation in the 17th and 18th centuries also tended to make the
literature provincial, or intelligible only to persons sharing a common background; the
phrase “some smoke rose noisily” (kemuri tachisawagite), for example, was all readers
of the late 17th century needed to realize that an author was referring to the Great
Fire of 1682 that ravaged the shogunal capital of Edo (the modern city of Tokyo).
Despite the great difficulties arising from such idiosyncrasies of style, Japanese
literature of all periods is exceptionally appealing to modern readers, whether read in
the original or in translation. Because it is prevailingly subjective and coloured by an
emotional rather than intellectual or moralistic tone, its themes have a universal quality
almost unaffected by time. To read a diary by a court lady of the 10th century is still a
moving experience, because she described with such honesty and intensity her deepest
feelings that the modern-day reader forgets the chasm of history and changed social
customs separating her world from today’s.
Japanese Writers
1. Yoko Ogawa. Ogawa is not only one of the most influential and famous
Japanese authors writing today; she’s also one of the most diverse. Each of her
books can be comfortably slotted into a different genre – from dystopian to family
drama to creeping gothic horror. And in each case, she confidently asserts
herself as a master of the genre. Ogawa has won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s
most coveted literary award, as well as the Shirley Jackson Award.

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Ogawa’s most successful work in English (translated by Stephen Snyder) is The

Housekeeper and the Professor, a work which is told from the perspective of a
housekeeper and single parent who is hired to take care of an aged mathematics
professor who shows her the magic of mathematics while also becoming
increasingly detached from reality. It is a story about love in all its forms, but it is
not a love story.
Her most recent work in English, The Memory Police, (also translated by
Stephen Snyder) was originally published back in 1994 but it reads like a book
written in 2019 and very appropriate for our current political climate. It tells the
story of an island where things and ideas disappear at random, and so go away
the people’s memories of these things, too. But some people don’t forget, and
they are taken away by the titular memory police. It’s a frightening Orwellian
masterpiece by one of Japan’s greatest modern writers.
2. Haruki Murakami. If there’s one famous Japanese author, classic or

contemporary, who needs no introduction, it’s Haruki Murakami. Here’s one of
those rare authors in translation who is as much a household name in the West
as he is in Japan. With his brand of off-kilter and surrealist stories and his reliable
themes of cats, lost women, jazz music, and parallel worlds, he is an author
beloved the world over.
His bestselling novel is also his most grounded and least surreal. Norwegian
Wood tells them story of a university student who falls in love with two women:
one, the girlfriend of a friend who took his own life; the other, an eccentric girl
who does as she pleases.
Murakami’s most accomplished novel is, perhaps, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,
in which a helpless and quasi-useless man living in a quiet Tokyo neighbourhood
loses first his cat and then his wife. In order to find her, he must climb down into
the bottom of an empty well and find a way into a parallel world.
3. Hiromi Kawakami. One of the truly excellent contemporary Japanese authors,

Hiromi Kawakami stands out as an writer who understands the relationships
between ordinary people. These relationships may be romantic, platonic,
professional, or familial. Love and friendship are her tools. And, with them, she
crafts some of the greatest stories of her time.
Kawakami’s most celebrated novel in translation is Strange Weather in Tokyo,
a novel that brings together a Tokyo salarywoman and her former teacher in a
gripping romance. The book cleverly uses this romance to weave together a
theme of post-war Japan and pre-war Japan attempting to understand and exist
alongside one another.
The most recent Kawakami novel to appear in English is The Ten Loves of
Nishino, a novel structured in a truly original and experimental style. Ten stories
from ten women’s perspectives paint a vibrant image of the man Nishino. Though

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we never see the world through his eyes, we are reintroduced to him over and
again by the ten loves of his life and how they each experienced life with him.
4. Yukio Mishima. Knowing where to begin with Mishima is a trial in itself. A larger-
than-life character, Mishima was a radical far-right political activist who fervently
believed in returning Japan to its militaristic past. He believed this so fiercely that
he attempted a coup against the government, which failed spectacularly and led
to him committing seppuku. In his lifetime, Mishima penned dozens of stories,
almost all of which were, at least, very transparent metaphors for his own views
on post-war Japan and, at most, manifestoes for change and how the modern
Japanese women and men should live and change. Mishima also came close
several times to being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and, when news of
his suicide broke, his dear friend and actual Nobel Prize winner Yasunari
Kawabata immediately followed suit and committed suicide himself.
The book which best summarises Mishima’s views and his mission is The Sailor
Who Fell from Grace With The Sea. This short novel describes a young man
who watches his mother fall madly for a sailor. The boy is inspired by the rugged,
self-sufficient masculinity of the sailor but his respect slowly turns to hate as the
sailor abandons the sea in favour of love and a peaceful life. The metaphor at
play here is transparent enough, and spells out the radical mindset of Mishima
plainly.
5. Yoko Tawada. Tawada is a fiercely original and unique Japanese author who,
today, bases herself in Germany. She has written books in both Japanese and
German to great success. Tawada has the uncanny ability to write abstract
novels that are at once strangely distant and entirely relatable in the modern
world.
Tawada’s breakout success in translation was Memoirs of a Polar Bear. This

tale follows three different bears, one who escapes Soviet Russia, another a
circus bear and daughter of the first, and the third a baby born in Berlin Zoo.
In 2018, Tawada brought the world a dystopian Japanese novel of intense clarity
in the form of The Last Children of Tokyo. In this near-future world, children are
born frail and grey-haired as natural resources have been depleted and cities are
emptying as pollution levels become unbearable.
6. Yasunari Kawabat. There are few authors more respected and revered than
Yasunari Kawabata. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kawabata arguably
bridges the gap between classical Japanese authors and contemporary
writers. He had the heart and mind of a poet and wrote with a romanticism and
delicacy rarely seen since.
One of Kawabata’s most famous works is Snow Country. A novella though it

may be, it’s a dense and beautiful work that follows the romance of a man who

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flees Tokyo and heads into the Japanese wilderness to meet with a geisha he
firmly believes he is in love with.
Another beloved book by Kawabata is Thousand Cranes, a family drama

focussed around the young man Kikuji, who has been invited to have tea with his
late father’s former mistress, but is soon drawn into a battle between her and a
Mrs. Ota, while simultaneously juggling the fact that he is having his future
marriage arranged for him.
7. Sayaka Murata. Given that Murata currently has only one novel out in English,
for her to appear on this list of famous Japanese writers she must be very special
indeed. And that, she is. Sayaka Murata has spent much of her adult life writing
fiction, all the while working part-time at a Tokyo convenience store. Her breakout
hit novel of 2018, Convenience Store Woman, brought her such enormous
global success that it skyrocketed her into the upper echelons of modern
Japanese writers.
Convenience Store Woman, in part inspired by Murata’s own experiences, tells

the story of a woman in her late thirties who has spent her entire adult life
working as a cog in the convenience store machine. The novel is a scathing
indictment of the well-oiled machine that is corporate Tokyo, as well as the strict
ladder that young Japanese people are expected to climb. It is nothing short of a
work of genius, and has made Murata an international literary celebrity.
8. Junji Ito. The only male writer on this list to be a graphic artist rather than a
novelist, Junji Ito is a very special kind of writer. His horror stories, both written
and drawn with the most abstract and unsettling venom, will chill you to your
core. In many readers’ minds, Ito is a greater storyteller of unsettling horror and
real terror than even writers like Stephen King. His ability to weave a tale of
frightening dread, and to depict each of these tales visually with gruesome skill is
unparalleled.
A perfect place to begin is with Ito’s short story collection, Shiver, in which a
handful of protagonists are subject to the most frightful of terrors. In one, the
nation is overcome by the arrival of floating heads that resemble real citizens,
and begin to chase after their counterparts before slinging a noose around their
neck and floating away with their body. In another, a model with striking and
unsettling looks is hired by a film crew, only for them to go missing, one by one.
In 2018, Ito adapted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein into a graphic novel in which is
unquestionably the most faithful and successful adaptation of Shelley’s novel to
exist in any other form, on or off the screen. Ito’s art proved to marry Shelley’s
gothic atmosphere perfectly.
9. Natsuo Kirino. Kirino is, without question, Japan’s most powerful, and
respected feminist author. Her books are sometimes savage, sometimes

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cleverly subversive takedowns of the patriarchal norms of Japanese society. She

has done so much for the rise of feminist voices in modern Japan and she should
be lauded forever for this.
Her most scathing attack on patriarchy came in the form of Out, a thick novel
about a small group of women factory workers. When one of these women grows
tired of her life and hits breaking point, she murders her disgrace of a husband
and seeks the help of her colleague in hiding the body and ensuring her freedom.
A novel which approaches its feminist themes in a more poetic and fairy tale
manner is The Goddess Chronicle. In this mystical novel, two sisters who live
on an island will be forced to follow two different destinies: one becoming the
blessed Oracle and the other being cast out to complete the prophecy.
10. Kenzaburo Oe. Oe is another of Japan’s treasured and lauded Nobel Prize
winners. His books about the changing landscape of Japanese society and
intense, troubled family drama are unforgettable. What is perhaps most
remarkable is how well they’ve aged. There’s an agency and tone to Oe’s books
that has kept them feeling fresh through the decades.
His novel The Silent Cry is a post-war masterpiece that epitomises everything
mentioned above. Two brothers from a quiet Japanese village go their separate
ways – one to Tokyo and the other to the US – only to be reunited under
troubling circumstances as their ancestral home comes under threat from the
unstoppable forces of international capitalism.
Death By Water is a similar novel, but a far more clearly autobiographical one
which pits its protagonist, inspired by Oe himself, against his darkest memories.
He is a writer suffering from writer’s block and desperate to understand the father
he lost and never really knew.

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Poetry in China
Chinese poetry can be divided into three main periods: the early period,
characterized by folk songs in simple, repetitive forms; the classical period from the
Han Dynasty to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, in which a number of different forms were
developed; and the modern period of Westernized free verse.
Early poetry The Shi Jing (literally “Classic of Poetry”, also called “Book of
Songs”) was the first major collection of Chinese poems, collecting both aristocratic
poems (Odes) and more rustic poetry, probably derived from folk songs (Songs).A
second, more lyrical and romantic anthology was the Chu Ci (Songs of Chu), made up
primarily of poems ascribed to the semi-legendary Qu Yuan (ca. 340-278 B.C.) and his
follower Song Yu (fourth century B.C.).
Classical poetry During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), the Chu lyrics
evolved into the fu, a poem usually in rhymed verse except for introductory and
concluding passages that are in prose, often in the form of questions and answers;
often called a poetical essay (i.e. Robert van Gulik). One of the fine examples of fu is Xi
Kang’s Qin Fu, or “Poetical Essay in Praise of the Qin”.
From the Han Dynasty onwards, a process similar to the origins of the Shi Jing
produced the yue fu poems.
Again, these were song lyrics, including original folk songs, court imitations and
versions by known poets (the best known of the latter being those of Li Bai).
From the second century AD, the yue fu began to develop into shi or classical
poetry- the form which was to dominate Chinese poetry until the modern era. These
poems have five or seven character lines, with a caesura before the last three
characters of each line. They are divided into the original gushi (old poems) and jintishi,
a stricter form developed in the Tang dynasty with rules governing tone patterns and the
structure of the content. The greatest writers of gushi and jintishi are often held to be Li
Bai and Du Fu respectively.
Towards the end of the Tang dynasty, the ci lyric became more popular. Most
closely associated with the Song dynasty, ci most often expressed feelings of desire,
often in an adopted persona, but the greatest exponents of the form (such as Li Houzhu
and Su Shi) used it to address a wide range of topics.
As the ci gradually became more literary and artificial after Song times, the san
qu, a freer form, based on new popular songs, developed. The use of san qu songs in
drama marked an important step in the development of vernacular literature.

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Later Classical Poetry After the Song dynasty, both shi poems and lyrics
continued to be composed until the end of the imperial period, and to a lesser extent to
this day. However, for a number of reasons, these works have always been less highly
regarded than those of the Tang dynasty in particular. Firstly, Chinese literary culture
remained in awe of its predecessors: in a self-fulfilling prophecy, writers and readers
both expected that new works would not bear comparison with the earlier masters.
Secondly, the most common response of these later poets to the tradition which they
had inherited was to produce work which was ever more refined and allusive; the
resulting poems tend to seem precious or just obscure to modern readers. Thirdly, the
increase in population, expansion of literacy, wider dissemination of works through
printing and more complete archiving vastly increased the volume of work to consider
and made it difficult to identify and properly evaluate those good pieces which were
produced. Finally, this period saw the rise of vernacular literature, particularly drama
and novels, which increasingly became the main means of cultural expression.
Modern poetry Modern Chinese poems (vers libre/free verse) usually do not
follow any prescribed pattern. Poetry was revolutionized after the May Fourth Movement
when writers try to use vernacular styles closer to what was being spoken rather than
previously prescribed forms. Early twentieth-century poets like Xu Zhimo, Guo Moruo
and Wen Yiduo sought to break Chinese poetry from past conventions by adopting
Western models; for example Xu consciously follows the style of the Romantic poets
with end-rhymes.
In the post-revolutionary Communist era, poets like Ai Qing used more liberal
running lines and direct diction, which were vastly popular and widely imitated.
In the contemporary poetic scene, the most important and influential poets are
the group known as Misty Poets, who use allusion and hermetic references. The most
important Misty Poets include Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and Yang Lian, all of
whom were exiled after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
China’s Greatest Poets

1. Li Bai was known for the sheer amount of his poetic output. He is often referred
to as the “saint of wine” or the “drunken saint”. He was born during the Tang
Dynasty, probably in the northwestern region of China, and although he received
a classical education, he went on to behave in a most un-Confucian way
throughout the rest of his life. He went on to wander around China, writing of the
things and people he encountered. His fame was such that he was able to spend
several years at court as a poet and translator. He subsequently wandered in
much the same vein, the sole exception being his participation in a failed
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even reached his intended destination. Legend has it that Li Bai died at 63, on a
lake. An example of his work would be the typically titled “Drinking Alone by
Moonlight”:
Drinking Alone by Moonlight

Translation by Arthur Waley
A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend
is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon, for he, with my shadow,
will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine; Listless, my shadow creeps
about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave, I must make
merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams; In the dance I
weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun; Now we are drunk,
each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast, And meet at last on
the Cloudy River of the sky.
2. Du Fu was a contemporary and admirer of Li Bai, but the two were different
types. Unlike Li Bai, who seems like he had the requisite qualities and contacts to
dabble in court affairs, the height of Du Fu’s ambition was supposedly to be a
successful official, and yet he was supposedly frustrated in this multiple times.
When he did finally gain a posting, a rebellion kicked off, resulting in a long
period of drifting. When he did make it to court, he found himself in a post he
found so frustrating he wrote: “I am about to scream madly in the
office/Especially when they bring more papers to pile higher on my desk.”
A rather modern sentiment. It was, ironically, in a lifestyle similar to his idol

Li Bai that Du Fu found greatest happiness–that of artistic detachment. He
traveled to Chengdu, and took up residence in a now famous thatched cottage,
where he produced prolific amounts of verse — over 1,500 poems. A couple of
highly productive years later, however, Du Fu died en route to his birthplace,
Luoyang. Typical of some of Du Fu’s later work is “A Poem for Wei Ba”. Here’s
an excerpt:
It is almost as hard for friends to meet,

As for the morning and evening stars.
Tonight then is a rare event,
Joining, in the candlelight,
Two men who were young not long ago,

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But now are turning grey at the temples.

To find that half our friends are dead,
Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.
Translation from University of Virginia’s 300 Tang poems
3. Wang Wei was different from the two poets already mentioned in that he was
something of a polymath, an accomplished painter, musician, scholar and poet.
He attained the achievement of zhuangyuan (1st place) in the civil service
examinations, and rose through the ranks of court music through his proficiency
with the pipa (Chinese lute) until he became “Deputy master of music,” a more
important job than it sounds.
When rebellion came against the Tang, the fortunes of the resilient Wang
fluctuated, but had risen enough for him to return to the capital, but unluckily he
was struck down with dysentery and was left behind. In the hands of the rebels,
captive Wang felt that he had to stick-up for his team nonetheless, and is said to
have attempted a number of things to avoid being forced to work for the rebels,
including pretending to be deaf and drinking medicine which created cankers in
his mouth. With the subsequent Tang recapture of Luoyang, however, Wang’s
seemingly limitless powers of political survival saw him rise to high office, and he
enjoyed relative tranquility until his death. “One-hearted” is a good example of
Wang Wei’s poetry.
One-hearted
When those red beans come in springtime,

Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.
Translation from University of Virginia’s 300 Tang poems
4. And now with a great leap forward, we come to Xu Zhimo. Xu seems to have
been a scholarly type, a vast portion of his life being spent in a rather impressive
roll-call of universities all over the world, including: Shanghai, Peiyang (now
Tianjin) University, PKU, Columbia, London and Cambridge. His major
contribution to Chinese poetry was the adding of western Romantic forms, and
he had particular admiration for Shelley. His most famous piece is something of a
standard for poetry recitations called “Another Farewell to Cambridge”. Here’s an
excerpt:
But I cannot sing aloud,

Quietness is my farewell music;
Even summer insects keep silence for me,

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Silent is Cambridge tonight!
Translation from Peomhunter
5. Mao Zedong was an impressively self-made intellectual, at one point becoming

assistant librarian at PKU, and perverse though it may seem, wrote highly
accomplished verse in the classical Chinese style. How good it actually is and
whether it compares to the output of Li Bai or Du Fu isn’t something I’m qualified
to say, but there’s no doubt that it has been some of the most influential poetry of
recent times, with many educated or semi-educated Chinese above a certain age
being able to recite some of his most famous lines. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Take
this, for example, a piece written by Mao about terrain the Red Army traversed
on the Long March. It’s called “Liupan Mountain”:
The sky is high, the clouds are pale,

We watch the wild geese vanish southward.
If we fail to reach the Great Wall we are not men
We who have already measured twenty thousand li
High on the crest of Mount Liupan
Red banners wave freely in the west wind.
Today we hold the long cord in our hands,
When shall we bind fast the Grey Dragon?
Translation from Peomhunter
Poetry in India
Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet, writer, composer and artist, won the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1913 for his collection of poems, Gitanjali, which were described
as “profoundly sensitive, fresh & beautiful verse”. Since then, India has gained her
freedom from British rule and gone on to become the world’s largest democracy and
second most populous nation, with Indian literature making significant strides as well.
Booker prize winners, a myriad of literature festivals and one of the fastest growing
publishing industries in the world often make headlines for India. The genre of poetry is
part of this vibrant, pulsing field, too, and here's why you should know more about
modern Indian poetry.
1. Poets bring history alive
India’s rich poetic legacy dates back more than 5,000 years in ancient languages
such as Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali, with renowned epics such as the Bhagavad
Gita written in verse. Bhakti poetry, devoted to asceticism and enlightenment,
moved from south to north, creating a movement of its own, inspiring people to
look at society, God and worship in new ways.

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Then came the Muslim invasion and colonial rule, introducing Urdu forms such
as the ghazal as well as English rhyme and meter. During India’s struggle for
freedom from British rule, slogans, poems and songs flourished. Though barely a
hundred years old, Indian poetry in English draws from this legacy, offering a
powerful, multi-hued history of India and its people.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is one of India’s foremost poets, as well as an

anthologist, literary critic and translator. In the poem Engraving of a Bison on
Stone, Mehrotra grapples with language, history and the passage of time:
The land resists

Because it cannot be
Tempted or broken
In a chamber. It records,
By carefully shuffling the leaves
The passage of
Each storm, rain
And drought.
2. Poetry thrums with the pulse of a billion people
Poetry is a powerful ambassador, a medium through which awareness on greater

issues can be raised. In a few short stanzas, it can tell a story, convey a
message, and bring a slice of the world to you. With over a billion people, India’s
voice is one that we should be hearing.
In 5.46, Andheri Local, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam beautifully brings together

the strengths and vulnerabilities of Indian women, turning the ladies’
compartment of a train into a powerful goddess in motion:
Like metal licked by relentless acetylene

we are welded –
dreams, disasters,
germs, destinies,
flesh and organza,
odours and ovaries.
A thousand-limbed
million-tongued, multi-spoused
Kali on wheels.
3. Poetry thrives in a diversity of languages

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India has 22 official languages, including English, and 398 documented

languages in total. Can you imagine all the poetry that has been, is being, and
will be written? While some poems in Indian regional languages have been
translated, there is a treasure trove of Indian verse waiting to be unearthed and
explored.
In renowned Punjabi poet and writer Amrita Pritam’s poem Letter, she deftly
captures the anxiety felt at the time of India’s freedom struggle:
And now only some sparrows come,
straw in their beaks,
and sit on my body
and worry about the next generation.
(How wonderful to worry about the next generation!)
Sparrows have wings on them,
but resolutions have no wings
(or resolutions have no second generation).
Translated by D.H. Tracy & Mohan Tracy
4. Poetry shows us English is an Indian language
Indian English is a rich patois of regional words and experiences mixed in,
depending on which part of the country you live in. If you read Indian poets in
English, especially the work of Arun Kolatkar, Gopal Honnalgere, Manohar
Shetty and Jeet Thayil, it is hard to think of their work as anything else except
“authentic Indian”, even though they write in a language brought in through
colonial rule. India is a thriving example of many languages co-existing and
having the power to capture an experience in their own way. The fact that
English is globally recognised means that India’s rich, vibrant and uniquely Indian
verse can be accessible to people all over the world.
In the poem Malayalam’s Ghazal, poet and novelist Jeet Thayil cleverly traverses
culture and language by invoking his mother tongue, using an Urdu/Arabic poetic
form, written in eloquent English.
Listen! Someone’s saying a prayer in Malayalam.

He says there’s no word for ‘despair’ in Malayalam.
Sometimes at daybreak you sing a Gujarati garba.
At night you open your hair in Malayalam.
To understand symmetry, understand Kerala.
The longest palindrome is there, in Malayalam.

