INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE
Terror and Myth
Professor Evergreen Keefer
An In-Depth Analysis of Genre: Drama, Prose and Poetry
Traditionally, literature courses have been devoted to periods and surveys, which focus the methodology on historical and thematic paradigms. This course aims to develop an appreciation of the artistic forms of literature by analyzing the different genres of drama, prose and poetry in terms of dramatic structure, character development, narrative style, prosody and the relationship of imagery to the terror in myth and dreams. We will also look at how these genres blend and mesh. In class we will focus on a close textual analysis of each work through oral interpretation, to rediscover the poetry of spoken language in the world of the computer screen and prosodic analysis of Shakespeare and poems of your choice.
Reading: A) Drama. Aristotle's Poetics.
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Hamlet. Shakespeare in Love.
B) Nineteenth Century Novels: War and Peace by Tolstoy is optional
but you must read The Death of Ivan Ilych. Les Miserables by
Victor Hugo.
C) Sacred Myth, Epic and the Modern Novel. The Hero has a Thousand
Faces. The Writer's Journey. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Ulysses. Arabian Nights
and Days.
Hopefully, you will spend a lifetime re-reading these classics. It is important to have them in your library now and not be frustrated because you can't absorb everything this semester. Remember this is just an Introduction to the Classics. Classics should stay with us forever.
Objectives: To develop love of literature through
close readings of the classics, study of genre and prosody, cultural and historical
context and aesthetic forms. To improve writing and reading skills. To enhance
creativity with webfolio.
Grading: 50% for attendance, participation, classroom readings and presentations, 50% for final webfolio, presentation and originality.
Most books are available for a few dollars in Dover editions at the bookstore.
REQUIREMENTS: 50% attendance and participation. 50% for five essays, 4 or 5 pages each: 1) Applying Aristotelian paradigms as seen in Oedipus Rex and Hamlet, as well as the Campbell monomyth to the dramatic structure of a play or screenplay of your choice or a creative writing project; 2) Analyzing narrative structure in Tolstoy and then later with Arabian Nights and Days, and then adopting the voice of a narrator to write passages showing recursive, tandem-competitive, pass-the-ball linear, and onion or conglomerate narrative; 3) Writing a dramatic scene for three characters, two from Les Miz and one from anywhere you want, embedding them somewhere in Hugo's nineteenth century France; 4)Choosing two contrasting poems for oral interpretation and prosodic analysis, for example, one that is highly structured --a sonnet or heroic couplets compared to postmodern. Write out both poems and mark meter, rhyme scheme and figures of speech as well as thematic interpretation; 5) Choosing a section of Ulysses for analysis of style, innovation and structure. Write out an entire page and analyze closely.
Class sessions will involve performative readings, lectures, video screenings, discussions, role-playing, and student presentations.
Breakdown-- Begin reading Les Miz and Ulysses at the beginning of the semester but continue to follow weekly assignments.
Jan 22 Introduction to course. Importance of Classics and why we study them. Meaning of Literature. Introductory lecture on drama, origins of Greek drama, Aristotle's Poetics, Sophocles, Shakespeare and screenwriting. For next week, read the Poetics and Oedipus Rex.
Jan 29 Read Sophocles aloud and learn more about close textual analysis. Lecture on the difference between Greek and Shakespearean tragedy.
February 5 See film of Hamlet. Reread the links and lectures on dramatic structure and begin Hamlet.
February 12 See Shakespeare in Love. Lecture on plot points and monomyth.
February 19 Essay due on dramatic structure. Bring two copies, one for me and one to read aloud. This is a rough draft so you have a chance to rewrite. Make sure you include plot points, unities, recognition and reversal, the gap in Shakespearean scene conflicts, ordinary/world special world, stages of the journey and archetypes from the Campbell monomyth, in fact anything related to dramatic structure or the way the conflict develops between protagonist and antagonists. Prosodic analysis of Shakespeare. B) Introduction to the novel. Read "The Death of Ivan Ilych." War and Peace is optional.
February 26 Discussion on Tolstoy. Lecture on narrative sequencing and techniques. Recursive, linear, tandem competitive, onion, conglomerate etc. In-class writing on narrative structure to be continued later in the semester. Pick characters from Les Miz.
March 5 See film of Les Miz. Discuss broadway show compared to novel.
March 12 Dramatic scenes due between at least two characters from Les Miz and another from any other work in a scene from Hugo's nineteenth century France. Start reading Ulysses.
March 26 Bring two contrasting poems to read aloud. Lecture on prosody. Begin prosodic analysis paper.
April 2 Prosodic analysis of two contrasting poems due. Continue to read Ulysses. Each student will pick a section of the novel to analyze stylistically. Brief lecture on Joyce's prosody.