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When you’ve been too long in the rooms of English,

Open your windows to the fresh air of Malayalam.
(From: 60 Indian Poets, Edited by Jeet Thayil, Penguin India, 2008.)
5. Diaspora poets rock as much as diaspora techies
People of Indian origin are all over the world, making strides in science,
commerce and the arts. India’s diaspora, the second largest in the world after
China’s, is estimated at over 25 million people. Poets in the diaspora are
engaged in a compelling, ongoing documentation of migration and growth that is
vital in understanding the world we live in.
Indo-American poet Vijay Seshadri won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his
collection 3 Sections, a gritty examination of human consciousness. In the
poem Trailing Clouds of Glory, Seshadri pushes the reader headlong into a
multitude of selves that celebrate, engage, question, and explore identities and
environments.
Even though I’m an immigrant,

the angel with the flaming sword seems fine with me.
He unhooks the velvet rope. He ushers me into the club.
Some activity in the mosh pit, a banquet here, a panhandler there,
a gray curtain drawn down over the infinitely curving lunette...
...So why the angel with the flaming sword
bringing in the sheep and waving away the goats,
and the men with the binoculars,
elbows resting on the roll bars of jeeps,
peering into the desert? There is a border,
but it is not fixed, it wavers, it shimmies, it rises
(From: 3 Sections By Vijay Seshadri, Graywolf Press, 2013.)
Poetry suffers from a bad reputation: too esoteric for the common man, not
commercially viable for big publishers. But because of its ability to pack experience and
emotion within the confines of a stanza – to take snapshots with words, if you will –
poetry deserves to be utilised in the same way that we text, tweet or post pictures. It is
a perfect mode of communication for the digital age.
Indian poetry is an ongoing, multi-octave raaga of history and human experience.
We need to honor and learn from the rich landscape of Indian poetry – of voices such
as Kannada poet Gopal Honnalgere who have died in obscurity, or like Meena
Kandasamy who bear postcolonial witness to the nation’s wrenching twists and

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turns. Otherwise, we may be asking ourselves, as Mehrotra does, “What happens to

my drafts, my manuscripts, after my death? They will be kept in boxes and sold by the
kilo to the raddiwallah (scrap dealer).”
Greatest Indian Poets of All Time

The history of poetry in the Indian subcontinent runs millennia deep. From Vedic
Sanskrit poems crafted over 3,000 years ago to Urdu poetry that flourished particularly
under the Mughal Empire, the sheer variety of poetry traditions that have engulfed India
can be quite overwhelming. Here’s a list of those who stood out over time for their
unique influences on modern Indian poetry.
1. Kabir. This 15th-century mystic poet is among the most recognized authorities in
Indian literature. Kabir penned poems in Hindi borrowing from a range of dialects,
and wrote on various aspects of life and faith. A revered saint, Kabir was known
for being critical of religion as it existed at the time – primarily Hinduism and
Islam, and the various rituals they came with. His work echoed his criticism and
philosophy on what constitutes true devotion.
2. Kalidasa. Considered to be the greatest Sanskrit language poet in India,

Kalidasa is widely said to have been from the 5th-century, though most details of
his life are subject to speculation. His two epic works of
poetry, Kumārasambhava and Raghuvaṃśa are among the most revered in
Indian literature to this day. His work primarily revolved around themes and
stories from the ancient religious texts of the Vedas and the Puranas.
3. Ghalib. One of the most influential poets in Urdu, Ghalib wrote during the last
years of the Mughal Empire in India. He started composing poetry at the age of
11, and was well versed in Urdu, Persian, Turkish and Arabic. Ghalib’s poetry,
composed in Urdu and Persian, probes a range of topics including philosophy,
existentialism, the mysteries of life and other subjects.
4. Amir Khusrow. Born in 1253, this Sufi poet has been called the father of Urdu
literature even though his poetry was primarily composed in Persian. An expert in
Persian poetry, he is credited with having fused traditions from across the
continent to create the qawwali style of songwriting. He is also remembered
today for having introduced ghazals to the Indian subcontinent. His poetry took
many forms including ghazals, masnavi, qata, rubai – all of which soon became
integral to poetry traditions in Urdu.
5. Mirabai. Born in 1498, Mirabai’s mystic poetry is remembered mostly for its
devotion to the Hindu deity, Krishna. While several records from the time indicate
to her having been a highly influential figure in poetry traditions of the time, there

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are no surviving original manuscripts of her work. Her poems explore topics of
divinity, mysticism and love, and have been highly influential in setting the tone
for literature for centuries to come.
6. Mir Taqi Mir. Born in 1722 in Agra, Mir Taqi Mir entered the world of Urdu poetry
at a time when it was considered to have been at its formative stage. His work
didn’t just set a tone for poetry traditions in Urdu, but was integral to developing
the language itself. His work explores themes of love and spirituality, and is rich
with pathos drawn from his own personal tragedies including untimely deaths of
family members – first his father, then his daughter, son and wife.
7. Rabindranath Tagore. Among the most influential and recognized figures from
modern Indian literature, Tagore wrote poetry primarily in Bengali. Tagore was
much more than a poet, having composed highly revered novels, dramas, short
stories and even paintings. However, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1913, largely for Gitanjali, a collection of his poetry that is today among his best-
known work. Tagore’s work explores a range of topics from spiritualism to social
realities.
8. Kamala Surayya. Born in 1934 in Kerala, Kamala Surayya is among the most
influential figures in Indian English-language poetry. Popularly known by her one-
time pen name Madhavikutty, she wrote on a range of issues including love,
betrayal, female sexuality and politics. Her poetry was considered
groundbreaking at the time for breaking away from 19th-century traditions that
still governed Indian English writing, and instead embracing a distinctly direct and
explicit voice.
9. Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. Besides being one of India’s most important modern
poets, Sri Aurobindo was also a highly influential philosopher, yogi and political
figure. His poetry revolved primarily on themes of spirituality and mortality, as
well as involved commentaries on and translations of Vedas, Upanishads and
the Bhagavad Gita.
10. Sarojini Naidu. Known as the Nightingale of India, Sarojini Naidu is among the
most influential poets in modern India. A highly celebrated freedom fighter, Naidu
is primarily remembered for having served as the President of the Indian National
Congress and her contributions to India’s independence struggle against the
British. However, her poetry has been highly influential and set the tone for
modern Indian literary traditions. Her work explores themes such as love, death,
patriotism, among others.

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Poetry in Indonesia
For better or worse, there is only modern Indonesian poetry – and what comes
after. There is no such thing as medieval Indonesian poetry, for instance. For, even in
the 19th century, let alone in medieval times, there was not yet a country called
Indonesia.
A relatively young tradition, Indonesian poetry began in the early twentieth
century as the struggle for national independence from colonialism gained strong
momentum. A nationalist youth congress in 1928 issued the historic “Youth Pledge”,
which, amongst other things, proclaimed Indonesian (an offshoot of Malay) as the
national language of Indonesia. While centuries of inter-island trading had seen Malay
widely used as the lingua franca throughout the archipelago of some 17,000 islands that
would later be christened Indonesia, it was the nationalist movement – along with the
spread of print-media publication – that spurred on the more conscious use of
Indonesian as a means of literary expression.
Besides the national language, most of the 220-odd million Indonesians speak
local vernaculars (of which there are, according to an official report, 726). Some of
these languages have age-old literatures that have already produced works of some
renown, such as the Buginese epic I La Galigo and the Javanese Sutasoma or Centhini.
The term “Indonesian literature”, however, is generally agreed to designate those works
written in the Indonesian language – in the same way that Javanese literature consists
of works written in Javanese, or Buginese literature comprises works written in
Buginese, and so on.
Some of the earliest poetry written in Bahasa Indonesia (as the language calls
itself) appeared in the 1920s. Mohammad Yamin (1903–1962) wrote a number of
sonnets with fervent nationalist sentiment as well as idyllic nostalgia, in a vocabulary
that nowadays may sound rather archaic. Sanoesi Pane (1905–1968), in his attempt to
achieve a synthesis of East and West, drew much inspiration from classical Indian and
Javanese culture in a number of his sonnets, while Roestam Effendi (1902–1979), a
determined innovator, produced a body of work that uses a somewhat mixed
vocabulary, partly drawn from vernaculars such as Javanese, Sundanese and
Minangkabau. In their different ways, these poets paved the way towards different
avenues of expression for subsequent generations.
The 1930s witnessed the rise of the influential literary magazine Poedjangga
Baroe (New Writer) that published works by a younger group of writers. The sonnet and
quatrains were two favourite forms often used by these “new poets” to express what
they considered the novel sensibility of modern Indonesia. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana
(1908–1994), the magazine’s editor as well as its most eloquent spokesperson and
polemicist, urged Indonesians to adopt the modern West as the ultimate role model. In

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their effort to break away from the old tradition, they claimed to draw their literary
influences from abroad, such as the Dutch ’80s poets (de Tachtigers). Meanwhile, Amir
Hamzah (1911–1946), widely recognised as its greatest poet, composed melodious,
hermetic poems steeped in allusions to Sufi as well as other mystical traditions.
A major breakthrough arrived in the shape of the modernist work of Chairil Anwar
(1922–1949). Chairil’s poetry is terse, vibrant and rife with extremes covering a broad
range of emotions: from hope to despair, solemnity to playfulness, calmness to
rebelliousness. Even today after half a century his poems somehow still retain their
freshness and contemporary feel in their use of the Indonesian language. Chairil and his
peers Asrul Sani (1926–2004) and Rivai Apin (1927–1995) – the writers of the
cosmopolitan “Gelanggang Credo” of 1950 – saw themselves as “heirs to the world
culture”.
In the wake of Chairil Anwar, Indonesian poetry found distinctive new voices in
the works of Sitor Situmorang (1924), Subagio Sastrowardoyo (1924–1995), and
Rendra (1935–2009). Sitor Situmorang, in his long career as poet-errant, has written
some of the most vivid and piercing lines in Indonesian in his poetry about the
loneliness and ennui of a wanderer taking respite and finding solace in the sensual and
sensuous present, as well as in fleeting memories. Subagio Sastrowardoyo’s poems,
intimate and at times enigmatic, are poised between the subconscious desires and
longings of everyman and the solitary thoughts of a learned man. Rendra, also a great
actor, has an assorted poetic repertoire that ranges from the lyric, epic and dramatic to
protest poetry (“pamphlet poetry”) – his special legacy being the whole body of narrative
poems unique in Indonesian literature.
The 1970s was undoubtedly something of an experimentalist decade – with
performance art, concrete poetry and sound poetry stealing the show. The avant-garde
poetry of Sutardji Calzoum Bachri (1941), invoking the primal power of mantra as well
as the play of signifiers bordering on poetic frenzy, brought something singular and
unprecedented to Indonesian literature. And from the 1980s onwards, Afrizal Malna
(1957) introduced a kind of mongrel poetry of discordant images and rhythms, born in
the chaotic urban life of mass-marketed desires and its discontents.
Indonesian poetry today still looks vigorous and bountiful, with younger poets
finding broader and more varied outlets for publication of their work, from conventional
book-publishing to the literary section of newspapers and the Internet. The search is on
for new possibilities of poetic expression, in a field seemingly already exhausted by the
“old masters”, and there is no end in sight.
This first publication of the PIW Indonesia domain features Sapardi Djoko
Damono and Goenawan Mohamad, two eminences grises of contemporary Indonesian
literature who are still very active as writers. The oeuvres of the two poets are, in effect,
the living forces that continue to have a shaping influence on today’s Indonesian poetry.

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Indonesian Poets
1. Chairil Anwar . Anwar was born in Medan, North Sumatra, July 26, 1922 is the
leading poet Indonesia. Often dubbed as "The Beast Bitch" because one of his
poems entitled "I" or "spirit".
By H.B. Jassin, Anwar said to be a pioneer of modern poetry Force 45 and

Indonesia. His name became famous in the literary world after loading the writing
on the headstone magazine out in 1942, at that time he was only 20 years old.
During his life, he has written about 94 works, including 70 poems. All the
writings were published in a compilation by the Library of the People with the title
roar Mix Dust (1949), Sharp Gravel deprived and The End (1949), and Three
Reveals Fate (1950; together Asrul Sani and RIVAI APIN). Anwar's work was
rejected by the magazine Reader Pandji because it was considered too
moderate individuality and of the rules of poetry at that time. His works are
scattered in the writings on paper cheap during the Japanese occupation. But in
fact, who does not know Anwar now? Even overseas, I titled poem written on a
wall and into a monument.
2. Asrul Sani, born in Rao, West Sumatra, June 10, 1926, is a writer and film
director famous in Indonesia. He is known as one of the pioneers Force 45,
together with Anwar. Three anthology reveals the fate that he wrote together with
Anwar and RIVAI APIN make a career kepenyairannya uphill. In addition, they
also proclaimed manifestations of their cultures with the attitude of Credentials
Arena, diaman it gives them a name among the literati.
3. Sutardji Calzoum Bachri born in rengat, June 24, 1941, was a leading poet
Indonesia. At the beginning of authorship career Sutardji works published in
newspapers in Bandung, then his poems published in the magazine Horison and
Culture Jaya and cultural space Sinar Harapan and News Buana.
Through his poems Sutardji showed himself as a reformer perpuisian in

Indonesia after a period of Force 45. Mainly because it expresses the creed
kepenyairan that want to liberate words from the confines of meaning, and the
word was about the return of the function of the word (ie as a marker) such as a
mantra , In addition, he also introduced a new way of reading poetry and unique
in the world of Indonesian literature.
A collection of poems titled O Rage Axe is a complete publication of poems

Sutardji of the writing period 1966 to 1979, this anthology is a combination of the
three previous anthology of the same name is O, Amok, and ax. Kupulan rhyme
O Rage Axe clearly reflects the renewal done on perpuisian Sutardji in Indonesia.

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Although unfortunately, he has changed the flow of current in old age in terms of
writing poetry.
4. Sitor Situmorang was born with the name of King Usu with surname Situmoran
of Batak Toba. He was born in Harianboho, North Tapanuli, North Sumatra,
October 2, 1923. Sitor Situmorang known as a journalist, writer, and poet
Indonesia.
His works include Letters Green Paper (collection of poems (1954), Jalan
Mutiara (drama (1954), In Sajak (a collection of poems (1955), Faces Nameless
(a collection of poems (1956), Rapar Son of Bitch (1955), Zaman new (a
collection of poems (1962), Prince (a collection of short stories (1963), Literature
Revolutionary (a collection of essays (1965), Wall Time (collection of poems
(1976), Sitor Situmorang Sastrawan 45, Poet Lake Toba (autobiography (1981),
the Lake Toba (a collection of short stories (1981), Wind Lake (a collection of
poems (1982), Flowers in Upper Stone (a collection of poems (1989), Toba na
Sae (1993), Master Somalaing and Modigliani Envoy of the King of Rom (local
history (1993), Rindu Kelana (collection of poems (1994), and Travel Map
(collection of poems) that get the Jakarta Arts Council Poetry Prize in 1976.
5. Prof. Dr. Abdul Hadi Wiji Muthari or better known by the name Abdul Hadi,
born in Sumenep, June 24, 1946 is a humanist writer, and philosopher Indonesia.
He is known for his works patterned Sufi and research-penetiannya in literary
midwife Malyu in the archipelago, as well as his views on Islma and Pluralism.
Analysts call this art as a creator of Sufi poetry in the 70s. Because of his work
contains a lot of loneliness, death, and time. Therefore, he is often compared to
his friend, that Taufik Ismail, who also often wrote religious poetry.
Works karnya include At Last We Meet Again, Arjuna in Meditation (together

sutardji calzoum bachri and Darmanto Yatman), Sea yet Post, Meditation, Mirror,
Depending on the wind, Portrait of Long A visitor Sanur Beach, Child Marine Son
of the Wind, Madura: Prabhang outside and bearer of the Sun, and others.
6. Taufiq Ismail was born in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, June 25, 1935, is a poet
and writer Indonesia. Since I was in high school, he had aspired to be a poet. To
menbiayai literary dreams, he became a veterinarian and livestock expert, in
order to have his own farm business (but it failed, and did not happen).
By H.B. Jassin, Taufiq Ismail called the poet Taufiq Ismail Force 66. But worried
about that for fear of being satisfied and making lazy to write again. His works
include Shame (I) So people of Indonesia, Tyranny and Fortress, Tyranny,
Fortress, Guest Book Season of Struggle, Verse Field Corn, Recommend, I
Animals, poems Sky, Prahara Culture: Flashback Offensive LEKRA / PKI et al ,

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When Words When Colour, Seulawan-Anthology of Literature Aceh, and still

banyka again.
7. W.S. Renda. Willibrord Surendra Broto Renda, better known by the name WS
Renda was born in Solo, the Dutch East Indies, November 7, 1935, is a great
writer Indonesia.
From a young age, he has started a career sastrawannya by writing a lot of

poetry, plays, short stories and literary essays in banyka mass media. His poetry
was first published in 1952 in the magazine Strategy. From there, his poems
continue to be published in various magazines of the time such as malajalah
Story, Art, Base, Confrontation, and New Strategy. And continued in the decade
of the 60s to 70s.
In his book Modern Indonesian Literature II (1989), A. TEEUW said that in the
history of modern Indonesian literature, Renda was not included in any of the
forces or groups such as Force 45, Force 60's or 70's Force. Of his works seem
that he has his own personality and freedom. His works include Ballada People
Loving (set of rhymes, Blues for Bonnie, four set of rhymes, poems Shoes Tua,
for father, Travel Bu Aminah, Singing People sloppy, Pamphleten van een
Dichter, Image Development in Poetry, Caused by Wind, One Person
Rangkasbitung, Renda: Ballads and Blues Poem, State of Emergency, and
Benediction For Children-grandson.
8. Prof. Dr. Sapardi djoko damono, born in Surakarta, 20 March 1940, is a poet
Indonesia. Familiarly called SDD, known through his poetry that uses simple
words and romantic. Some of his poems are very popular and well known by
many segments of society, for example, his poem entitled I Want, Rain In June,
In One Day, I'm the lake, and walk to the West in Time Morning. Largely due to
the popularity of this poem poems Sapardi made musikalisasinya.
9. Mustafa Bisri. K.H. Ahmad Mustafa Bisri or better known as Gus Mus, was born
in Rembang, Central Java, August 10, 1944, is a poet and author of the column
is very well known among writers. In addition, he also was nanny Boarding
Raudlatuh Tholibin in leteh, Rembang, One pendeklarasi National Awakening
Party, and at the same time CLA logo designer used until now.
His works include poem Beautiful Names (Javanese, Publisher of Al-Huda

Waterford), Ohoi, Poems Balm (Pustaka Firdaus in Jakarta, 1991.1994), Antalogi
Poetry (Prima Reader Yogya, 1993), Hero and Mouse (set pusisi, Pustaka
Firdaus, Jakarta, 1996), Al-Muna (Verse Beautiful Names, Javanese, Yayasan
Pendidikan Al-Ibriz, Rembang, 1997), and others.

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10. Ajip rosidi. Ust Rosidi, born in Jatiwangi, Majalengka, West Java, January 31,
1938, is a poet, writer, humanist, lecturer, founder and editor of several
publishers, as well as the chairman of the Foundation of Culture Rancage.
According to Dr. Ulrich Kratz, ajip rosidi is the author of poems and short stories
were the most productive until 1983, with the 326 title of his work published in 22
magazines. His first book, entitled The Years of Death published when he was 17
years old. He also wrote a collection of poems, a collection of short stories,
novels, plays, essays and criticism, research, and others.
Poetry in Japan
Japanese poetry includes various styles, such as haiku and tanka, and is one of
the most widely known forms of Japanese literature. The first compilation of Japanese
poems, the Manyoshu, dates back to the Nara Period in the 8th century. It contains
about 4500 poems written by royalty and commoners alike.
Poetry remained a popular activity over the centuries, such as during the Heian
Period (9th to 12th centuries), when composing and reciting poetry at garden parties
was a pastime with scholars and the nobility. In the Edo Period, the celebrated
poet Matsuo Basho popularized haiku. Later, the Meiji Period poet Masaoka
Shiki introduced modern forms of haiku and tanka.
1. Haiku
The best known form of Japanese poetry, haiku is also one of the greatest
forms of poetry, alongside the sonnet and the ode. It's flexible, it's easy to read,
and it's still going strong hundreds of years after its birth.
A haiku doesn't rhyme and has three lines when written in English, though
different rules apply in Japanese. A traditional haiku in Japanese has
17 on (roughly translated as "syllables") in three phrases (5-7-5)
of on respectively. As with any art form, however, different poets have bent the
rules, so many haiku these days simply have three short lines.
The Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō didn't invent haiku, but he turned it from
a fledgling form into the masterpiece it is today, and was responsible for many of
the greatest haiku ever written.
Here are haiku by Bashō:

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ancient silent pond

then a frog jumped right in!
water sound: kerplunk
the lightning flashes

and smashing through the darkness
a night heron’s screech
on a leafless branch
a crow’s settling
autumn nightfall
2. Tanka
While not quite as popular in the 21st century as haiku, tanka is an equally
interesting form of poetry. It’s like a longer version of haiku, with a
syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7, and is just as versatile.
Like a haiku, a tanka encapsulates a moment in time, but the main
difference is that tanka is more explicit about the writer’s presence and emotions.
While haiku rarely mention the poet, tanka almost always do, and can show the
poet’s reaction to his or her surroundings in more detail.
Hiroko Seki
deep blue winter dusk

birdsong in trees in silence
woodsmoke on west wind
the air cold beneath my clothes
a breath of peace at day's end
3. Chōka
This is a versatile form, composed of alternating lines of five and seven
syllables, with the last two lines having seven syllables each. The total number of
lines is indefinite the shortest chōka are nine lines long, the longest are up to
150 lines. While it lacks the simplicity of haiku and tanka, chōka does allow the
development of themes too long to express in shorter forms.
music takes us all
until we ache from dancing
awake deep in night
talking of past adventures
air full of future
silent love on every lip
each heart drunk on it
I ask how I earned such friends
from what heaven did they fall?
4. Katuata

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With a syllable pattern of 5-7-7 (and sometimes 5-7-5), katuata is

essentially a slightly longer version of haiku. However, katuata are often more
emotional than haiku, showing the writer’s feelings as well as an external image.
Why spring? Sunshine aches

The past awakes in the sun
Such uneatable sweetness
5. Sedoka
Join two katuata and you have a sedoka! A rarer poem, it's composed of
two stanzas, each of three lines. Each stanza has a syllable pattern of 5-7-7, and
the poem as a whole may address a subject from two different perspectives.
puddles like mirrors

winter's grey face a poor sight
ice broken beneath cold feet
then flowers like eyes

summer looks up at the sun
wild colour against the grass
Famous Poets from Japan

1. Matsuo Bashō was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his
lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga
form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest
master of haiku (then called hokku). Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally
renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and
traditional sites. Although Bashō is justifiably famous in the West for his hokku,
he himself believed his best work lay in leading and participating in renku.
2. Yosa Buson was a Japanese haiku poet and painter. He ranked second only to
Matsuo Bashoa, Japanese master of haiku, among poets of the Edo or
Tokugawa period (1600-1868).
Particularly active as a painter between 1756 and 1765, Buson gradually

returned to haiku, leading a movement to return to the purity of Basho's style and
to purge haiku of superficial wit. He married about 1760. In 1771 he painted a
famous set of ten screens with his great contemporary Ike no Taiga,
demonstrating his status as one of the finest painters of his time. Buson's major
contribution to haiku is his complexity and his painter's eye. Buson's technical
skill as an artist is reflected in the visual detail of his poetry.

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3. Kobayashi Nobuyki (Issa) was born in Kashiwabara, Shinano province, to a

farming family and began writing in his childhood, which was marred by
misfortune and sadness, his mother died and his father remarried resulting in
torment at the hands of his step mother and step brother.
4. Kimiko Hahn is a New York poet. Kimiko Hahn is an American of partly

Japanese descent poet born in 1955 in Mount Kisco, New York. She received a
bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and an M.A. from Columbia
University.
She is the author of Air Pocket (Hanging Loose Press, 1989), Earshot (HLP,
1992) which was awarded the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and an
Association of Asian American Studies Literature Award, The Unbearable Heart
(Kaya, 1996), which received an American Book Award, Volatile (HLP,
forthcoming, 1998) and Mosquito and Ant (W.W. Norton, forthcoming, 1999). In
1995 she wrote ten portraits of women for a two-hour HBO special entitled Ain’t
Nuthin But a She-thing.

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Module10
THE MIDDLE EAST ASIAN LITERATURE
Objectives:
1. Identify literature in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Mongolia, Palestine and Pakistan.
2. Differentiate literature in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Mongolia, Palestine and
Pakistan.
3. Explain the literature of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Mongolia, Palestine and
Pakistan.
Introduction
Twenty-first-century Middle Eastern (primarily Arabic, Persian, and Turkish)
literature encompasses a rich variety of genres, whose maturation has profited from
internal and external influences upon this literature over the past fourteen centuries.
Modern Arabic literature addresses the full range of human experience, often through a
realist approach that employs the Arabic language in ways ranging from the most formal
to the most colloquial. While Turkish and Persian literatures have both followed

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individual trajectories since the modern period, they too evince a similar range with
respect to genre and employment of language.
Although today these three literatures appear as discrete entities, they share a
long early religious, cultural, and political history. While pre-Islamic Persian and Turkish
literatures would prove influential when taken up by writers in the first few centuries after
Islam, pre-Islamic Arabic literature provided the first literary model. Pre-Islamic Arabic
literature is characterized by the mua'allaqat (ca. mid 500s–early 600s ce), a collection
of poems from the Arabian Peninsula renowned for their beauty. These poems are odes
to the sorrows of lost love, using such tropes as abandoned campsites to evoke
memories of a beloved. That of Imru al-Qays (c. mid-500s), perhaps the best known,
begins: "Come, let us cry from the remembrance of a love and a home." Although poetic
themes have changed over the centuries, the ode (qasida) has enjoyed continuing
popularity through the twentieth century.
Literature in Saudi Arabia

The tradition of Arabic literature stretches back some 16 centuries to unrecorded
beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula. At certain points in the development of European
civilization, the literary culture of Islam and its Arabic medium of expression came to be
regarded not only as models for emulation but also, through vital conduits such as
Moorish Spain and Norman Sicily, as direct sources of inspiration for the intellectual
communities of Europe. The rapid spread of the Islamic faith brought the original literary
tradition of the Arabian Peninsula into contact with many other cultural traditions—
Byzantine, Persian, Indian, Amazigh (Berber), and Andalusian, to name just a few—
transforming and being transformed by all of them. At the turn of the 21st century, the
powerful influence of the West tended to give such contacts a more one-sided
directionality, but Arab litterateurs were constantly striving to find ways of combining the
generic models and critical approaches of the West with more indigenous sources of
inspiration drawn from their own literary heritage.
The Arabic literary tradition began within the context of a tribal, nomadic culture.
With the advent and spread of Islam, that tradition was carried far and wide during the
course of the 7th to the 10th century. It initially sought to preserve the values of chivalry
and hospitality while expressing a love of animals and describing the stark realities of
nature, but it proceeded to absorb cultural influences from every region brought within
the fold of “Dār al-Islām” (“Abode of Islam”). Early contacts with the Sasanian empire of
Persia (present-day Iran) led to a noisy but fruitful exchange of cultural values. The
foundation in 762 of Baghdad, built expressly as a caliphal capital, brought about further
expansion to the east and contacts with the cultures of India and beyond; one of the
results of such contact was the appearance in the Middle East of the world’s greatest
collection of narrative, Alf laylah wa laylah (The Thousand and One Nights). In that
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which, until the sack of the city by the Mongols in 1258, served as a huge repository for
the series of works from the Hellenistic tradition that were translated into Arabic. Al-
Andalus became to the rest of Europe a model of a society in which the religions and
cultures of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism could work together and create a system of
scholarship and teaching that could transmit the heritage of older civilizations and the
rich cultural admixture of Andalusian society. Western science, mathematics,
philosophy, music, and literature were all beneficiaries of this fascinating era, of whose
final stages the fabulous Alhambra palace complex in Granada, Spain, remains the
most visible token.
By the 10th century, the political fragmentation of the larger Islamic community
was evident in the existence of three separate caliphates: that of the Abbasids in
Baghdad, that of the Shiʿi Fāṭimids in Cairo, and that of the Umayyads, in Spain at this
time after having been earlier removed from power in the eastern regions by the advent
of the Abbasids. Ironically, this fragmentation worked to the advantage of literature and
its practitioners; the existence of a continuing series of petty dynasties provided ample
opportunity for patronage at court, which was the primary means of support for poets
and scholars. However, literary production and creativity were inevitably marked by the
ongoing series of Crusades, carried out by Christians from western Europe, the Mongol
invasions and later those of the Turkic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), the fall of
Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the fall of Granada in the Reconquista in 1492,
and the fall of Cairo to the Ottomans in 1517. It has been customary in surveys of the
Arabic literary tradition to write off the era between 1258 and 1800 by declaring it a
“period of decadence.” However, a more nuanced analysis of the situation would
acknowledge the political turmoil that characterized many regions and periods and
would also suggest that a degree of caution is needed in applying Western criteria for
literary evaluation to a period in which the aesthetic yardsticks were clearly different.
The nature of “the modern” in the context of Arabic literary history involves twin
processes: first, renewed contacts with the Western world, something that was
considerably accelerated by European imperial incursions during the 19th century, and,
second, a renewed interest in the classical heritage of the Arabic language and Islam.
Particularly in analyzing the earlier stages in the process known as al-nahḍah
(“renaissance”), Western historians have for a long time placed much more emphasis
on the first of these factors. It is certainly true that the 19th century witnessed a vigorous
translation movement that introduced to the readership of Arabic literature examples of
genres such as the novel, the short story, and the drama. All these genres were
subsequently produced within the literary milieu of Arabic, although the chronology and
pace of that process varied widely in different regions. However, as Arab literary
historians endeavoured to trace the development of a modern literary tradition in
different regions and as creative writers themselves strove to find indigenous sources of
inspiration and modes of expression, a perceived need to incorporate the second
category mentioned above—that of the linkage between the classical heritage of the

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Arab past and the creativity of the present—became more pressing and led in many
regions to a reexamination of the balance between these two forces.
At the turn of the 21st century, the Arab creative writer operated at a local level
within a social environment that, more often than not, constrained freedom of
expression and indeed subjected literature to strict forms of censorship. Many
prominent Arab authors spent large segments of their life in exile from their homelands
for political reasons. More broadly, the confrontation between secularism and popular
religious movements, which might in the best of circumstances provide for a fruitful
interaction of opinions, instead—because of local, regional, and global factors—created
an atmosphere of tension and repression that was often not conducive to creative
thought. This confrontation also prompted Arab litterateurs to view the global
environment with considerable circumspection.
Saudi Arabian Writers

1. May Ziadeh. As one of the Arab world’s earliest feminists, it’s surprising May
Ziadeh is a name rarely discussed, despite the significant role she played in
transforming Arabic literature in the early 1900s. Born to Lebanese-Palestinian
parents, Ziadeh grew to make her mark in the Egyptian scene, where her family
had migrated. There, Ziadeh made a name for herself as a journalist, and was
equally known for her poetry and fiction works. But the feminist’s biggest impact
were the weekly literary salons she held, where Egypt’s most prolific (and mostly
male) writers met.
2. Mikhail Na’ima. If you’re familiar with Khalil Gibran, Mikhail Na’ima is a name
you probably recognise. The Lebanese writer is particularly known for his
mystical works that varied from poetry to short stories. Naimy wrote a total of 99
books in his life time, with the Book of Mirdad being his best-known piece of
work. But above all, Na’ima is known for the lasting mark he and Gibran left
through their New York based literary movement that revolutionised Arabic
poetry.
3. Ahlam Mosteghanemi. Algeria is home to a host of distinguished writers, but

Ahlam Mosteghanemi stands amongst its brightest—having been the first
Algerian woman to publish a book in Arabic. Mosteghanemi, who was born in
Tunisia after her family was exiled during the Algerian Liberation War, returned to
her native country to become among the first generation of Algerians to
undertake the Arabic language following the nation’s independence. She went on
to become known for her feminist positions, reaching literary success with her

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first novel, entitled, Zakirat el Jassad – then going on to write two sequels—
solidifying her as one of North Africa’s most prolific writers.
4. Ghassan Kanafani. When it comes to Ghassan Kanafani, writing and politics

came hand in hand. The Palestinian writer spent his twenties as a journalist for
various publications in the Arab world, with his political affiliations being front and
centre. And his political views continued to shape his work, including his fiction
novels, through which he pioneered what is known today as Palestinian
Resistance Literature. His novel, entitled Men in the Sun, is still revered today as
one of the most reputable Arabic works of fiction.
Literature in Iraq
Iraqi literature has long reflected the tumultuous nature of Iraq’s political realities,
and is now emerging from decades of suppression to flex its artistic muscle again.
In addition, the literature of a country and people is a window onto the soul of
their language. The way language is used is a key clue to the culture behind it – and I
need as many clues as I can get! A great example is the modern Iraqi literary scene.
Iraq is a country that has been through the ringer, and if you seek to translate their
work, you’d better have an idea of how the population sees things. Plus, because of
Iraq’s eventful century you can actually see their literature changing as the political
reality changes.
Iraq has been engaged in violent and constant change for almost a hundred
years now, though often with lengthy periods of ‘calm’. In the early-to-mid 20th century
Iraq was a kingdom, In the late 1950s a revolution formed a republic, which lasted until
the military coup of 1968 that put the Ba’th party and Hussein into power. From 1991 to
2003 the country was largely cut off from the rest of the world as international powers
sought to pressure Hussein economically, and then, of course, the invasion and the
occupation that has existed ever since.
One result of this tumultuous history is the division of Iraqi literature between
“outsiders,” made up of intellectuals and artists who fled or were forced to leave under
the Ba’th dictatorship and the “insiders” who remained. Their perspectives are
understandably different, and the “Insiders” often reject the exiles’ point of view as no
longer truly representing Iraqi life and attitudes.
One good result of the Iraq War is the new freedom afforded to writers. Under the
Ba’th party, a great deal of artistic expression was suppressed as being unpatriotic or
dangerous. Much of the literature created in the last decade or so of Hussein’s rule was
blandly nationalistic and militaristic, clearly demonstrating nothing more than the
government’s wish to control the conversation.

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Since the fall of the Ba’th party, literature has managed to regain some of its
footing and there has been an attempt to return to the “social realism” movement that
prevailed in Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s, before the government cracked down.
Even more interesting is the departures from these older movements as war and
endless chaos has inspired newer writers to be less formal and more avant-garde.
Today, Iraqi literature is among some of the most innovative and interesting in the
world.
Contemporary Iraqi Writers

Despite numerous conflicts, Iraq’s writers display incredible literary virtuosity and
versatility, moving between genres and atmospheres to capture the swiftly changing
nation. It is naturally almost impossible to streamline such a wealth of talent into a small
selection of authors, but here are ten contemporary Iraqi writers carving a place for
themselves not only in Arabic speaking countries but, with the help of sensitive
translation, across the globe.
1. Najem Wali was born in al-Amara and studied German at Baghdad University.
Following the completion of his university degree in 1978, Wali was drafted for
military service, during which time he was reputedly arrested and tortured as a
dissenter. Given the problems arising in the duration of his training, the outbreak
of the Iraq/Iran war in the 1980s led to Wali fleeing the country for fear of similar
treatment, arriving in Hamburg in November 1980 where he remained in exile.
Wali’s Journey To Tell Al-Lahm is arguably his best known work, having
becoming something of a cult classic following its initial publication in 2004. The
tale is a ‘no holds barred’ description of Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s
dictatorship, stylised in the manner of a Kerouac-esque ‘road’ narrative. The two
protagonists, Najem and Ma’ali, travel in a stolen Mercedes towards Tell Al-
Lahm, entertaining each other with fragmented memories and stories. These
snippets are pieced together by the reader to result in a beautifully crafted novel
acerbically commenting upon the bitter personal resentment and fractious
violence underlying the Saddam regime.
2. Luay Hamzah Abbas has achieved international acclaim for his intriguing, song-
like collections of fiction. Born in Basra and educated to doctorate level at Basra
University (2002), Hamzah Abbas currently lectures in Literary Criticism and has
had his creative writing published not only throughout Iraq but throughout the
English speaking world. His short stories were translated into English by the
literary magazine Banipal and his Closing his Eyes (2008) collection was
translated into English by Yasmeen Hanoosh, following a grant awarded by the

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National Endowment of the Arts. His four short story collections and four novels
have been recognized with various esteemed accolades, including the Creative
Short Story Award from the Iraqi Ministry of Culture (2009) and the Kikah Best
Short Story Award from London (2006).
3. Muhammad Khdhayyir was born and raised in Basra and continues to devote
himself to the area and Iraq as a whole. Whilst little is written on Khdhayyir in the
English language, some of his fiction is accessible via Banipal, where the keen
reader can glean a sense of his ambitious style and delicate prose. Khdhayyir’s
Basrayatha is perhaps his best known publication: ostensibly a travel memoir, it
manages to resist becoming a coldly accurate and detailed orientation around
Iraq. Rather, in its elusive and faded recollections of a city ravaged by war, the
reader gains a mystical sense that memory and history serve as the true intrinsic
methods of orientation through the paths of life.
4. Dubbed ‘perhaps the greatest writer of Arabic fiction alive’ by The Guardian,
Hassan Blasim did not actually begin his career as an author. Studying film at
the Academy of Cinematic Arts, Blasim quickly attracted attention by winning the
Academy Festival Award for Best Work for both his ‘Gardenia’ (screenplay) and
‘White Clay’ (screenplay and director). Blasim’s impressively comprehensive
essays on cinema can be found in Cinema Booklets (Emirates Cultural
Foundation) and a smattering of his fiction at the blog Iraq Story. His most
esteemed collections of stories, The Madmen of Freedom Square, longlisted for
the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2010 and since translated into five
languages, was heavily edited and released into the Arab market in 2012 –
immediately banned in many Arab countries. Regardless of his controversial
status as a writer, his method of successfully employing unique narrative
stylistics cannot be denied. His commitment to spreading his work far and wide
has also won him notable acclaim, winning the PEN Writers in Translation award
twice.
5. Betool Khedairi has a fascinating half Iraqi, half Scottish heritage and was born
in Baghdad in 1965. An accomplished French speaker with a BA in French
Literature from the University of Mustansirya, she currently lives in Amman after
a period of splitting time between Jordan, Iraq and the UK. Khedairi’s first novel,
A Sky So Close, was translated from Arabic into English, French and Dutch and
currently takes pride of place as the subject and centre of literary critique studies
in international universities.

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Literature in Iran (Persia)

Persian literature, body of writings in New Persian (also called Modern Persian),
the form of the Persian language written since the 9th century with a slightly extended
form of the Arabic alphabet and with many Arabic loanwords. The literary form of New
Persian is known as Farsī in Iran, where it is the country’s official language, and as Darī
in Afghanistan (where it and Pashto are official languages); it is written with a Cyrillic
alphabet by Tajiks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. For centuries New Persian has also
been a prestigious cultural language in western Central Asia, on the Indian
subcontinent, and in Turkey.
Persian was the first language in Muslim civilization to break through Arabic’s
monopoly on writing. Already under the Sāsānians a standard form of Persian had
come into being that was called Fārsī-yi Darī (“Persian of the Court”). From the centre of
the empire it had spread to the provinces and had even marginalized other Iranian
languages with a tradition of writing, such as Sogdian in Central Asia. In the course of
the 9th century this prestigious variant of Persian emerged again as a written language
in the Iranian lands that were farthest from Baghdad, the centre of ʿAbbāsid power. This
New Persian (as it is called by linguists) did not differ very much from the Middle
Persian of the Sāsānian period except in its vocabulary. Three centuries of Arabic
hegemony had caused an influx of Arabic loanwords, which amounted to about half of
the total word material of Persian. The Persian alphabet was also borrowed from the
Arabs with the addition of only a few signs for Persian sounds unknown to Arabic. All
Arabic loanwords retained their original orthography whatever their pronunciation in
Persian might be.
The emergence of written Persian was facilitated by the political fragmentation of
the Caliphate. From the 9th century onward, a number of semi-independent rulers came
to power who only in name accepted the suzerainty of the ʿAbbāsids. The most
successful were the Sāmānid emirs of Bukhara in western Central Asia. In the 10th
century they controlled most of eastern Iran and present-day Afghanistan. The
Sāmānids belonged to the local Iranian aristocracy and even claimed a pedigree going
back to the Sāsānian kings. Though they remained faithful to Islam, they did much to
promote the literary use of Persian and the survival of Iranian traditions. Balʿamī, one of
their officials, adapted in Persian two important works by al-Ṭabarī, a native Persian
writing in the early 10th century exclusively in Arabic: a commentary on the Qurʾān and
a huge chronicle of Islamic history that included an account of the ancient kings of Iran.
At the same time, the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition.
The works of the Sāmānids have been preserved only as fragments, but they show
clearly that already in the 10th century most of the formal and generic characteristics of
classical Persian poetry were in use.
Iranian Writers

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Iranian people have a deep love of poetry and literature, so it’s fitting that some
of the most famous writers come from Iran. Whether they are more classical or
contemporary authors, each brings a unique perspective to shed light on the country
and its culture.
1. To understand Iran and its culture, there’s no better place to start than with
Abolqasem Ferdowsi. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni sought Ferdowsi to write the
glory of Persian history and the Shahmameh (Book of Kings), was born. Much
like ancient Greek literature, this epic poem tells the mythical tales of Iran’s
history and creation through tragic love stories, wars, villains and heroes. It has
been credited with preserving Iranian culture and the Persian language. Reading
this fast-paced tome will not only give your trip to Iran a whole new meaning, but
it will earn you the instant and eternal respect of every Iranian you meet.
2. Born in Rasht, Marjane Satrapi grew up in Tehran and moved to Vienna as a

teenager before settling in Paris in 1997. Her life in Iran amid the political
turbulence of the Revolution of 1979 and subsequent immigration to Europe
became the subject matter of her beloved black and white graphic novels,
Persepolis. These funny and moving novels have received a lot of global
recognition and were also adapted into a full-length animated film.
3. Born in 1921, Simin Daneshvar is credited with many firsts as a female writer in
Iran: the first novelist, the first to publish short stories and the first to translate her
work. Her husband was the famous writer, Jalal al-Ahmad, who she is said to
have influenced greatly. Her collection of short stories, Atash-e Khamoosh,
gained her some recognition, but her greatest work was above all Savushun, the
story of a family in Shiraz and their struggles during the Second World War.
4. Historian and author Nina Ansary is perhaps most widely known for her work on
gender equality in Iran. Her collection of essays, which analyze using modern
interpretations of the Koran to support women’s freedom, was published in the
Daily Beast. She has received a lot of recognition, including being selected as
one of the ‘Five Iranian Women Visionaries You Need to Know’ and the ‘6
Women Who Build Bridges – Not Walls’ by Women in the World. Her book,
Jewels of Allah, examines the role of women’s rights in pre- and post-revolution
Iran and profiles over 100 awe-inspiring women.
5. Iraj Pezeshkzad was born in Tehran and educated in both Iran and France. His
law degree allowed him to serve as a judge and diplomat before he took a
different path. His writing career began in the 1950s by translating French
literature and writing short stories of his own. His 1973 novel, My Uncle

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Napoleon, a satire about three families living under a patriarchic figure during the
Second World War, earned him wide acclaim and was later adapted into a TV
series.
Literature in Mongolia
Mongolian literature, the written works produced in any of the Mongolian
languages of present-day Mongolia; the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China;
the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China; and the Russian republics of
Buryatiya and Kalmykiya.
Written Mongolian literature emerged in the 13th century from oral traditions, and
it developed under Indo-Tibetan, Turkic, and Chinese influence. The most significant
work of pre-Buddhist Mongolian literature is the anonymous Mongqolun niuča tobča’an
(Secret History of the Mongols), a chronicle of the deeds of the Mongol ruler Chinggis
Khan (Genghis Khan) and of Ögödei, his son and successor. Written in prose, it
features alliterative verse, myths, legends, epic fragments, songs, eulogies, dialogues,
army regulations, and proverbs. Internal evidence indicates that it was composed no
earlier than 1228, the year before Ögödei’s enthronement; it may have been completed
in 1252, the year after the election of Möngke, grandson of Chinggis Khan, as khagan
(“great khan”). Its original Mongol script version was transcribed in Chinese characters
in the late 13th century, but large portions were copied in Lubsangdandzin’s 17th-
century Altan tobchi (“Golden Summary”). Likewise, the Mongol original of the history of
Chinggis Khan’s campaigns was lost, but its Chinese translation survived. His sayings,
which were preserved in Rashīd al-Dīn’s 14th-century universal history and, by oral
transmission, in Mongol chronicles of the 17th century, also gave rise to a strong stream
of moralistic literature, which soon became enriched with Indo-Tibetan elements. An
example of this literature is a Mongol version, translated from Tibetan by Sonom Gara
perhaps in the late 13th century, of Sa-skya Pandita’s Legs-bshad (“Aphorisms”).
Buddhist works translated mostly from Tibetan and certainly with the aid of extant
Turkic versions brought new forms and subjects to Mongolian literature. The monk
Chosgi Odsir added a commentary to his prose translation of a long Buddhist poem,
which was printed with his benediction (in alliterative quatrains) in 1312. To his disciple
Shirab Sengge belong a life of Buddha and the Altan gerel (“Golden Beam”), a sermon
of Buddha. Turks transmitted to the Mongols a version of the Alexander romance, a
legendary account of the life of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. Other
medieval Mongol writing includes letters sent to popes and European monarchs,
imperial and Buddhist inscriptions (including one on a gate of the Great Wall of China),
and fragments of the secular poetry of the Golden Horde. An inscription (1340) by a
Mongol prince of Yunnan province in China is both an intimate confession about himself
and a document about his donation to a Buddhist shrine. The Chinese Confucian