April 9 C)Epic, Sacred Myth and the Modern Novel. Read aloud selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Lecture on myth and literature. For next week, read Joyce and Campbell. Discuss myth and archetypes. See film of Ulysses and write about it. For next week, finish and analyze your section of Ulysses.
April 16 Stylistic analyses of Ulysses due. Read Arabian Nights and Days for next week.
April 23 Lecture on narrative styles. Discussion of narrators and techniques.
April 30 Read aloud selections from Mahfouz and the original unexpurgated version. Narrative structure essay due. Revise five essays. Last class meeting.
May 7 Revised versions of five essays due-- 10 points each. Place in Keefer mailbox 726 Broadway, 8th floor.
Grading: 50% attendance and participation. 50% for five essays.
Notes for Intro to Lit
Don't get intimidated by these classics. Homer's epic begins with a typical
bar-room brawl over a sexy girl; Dante's Divine Comedy is just a hazardous
hike up a mountain with a very long detour; Joyce's Ulysses is just one day
in the life of average Dubliners; Oedipus Rex is Everyman's Family Fantasy;
Hamlet's motives, if not his actions can be seen in the unconscious of most
would be leaders; Arabian Nights and Days is as much a political allegory
of the demise of Sadat in Cairo as well as enchanting fairy tale; Campbell
helps explain it all with the thousand faces of the hero and it is your choice
with the poetry.
Because we are losing the richness of our tongues and ears in our dependence
on computers, the close textual analyses will be given orally, which means
that every other week you should prepare a passage for oral delivery. No one
is expecting you to be an actor-- you are graded on effort and improvement.
The following are just notes to give you an overview, common facts and summaries,
so that you can then focus on your personal experience with the wonder of
the narratives, the beauty of the language, and your creative response through
your webfolios.
Epic is about adventure. To mitigate the unremitting recurrences
of death, we need recurrence of birth, not return to the old days, archaism,
or futurism, the ideal projected future. The hero, according to Campbell is
the person who has been able to battle his personal limitations and local
historical attachments by journeying from the Ordinary World to a Special
World and back with an elixir to help the ailing society. He is a mortal with
extraoridnary powers who must face the unknown with more courage than the
average person. The adventure is a matter of following the thread of the hero-path
filled with irony, ambiguity and surprise. Instead of a monster, we suddenly
find a god; when we think we are killing the enemy, we kill ourselves; when
we think we have travelled across the globe we come to the center of our existence;
when we thought we were alone, we find we are with the world. To simplify:
separation, initiation, return. A hero ventures forth from the world of common
day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered
and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure
with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. Campbell's monomyth is categorized
as follows: The Call of Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Supernatural Aid,
The Crossing of the First Threshold, The Belly of the Whale, The Road of Trials,
The Meeting with the Goddess, Woman as the Temptress, Atonement with the Father,
Apotheosis, The Ultimate Boon, Refusal of the Return, The Magic Flight, Rescue
from without, The Crossing of the Return Threshold, Master of the Two Worlds,
Freedom to Live.
Campbell writes that mythology has been interpreted by the modern intellect
as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world of nautre; as a production
of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times, misunderstood by succeeding ages;
as a repository of allegorical instruction, to shape the individual to his
group; as a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths
of the human psyche; as the traditional vehicle of man's profoundest metaphysical
insights; and as God's Revelation to His children. For Campbell, mythology
is as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual,
the race, the age.
Any poem can be heroic, but the epic is separated from other heroic narratives
through its magnitude and elevated style. The Homeric epics were recited by
bards and secondary epics made up for the lack of bardic setting through heightened
style, usually dactyllic hexameters in Greek and Latin, and formal structures.
Like most good books, Ulysses was originally banned.
In 1914 James Joyce published Ulysses. He takes persons of the lower middle
class living in Dublin in 1904, Leopold and Molly Bloom and Stephen Daedalus
and takes them through one day in early June. The U.S. judge lifting the ban
wrote: "Joyce has attempted--it seems to me, with astonishing success--
to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic
impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is
in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but
also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some
drawn up by association from the domain fo the subconscious. He shows how
each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which
he is describing.
What he seeks to get is not unlike the results of a double or, if that is
possible, a multiple exposure on a cinema film which would give a clear foreground
with a backgrond visible but somewhat blurred and out of focus in varying
degrees....Ulysses is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull,
intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to be disgusting,
but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered
dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake.
Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the
picture which Joyce is seekng to construct for his readers."
What happens when you let your mind go and record all the bubbles
coming up from your unconscious?