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canonical work Xiaojing (“Classic of Filial Piety”), which includes quotations from the
Shijing (“Classic of Poetry”), was also translated into and printed in Mongol.
In the 16th and 17th centuries a struggle for unity among the Mongols and efforts
to renew their Buddhism revived literature. Chronicles such as Erdeni-yin tobchi (1662;
“Jeweled Summary”) by Saghang Sechen, a prince, and Lubsangdandzin’s Altan tobchi
united Buddhist and Chinggisid traditions. To the cult of Chinggis Khan, which kept alive
his sayings as well as legends about him, also belongs Ere koyar jagal (“The Two
Dappled Steeds”), an anonymous allegory about freedom and loyalty that is thought to
date from the 17th century. Over the course of some 400 alliterative quatrains, Erdeni
tunumal sudur (c. 1607; “Jewel Translucent Sutra”), an anonymous biography of Altan
Khan, relates the story of his wars with the Ming dynasty and his alliance with the Dalai
Lama. A rock inscription (1624) preserved a uniquely personal poem by the Chinggisid
prince Tsogtu about his aunt, whom, the poem recounts, he misses because he is
separated from her. The poem contrasts their spatial separation and their differences
with their unity in compassion and suffering.
The Mongols also embraced and adapted the Tibetan epic of Gesar Khan,
probably in the late 16th century. One of the orally transmitted Mongol versions of the
story of Gesar Khan’s victories over various monsters (mangguses) and other enemies
was the first form of the epic to be printed in Mongol, in 1716. It became a source of
inspiration for several heroic epics, including the Abai Geser Khübüün of the Buryat
people. (This epic, of some 20,000 verses, and other heroic Buryat songs were first
recorded in the early 20th century by the scholar Tsyben Zhamtsarano.) Jangar, the
national epic of the Kalmyk people, is a loose chain of heroic songs that reflect the
belligerent past of the western Mongols. It dates from perhaps the 16th century; a
version of it was recorded and published for the first time in 1910.
The monk Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts (Oktorguin Dalai), an Oirat man of letters,
created a new literary language rendered in a new alphabet, known today as Clear
Script, which dates to 1648. The alphabet narrowed the gap between writing and
speech. A long afterword in verse to his translation (1644) of the Tibetan apocryphal
work Maṇi bka’-’bum shows his poetic verve. His disciple Ratnabhadra wrote a
biography of him that is also an invaluable source of western Mongol history.
The full translation of the Tibetan Buddhist canon was completed in the 17th
century and printed by order of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in more than 330 volumes in
the early 18th century. These and other translations refined the literary language and
conveyed many elements of Indian lore. Such 18th-century writers as Mergen Gegen
Lubsangdambijalsan and Chahar Gebshi Lubsangtsültim combined Tibetan and
Mongolian mores in verse and prose. Rashipungsug’s Bolor erike (1774; “Crystal
Garland”) and several other histories were produced under the Qing dynasty, which had
begun to take control of Mongolia in the 17th century.

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The Buddhist priest and poet Rabjai (Dandzinrabjai) wrote religious and worldly
songs and moralistic poems. He skillfully used folk songs as well as literary forms
derived from the Mongol written tradition. He also composed a musical drama, Saran
Kököge (“Moon Cuckoo”), based on the Tibetan story of a prince confined to live as a
bird preaching the Buddha’s truths. A 19th-century Tumet nobleman, Wangchingbala,
started Köke sudur (“The Blue Chronicle”), a historical novel that depicts the rise and fall
of the Yuan (or Mongol) dynasty during the 13th and 14th centuries. Injannashi, his son,
finished his father’s novel and wrote two others, all in the style of contemporary Chinese
popular novels. To Köke sudur he added Tobchitu tolta (“Brief Summary”), a long essay
that outlines his views on history. He also wrote numerous poems. Gularansa and
Gungnechuke, his siblings, were also poets. Ishidandzinwangjil’s Altan surgal (“Golden
Teaching”), an extensive guide to ethics composed in alliterative stanzas, is a late
example of this poetic genre. At the turn of the 20th century, the Ordos scribe
Keshigbatu composed songs and poems that deal with love and politics. He also wrote
a concise history of the Mongols and a versified reader for children.
Mongolian Writers
1. Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj, he was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan on both
his father Radnajab and mother Dulmaa's side. His ancestors held the public
office of golova (head) of a stepnaya duma (steppe council, local self-
government unit) in the territory of future Buryatia and the hereditary title of
Taisha (Genghisid prince) until 1822. They were members of the Yenshööbü-
Songool tribe (a Buryaticized Khalkha tribe) and were descendants of Okhin Taij
who had submitted to Peter I of Russia in 1696 after fleeing from Inner Mongolia.
Okhin Taij was the grandson of Choghtu Khong Tayiji who was descended from
Dayan Khan making him a descendant of Genghis Khan via Kublai Khan in the
line of Tolui.
2. Sengiin Erdene. Among his most notable works are "Amidralyn Toirog", "Bayan
Burd" (Oasis), "Zanabazar", "Malyn Kholiin Toos" (Dust Raised by Livestock),
"Naran Togoruu" (Sun Cranes) and "Khoit Nasandaa Uchirna". He was awarded
with the State Awards of Mongolia in 1965, the Awards of the Mongolian Writers'
Union in 1976 and the title of People's Writer of Mongolia in 1994.
3. Vanchinbalyn Injinash (1837-1892) was a Mongolian poet, novelist and

historian from a Mongol area in modern-day Liaoning, China. His verses, stories
and novels are distinguished by their markedly civic sentiments and strong social
criticism. The Blue Chronicle, a historical novel, is perhaps one of his best known
works, it is about the events of the 13th century, and upholds humanistic and
profoundly patriotic ideals. In another of his important works, One-Storey

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Pavilion, a two-part social novel, he describes life in southern Inner Mongolia,

and the tragic fate of its young people under the Manchu yoke, and their struggle
for human dignity.
4. Chadraabalyn Lodoidamba was born in Govi-Altai province in 1917. His father

was a cowherd who introduced him to Mongolian folklore. He was sent to a
monastery but ran away from it. He graduated from the National University of
Mongolia in Mongolian language and literature. He later studied in Moscow. He
was Chair of the Afro-Asian Soldiarity Committee and then Minister of Culture till
his death in 1970. He initially wrote short stories but is best known for his novel
Тунгалаг Тамир [The Clear Tamir], which was seen as the Mongolian Тихий
Дон (Part 1: And Quiet Flows the Don; Part 2: The Don Flows Home to the Sea).
5. Ryenchinii Choinom was a Mongolian poet. He was born in 10 Feb 1936 in the
Darkhan Sum of the Khentii Province and died in 1978. Choinom’s poems are
famous for their fearlessness and realism. Throughout his life, his poems were
widely popular but never received any official recognition under communist
Mongolia. Many of his love lyrics became popular songs. He was jailed under
pretext of writing poems that neglect the “Socialist achievements” and his works
were prohibited.
Literature in Palestine
In the writings of many Palestinian authors the Palestinian tragedy in modern
times is expressed, deciphered and shown to the world. Through varying literary forms
and genres the Palestinian literati encapsulated the Palestinian cause and envisaged
the looming horrors that afflicted the dispossessed, exiled and disabled Palestinians.
Few great Palestinian Writers, like Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), Ghassan Kanafani
(1936-1972), Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1920-1994), Emile Habiby (1921-1996), and other
living poets, novelists and short story writers chronicled the Palestinian Nakba
(catastrophe) and expressed in very innovative literary styles the human tragedy of a
people who lost their land and was dispelled to other parts of geography.
Palestine was a rich site of production of highly stylized forms of poetry, drama
and even novels, but the Palestinian literary life came to an end with the advent of the
Palestinian Nakba and the founding of Israel in 1948; very few printed books and
manuscripts were rescued and the historian had to reconstruct the rich literary scene
that existed for decades in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For that reason, and

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because of the Palestinian diaspora, and the discontinued lives of Palestinians,

literature produced by Palestinians after 1948 was mainly a literature of Exile.
In this sense and context, Palestinian literature is a literature of exile, a quest for
identity in a hostile world, a writing of fractured lives and hopes in a non-contextual
personal life and human tragedy as well. The Palestinian represents the exile, or the
diasporic creature in the contemporary world par excellence. In his After the last sky
Edward Said (1935-2003) portrays vividly the lives of Palestinian individuals and various
distant, dispersed and dispossessed Palestinian communities.
He explains the deep sense of exile and the vulnerability of the Palestinian. He
says: "The stability of geography and the continuity of land – these have completely
disappeared from my life and the life of all Palestinians. If we are not stopped at
borders, or herded into new camps, or denied reentry and residence, or barred from
travel from one place to another, more of our land is taken, our lives are interfered with
arbitrarily, our voices are prevented from reaching each other, our identity is confined to
frightened little islands in an inhospitable environment."
Palestinian literature reflects that sense of instability and vulnerability. The
Palestinians were forced to live in the diaspora, inside the Arab world or outside; inside
Palestine as 'as home exiles' or in refugee camps denied citizenship, prevented from
practicing many professions and forced to live in a ghetto, in certain Arab states.
Poems, short stories, novels and plays written by Palestinians echo the existential
sense of loss, pain and exilic life that Palestinian individuals and people experience at
home or in diaspora. The articulation of this kind of experience in literature is best
encountered in the works of Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, Emile Habiby and
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, in addition to other living Palestinian creative literary figures.
Palestinian Writers
Since the Nakba, in 1948, millions of Palestinians have been compelled to exile.
Palestinian literature is conditioned by the situation brought by the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and it is no longer only the literature of those writing from inside (those in Israel
and the Palestinian Territories) but also of those settled across the globe.
Consequently, the themes of migration, displacement, exile, isolation, identity, loss,
longing for the homeland, desperate waiting, injustice, oppression and hope are
recurrent.
1. Adania Shibli, a well-known Palestinian writer was born in Palestine in 1974.
She currently lives between Jerusalem, Ramallah and London. This young
author has twice been awarded the Young Writer’s Award by the A.M. Qattan
Foundation for her novels Masaas (Touch, 2002) and Kullluna Ba’ed Bethat al
Miqdar ‘an al Hub (We are all Equally Far from Love, 2004) both published by
Lebanese publisher al-Adab. Shibli’s short stories and essays have also been

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published in various literary journals and magazines, and spoke to us about the
new generation of Palestinian writers.
2. Mahmoud Darwish. When reading his poems and texts from the 1970s and
1980s, and then those from the late 1990s until his death two years ago, one can
identify a shift in his style of writing. If following the criteria for a strict categorizing
of a new versus an old generation of Palestinian writers, Darwish’s later works
would be filed under the new generation without question.
3. Ghassan Kanafani was a man of great originality and many talents. He wrote
short stories, novels, and plays as well as journalistic articles and analytic
studies; Arab publishing houses (including Dar al-Tali‘a, Mu’assasat al-Abhath al-
‘Arabiyya, and Manshurat al-Rimal) have published editions of his collected
works. Many of his works have been translated and published in sixteen
languages.
4. Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), the Grande Dame of Palestinian letters, is also
known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the
very best contemporary Arab poets. The sister of the poet Ibrahim Tuqan, she
was born in Nablus in 1917. She began writing in traditional forms, but later
became a pioneer of Arabic free verse. Her work often deals with feminine
explorations of love and social protest. After the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948
she began to write about Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Then, after
the Six Day War of 1967, she also began writing patriotic poems. Her
autobiography Difficult Journey―Mountainous Journey was translated into
English in 1990.
5. Among Palestinian women, Samira Azzam was a pioneer in the field of
journalism and broadcasting and in terms of underground nationalist activity. She
was also active in the field of translation. She also produced five short story
collections as well as literary and critical studies. The Egyptian critic Raja al-
Naqqash called her the “princess of the Arabic short story.” In his obituary of her,
Ghassan Kanafani addressed her as “My teacher and instructor.” As regards her
literary output, Kanafani stated: “One cannot describe her output as feminist.
Rather, one might call it a ‘literature of exile’ because it revolves around a
national cause more extensive from the human point of view than a mere
reflection of women’s psychological or sentimental reality.”
Literature in Pakistan
Pakistani literature came to be defined after the country in 1947, gained its
nationhood status. Its literature emerged from the literary traditions of South Asia. The
literature emerged nearly in the whole country and got its value in some of the major
languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto, Seraiki, and English.

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One of the most prominent Urdu literature writers is Sadat Hassan Manto. He
used to write short stories of South Asia. He has a great contribution to Pakistani
literature, although he had been a writer before independence as he was born in 1912
and died in 1955, after a few years of the inception of the country.
Now, the writing style and ways have changed of Pakistani literature because it
has divided into the class system and other complexities. Today’s literature has involved
experimentation in Urdu literary forms and English literature. Urdu writers of this time
have started imitating many fictions and writings from English literature.
Pakistan has been publishing several Urdu fictions and Urdu poetry and many
other things in digests since the 1960s but leading publishing in it has always been pulp
fiction. Muhiuddin Nawab has been writing for 33 years in Suspense Digest called
Devta.
Some digest writers shifted to television drama script writing like Umera Ahmed.
She is the most-liked and appreciated writer of the 21st century with Urdu literature
contribution. Her many novels were dramatized and almost all Pakistanis dramas based
on her novels got super hit. For example; Humsafar, shehr-e-zaat, maat, and Zindagi
gulzar hai, were the most liked dramas.
On the other hand, the people of Pakistan are being observed to be appreciating
the playwright Khaleel-ur-Rehman Qamar who also has a vast contribution to Pakistani
literature. His written most of the stories are said to be based on real stories. His most
super hit script writing that was dramatized was “Mere Pass Tum Ho”. Other plays are
Zara yaad kar, pyarr afzal, and pyar k sadqey etc. His writings are appreciated due to
the powerful dialogues he writes.
Moreover, Razia Butt is another renowned writer. She was the 20th-century
writer whose most liked novel “Bano” was then dramatized with the name “dastaan”.
Today, people do not like to read more rather than rely on watching the stories or
listening to poetry, etc through digital means. That is why plays or novels are directed
and produced.
English being an international language of the country has much Pakistani
literature. Many English Pakistani writers have great contributions in literature like
Shahid Suhrawardy, Alamgir Hashmi, Daud Kamal, and Ahmed Ali, etc.
The Persian language is the lingua franca of South Asia. This language is
adopted by most educated countrymen. Urdu being the national language of Pakistan
and lingua franca is the most influential language has a great contribution in Pakistani
literature. Although both are two different languages, Urdu speakers usually get
influenced by the Persian language, for instance, Allama Iqbal had a great contribution
to Persian language literature being an Urdu speaker.

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Pakistani Writers
1. Possibly the most renowned of Pakistani authors, Saadat Hasan Manto was
born in a time and place of turmoil, namely the pre-Independence era of Punjab
(a region that was later split between India and Pakistan). This volatile period
served as inspiration for many of his short stories including Tamasha – based on
the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Amritsar. His upbringing also resulted in him
penning largely secular works. He achieved great fame in script-writing for the
Indian film industry as well, before leaving for Pakistan where he found his true
calling. It was here in 1955 that he published Toba Tek Singh, his most famous
short story. A satire, it tells the tale of inmates in a Lahore asylum who are
transferred to India following the partition. The story is a metaphor for the
incongruous sentiment that a large number of sub continental citizens shared on
the day of the partition – of not knowing which country they belonged to anymore.
The story, amongst others, features in his short-story collection, Mottled Dawn.
2. Amongst the new generation of young Pakistani authors is Mohsin Hamid, born
in Lahore and educated in Princeton and Harvard. He has garnered widespread
acclaim following his novels Moth Smoke (2000) and The Reluctant
Fundamentalist (2007). Moth Smoke, his debut novel, dealt with the conflict of
cultures that modern-day Pakistan faces between the nouveau-riche, the
traditional elite and those operating in the seedy criminal underbelly of the
country. The book is set against the background of Pakistan becoming a nuclear
power. The name of the book is drawn from a beautiful Urdu allegory in which a
moth is attracted to fire — succinctly explaining the self-destructive predilections
of the protagonist, Daru Shehzad, a banker and drug-addict. The novel was
nominated for the PEN/Hemmingway award and was a New York Times Notable
Book of The Year.
3. Mohammed Hanif’s second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, was released in
2011 to rip-roaring commercial success. It told the story of a Christian nurse in a
Karachi hospital as she treated and worked with a wide assortment of eccentric
characters. An allegory for the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan, the book
is interspersed with genuinely funny lines. A case in point is one of the
characters’ take on love: ‘It’s futile to predict what love will make of you, but
sometimes it brings you things you never knew you wanted. One moment all you
want is a warm shower, and the next you are offering your lover your chest to
urinate on.’ The author has been internationally praised for his wit and humor.
Hanif is also a playwright, an occasional documentary-director and is currently
employed in the BBC’s Urdu division in Karachi.

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4. Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows, was published in 2009 and was the recipient
of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and an Orange Prize finalist. It narrated a
Japanese woman’s accounts of her travels around the globe in the aftermath of
the devastation in Hiroshima. The novel’s success was attributed by critics to its
highly inventive imagery and lyrical prose, reminiscent of other realist mystical
narratives such as Salman Rushdie. In fact, Rushdie himself had this to say of
Burnt Shadows: ‘This is an absorbing novel that commands in the reader a
powerful emotional and intellectual response’.
5. Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan and Elroy, Wisconsin.

A graduate of Dartmouth and Yale, many of his stories have appeared in The
New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope and The Best American Short Stories 2008
(selected by Salman Rushdie). He was a legal practitioner in America for quite
some time but had to return to Lahore to look after his family’s farm as it was in
danger of being taken over. He was based on the farm in Pakistan’s southern
Punjab for quite some time, which inspired his collection of short stories In Other
Rooms, Other Wonders (2009). The book was a recipient of The Commonwealth
Writer’s Prize among other awards, and described life in his native Pakistan
through the eyes of individuals from different walks of life – electricians, woman
servants, and even farm managers. It looks at class conflicts within a
differentiated Pakistani republic and also comments on the feudal structure that
still exists in some parts of the country. The author commented that many of the
essays of Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov have had a tremendous effect on his
writing — a fact substantiated by the thematic choice for his debut.

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UNIT III THE AUSTRALIAN, ENGLISH AND

AMERICAN LITERATURE
Module 11
THE AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE
Objectives:
1. Explore the different Australian Literature;
2. Critically reflect on and develop literary arguments in a variety of contexts;
3. Create a timeline of the different developments and significant contributions of
the Australian Literature in History.
Australian Literature
Australian literature literary works are produced in the area or by the people of
the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. Australia was a collection of
British colonies; therefore, its literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader
tradition of English literature.
Since 4566, the character of a new continent is introduced into literature
Exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mate ship, egalitarianism, democracy, migrant
and national identity, distance from other Eastern nations and proximity to Asia, the
complexities of urban living, and the "beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian
bush. First landing by Dutch explorers was in the beginning of the 17th century.
Australia was first settled as a penal colony of Great Britain at the end of the 18th
century. As a British colony and later a commonwealth state, Australia was profoundly
influenced by Britain in all aspects of society. Australian Literature since the 19th
century was the first popular works such as novels about life on the frontier, using
vernacular language or Australian dialect. Later in the 19th century Gothic novels,
poetry, drama, children's literature, and histories became famous.
Writing in Australia evolved through several phases. It began with mapping the
difference and distinctiveness of a new society establishing itself in the antipodes and at
a large imaginative distance from the rest of the world. Then it concentrated on finding
and articulating its cultural voice. This writing was characterized by unusual
colloquialisms and figures of speech, ironic understatement, and laconic rhythms; it
concentrated on representing—even asserting—a nationalist sentiment. Beyond that
phase, Australian writing became more sophisticated, discovering the universal in its

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local symbolism. Until the mid-20th century, Australians had written as though their work
was that of a more or less homogeneous society. In the closing decades of the 20th
century, however, the country's literature began the discovery of differences within itself:
regional, cultural, and ethnic.
Many of the Australian writers who distinguished themselves in the last decades
of the 20th century continued to make their mark in the new century. Named a living
treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1997, Colleen McCullough, author of The
Thorn Birds (1977) and the Masters of Rome series of historical novels (1990–2007),
remained one of the country's most prolific and best-selling novelists.
Similarly, productive and protean was Peter Carey, whose My Life As a Fake
(2003) drew its inspiration from McAuley and Stewarts 1944 poetry hoax, whereas his
Theft: A Love Story (2006) lampooned the international art market with a story of art
fraud. Careys other 21st-century efforts included Parrot and Olivier in America (2009),
focusing on a character modeled on 19th-century French social observer Alexis de
Tocqueville, and Amnesia (2015), which employs cybercrime as the lens through which
to view the Battle of Brisbane (1942), a clash between U.S. soldiers and Australian
military personnel and civilians during World War II.
Among Thomas Keneally's publications in the new millennium were American
Scoundrel (2002), a biography of the infamous American politician and Civil War
general Daniel Sickles; The Daughters of Mars (2012), a novel about volunteer nurses
during World War I; and Shame and the Captives (2013), a fictionalized account of
prison breakouts by Japanese prisoners of war in New South Wales during World War
II. Tim Winton added the highly regarded novels Dirt Music (2001) and Breath (2009) to
his oeuvre.
Novelist, historian, and film director Richard Flanagan won the 2002
Commonwealth writers prize for best book for his novel Goulds Book of Fish: A Novel in
Twelve Fish (2001), the story of a convict living in 19th-century Tasmania. Flanagan's
engaging mystery The Unknown Terrorist (2006) offers a cynical view of the world in the
wake the of September 11he , 2001, attacks, and his The Narrow Road to the Deep
North (2013) was much praised for its brutally stark depiction of the life of a prisoner of
war during World War II. Fear of terrorism in the post-September 11 worlds is central in
Janette Turner Hospitals' political thrillers Due Preparations for the Plague (2003) and
Orpheus Lost (2007). The Secret River (2005), another tale of the life of a British convict
in Australia, earned Kate Grenville the 2006 Commonwealth writers prize for best book.
Other Australians who published novels of note in the first decades of the 21st century
were Geraldine Brooks (winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for March), Sonya
Hartnett, Roger McDonald, Alexis Wright, Steven Carroll, Steve Toltz, Christos Tsiolkas,
Anna Funder, Patricia Mackintosh, and Sofie Laguna.
The art of the short story was also alive and well in Australian literature in the
21st century and received notable contributions with the publication of acclaimed

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collections from Turner Hospital (North of Nowhere, South of Loss [2003]), Winton (The
Turning [2004)], featuring 17 overlapping stories), and David Malouf (Every Move You
Make [(2006]). In the 2000s and 2010s the contributions of Australia's most-revered
contemporary poet, Les Murray, included Learning Human, Selected Poems (2001),
The Biplane Houses (2005), Taller When Prone (2010), and Waiting for the Past (2015).
Australian Writers
1. Patrick White. Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author who
was widely regarded as a major English-language novelist of the 20th century.
From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections
and eight plays. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantagepoints and a
stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature.
2. Elizabeth Jolley. She was 53 years old when her first book was published, and
she went on to publish fifteen novels (including an autobiographical trilogy), four
short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s.
She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia counting many
well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students.
3. Peter Carey. Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Australia and lives in New York.
He is the author of the highly acclaimed short story collection, The Fat Man in
History, seven novels, Bliss, Illywhacker (shortlisted for the 1985 Booker Prize),
Oscar and Lucinda (winner of the 1988 Booker Prize), The Tax Inspector, The
Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs (winner of the 1998 Commonwealth
Writers Prize) and True History of the Kelly Gang (winner of the 2001 Booker
Prize), and for children, The Big Bazoohley.
4. Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty
novels since. They include Schindler's Ark, which won the Booker Prize in 1982
and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and The Chant Of
Jimmie Blacksmith, Confederates and Gossip From The Forest, each of which
was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent novels are The Daughters
Of Mars, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2013, Shame and the
Captives and Napoleon's Last Island. He has also written several works of non-
fiction, including his memoir Homebush Boy, Searching for Schindler and
Australians. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.
5. Colleen McCullough was born in Australia. A neurophysicist, she established

the department of neurophysiology at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney,
then worked as a researcher and teacher at Yale Medical School for ten years.

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She is the author of the record-breaking international bestseller The Thorn

Birds as well as eleven other novels.
Pacific Literature
New Zealanders have long been avid readers, but until the mid-20th century
most of the literature they consumed was imported from Britain. Historian and poet
Keith Sinclair identified the 1950s as the decade 'when the New Zealand intellect and
imagination came alive'. This flowering of creative and critical talent was not sudden, but
the climax of a process that had begun at least two decades before.
By the 1930s a new breed of New Zealand writers was emerging, assisted by the
growth of universities and small publishing enterprises. The New Zealand centennial in
1940 provided a further boost to the local literary scene, and later that decade a state
Literary Fund was established. By the 1950s there was a wider range of outlets for
creative writing, including the influential magazine Landfall. New voices in poetry and
drama were generating heated debate over identity and politics, while writers of novels,
short stories, children's and popular fiction were also finding new audiences.
The 1930s saw the emergence in New Zealand of a new breed of writers, whose
work usually embodied a reaction against established ideas and conventions. Often
these writers were influenced by recent trends in literature overseas, notably
modernism, and by social and political events such as the Depression. A growing, if
narrow, sense of nationalism was expressed, focusing on the dilemma of Pākehā who
still looked to England as 'Home', but increasingly identified with New Zealand through
ties of kinship and daily experience. Some major literary figures of the 1930s, including
short-story writer Frank Sargeson, poets Allen Curnow, A.R.D. Fairburn, Denis Glover
and R.A.K. Mason, and Glover's printer associate Bob Lowry, remained active in the
1940s and 1950s.
Modern discussions of New Zealand literature have not given much attention to
the 19th century. Immigrant writers were Britishers abroad. Only those born in the
newland could see it as New Zealanders; and even they, for most of the first 100 years
of settlement (1820–1920), had to make conscious efforts to relocate the imagination
and adapt the literary tradition to its new home. It is not surprising, then, that the most
notable 19th-century writing is found not in poetry and fiction but rather in letters,
journals, and factual accounts, such as Lady Mary Anne Barkers Station Life in New
Zealand (1870), Samuel Butlers A First Year in Canterbury Settlement (1863), and,
perhaps most notably, Frederick Manings Old New Zealand (1863).

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The best of the 19th-century poets include Alfred Domett, whose Ranolf and
Amohia (1872) was a brave if premature attempt to discover epic material in the new
land; John Barr, a Scottish dialect poet in the tradition of Robert Burns; David McKee
Wright, who echoed the Australian bush ballad tradition; and William Pember Reeves,
born in New Zealand, who rose to be a government minister and then retired to Britain,
where he wrote nostalgic poems in the voice of a colonist. They were competent
versifiers and rhymers, interesting for what they record. But none of the poets stands
out until the 20th century, the first being Blanche Edith Baughan (Reuben, and Other
Poems [1903]), followed by R.A.K. Mason (In the Manner of Men [1923] and Collected
Poems [1962]) and Mary Ursula Bethell (From a Garden in the Antipodes [1929] and
Collected Poems [1950]).
New Zealand literature, it might be said, was making a slow and seemly
appearance, but already the whole historical process had been preempted by one brief
life—that of Katherine Mansfield (born Kathleen Beauchamp), who died in 1923 at age
34, having laid the foundations for a reputation that has gone on to grow and influence
the development of New Zealand literature ever since. Impatient at the limitations of
colonial life, she relocated to London in 1908, published her first book of short stories (In
a German Pension [1911]) at age 22, and, for the 12 years remaining to her, lived a life
whose complicated threads have, since her death, seen her reappearing in the
biographies, letters, and journals of writers as famous as T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf,
Bertrand Russell, and D.H. Lawrence. More important, she altered for good and all(in
the words of the British writer Elizabeth Bowen) our idea of what goes to make a story.
Two additional books published in her lifetime (Bliss and Other Stories [1920] and The
Garden Party, and Other Stories [1922]) were followed by posthumously published
stories, collections of poems, literary criticism, letters, and journals. She became for a
time a major figure, faded for two decades, and was rediscovered in the 1970s by
feminists and by scholars examining the Bloomsbury group. It seemed, from any
perspective, that Mansfield remained a New Zealand writer whose best work was that in
which she had re-created the country and family she had grown up in.
Mansfield once wrote, I want to make my own country leap in the eyes of the Old
World—and she did it. She also made the short story respectable, established it as a
form sufficient in itself for a writer’s reputation to rest on, and made it a staple of New
Zealand writing. But she never completed a novel.
The first important New Zealand novels came from two writers whose scene was
northern New Zealand: William Satchell (The Land of the Lost [1902], The Toll of the
Bush [1905], and The Greenstone Door [1914]) and Jane Mander (The Story of a New
Zealand River [1920]). They were followed by John A. Lee, whose Children of the Poor
(1934), mixing fiction and oratory, was drawn from his own experience of childhood

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poverty in the South Island; Robin Hyde, who in The Godwits Fly (1938) still wrestled
with the sense of colonial isolation; and John Mulgan, whose Man Alone (1939) held in
balance both the colonial romanticism of the solitary figure in the empty landscape and
the leftist romanticism of men moving togetherto change the world. In the 1930s Ngaio
Marsh began publishing the detective novels for which she became internationally
known.
Writers of Pacific Literature
1. Frank Sargeson. He had begun publishing stories in the 1930s, attempting to do

for New Zealand what Mark Twain had done for America and Henry Lawson for
Australia—find a language in fiction that represented the New Zealand voice and
character. That Summer, and Other Stories (1946) gathered together the best of
his early stories, and it was followed by the experimental novel I Saw in My
Dream (1949). Although both these books were published in London, Sargeson
was seen by New Zealand writers as something of an inspiration—a man
committed to full-time writing and to the life of literaturein New Zealand.
2. Maurice Duggan. Sargeson’s most notable younger protégés were Maurice

Duggan, whose stories brought a new level of sophistication into New Zealand
fiction, and the novelist Janet Frame, whose fame was to outstrip that of her
mentor. From her first novel, Owls Do Cry (1957), Frames work was
internationally respected though never widely popular. However, with the
publication of her three-volume autobiography (To the Is-Land [1982], An Angel
at My Table [1984], and The Envoy from Mirror City [1985]) and its adaptation
(written by Laura Jones; directed by Jane Campion) into the movie An Angel at
My Table (1990), Frames work received much wider attention, attracting interest
both because of that part of it that draws upon her younger years, when she was
wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic and locked away in mental hospitals, and
because of its technical experimentation and linguistic inventiveness.
3. Nelle Scanlan. Thrillers, romances and other popular writing presented an

interesting counterpoint to the concerns of 'serious' fiction. Often these genres
supported positive stereotypes about New Zealand and New Zealanders and
deliberately avoided analysis of social and political issues in a calculated attempt
to appeal to both local and international audiences. This tradition, which had
taken root in the 1930s with the work of Nelle Scanlan, Rosemary Rees, Mary
Scott and Ngaio Marsh, was carried on by romance novelist Essie Summers and
crime novelist Elizabeth Messenger.

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4. Maurice Gee. For a long time Gee’s best work was considered to be his Plumb
trilogy—Plumb (1978), Meg (1981), and Sole Survivor (1983)—which tells the
story of the Christian leftist George Plumb (based on Gees grandfather) and the
subsequent fortunes of his children and grandchildren. His later novels,
however—including Going West (1992), Crime Story (1994), and Live Bodies
(1998)—show a further extension of his range and ease as a novelist, social
historian, and moralist.
5. Maurice Shadbolts. Shadbolts background and interests were also of the

political left. The typical central character in Shadbolts early work is a product of
a working-class background who finds himself among writers and artists, is
involved in love affairs and marriages, but is always concerned about politics,
especially the politics of what it means to be a New Zealander. Strangers and
Journeys (1972) gathers together and restates all the themes of his early work,
after which Shadbolt found a new subject in 19th-century Maori-Pakeha relations
(also explored by Stead in his novel The Singing Whakapapa [1994]). Shadbolts
attention focused especially on the 1860s, the period of the New Zealand Wars,
fought between European colonists and the Maori over control of land. His three
novels on that subject—Season of the Jew (1986), Mondays Warriors (1990),
and The House of Strife (1993)—are possibly his best.
Epic of India
Every culture has its great, foundational texts. Epics, or a Mahakavya, are known
as the specialty of Sanskrit and are also the earliest forms of literature. Indian literature
is thought to be the earliest literature of the world. Literature during this time largely

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incorporated art. In this art, the gods portrayed in the story were depicted and it was
grandiose. The art was very detailed and included humans, animals, scenery, color and
much more. The two most famous epics are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Classical epics were made by using parts of the two original epics. An epic is
supposed to be divided into chapters, or Sarga. Every chapter is composed in an
individual and specific manner depending on the subject or theme of the Sarga. Epics
are thought of as art as much description is provided besides the main plot. Imagery is
widely used to describe festivals, forests, mountains, seasons, and so on. Stanzas are
composed so they flow with the story line but are also an individual idea or image.
The two classical epics have to do with ideals and values of human civilization.
The epics highlight the value of truth and the importance of self-sacrifice. Epics have
many moral teachings and are sacred writing to Hindus because of the important
discourses and teaching included in them. Although they are originally written in
Sanskrit, they were performed orally before transferring epics into writing. Tellers of the
stories add and take out parts and pieces of the story and the epics area changed a bit
when translated as well. The main ideas and morals remain intact even if small details
of the epics do change.
The 10 Famous Epics of Ancient India

The earliest works of literature of India were epics, long poems, travelogues,
plays, and collection of stories for children which were written in verse. A large number
of great Indian epics were created during the first millennium BC. The two most famous
epics are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
1. Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is a famous
Indian epic written by Ved Vyasa and is the longest
Sanskrit epic ever written. The epic has more than
74,000 verses and 18 books. The story is set in India
is about the conflict of a family, the Pandavas and the
Kauravas. The two sides of the family have a dispute
over who is to rule the kingdom but the Kauravas are
exiled after losing a game of gamble. Later on, they
come back and have a war. Krishna is a great part of
the story as he helps Arjuna drive his chariot.
2. Ramayana. The Ramayana is the most famous

and read epics of all times. Maharshi Valmiki is the
author of the epic. The Hindus have such high respect
for this epic, that it is considered a holy book. All children

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in India know the story of the Ramayana and it holds important values as well as
idealistic principles.
3. Panchat Antra. The Panchatantra is a

legendary collection of short stories from India.
Originally composed in the 3rt century B.C,
Panchatantra is believed to be written by Vishnu
Sharma. The ancient Sanskrit text boasts of various
animal stories in verse and prose, arranged within a frame story. It is based on
older oral traditions, including “animal fables that are as old as we are able to
imagine”. The Panchatantra is the best guide to enroot moral values in children
since its each tale has a moral lesson in its end. The Panchatantra is a great
book where plants and animals can speak and converse with human beings too.
4. Sangam Literature. The corpus of poems

known as Sangam literature was produced over six
centuries, from around 300 BC to 300 A.D, by Tamils
from very diverse social backgrounds. The period
during which these poems were composed is called
the Sangam period. These works provide insight into
early Tamil culture and into.
5.
5.Abhijnanasakuntalam. Abhijnanasakuntalam is a beautiful tale of love and
romance, dramatizing the story of Shakuntala (mother of emperor Bharata) told in
the epic Mahabharata. Its date is uncertain, but Kalidasa is often placed in the
period between the 1st century BCE and 4th
century CE. The Sanskrit title means ‘Of Sakuntala
who is recognized by a token’.
Abhijnanasakuntalam is the first Indian play ever to
be translated into western languages.
6. Kamasutra. The Kama Sutra is the world’s oldest book on the pleasures of
sensual living. It was originally compiled in the 3rd century by the Indian sage
Vatsyayana, who lived in northern India. The title of the text, Kama Sutra, literally
means “a treatise on pleasure.” Contrary to western popular perception, the
Kama Sutra is not exclusively a sex manual, only
20% of Kama Sutra is about sexual positions. The
majority of the book is about the philosophy and
theory of love, making oneself more attractive and
how spouses should treat each other.

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7. Shishupala Vadha. Shishupala Vadha is a Sanskrit epic dealing with the life of
Shishupala, a king of an ancient Indian province, and his death by Krishna. The
story is taken from Mahabharata. It is an epic poem in 20 cantos of about 1800
highly ornate stanzas, and is considered one of the
six Sanskrit mahakavyas, or “great epics”. It is
believed to compose by Māgha in the 7th or 8th
century. The epic has been widely acclaimed for its
use of ornate style and poetic techniques.
8. The Kiratarjuniya. The Kiratarjuniya is a Sanskrit epic written in the 6th century
or earlier. It is an epic poem in eighteen cantos in which the God Shiva tests the
strength of Arjuna, one of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata. Though Arjuna fails
in the competition, he gets an opportunity to meet
the Lord Siva and receive His blessings. The story
has a moral that every human being should keep in
mind that we have to respect others whatever their
status. It expounds the basic of Indian religious
thought that every human being is a part of the
omnipotent.
9. The Arthashastra. The Arthasastra by Chanakya is a 2300-year-old

masterpiece on governance, economics and politics. This book is a huge work
and has fifteen parts, each dealing with some aspects of the art of government.
Composed, expanded and redacted between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd
century CE, the Arthashastra was influential until the 12th century, when it
disappeared. It was rediscovered in 1905 by R. Shamasastry, who published it in
1909. The title “Arthashastra” is often translated to “the science of politics”, but
the book Arthashastra has a broader scope. It includes books on the nature of
government, law, civil and criminal court systems,
ethics, economics, markets and trade, the methods
for screening ministers, diplomacy, theories on
war, nature of peace, and the duties and
obligations of a king.
10. Buddhacarita. Buddhacharita is a great epic which narrates the life of Buddha –
from his birth to Nirvana. Buddhacharita, one of the best Sanskrit epics, was
written by Asvogosha, a Buddhist poet in 2nd
century AD. This epic is renowned for the details
about Buddha’s life which can be corroborated by
available historical records and the facts available

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in other chronologies of that period. This epic consists of 28 cantos.
Epic of Germany
German literature comprises the written works of the German-speaking peoples
of central Europe.
In Germany, the epic genre had combined the heathen martial spirit with
chivalrous civility without the Christian element so prominent in the French epic,
although the specifically chivalric brand of piety that the historian Adolf Waas labelled
Ritterfrömmigkeit was conspicuously present in the religious epics of biblical inspiration.
Nibelungenlied, (German: “Song of the Nibelungs”) Middle High German epic
poem written about 1200 by an unknown Austrian from the Danube
region. It is preserved in three main 13th-century manuscripts, A
(now in Munich), B (St. Gall), and C (Donaueschingen); modern
scholarship regards B as the most trustworthy. An early Middle
High German title of the work is Der Nibelunge Not (“The Nibelung
Distress”), from the last line of the poem. The superscription on one
of the manuscripts from the early 14th century is “The Book of
Kriemhild.”
Epic of France
Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in
their sense of identity. As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more
Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country.
French literature, the body of written works in the French language produced
within the geographic and political boundaries of France. The French language was one
of the five major Romance languages to develop from Vulgar Latin as a result of the
Roman occupation of western Europe.
La Chanson de Roland or The Song of Roland, is an old French epic poem
that is probably the earliest (c. 1100) chanson de geste and is considered the
masterpiece of the genre. The poem’s probable author was a
Norman poet, Turold, whose name is introduced in its last line.
France's national epic is namely The Song of Roland, not
just by virtue of its considerable length, but by the values it
promotes. The title character is consistently presented throughout

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the poem as a role model for French manhood, a brave soldier whose loyalty, valor, and
sacrifice make him the first authentically national hero.
Epic of Spain
One of the great Spanish epics of the Middle Ages is El Cid, or more fully El
cantar de mío Cid. Written or copied in 1207 by Per Abbat, it is the story of the conquest
of Valencia by Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, who lived during the time of the Norman Invasion
(the end of the Old English period).
Cantar de Mio Cid, (English: “Song of My Cid”) also called Poema De Mio Cid,
Spanish epic poem of the mid-12th century, the earliest surviving monument of Spanish
literature and generally considered one of the great medieval
epics and one of the masterpieces of Spanish literature.
The poem tells of the fall from royal favor and the
eventual vindication of the Castilian 11th-century noble and
military leader Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (1043–99), popularly
known as the Cid, who became Spain’s national hero. The
original manuscript of the poem, believed to have been
composed about 1140, has been lost; the earliest existing copy, called Poema del Cid,
dates from 1307.
Distinguished for its realistic tone and treatment of the historical setting and the
topographical detail as well as for its imaginative poetic artistry, the poem caught the
popular imagination and lived on in epic, chronicle, ballad, and drama. The theme, with
many additions and variations, inspired numerous writers in Spain and elsewhere and
helped to fix the popular conception of the Spanish character. Its best-known non-
Spanish treatment is Pierre Corneille’s play Le Cid (1637), a landmark of French
Neoclassical drama.
Epic of Italy
Medieval epic poems are plentiful, though rarely read. Each nation or state
produced its great epic poets. Italy has not only Virgil, but also Dante, among others.
Dante's great epic is The Divine Comedy. It has inspired poets and artists for centuries.
T. S. Eliot is said to have carried a volume of Dante in his coat pocket. Gustave Doré
illustrated The Divine Comedy in the nineteenth century.
The Divine Comedy is one of the greatest monuments of human genius. It is
the Christian epic. The story is related as a vision; it is the story
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The poem begins with Dante being lost in a forest (representing worldliness or
sin) near a hill, the Mount of Joy or Salvation. He wishes to ascend the hill but is
prevented from doing so by a leopard (representing violence and ambition) and a she-
wolf (representing lack of self-restraint). Trembling with fear at the threatening and
ferocious appearance of the beasts, Dante is saved by Virgil (who becomes his guide),
sent by Beatrice to help him. With Virgil, Dante descends into hell. Beatrice herself is his
guide as he makes the ascent to heaven.
Virgil and Dante enter the gates of hell (Inferno) and enter that dismal region of
eternal suffering and punishment. Hell is shaped like an inverted cone with nine circles,
each circle lower and narrower than the preceding one. In each circle the wicked are
punished, and the punishment grows more severe at each lower circle. The punishment
is always in proportion to the sinner’s guilt. At the pit of hell are two arch-sinners: Satan,
the rebel against God, and Judas of Kerioth, the betrayer of Christ.
As the poets pass through the gates of hell, cries of anguish deafen their ears.
Dante sees the first of the souls in torment. The first group of sinners is the ordinary
type – those souls who, when they lived were neither good nor evil but lived only for
themselves. They race round and round, pursuing a wavering banner that runs forever
through polluted air. As they run, they are stung by wasps and hornets.
As Dante and Virgil descend farther down, they see that each of the different
ledges in Hell is reserved for sinners having committed the same sins. There seems to
be no movement from one ledge to another. The gluttons are punished by a rain of foul-
smelling, dirty, decaying food full of worms, food not even fit for pigs. The spendthrifts
and the misers (who abused the gifts of God) are punished by rolling large boulders
upon a hill with their shoulders. They are on opposite sides of the hill; the boulders clash
and fall and the pair of sinners begin again from the bottom, rolling the boulders
painfully up the hill. The murderers are immersed in a river of boiling blood, and when
they come up to breathe, monsters hit them on the head and they go down into the river
of blood again.
After leaving hell, Dante and Virgil ascend to Purgatory where they find the
immense zone divided into seven sections of a circular ascending stairway. This is the
Mountain of Purgatory; each ledge or circle of the stairway is devoted to the expiation of
each of the seven deadly sins. The proud sinners bend and groan, carrying heavy
weights; the envious are covered with garments of coarse horsehair; the hot-tempered
are suffocated with smoke; the lazy are compelled to run around continuously; the
gluttons suffer from hunger and thirst. The sins punished in hell are the same sins
punished in purgatory; but while the sufferings in hell are endless, the sufferers in
purgatory are given a chance to repent of and expiate their sins and are allowed to rise
to the top of the mountain of Purgatory until they reach the Terrestrial Paradise or the
Garden of Eden. From there they can ascend to Paradise. The inhabitants of hell and
purgatory are all sinful souls. The difference lies in the fact that those in hell did not feel

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sorry or repent for their sins while those in purgatory were sorry for, and tried to avoid,
sin when they were on earth.
When Dante reaches paradise, Beatrice, who was the object of his early and
constant love, meets him and becomes his guide to heaven. She leads him upward
through the nine heavens and acquaints him with great men, among them the saints
who by their virtuous lives have deserved to enjoy the vision of God in paradise.
Absorbed in the beatific vision of God, Dante falls into a faint and awakens on earth.
Dante’s Divine Comedy is both an epic and an allegory. In grandeur and scope,
it is an epic since Dante’s pilgrimage takes him from earth, to hell, to paradise, to
heaven, and back to earth again. However, the poem has an allegorical meaning. It is,
in fact, an extended metaphor. The allegorical meaning is hidden under the literal one.
Dante, traveling through the invisible world, is mankind who tries to find temporal and
eternal happiness. The forest typifies the will and religious confusion of society deprived
of two heads – the temporal leader (the emperor) and the spiritual leader (the pope).
The three beasts typify the strongest obstacles to man’s achieving happiness. Virgil
acting as guide on the journey typifies reasons, which should come to help man in this
journey through life. Beatrice typifies the supernatural help which man also needs in his
journey through this life. Without these two aiding him, man cannot attain his true end,
which is happiness.
Module 14
THE EUROPEAN LITERATURE
Objectives:
1. Discuss the background of literature from different European country;

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2. Explain the key features to understand European Literature;

3. Appreciate the characteristics of different European Literature; and
4. Analyze the poem “Demain, dès l’aube” by Victor Hugo
The European Literature

Literature of England is also known as the English literature. English literature is
the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British
Isles (including Ireland) from the 7th century to the present day. Being the origin of the
English language, England has yielded many noteworthy literary works and authors.
While each of these is unique, they represent England’s literature as a cohesive body.
Over the ages, different styles and approaches to literature have become evident.
Literature of England
The Old English language or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest form of English. The
period is a long one and it is generally considered that Old English was spoken from
about A.D. 600 to about 1100. Many of the poems of the period are pagan, in particular
Widsith and Beowulf.
The greatest English poem, Beowulf is the first English epic. The author of
Beowulf is anonymous. It is a story of a brave young man Beowulf in 3182 lines. In this
epic poem, Beowulf sails to Denmark with a band of warriors to save the King of
Denmark, Hrothgar. Beowulf saves Danish King Hrothgar from a terrible monster
called Grendel. The mother of Grendel who sought vengeance for the death of her son
was also killed by Beowulf. Beowulf was rewarded and became King. After a
prosperous reign of some forty years, Beowulf slays a dragon but in the fight he himself
receives a mortal wound and dies. The poem concludes with the funeral ceremonies in
honor of the dead hero. Though the poem Beowulf is little interesting to contemporary
readers, it is a very important poem in the Old English period because it gives an
interesting picture of the life and practices of old days.
The difficulty encountered in reading Old English Literature lies in the fact that
the language is very different from that of today. There was no rhyme in Old English
poems. Instead they used alliteration. Besides Beowulf, there are many other Old
English poems. Widsith, Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, The Wanderer, The Seafarer,
Wife’s Lament, Husband’s Message, Christ and Satan, Daniel, Andreas, Gathas, The
Dream of the Rood, The Battle of Maldon etc. are some of the examples. Two important
figures in Old English poetry are Cynewulf and Caedmon. Cynewulf wrote religious
poems and the four poems, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles, Christ and Elene are
always credited with him. Caedmon is famous for his Hymn. Alfred enriched Old English
prose with his translations especially Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Aelfric is another

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important prose writer during Old English period. He is famous for his Grammar,
Homilies and Lives of the Saints. Aelfric’s prose is natural and easy and is very often
alliterative.
In France the name miracle was given to any play representing the lives of the
saints, while the mystère represented scenes from the life of Christ or stories from the
Old Testament associated with the coming of Messiah. In England this distinction was
almost unknown; the name Miracle was used indiscriminately for all plays having their
origin in the Bible or in the lives of the saints; and the name Mystery, to distinguish a
certain class of plays, was not used until long after the religious drama had passed
away.
The earliest Miracle of which we have any record in England is the Ludus de
Sancta Katharina, which was performed in Dunstable about the year 1110. It is not
known who wrote the original play of St. Catherine, but our first version was prepared by
Geoffrey of St. Albans, a French schoolteacher of Dunstable. Whether or not the play
was given in English is not known, but it was customary in the earliest plays for the chief
actors to speak in Latin or French, to show their importance, while minor and comic
parts of the same play were given in English.
For four centuries after this first recorded play the Miracles increased steadily in
number and popularity in England. They were given first very simply and impressively in
the churches; then, as the actors increased in number and the plays in liveliness, they
overflowed to the churchyards; but when fun and hilarity began to predominate even in
the most sacred representations, the scandalized priests forbade plays altogether on
church grounds. By the year 1300 the Miracles were out of ecclesiastical hands and
adopted eagerly by the town guilds; and in the following two centuries we find the
Church preaching against the abuse of the religious drama which it had itself
introduced, and which at first had served a purely religious purpose. But by this time the
Miracles had taken strong hold upon the English people, and they continued to be
immensely popular until, in the sixteenth century, they were replaced by the Elizabethan
drama.
The early Miracle plays of England were divided into two classes: the first, given
at Christmas, included all plays connected with the birth of Christ; the second, at Easter,
included the plays relating to his death and triumph. By the beginning of the fourteenth
century all these plays were, in various localities, united in single cycles beginning with
the Creation and ending with the Final Judgment. The complete cycle was presented
every spring, beginning on Corpus Christi day; and as the presentation of so many
plays meant a continuous outdoor festival of a week or more, this day was looked
forward to as the happiest of the whole year.
Probably every important town in England had its own cycle of plays for its own
guilds to perform, but nearly all have been lost. At the present day only four cycles exist
(except in the most fragmentary condition), and these, though they furnish an interesting

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commentary on the times, add very little to our literature. The four cycles are the
Chester and York plays, so called from the towns in which they were given; the
Towneley or Wakefield plays, named for the Towneley family, which for a long time
owned the manuscript; and the Coventry plays, which on doubtful evidence have been
associated with the Grey Friars (Franciscans) of Coventry. The Chester cycle has 25
plays, the Wakefield 30, the Coventry 42, and the York 48. It is impossible to fix either
the date or the authorship of any of these plays; we only know certainly that they were
in great favor from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The York plays are generally
considered to be the best; but those of Wakefield show more humor and variety, and
better workmanship. The former cycle especially shows a certain unity resulting from its
aim to represent the whole of man’s life from birth to death. The same thing is
noticeable in Cursor Mundi, which, with the York and Wakefield cycles, belongs to the
fourteenth century.
After these plays were written according to the general outline of the Bible
stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like children at “Punch and
Judy,” upon seeing the same things year after year. No originality in plot or treatment
was possible, therefore; the only variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks
of the devil. Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious
development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the “Martyrdom of
Ali” is celebrated yearly, and the famous “Passion Play,” a true Miracle, is given every
ten years at Oberammergau.
English Writers
1. Poet Geoffrey Chaucer was born circa 1340 in London, England. In 1357 he
became a public servant to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster and continued in that
capacity with the British court throughout his lifetime. The Canterbury Tales
became his best known and most acclaimed work. He died in 1400 and was the
first to be buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. Chaucer’s first major
work was ‘The Book of the Duchess’, an elegy for the first wife of his patron John
of Gaunt. Other works include ‘Parlement of Foules’, ‘The Legend of Good
Women’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’. In 1387, he began his most famous work,
‘The Canterbury Tales’, in which a diverse group of people recount stories to
pass the time on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.
2. William Langland, (born c. 1330—died c. 1400), presumed author of one of the

greatest examples of Middle English alliterative poetry, generally known as Piers
Plowman, an allegorical work with a complex variety of religious themes. One of
the major achievements of Piers Plowman is that it translates the language and
conceptions of the cloister into symbols and images that could be understood by

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the layman. In general, the language of the poem is simple and colloquial, but
some of the author’s imagery is powerful and direct.
3. James Thompson is remembered for his long series of descriptive passages

dealing with natural scenes in his poem The Seasons. He wrote another
important poem The Castle of Indolence.
4. Thomas Gray (1716-1771) is one of the greatest poets of English literature. His
first poem was the Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Then after years
of revision, he published his famous Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Its
popularity had been maintained to the present day. Other important poems of
Thomas Gray are Ode on a Favourite Cat, The Bard and The Progress of Poesy.
5. Edmund Burke is one of the masters of English prose. He was a great orator
also. His speech On American Taxation is very famous. Revolution in France
and A Letter to a Noble Lord are his notable pamphlets. The letters of Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, Earl of Chesterfield, Thomas Gray and Cowper are good prose
works in Eighteenth century literature.
Literature of France
French literature, one of the world's most brilliant, has been for centuries an
impressive facet of French civilization, an object of national pride, and a principal focus
for feelings of national identity. Because the French are a literate people, passionately
interested in questions of language and in the exploration of ideas, the influence of
French intellectuals on the course of French history during the last three centuries has
been great, and remains so today. A high proportion of European literary trends have
originated in France. The continuing prestige of literature in France is evidenced today
by the innumerable private societies devoted to individual authors and by the large
number of literary prizes awarded each year. A knowledge of French literature, in short,
is the key to an understanding of the French people.
The history of French literature has developed over the year. Continuous work is
also being carried out by French literary writers to improve on the progress made by
previous French authors. The history of French literature could be grouped under the
medieval period, the sixteenth century, seventeenth century, eighteenth century,
nineteenth century, twentieth century and contemporary.
The medieval French literature was written in early middle and old French
languages. Medieval French literature was the literary works carried out between the
11th century and the 15th century. This period saw different genres of creative work
carried out by poets, clercs, jongleurs and writers. Some of the first works in Old French
language were Eulalie and Canticle of Saint. Forms of poetic works by medieval French

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poets include Jeu Parti, Aube, Chant royal and Chanson, while genres of theater
include Passion play, miracle play, morality play and mystery play.
French Renaissance literature or sixteenth century literature is literary works
carried out between 1494 and 1600. The years 1515 to 1559 are reputed to be the
pinnacle of French Renaissance. The literal meaning of Renaissance in English is
Rebirth. Jules Michelet, a French historian was the first person to define and use the
word. In the creation of French literary works, the 16th century is regarded as a
remarkable period. The Middle French language was in use and the introduction of
printing press made it easier to print the literatures.
The seventeenth century saw French literary work carried out all through
France’s Grand Siecle. The period was also significant for France as it led Europe in
cultural and political development. The writers of this period featured good taste,
proportion, clarity and order of classical ideals in their work. Popular France writers in
this period include Madame de La Fayette and Jean Racine.
The eighteenth century in French literary work was between 1715 and 1798. This
was the period when the modern period of French history began, with a conclusion of
the French revolution and the assumption of power by the consulate. Great French
playwrights during the period include Corneille, Racine and Moliere, who were also
prominent in the seventeenth century.
The nineteenth century French history centered between 1799 and 1940. The
period saw the end of Empire and monarchy as well as the development of democracy
in France. French literature enjoyed huge international success and prestige in this
period. Some popular styles during the period include symbolism, Parnassian poetry
and naturalism.
The twentieth century French history spanned from 1900 to 1999. There were
several developments in French literary works during the period. Some notable events
that influenced literature during the period were Algerian independence war, Far East
and the Pacific, Imperialism in Africa and French colonialism as well as Dreyfus affairs.
The contemporary French literature covers from year 2000 up till now. Some
events during this period that has influenced French literature include racism,
unemployment, immigration, violence and terrorism. Contemporary French authors
include Tristan Garcia and Christophe Fiat.
10 Famous French Authors and Their Incredible Lives

French authors have left a lasting imprint on world literature. Many of their books
became legendary, such as The Little Prince or Les Misérables, and the incredible
stories they shaped, together with the innovative language they used, have changed the
lives of generations of readers. But on top of writing extraordinary novels and poems,

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French writers have also lived truly extraordinary lives, which are often not well known
by the general public. In this article, you’ll get to dive into the works and biographies of
these giants.
1. VICTOR HUGO
He lived on a street named after him “He who opens a school door, closes a
prison.” Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is one of the best-known
French writers and the author of The Hunchback of Notre-
Dame, Les Misérables, and The Last Day of a Condemned
Man. As a leading figure of the Romantic movement, he created
the "Cénacle" in 1827, a literary coterie gathering young authors
and whose seat was his apartment. Widely considered a literary
genius at an early age, he was elected to the French Academy
in 1841.
Known for writing novels, poems and plays with a cause, Victor Hugo engaged in
several political battles, like the one against the death penalty or the Second Empire led
by Napoleon III. This last combat got him exiled to Jersey in 1848, then to Guernsey for
about 20 years, where he produced the richest part of his literary work. Upon his return
to France in 1870, Victor Hugo was welcomed as the symbol of Republican resistance
to the Second Empire.
2. EMILE ZOLA
He changed the course of the Dreyfus Affair ("J’accuse!") "One day, France will
thank me for having helped to save her honor." Already in his lifetime, Emile Zola (1840-
1902) was considered one of the most popular French authors and journalists who ever
lived. A leader and theorist of the movement of Naturalism in literature, his novels, such
as L'Assommoir, Germinal, The Ladies’ Paradise, Nana or The Monomaniac, display a
methodic, almost scientific description of his era. He uncompromisingly analyzed the
men of his time and never ceased to engage in social causes -
the most famous of which being the Dreyfus Affair. It started in
1894, in a France marked by a stiff revival of anti-Semitism.
Dreyfus, a French officer of Jewish origin, was falsely convicted
of passing military secrets to France’s archenemy, Germany,
and subsequently expelled from the army and sentenced to life
imprisonment in Devil’s Island.
3. ALBERT CAMUS
Born in French Algeria, Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a philosopher, author and
journalist. From his involvement in the Resistance during World
War II to his denunciation of the Soviet Union, Camus

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demonstrated a constant political activity throughout his life. Philosophically, he stayed

on the margins of the main movements of his time, opposing both Marxism and
Existentialism, and fighting any overarching ideology aimed at dissociating men from
their human condition. He was also involved in the defense of North African Muslims
and antifascist Spanish refugees.
His books are steeped in his existential anxieties and his endless questioning
about human condition. His views contributed to the rise of Absurdism, a philosophy
inviting to embrace the inability to find any purpose in a fundamentally absurd human
existence. This theme inspired Camus’ “absurd cycle”, a series of novels, plays and
essays including The Outsider, The Myth of Sisyphus, Caligula and The
Misunderstanding.
In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the
second-youngest recipient in history. Three years later, while returning to Paris after
celebrating New Year’s Eve with his family in his home in Lourmarin, he died in a car
accident after the driver, his friend Michel Gallimard, crashed into a tree. The French
author was 47 years old.
4. GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Henry-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant, commonly
known as Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), was a journalist
and writer of novels and short stories (such as Bel Ami, The
Horla, Une Vie) that brilliantly mixed realism with fantasy. Most
of his works have a pessimistic consonance, as Maupassant
insisted on portraying the cruelty, stupidity and selfishness of
the human race.
Although he lived for several years in Paris, Maupassant has repeatedly admitted
to hating the Eiffel Tower. Like many fellow authors and artists, he thought of the iron
monument to be a desecration of the beauty of the French capital. Ironically enough, he
often had lunch in one of the restaurants located on its first floor. After a journalist asked
him why he would eat in the Eiffel Tower if he disliked it so much, the French writer
replied: "It is the only place in the city where I do not see it".
He ended up leaving Paris, and eventually France, because of the iconic tower:
“It could not only be seen from all over, but it could be found everywhere, made of all
sorts of known matters, exhibited in all the shops and show windows, an inevitable and
racking nightmare. It was not the only thing, though, that created in me an irresistible
desire to be alone for a while, but everything that has been made in and over it, and
even around it”, he wrote in The Wandering Life.
5. ROMAIN GARY

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Born Roman Kacew in Vilnius, Lithuania, Romain Gary (1914-1980) emigrated to

France at the age of 14. He studied law and was later enlisted in the Free French Air
Force during the Second World War. After the war, he joined
the diplomatic career, during which he wrote many of his most
famous books. Haunted by the war and the angst of aging, the
French writer described the complexity and turmoil inherent to
human relationships in emblematic books such as Promise at
Dawn and The Dance of Gengis Cohn.
In 1956, he received the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious literary award in
France, for The Roots of Heaven, the story of a crusading environmentalist who fights to
save elephants from extinction.
In 1974, in search of renewal, he decided to write a new series of novels using a
pseudonym. In 1975, without knowing the real identity of the writer, the jury of the
académie Goncourt awarded its prestigious prize to Emile Ajar for The Life Before Us,
the story of a Muslim orphan boy living under the care of an old Jewish woman, in post-
war Paris. This is how Gary became the first and only writer in history to win the
Goncourt twice.
6. HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of the initiators
of Realism in literature. In 1834, he had the idea of grouping all
of his novels in an organized whole, which would eventually
turn into one of the most fantastic efforts in the history of
literature: the Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), a
masterpiece gathering more than 2,000 characters in 91
different works, in which he aimed to paint the “social species”
of his time.
As you could already guess, Honoré de Balzac was a hard worker, and like many
hard workers, a huge fan of coffee. He wouldn’t let anyone prepare his beverage
because he followed a very precise recipe, mixing three varieties of coffee beans -
Bourbon Island, Martinique and Yemen mocha - before boiling the decoction for hours
in order to obtain a caffeine concentrate capable of keeping him awake all night. He
even wrote about the effects of coffee in his Treatise on Modern Stimulants.
During the last years of his life, the French author actually slept very little. He
would spend entire nights writing and drinking coffee. Legend has it that Honoré de
Balzac could sometimes drink up to 25 coffees a day! We can say that Balzac was, in a
way, the Georges Clooney of the 20th century.
7. MARCEL PROUST

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Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (1871-

1922) is widely regarded as one of the most influential novelists
of all times. His immense work, In Search of Lost Time,
comprising seven volumes published between 1913 and 1927, is
based on a deep psychological reflection on the relationship
between literature, memory and time.
Early on, he suffered from asthma attacks which forced him to take long rest
periods. This seclusion prompted him to write down his thoughts and feelings, which he
expressed through long sentences that stretched over entire paragraphs. This method
has often been interpreted as a way for the author to fight the destruction occasioned by
the passing time, and to express in writing what he could not say orally because of his
breathing impairment.
In Sodom et Gomorrah, published in 1921, he wrote one of the longest
sentences in French literature, made of 858 words. Hard to believe, isn’t it? You can
read it here (in French).
8. PAUL VERLAINE
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) is the author of some of the most well-known poetry
books in French literature, such as Poèmes saturniens, Fêtes galantes and Romances
sans paroles - the latter, written during his years of relationship
with Arthur Rimbaud. It’s in 1871 that Verlaine met with
Rimbaud, who was sixteen and had just moved to Paris.
Verlaine fell in love with him and soon left his wife Mathilde
Mauté to follow the young poet on his trips across Europe. What
followed were two years of a stormy relationship, marked by
recurring dramas and high consumption of opium, absinthe and
hash.
On the night of July 8, 1873, Rimbaud joined Verlaine in Brussels. The few days
spent together were stormy, Verlaine thinking of returning to London and Rimbaud
refusing to go with him. On July 10, Verlaine drank excessively and went out to buy a
six-shot revolver with a box of cartridges. After yet another argument during which
Rimbaud told him that he wanted to leave him, Verlaine shot his lover twice after
shouting at him, "That's it for you, since you're leaving!" One bullet struck Rimbaud
above the left wrist joint, the other touched the wall. On August 8, 1873, Verlaine was
sentenced for serious injury to two years in prison and a 200-francs fine.
In 2016, more than 140 years later, the revolver used by Verlaine against his
companion was sold at auction for a whopping €434,500. Fortunately, this gun has
caused more ink than blood to flow.

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9. GEORGES PEREC
Georges Perec (1936-1982) was one of the most remarkable French writers of
the twentieth century. He reached literary fame in 1965, after the publication of Things:
A Story of the Sixties, in which he described in a very meticulous way the mundane
events of his daily life. Perec was particularly fond of literary
devices and experiments, from constrained writing to plays of
words, from endless lists to absurd classifications. They
enabled him to tackle with grace some very heavy, recurring
topics, such as disappearance and the quest for identity, tracing
back to Perec’s trauma who lost all of his family in the
Holocaust when he was a child.
In 1969, he took up an unprecedented literary challenge: a 300-page
lipogramatic novel entitled A Void, made of regularly built sentences, but using only
words that do not include the letter “e” - the most frequent vowel in the French
language. In an interview (in French) about this incredible literary endeavor, Perec said:
“When we write, we usually pay attention to the sentences, we try to modulate our
sentences. We pay attention to the words; we pick our words. But we hardly pay
attention to the letters, that is to say the graphic supports of writing. If we decide to
deprive ourselves, to make an element disappear in this alphabet, and instead of 26
letters, we decide to only have 25, a real catastrophe is meant to occur, as soon as the
letter we choose is important”.
10. GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE
Guillaume Albert Vladimir Alexandre Apollinaire de
Kostrowitzky, commonly known as Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-
1918), was one of the most influential poets of the early 20th
century (Alcools, Caligrammes), as well as a calligraphist and
author of erotic short stories. Theorist of the “New Spirit”, he
was a good friend of Pablo Picasso, with whom he shared a
passion for the emerging Cubist movement.
In 1916, while fighting with the French army, he was injured by shrapnel that hit
his right temple. After a long and painful recovery, he published the collection Les
Mamelles de Tiresias, which he qualified as a “surrealist drama”. He used the term
“surrealism” for the first time in a letter to Paul Dermée, a Belgian writer and friend of
his, in which he tried to name the new literary movement he was initiating: “All things
considered, I believe indeed that it is better to adopt surrealism than supernaturalism
that I had first employed. The word “surrealism” does not yet exist in dictionaries, and it
will be more convenient to handle than supernaturalism already used by MM. the
philosophers”.

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This marked the beginning of Surrealism. If Apollinaire coined the term, it is only
a few years later that André Breton, with his Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), would lay
the conceptual groundwork of the movement. Deeply influenced by the works of Freud,
surrealist authors would develop unconventional literary techniques and explore all of
the facets of the unconscious mind in search for creativity. The word “surreal” appeared
in the English language in the 1930s as a backformation of “surrealist”. It is still widely
used today, almost a century later, as a slang for “weird” or “irrational”.
Literature of Germany
Medieval German Literature
• German literature begins in the Carolingian period, first in Latin and then in Old
High German
• Hildebrandslied – (The most famous work in OHG) a short piece of Germanic
alliterative heroic verse which is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast
oral tradition
The Baroque Period
• The Baroque period was one of the most fertile times in German literature
• Many writers reflected the horrible experiences of the Thirty Years' War, in poetry
and prose
• Grimmelshausen's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the
eponymous book, became the most famous novel of the Baroque period
The Period of Enlightenment
• The Age of Enlightenment refers to the 18th century in European philosophy, and
is often thought of as part of a larger period which includes the Age of Reason
• This movement's leaders viewed themselves as a courageous, elite body of
intellectuals who were leading the world toward progress, out of a long period of
irrationality, superstition, and tyranny which began during a historical period they
called the Dark Ages
• It is matched by the high baroque era in music, and the neo-classical period in
the arts.
Romanticism
• It was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in late 18th century
Western Europe.
• It stressed strong emotion, imagination, freedom within or even from classical
notions of form in art

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• It is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as heroic
individuals and artists
Naturalism
• A movement in theatre and film
• In theatre, it developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
• It refers to theatre that tries to create a perfect illusion of reality, a non-poetic
literary style that reflects the way real people speak
Expressionism
• Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for emotional effect \
• Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, film,
architecture and music
Dadaism “Dada”
• A post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly
poetry), theatre and graphic design
• The movement was, among other things, a protest against the barbarism of the
War and what Dadaists believed was an oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art
and everyday society; its works were characterized by a deliberate irrationality
and the rejection of the prevailing standards of art
German Writers
1. JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Goethe (August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832) – leaves a legacy as statesman,
critic, natural philosopher, but Goethe was mostly renowned for his writing. From the
very young age of 25, he achieved fame as a writer. In 1774 he wrote the book which
would bring him worldwide acclaim, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Soon after, he was
invited to the court of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, becoming the
Duke’s friend and chief adviser. Goethe spent most of his long life in Weimar. From
theatre, poetry to novels, his literary genius makes Goethe one of the most influential
authors of all times. Faust was Goethe’s masterpiece, which took him 60 years to
complete. A philosophical drama that inspired intellectuals, such as, Nietzsche, Beckett
and Kafka.
2. THOMAS MANN
Thomas Mann – (June 6, 1875 – August 12, 1955) After his father’s death in
1891, Mann moved to Munich, where he lived until 1933. Around 1930, Thomas Mann
already started lecturing against Fascism and attacked Nazi policy. He expressed
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humanism and freedom. While in Switzerland in 1933, he was warned not to return to
Munich. He lived in the US for over 10 years, but returned to Zurich in 1952, refusing to
settle back in Germany. Many of his works reflect the cultural crisis of his times.
Buddenbrooks (1924) earned Mann the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Death in
Venice (1912) and The Magic Mountain (1924) also received prizes and honors.
3. MICHAEL ENDE
Michael Ende – (November 12, 1929 – August 28, 1995) was a German author
whose rise to fame was due to his children’s fiction novels. Best known for The Never-
ending Story (1979), Momo (1973) and Jim Button (1960-62), he also wrote books for
adults. It was his children’s fiction, however, that sold millions of copies and adapted as
motion pictures. Born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ende moved to Munich when he was
6 years old due to his father’s artistic career. In 1936, his father’s paintings were labeled
“degenerate” and were banned by the Nazi party. Edgar Ende was forced to work in
secret. Michael Ende was 16 years old when German youths were drafted and sent to
war. Ende threw his draft papers in the trash. Instead, he joined a Bavarian resistance
movement intended to sabotage the SS’s intention to defend Munich.
4. RAINER MARIA RILKE
Rainer Maria Rilke (December 4, 1875 – December 29, 1926) – poet and
novelist, Rilke was born in Prague, Bohemia, formerly part of the Austro-Hungary
empire. It seems his early childhood was not a particularly happy one. After a
fragmented and misguided education, his uncle finally helped him settle into an
educational career path more suited to his interests. It was clear from an early age that
he would dedicate his life to literature. Even before completing High School, Rilke had
already published his first volume of poetry: Life & Songs (1894). His travels throughout
Europe influenced his writing, with Russia, France and Switzerland having had the
greatest impact on his writing. He is recognized as one of the most lyrically intense
German-language poets. He became internationally famous for his works: Duino
Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus.
5. HERMAN HESSE
Hermann Hesse – (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) was born in a small village on
the edge of the Black Forest. His parents as well as his grandfather were missionaries
in India. Early on, Hesse was exposed to religious influences of Protestantism, as well
as Eastern religions and philosophies. They became integral to his being and were a
constant reflection in his writings. As a child, Hesse disliked the rigidness of the German
educational system of his time. To such an extent, that he expressed his disgust in his
novel Unterm Rad (1906; Beneath the Wheel). It tells the story of an overly diligent
student that is driven to self-destruction, as a consequence of such an oppressive
atmosphere. Beneath the Wheel is similar to his own. At the age of 13, Hesse considers
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reflect his life experiences. His divorce, his criticism against German nationalism, his
travels and his search for enlightenment are at the core of his writing. His most
recognized books of literature are Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927) and The
Glass Bead Game (1943). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.
6. ALFRED DÖBLIN
Alfred Döblin – (Aug. 10, 1878, Stettin, (at the time Germany, now Poland) –
June 26, 1957, West Germany) When Döblin was just 10 years old, his father’s love
affair broke the family up. His mother decided to move with her five children to Berlin.
Like most of the famous German authors of the time, Döblin was no exception when it
came to school performance. Although bright, his grades declined as a response to his
opposition to the militaristic style of education. Regardless, he went on to become a
doctor, practicing Psychiatry in the worker’s district of Alexanderplatz in Berlin. He is
best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), which earned him global fame.
The following years marked the high point in his career, until the Nazi’s rise to power.
His Jewish ancestry and socialist views made him a target and he was therefore forced
to flee to France in 1933 and then again to the US in 1940. He returned to Germany in
1945, but resettled in Paris in the 1950’s. Unfortunately, his final years were met with
failing health and financial trouble. It is often said that Döblin was under-recognized at
the time. He is now considered one the most talented narrative writers of the German
Expressionist movement.
7. SOPHIE VON LA ROCHE
Sophie von La Roche (December 6, 1731 – February 18, 1807) is considered to
be the first financially independent professional German author. She was raised in an
extremely pious household, which was reflected in her literary works. The spirit of the
Enlightenment Period and women’s education permeates through her writing. Initially
engaged to Christoph Wieland, she instead married Georg von La Roche, which
surprised her former fiancé. Sophie went on to have 8 children with La Roche, 5 of
whom survived. Her family lived at court at her father-in-law’s castle Warthausen, near
Biberach. Sophie’s husband was then appointed supervisor of the Bönningheim estates,
whom she followed in 1770. It was there that she completed her novel The History of
Lady Sophia Sternheim, published by Wieland in 1771. This was to become her most
famous work. During her 9 years at Koblenz, Sophie held a literary salon in her home.
Many influential writers of the time attended and even Goethe mentions it in his Poetry
and Truth. The death of her husband in 1788 and the French Revolutionary occupation
of the left bank of the Rhine in 1794 was a turning point for La Roche. She was forced
to secure her income through writing. She continued to do so until her passing. A small
portion of her writings have been translated.
8. JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

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Schiller was one of the most influential German poets of the Sturm und Drang
era. He ranks high up in German people’s eyes, alongside with Goethe. There’s even a
monument depicting them side by side in Weimar. Schiller was successful in his writing
from his very first publication on - Die Räuber (The Robbers) was a play written while he
was at a military academy and quickly became renowned throughout Europe. Initially
Schiller had first studied to become a pastor, then became a regimental doctor for a
short period, before finally devoting himself to writing and teaching as a professor of
history and philosophy at the University of Jena. Later moving to Weimar, he founded
with Goethe Das Weimar Theater, a leading theatre company at the time.
Schiller became part of a German Enlightment period, die Weimarer Klassik (the
Weimar Classism), later on in his life, of which also famous writers such as Goethe,
Herder and Wielandt were a part. They wrote and philosophized about aesthetics and
ethics; Schiller having penned an influential work entitled Über die ästhetische
Erziehung des Menschen on the Aesthetic Education of Man. Beethoven famously set
Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy" in his ninth symphony.
9. GÜNTHER GRASS (1927)
Gunter Grass is one of Germany’s most notable writers currently living, whose
work has garnered him a Nobel Prize of Literature. His most renowned work is his
Danzig Trilogy Die Blech trommel (The Tin drum), Katz und Maus (Cat and Mouse),
Hundejahre (Dog Years), as well as his most recent one Im Krebs gang (Crabwalk).
Born in the Free City of Danzig Grass has worn many hats: he’s been also a sculptor,
graphic artist and illustrator. Further, throughout his life, Grass has always been
outspoken about European political affairs, receiving the'2012 European of the Year'
award from the European Movement Denmark. In 2006 Grass has received much
attention from the media involving his participation in the Waffen SS as a teenager.
10. WILHELM BUSCH (1832-1908)
Wilhelm Busch is known as a pioneer of the comic strip, due to his caricature
drawings that accompanied his verse. Among his most popular works are Max and
Moritz, a children’s classic that recount the mischievous pranks of the aforesaid boys, a
ballad that is often read and dramatized in German schools.
Most of Busch’s works are a satirical spin on practically everything in society! His
works were often a parody of double standards. He poked fun at the ignorance of the
poor, the snobbery of the rich, and in particular, the pomposity of clergymen. Busch was
anti-Catholic and some of his works greatly reflected this. Scenes such as in Die
fromme Helene, where it is hinted that the married Helene had an affair with a clergy
man or the scene in Der Heilige Antonius von Padua where the catholic Saint Antonius
is being seduced by the devil clad in ballet attire made these works by Busch both
popular and offensive. Due to such and similar scenes, the book Der Heilige Antonius
von Padua was banned from Austria until 1902.

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Literature of Italy
Italian literature, the body of written works produced in the Italian language that
had its beginnings in the 13th century. Until that time nearly all literary work composed
in Europe during the Middle Ages was written in Latin. Moreover, it was predominantly
practical in nature and produced by writers trained in ecclesiastical schools. Literature in
Italian developed later than literature in French and Provençal, the languages of the
north and south of France, respectively. Only small fragments of Italian vernacular verse
before the end of the 12th century have been found (although a number of Latin legal
records contain witness testimonies in an Italian dialect vernacular), and surviving 12th-
and 13th-century verse reflects French and Provençal influence.
10 Famous Italian Writers and Their Notable Works

1. DANTE ALIGHIERI
Also known simply as Dante, this late Middle Ages poet was ahead of his time in
a number of ways.
Dante wished to push forward the boundaries of Italian writing further than the
contemporary Latin works. His knowledge of the wide range of Italian dialects formed
his desire to open up the possibilities of creating a more united literary language than
was available in other works of the time. As well as pre-empting the Renaissance
movement of wider, detailed literature, Dante also acted as a forerunner of the 15th
century trends of his detailed knowledge of Rome's ancient past.
In terms of being ahead of his time, Dante proved his mettle in his best-known
work, the ambitious Divine Comedy. In contrast to its title, The Divine Comedy is a
serious Middle Ages era poem that chronicles Dante's three-stage journey through Hell
(Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso).
Regarded as one of the most important literary works, Dante's Divine Comedy
spans a broad church of themes and styles from the dark, distinctive images presented
in his version of Hell to the lyrical mysticism and theology of Paradise. It's still read,
discussed and analyzed all around the world.
2. FRANCESCO PETRARCA
Petrarch is a familiar name that I remember from my university days. I studied his
works in my second year of English, and as a multi-tasking poet, humanist, scholar, he's
regarded as one of the most important Italian writers of his time.
His poems include The Trionfi (The Triumphs), and The Canzoniere (The
Songbook). A number of Petrarca's works are about the enigmatic Laura – thought to
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tally with her refusal of Petrarca in his Secretum work as a result of her being married.
His love poems speak of her grace, beauty and modesty.
As well as his poetry, Petrarca is also recognized for his Latin-written works. As
well as poems written in Latin, these also included letters, essays and educational
pieces. His Latin works cover a wide spectrum of subjects including a contemplation of
solitary life (De Vita Solitaria), an imaginary personal confessional talk with Augustine of
Hippo (Secretum Meum) and a hugely popular self-help book (De Remediis Utriusque
Fortunae).
3. GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
Like his contemporary, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio is regarded as an important
Italian writer, poet and humanist.
Boccaccio stood out from the pack in that he did his own thing in his writings,
opting for a distinctive realistic writing style in his dialogue. He also showed a flair for
creative literature, generally written in Italian vernacular as well as various works written
in Latin.
His poems include La caccia di Diana, as well as Il Filostrato, Teseida, and the
50-canto allegory, Amorosa visione. One of his most famous works is The Decameron,
which was originally mostly completed by the mid-1300s, and ultimately rewritten and
revised by 1371.
The mid-1350s would see a shift in Boccaccio's writing style. Some attribute this
to Petrarca's influence. Others put this down to Boccaccio's own personal experiences
including his deteriorating strength and health and bad luck in love (his works dealing
with love would take a more cynical turn than his earlier, optimistic pieces). Returning to
another writer in this list, Boccaccio would also provide a number of lectures about
Dante at the Santo Stefano church. These proved to be the inspiration for his last main
work called Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante.
4. NICCOLÒ DI BERNARDO DEI MACHIAVELLI
A familiar term to describe someone as corrupt or unscrupulous is
'Machiavellian', which is named after the Renaissance-era writer, Niccolò di Bernardo
dei Machiavelli.
In particular, the phrase is linked with one of Machiavelli's best-known (and
controversial) works called Il Principe (The Prince). This political-themed book depicts,
and even seems to advocate poor behavior as a means of getting ahead, attaining and
keeping hold of power. Politically, lack of honesty, enforcement of brute force, and the
killing of innocent people lack a certain moral fibre. The book has received decidedly
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The other familiar Machiavelli work is the Discourses on the First Ten Books of
Titus Livy, which takes in the classical history of ancient Rome and also lessons and
encouragement of the advent of republicanism.
5. LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto is also regarded as the man who came up with the
Humanist concept, which stresses the aim of focusing on humans' own strength as
opposed to submitting to a Christian God.
He also wrote the plays Cassaria and I suppositi in the early 1500s (the latter of
which would be performed in the Vatican). Ariosto is best known however for his 1516
epic poem, Orlando Furioso, which depicts the battle between Charlemagne, Orlando,
the Franks and the Saracens.
It's a work that's characterized by Ariosto's penchant for narrative detours. When
writing a canto's events, Ariosto then goes off on another train of thought to only resume
the plot point later on in another canto. Dubbed 'Cantus Interruptus', Ariosto's narrative
method has divided critics as to the intentions of this trick.
6. ALESSANDRO MANZONI
Alessandro Manzoni's most famous (and best regarded) novel is 1827's The
Betrothed. Manzoni deserves a place in the list because of the way in which The
Betrothed brought together a unified Italy. Regarded as symbolizing the Italian
Risorgimento, The Betrothed is big on patriotism and is also a key work with respect to
developing the modern, united language of Italy.
It's a novel that promotes Manzoni's values of Christianity, seen in characters
such as the main heroine Lucia, friar Padre Cristoforo, and the Cardinal of Milan.
However, his message is nicely counterpointed by his carefully observed and detailed
portraits of everyday Italian folk. Written with a wry humour and engaging, unique style,
Manzoni's Betrothed remains a cornerstone of Italian literature.
7. ALBERTO MORAVIA
Alberto Moravia's wide repertoire of work is a notable example of Italian fiction in
the 20th century. Many of his novels revolve around specific themes such as
existentialism, detachment from society, and also sexuality.
His first novel Gli indifferenti is still one of his best-known works. At the time in
1929, Moravia actually published the novel himself out of his own pocket. While the
publishing costed Moravia 5000 lira, Gli indifferenti was applauded by critics, reacting
warmly to the depiction of a middle-class family's lack of morals.
Moravia's standing in the writing community can be seen in the fact that a good
number of his works were adapted for the big screen. These include Agostino (adapted
in 1962 by Mauro Bolognini), La Noia (filmed the following year by Damiano Damiani

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and renamed The Empty Canvas upon its American release in 1964), and one of
Moravia's most acclaimed works, the anti-fascist work, Il Conformista (which would be
the springboard for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist movie of 1970).
8. PRIMO MICHELE LEVI
Using his experiences as a prisoner in an Auschwitz concentration camp, Primo
Michele Levi wrote the highly acclaimed If This Is A Man.
Levi had been arrested at the end of 1943, and began his imprisonment at
Auschwitz in the following February, where he remained for just under a year. In 1946,
Levi elected to put his thoughts of his ordeal to paper. Intensely working over a 10-
month period, he wrote down his experiences, ultimately resulting in a completed
manuscript at the end of the year. While the end product needed further editing and
amending, If This Is A Man was ultimately released to great acclaim. A striking element
of the book is its calm, measured tone, which is at odds with the horror that Levi
endured – the author later explained that such a tone meant that the readers got to
judge for themselves.
Levi was also a chemist, and this formed the backdrop for his equally revered
Periodic Table. Published in 1975, Il Sistema Periodico collates a series of short stories
depicting Levi's experiences as both an Italian-Jewish man and a chemist during the
eras of war, fascism and later in the aftermath. Each of the 21 stories are named after
and linked with a chemical element.
9. ITALO CALVINO
Italo Calvino shares a number of connections with other writers in this list. Like
Alberto Moravia, Calvino was a journalist as well as an author. Like Primo Levi, he drew
upon his wartime experiences for inspiration – the anthology of stories, Ultimo viene il
corvo (The Crow Comes Last), came out four years after the end of the Second World
War to the applause of the critics.
But Calvino also possessed a unique style, melding real-world concerns with
elements of fantasy and fable. The best example of this is 1952's Cloven Viscount (Il
visconte dimezzato), which dealt with Calvino's political disillusionment and the
concerns over the Cold War.
Even in his later years, Calvino was still going strong, with 1979's If On A
Winter's Night A Traveler proving immensely popular. Calvino's worldwide success was
seen in the fact that by the time he passed away, he was the most translated Italian
author around the globe.
10. UMBERTO ECO

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As well as a novelist, Eco was a university professor, semiotician and

philosopher. His academia and interest in semiotics held him in good stead for one of
his most famous works, The Name Of The Rose. This 1980-published murder mystery
draws in both semiotics (the study of communication) and various literary tips of the hat
such as Arthur Conan Doyle (the Franciscan friar's called William of Baskerville) and
also Arabian Nights (the inspiration for the mystery).
While not the most prolific of authors (seven novels in 35 years), Eco's novels
were still rapturously received by critics and the public. These include Il pendolo di
Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum), which deals with three editors concocting a sham
conspiracy theory involving a domination plan by a clandestine order descended from
the Knights Templar. L'isola del giorno prima (The Island of the Day Before) takes a
more introspective approach, following the thoughts of a marooned man on a ship in the
17thcentury.
Even in the 2010's Eco's novels were still proving massively popular. 2010's
Prague Cemetery was a big hit in the book charts, tackling the growing rise of
antisemitism in the modern world. Meanwhile, in 2015 (the year before his passing),
Numero Uno saw Eco's attention switched towards the issues of Fascism and a satirical
take on kickbacks and bribery.
Literature of Spain
Spanish literature, the body of literary works produced in Spain. Such works fall
into three major language divisions: Castilian, Catalan, and Galician.
The history of Spain has been marked by all types of events, wars, conquests,
marriages, deaths... and literature has played an important part in it. From the epic tale
of the "Cantar del Mio Cid" to the surrealism present in some of Cela's works; from the
amazing adventures of Don Quixote to the many books recounting the horrors of the
Spanish Civil War, Spanish literature has had its own way of influencing history.
Literature is a very important subject in all Spanish schools, and this site is a guide to
the evolution of Spanish literature across the centuries.
The Beginnings
• The history of Spanish literature starts with "El Cantar del Mio Cid" (12th
century), an epic narrative that was transmitted orally through the story tellers.
However, the first written testimonies of Spanish literature begin in the 13th
century with the Middle-Ages literature, which cultivated all the genres in prose,
poetry and theatre. The end of the Middle Ages (sometimes known as pre-
Renaissance period) is a very prolific time for Spanish literature, with the
development of works like "Coplas a la muerte de mi padre" (Jorge Manrique)
and "La Celestina" (Fernando de Rojas).

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• During the Renaissance the influence of Italy in Spain was very strong, and thus
the religious influence. During this period there's a big production of religious
works with authors such as Fray Luis de Leon or San JUan de la Cruz. Pastoral
or didactic novels were also quite popular, and the picaresque genre became
popular with "Lazarillo de Tormes"
Baroque Period
• The Spanish Baroque coincides with the Golden Age of Spanish literature, called
that way because of the great number of excellent literary productions that
appeared in the period. Miguel de Cervantes is, without doubt, the ultimate
Baroque author. His masterpiece, the adventures of the mad knight "Don
Quixote", is considered the most important book of the Spanish literature and one
of the most important in the Universal literature. Other important authors in this
period are the poet Quevedo and the play writer Lope de Vega.
Enlightenment Period
• The Enlightenment period in Spanish literature can be divided in three different
periods: the post-Baroque period, the Neo-Classical period and the pre-
Romanticism period. The Enlightenment wants a break with the old concept of
authority, and thinks reason is more important than feeling or emotions. This is
why this period doesn't have a strong poetry group. In prose, essays and didactic
texts are the most popular types of works, especially among literates.
Newspapers help to spread the knowledge of other European countries around
Spain.
Romanticism and Realism
• Romanticism appears as a reaction against the strict rules of the Enlightenment,
and in opposition to it, it places more importance in feelings than reason.
Romanticism can be divided into two different movements: traditional
Romanticism (defends the traditional values represented by the Church and
State) and liberal Romanticism (fights the established order, religion, art and
politics, and claims the rights of individuals to society and the laws).
• Realism appears when literates have grown tired of the subjectivism of
Romanticism and are looking for something more real. They were tired of the
imaginative and colorful, and sought to observe the people, society and
contemporary traditions objectively. Its goal was to present the truest portrait of
society.
20th Century

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• The 20th century is a century of great change in Spain. There's not a specific
movement. Rather, every author develops his or her own personal style. Novels
become the most popular genre, and social themes are very common, especially
those related to life in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and the following
dictatorship. There are three important generations of writers during the 20th
century that configure the Spanish literature of the period: Generation of '98,
Generation of '14 and Generation of '27.
Literature of U.S.A. (North)

American literature, the body of written works produced in the English language
in the United States. American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths,
legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no written
literature among the Indian cultures. The earliest American writings were concerned
directly with the dream of a new world, and mostly accounts of pioneering motives and
settlements were published.
Regional literature has always been important in the United States. Until the end
of the 19th century, American literature was dominated by the works of New
Englanders, such as Cotton Mather. Sermons and religious tracts provided the greatest
part of the writing. The Puritan definition of good writing was that which brought home a
full awareness of the importance of worshipping God and of the spiritual dangers that
the soul faced. Puritan style varied enormously -- from complex metaphysical poetry to
homely journals and religious history.
The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an
emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning
religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy. Enlightenment
thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the
natural rights of man. Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish philosopher David Hume
called America's "first great man of letters," embodied the Enlightenment ideal of
humane rationality.
The Romantic movement reached America around the year 1820. In America as
in Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles. Yet there was an
important difference: Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national
expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice. The solidification of a
national identity and the surging idealism and passion of Romanticism nurtured
masterpieces by authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
In the second half of the 19th century, the United States was transformed into a
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American novels of the period, for example by Stephen Crane and Jack London, depict
the damage of economic forces and alienation on the weak or vulnerable individual.
Survivors, like Mark Twain's Huck Finn, endure through inner strength involving
kindness, flexibility, and, above all, individuality.
Although American prose between the two World Wars experimented with
viewpoint and form, Americans such as Ernest Hemingway, wrote more realistically, on
the whole, than did Europeans. William Faulkner set his powerful southern novels firmly
in Mississippi heat and dust. The importance of facing reality became a dominant theme
in the 1920s and 1930s: Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald repeatedly portrayed the
tragedy awaiting those who live in flimsy dreams.
Narrative since World War II resists generalization: It is extremely various and
multifaceted. It has been vitalized by international currents such as European
existentialism and Latin American magical realism. The biggest transformation has been
the ascendancy of a new generation of highly ambitious writers who are attuned to our
collective arrival in a hypercomplex and polyglot info-culture. The best known of these is
probably novelist Jonathan Franzen, whose The Corrections, rode the 2001 best-seller
lists for many months.
The poetry scene is configured by a similar plurality of modes, but what feels like
abundance and variety in the world of fiction feels to many poets like a frustrating
balkanization. A few years ago, the major division of camps was between the
"formalists" and exponents of various kinds of "free" verse. The situation feels
somewhat different now, with the split coming more between poets who use language in
referential ways -- pointing out at our common world -- and those for whom language is
its own self-created realm.
The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to nine Americans: Sinclair
Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, Pearl Buck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John
Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Toni Morrison.
Literature of Canada (North)

The term “Canadian Literature in English” refers to that which is written in what is
now territorially Canada or written by Canadians abroad (see also Literature in French).
Writers have described Canada in many ways; for example, as a French or
English colony, a “fifty-first state,” a Pacific Rim country, an Arctic giant, a friendly
territory or an uninhabitable wilderness. Canadian literature has often had to deal with
such differences in attitude, not just because many Canadian authors were born
elsewhere and brought outsiders’ expectations with them, but also because popular
attitudes often perpetuated stereotypes of Canada. Three pervasive stereotypes portray
Canada as (1) a physical desert, (2) a cultural wasteland and (3) a raw land of

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investment opportunity and resource extraction. These distortions have created an

audience for stereotypes, which Canadian writers sometimes reinforced by writing
romantic adventures of the frozen North, in which everything local was savage or hostile
and “civilization” was imported. But over time, they sought to record local experience
and to use literature to shape their own culture rather than to imitate or defer to the
presumptions of another society.
Insofar as Canadian culture continues to be shaped by a range of languages in
use and by wide variations in geography, social experience, Indigenous cultures,
immigration patterns and proximity to Europe, Asia and the USA, the “Canadian voice”
is not uniform. Nevertheless, however much their aesthetic practices and political
commitments may differ, Canadian writers bring many shared perspectives to their
representations of nature, civility and human interaction, whether at home or abroad.
Some critical approaches to Canadian literature have attempted to identify national or
regional characteristics in literature. Other criticism (see Literature in English: Theory
and Criticism) has fastened on language and formal strategies, theories of knowledge
and meaning, ethics (variously defined) and the politics and psychology of race, gender,
sexuality, ethnicity, identity and environment. “Canadian literature” does not therefore
restrict itself to a particular set of topics, terms or even Canadian settings, nor does any
set of topics and terms constitute a required ingredient in a Canadian book.
Although the national character is not always the subject of Canadian literature,
the culture’s social attitudes and values can be seen in the language and forms it uses
(see Literature in English: Language and Literary Form). For instance, communication is
often achieved through tone as much as through direct statement. Irony is a dominant
mode, litotes (the negative positive: not unappreciated) is a common speech pattern,
trickster (rather than hero) figures recur, and a sense of humor (understatement,
parody, mimicry, wry satire) punctuates much serious literary work. Some
commentators have interpreted Canadian tendencies toward literary indirectness
politically and psychologically, finding in it a sign of national insecurity and a group
feeling of inferiority. Others argue that indirectness is a healthy demonstration of the
culture’s ability to adapt an inherited tongue to its own purposes. Irony, for example, can
undercut as much as apologize, and the quiet demeanor of an onlooker figure in a
narrative can effectively undermine positions of ostensible power.
Several specific narrative patterns recur in Canadian writing, especially evident in
fiction and life writing: (1) a community walls itself off from the wilderness (the “garrison
mentality”); (2) a person leaves the homeland, adjusts to the new world, then finds the
new “homeland” to be “alien”; (3) a person born in Canada feels like a permanent
stranger in his or her own home; (4) people arrive in the new home only to find that they
are excluded from power; (5) a person attempts to recover from the past the secret or
suppressed life of a previous generation; (6) a woman struggles to come to terms with
her own creativity and the inhibitions of her cultural upbringing (often told as conflict
between colony and empire); (7) an apparently passive observer, surrounded by

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articulate tricksters and raconteurs, turns out to be able to tell both their story and his or
her own, often ironically; (8) an adventurer turns failure into a form of grace; (9) a child
grows up to inherit a world of promise, or a world of loss, frequently both at once; (10) a
subjective historian meditates on place and memory; (11) characters celebrate space
and wilderness, usually after a struggle to learn to accept that the wilderness provides
spiritual therapy only on its own terms; (12) characters, adrift in a maze of words or a
fog of ambiguity and anonymity, shape “acceptable fictions” into a workable life.
Writing about their society, many writers of short fiction, the novel, autobiography
or memoir, biography, poetry and drama have recurrently portrayed particular historical
figures, both to reveal their intrinsic interest and implicitly to suggest how they epitomize
certain cultural attributes or qualities of character. Such figures include Samuel Hearne,
Louis Riel, Susanna Moodie, Sir John A. Macdonald, Emily Carr and William Lyon
Mackenzie. In the retelling, sometimes transposed from their own time into the present,
each possesses a vision but remains an ordinary human being, one with frailties, not a
conventional hero. Characteristically, Canadian writing resists the binaries associated
with perfectionism (right-wrong, good-evil, hero-villain), embracing notions of multiple
alternatives, working pluralities, multi-voicedness and negotiated or evolving resolution
instead. In narrative, violence generally functions as an instigation of action and as a
penultimate event rather than as a solution or act of closure. Repeatedly, individual
rights balance against community responsibilities. In more recent drama, poetry, and
prose—even in much popular genre writing (see Popular Literature in English)—open
endings predominate over conventional strategies of closure, inviting readers/listeners
to participate in the play of alternatives and possibilities.
Literature of Mexico (Latin)

The dramatic history and political upheaval of Mexico has always played a major
role in the fluctuation of Mexican writers. The original literature of Mexico dates back to
the indigenous settlements of Mesoamerica, but with the arrival of the Spanish many
baroque writers couldn’t help but capture a more localized view on Mexican culture. As
a result, many writings include a hybrid and mixed tone of these two cultures.
Today we know that most of the pre-Columbian stories and folklore were mostly
captured through verbal interpretations; however, Spanish priests helped preserve
some of the writings of the Nahuatl speaking peoples by transcribing some of these
works using the Latin alphabet. Due to this process, we now have some of these lyrical
works preserved and passed down to us. This has given us access to works of people
such as Acolmiztli Nezahualcoyotl who lived from 1402 to1472 as well as others from
that time. To date, this translation is considered to be one of the largest samples of pre-
Columbian works and philosophical lyrics that have been preserved for posterity.

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As we move forward in time, the political instability in the nineteenth century led
to further changes in all forms of art in Mexico and this included writing. Once more the
Mexican Revolution changed the course of literature in Mexico as novels and plays of
the civil conflict were written. This also led to such literary movements as
“Estridentistas” and “Los Contemporáneos,” which were groups of individuals committed
to the modernization of literature and Mexican culture in the first half of the 20th century.
Many writers in Mexico are considered to be the voice for society and are heavily
relied upon to speak on social and economic issues which plague the country. As in
many countries, these writers and journalists have continued to lead and comment on
political occurrences; however, in recent years political arena analysts and economists
have also begun taking on that role.
An Introduction to Mexican Literature in 10 Works

The world of Mexican literature is sometimes underrated in comparison to the
literary strength of South America, which is dominated by authors like Gabriel García
Márquez, Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende. However, Mexican authors are a force to be
reckoned with; with big-hitters like Octavio Paz and Juan Rulfo, as well as often lesser
known poets like Rosario Castellanos, here’s our introduction to Mexican literature in 10
key texts.
1. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
The unrivalled classic of Mexican literature, Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (1955)
received a lukewarm reception upon its initial release, before becoming the critically
acclaimed novel that it is today. Pedro Páramo, which details
the journey of protagonist Juan Preciado as he goes in search
of his father following the death of his mother, is widely
considered to be based in the real Mexican town of Comala,
Colima. Notable not just for its excellent plot but for being a pre-
cursor to magical realism as a whole, this novel hugely
influenced Gabriel García Márquez.
2. Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Another equally, and perhaps more globally, recognised
Mexican novel is Como agua para chocolate (1989). A more
developed example of magical realism than the above text,
Laura Esquivel’s debut novel follows Tita as she tries to unite
with the love of her life, Pedro. However, due to various familial
interferences and complications, things don’t quite work out as
planned. Cooking is a key factor throughout the text, and each
chapter begins with a recipe. There is also a 1992 film based

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on the book.
3. Cartucho by Nellie Campobello
A non-linear, short and semi-autobiographical novel by the author Nellie
Campobello, who is incidentally perhaps better known as a
ballet dancer who founded the Mexican National Ballet and
directed the Mexican National School of Dance for a
period. Cartucho (1931) is most important due to its status as
one of the only female visions of the Mexican revolution, and
its favourable presentation of Pancho Villa and his supporters.
Critics even suggest the impact of Campobello’s accounts
influenced later Mexican authors like Elena Poniatowska and
Juan Rulfo.
4. Los ingrávidos by Valeria Luiselli
One of Mexico’s brightest contemporary talents, Valeria Luiselli has so far
published three texts – Papeles falsos (2013) is a collection of
essays, whereas Los ingrávidos (2012) and La historia de mis
dientes (2015) are novels. Having been mentored by Mario
Bellatín, the works of Luiselli are essential reading for anyone
interested in the world of Mexican literature, contemporary or
otherwise and her debut is arguably the best place to start.
She’s widely translated into other languages too
5. Salón de belleza by Mario Bellatín
This Peruvian-Mexican writer is the author of another
key Mexican text; Salón de belleza (1994). If you’re short on
time, yet still want to dive into the world of Mexican literature,
the haunting Salón de belleza is the place to begin. In just 60
pages, Bellatín narrates a parable-like tale that ruminates
elegantly on life, death and the ousting of the unwanted from
the care of society. It also has, peculiarly, an intriguing focus
on tropical fish which forms a core part of the novella’s
message.
6. Poemas (1953-1955) by Rosario Castellanos
A notable poet of the 20th century, forming part of the
Generation of 1950, Rosario Castellanos also has both
a cultural centre and a park in Mexico City named in her
honour. Poemas (1953-1955) (1957) is a great starting point to
get to know this poet, whose poem ‘Valium 10’ is widely
considered as great a work as Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’. She

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regularly wrote on feminist topics and despite her early death, left an impressive legacy
that warrants her inclusion on our introduction to Mexican literature.
7. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros first published her seminal, brief
text, The House on Mango Street, in English. Even so, it
definitely ranks as one of the must-read books for a true
introduction to the country’s literary heritage, written as it is by
a Chicana and about Chicano culture. Based in Chicago, the
birthplace of Cisneros herself, it’s a slight, coming-of-age story
which follows the tale of Esperanza Cordero and is now
regularly included on school syllabuses across the US.
8. El laberinto de la soledad by Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz is almost certainly one of the first authors who comes to mind when
you think of Mexican literature, so the inclusion of his essay El laberinto de la
soledad (1950) is practically a given. Easily his most famous
text, despite his broad repertoire of essays, novels and
literature, El laberinto de la soledad primarily focuses on
Mexican identity, honing in on particular events or traditions,
such as the Revolution, the 1968 student massacre and the
Day of the Dead. A stand out element of this essay is Paz’s
examination of the Mexican phrase la chingada.
9. La noche de Tlatelolco by Elena Poniatowska
Another author that wrote about the horrific events of 1968 was Elena
Poniatowska, in her seminal text La noche de
Tlatelolco (1971). In this text, the French-born Mexican
author collated testimonies about what happened in the run-
up to the brutal killings in Mexico City, as well as provided
eyewitness accounts of the actual events themselves. A
holistic account of the tragic and supposedly government
ordered murders, it makes for essential, if unsettling, reading.
Similarly, her 1988 text Nada, nadie. Las voces del temblor is
equally important.
10. La muerte de Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes’ 1962 novel La muerte de Artemio
Cruz cannot be underestimated. Not just considered one of
Mexico’s seminal texts, but one of Latin America’s as a
whole, La muerte de Artemio Cruz narrates the fictional
accounts of protagonist Artemio Cruz’s experiences during the

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Mexican Revolution and the ultimately corrupting influence that power can have even
over revolutionaries.
Literature of Chile (Latin)

Chile has a remarkable record of artistic and literary achievement considering its
relatively small population. Social and political circumstances have had a strong impact
on Chilean society and culture inspiring groups of artists to protest against policies of
the regime and rousing strong emotions which translated into works of art and cultural
achievement in different fields. Art in Chile works as a reflection that safeguards the
cultural heritage of the country.
The conquest of Chile by the Spanish and the immigration of Europeans brought
new artistic forms to Chile, all of which followed classic European styles. These artistic
expressions were influenced by the local culture, especially folk arts and crafts as the
Mapuche were skilled crafters.
It is generally accepted that Chilean literature began with Alonso de Ercilla y
Zuñiga, a Spanish conquistador who arrived in Chile in 1557. He wrote an epic poem,
La Araucana published in three parts in 1569, 1578 and 1589. La Araucana is a major
part of Chile’s cultural heritage depicting the heroism and bravery of both the Spanish
and the American Indian, two distinct cultures that molded a new nation. Even though
Ercilla y Zuñiga was fighting the Mapuches he recognized and appreciated their bravery
and strength.
The 20th century saw the development of four remarkable writers: Gabriela
Mistral (1889-1957) who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1945, Vicente
Huidobro (1893-1948), Pablo de Rokha (1894-1968) and Pablo Neruda, who was
awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1971. By mid-20th century there was another
generation of fine Chilean writers, among them: Jose Donoso (1924-1966), Jorge
Edwards, Gonzalo Rojas, Isabel Allende, Antoni Skármeta and Ariel Dorfman.
Though it’s known as the country of poets, there are plenty of top-tier novelists
out of Chile that have made noteworthy contributions to the world’s literary scene.
Discover the beauty and tragedy of this forgotten Latin American country by checking
out some of Chilean literature’s most important novels.
An Introduction to Chilean Literature in 10 Works

1. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
This moving novel by prolific Chilean novelist Isabel Allende launched her career
when it was published in 1982. The book is mainly told through the perspectives of
Esteban Trueba and his granddaughter Alba, and follows the tumultuous lives of four

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generations in the Trueba family. Using elements of magical realism, Allende explores
the social and political unrest occurring in her home country of Chile and the lives
impacted by these events.
2. Curfew by José Donoso
Curfew, by famous Chilean author José Donoso, offers an
authentic and detailed look at the suffocating Chilean military
dictatorship in 1985. The story occurs over the course of just 24
hours, starting immediately after the death of Matilde Neruda, the
wife of celebrated Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Donoso’s
characters, representing the various political ideologies of the
time, stand to gain political and social momentum from Matilde’s
death. The reader is left with a detailed look at life in Santiago during this complicated
moment of Chile’s history.
3. Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
One of Chile’s leading female authors, Lina Meruane, mixes
autobiography and fiction to explore the limitations of the body and
human relationships in Seeing Red. An unsettling exploration of the
inner life of a Chilean woman who finds herself going blind in a new
city, the book follows the protagonist’s impediments and
subsequent rage with poignant eloquence.
4. My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel
Written by Chile’s most prolific queer novelist Pedro Lemebel,
My Tender Matador gives its readers a unique perspective on life in
Santiago during the transformative mid-eighties. The book takes
place around the time the military dictator Augusto Pinochet was
nearly fatally attacked and anti-regime protest movements gained
momentum. In a Santiago working-class barrio, the gay and aging
Queen of the Corner offers up his home to the young, attractive
Carlos to use as a gathering space for the resistance.
5. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
This 1998 novel by Roberto Bolaño is divided into three different parts, with
frequent changes in narrator. The book follows two decades of
adventures of realist poets Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, from
Chile and Mexico, respectively. As the poet’s cross continents in
search of the poet Cesárea Tinajero, who has mysteriously
disappeared, they encounter a diverse array of characters that
each add a unique perspective to this lively novel.

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6. The Postman by Antonio Skarmeta

Ardiente Paciencia, released in English-langu age markets as The Postman, is a
treasured romantic novel set in the years leading up to Chile’s
military dictatorship. The protagonist Mario Jiménez is a shy
teenager working as a postman in the Chilean town Isla Negra,
where Chilean poet Pablo Neruda also lives. After delivering
Neruda his letters, Jiménez befriends the famous poet who
subsequently educates the youth and helps him woo the
daughter of the local bartender.
7. The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal
As Ana María lies dead in her coffin, her transition into the
afterlife is haunted with vivid mem ories and surreal sensory
experiences. Surrounded by the people closest to her that
mourn her death, the protagonist relives some of her most
defining moments as the reader slowly discovers her complex
relationships and identities.
8. Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra
Alejandro Zambra writes exquisitely about life in Chile during and after the
country’s 17-year military dictatorship in Ways of Going Home, a tall order in a country
that tends to keep quiet about Pinochet’s rule. Told from the
persp ective of a Chilean author who creates a fictitious
narrator to discuss the realities of the dictatorship, Zambra
uses metafiction to explore the phantoms of Chile’s dark past
and how they haunt the country’s increasingly stable present.
9. The Absent Sea by Carlos Franz
This striking novel by Carlos Franz includes vivid
details of the brutality experienced during Chile’s 1973
military coup. The book’s protagonist – the youthful and
passionate judge Laura – is forced to flee her hometown in
northern Chile after enduring unspeakable acts of violence.
The story continues with Laura’s homecoming twenty years
after her exile.

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10. The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepulveda
Set in a small town in the Ecuadorian jungle, Chilean author
Luis Sepulveda’s captivating novel follows protagonist Antonio José
Bolívar, who takes solace in romantic literature. However, no matter
how much he reads, Antonio ultimately finds it impossible to ignore
the outsiders slowly disrupting the town’s isolated harmony.

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English Language Teaching (University of the Visayas)

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UNIT I AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

• Literature offers us an experience in which we should participate as we read and

• Literature is a faithful production of life... in a sense it is a product and a

• Literature illuminates life.

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• The ability to judge of literature is based on the application of certain recognizable

- Artistry (quality which appeals to our sense of beauty.)

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• All literature falls under two main divisions: (Nuggets, 2004)

2. Essay – a short literary composition which is expository in nature. The author

3. Prose Fiction (something invented, imagined or feigned to be true)

a. Novel – a long fictitious narrative with a complicated plot. lt may have a

4. Biography and Autobiography

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5. Letter – a written message which displays aspects of an author’s psychological

7. Journal – a magazine or periodical especially of a serious a. learned nature.

8. Other Prose Forms:

• Historical Prose – a prose from dealing with historical events.

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a. Address – implies a formal, carefully prepared speech and usually

b. includes short stories and novels.

c. Short story – often referred to as a “slice of life” is a fictitious narrative

• Even though fiction is a make-believe world, the literary characters seem

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1. Characters are the representation of a human being; persons involved in a conflict.

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• Internal Conflict – occurs when the protagonist struggles within himself or

• Interpersonal Conflict – pits the protagonist against someone else; person-

PYRAMIDAL STRUCTURE OF A PLOT

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Qualities of the Plot

Classification (Point of View)

b. Third Person – the writer-narrator is a character in the story. He/she narrates

Name Characteristic Pronouns

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He, him, his she, her(s),

6. Mood – the atmosphere or emotional effect generated by the words, images,

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3. Poetry expresses all the senses.

Some of the Best Definitions of Poetry:

2. Sound is the result of a combination of elements. '

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a. word order – natural and unnatural arrangement of words

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d. Corridos (kuridos) – these have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and

e. Sonnet – a lyric poem containing fourteen iambic lines, and a complicated

Literary Devices in Poetry

Example: Your face is as big as a seed, ‘

• Metaphor uses direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas.

• Personification gives human traits to inanimate objects or ideas.

• Apostrophe is a direct address to someone absent, dead, or inanimate.

• Metonymy substitutes a word that closely relates te a person or a thing.

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3. I have read all of Shakespeare.