In spite of the formidable bulk of this novel, it is really about one day in
the life of three Dubliners, Stephen Daedaelus, Leopold and Molly Bloom, but
in theme and scope it parallels the journeys of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey on
his long voyage home to Penelope. Joyce read the book in Latin rather than Greek
which explains the name Ulysses instead of Homer.
Compare the two: a: Homer, b: Joyce
Ia Telemachus, in Ithaca with suitors, is urged ot seek his father. b Stephen
Daedalus eats breakfast with Mulligan and Haines at the Martello Tower, then
leaves for work.
IIa Telemachus leaves with Athene. b Nestor: Stephen teaches his class at the
Dalkey School; receives his pay and would-be sage advice from Mr. Deasy, the
headmaster.
III Telemachus with Nestor.
IVa Telemachus visits Menelaos as suitors lay ambush for him. b Proteus: Stephen
on Sandymount Strand.
Va Odysseus leaves Calypso; wrecked on a raft, he swims to the isle of the Phaiakians.
b Calypso: Leopold Bloom with Molly; he leaves to buy a pork kidney, even though
he is Jewish, and returns.
VIa Odysseus meets Nausicaa, princess of the Phaiakians. b Lotus Eaters: Bloom
collects the letter with flower from Martha Clifford, orders lotion for Molly
at the drugstore, thinks of taking a bath.
VIIa Odysseus is hospitably received by Alkinous and Arete, king and queen of
the Phaiakians. b Hades: Bloom attends the funeral of Paddy Dignam.
VIIIa Odysseus attends games; bathed and fffeasted, he is invited to identify
himself and tell the story of his adventures since the fall of Troy. b Aeolus:
Bloom and Stephen appear at a newspaper office, but don't quite meet.
IXa Odysseus tells of his battles with the Kikonians, his sojourn with the Lotus
Eaters, and his entrapment in the cave of the Cyclops. b Lestrygonians: Bloom
eats lunch at a pub and goes to look at statures of goddesses in the National
Museum.
Xa Odysseus tells of Aeolus, god of winds; the man-eating Lestrygonians; and
the enchantress Circe. b Scylla and Charybdis: Stephen explains his theory of
Hamlet in the National Library, where Bloom appears briefly.
XIa Odysseus tells of visiting Hades, then returning to Circe to bury Elpenor.
b Wandering Rocks: Bloom and Stephen wander through Dublin among many other
characters but still do not meet.
XIIa Odysseus tells of the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Helios; with his last
ship lost, he's rescued by Calypso. Odysseus's storytelling ends. b Sirens:
Bloom dines at the Ormond Hotel restaurant and hears singing by the barmaids
and various patrons, including Simonnn Daedula.
XIIIa The Phaiakians return Odysseus to Ithaca. b Cyclops: Bloom confronts the
drunken citizens in a pub.
XIVa Odysseus is hospitably received by Eumaios, his noble swineherd. b Nausicaa:
Bloom ogles Gerty McDowel on Sandymount Strand and masturbates.
XVa Telemachus leaves Sparta and eluding ambus, reaches Ithaca. b Oxen of the
Sun: Bloom visits the National Maternity Hospital, where Mina Purefoy gives
birth to a boy. Bloom and Stephen talk a little amid a boisterous crowd of drunken
young men.
XVIa Telemachus visits Eumaios; Odysseus reveals his identity to Telemachus.
b Circe: Bloom follows Stephen to Nighttown, Dublin's redlight district, where
Stephen spends most of his money, gets into a scuffle with two soldiers, and
is rescued by Bloom.
XVIIa Telemachus returns to his house; disguised as a beggar, Odysseus also
returns with Eumaios. b Eumaios: Stephen and Bloom talk in the cabman's shelter.
XVIIIa Odysseus soundly thrashes the beggar who taunts him. Antinous declares
the suitors will stay until Penelope marries one of them. Eurymachos throws
a footstool at Odysseus and just misses him. b Ithaka: Bloom and Stephen go
to Bloom's house. Stephen declines Bloom's invitation to spend the night. Bloom
gets into bed with Molly and finds evidence of her adultery, which he accepts
at last with equanimity.
XIXa Odysseus and Penelope meet; Penelope plans the test of the bow to determine
the stranger's identity. b Penelope: In bed, Molly reviews her life and loves,
concluding with her memory of Bloom's proposal and her answer: yes. (As a teenager,
Professor Evergreen acted out this soliloquy, recorded it and choreographed
an erotic modern dance to it. If you only have time for this chapter, start
here.)
Homer's book continues as all principals gather in Odysseus's house where he
wins the test of the bow and kills the suitors and punishes the maids who consorted
with them, and is finally recognized by Penelope. Odysseus reveals himself to
his father Laertes, the suitors are buried, revenge is foiled and Athene imposes
peace. So in ancient Greece adultery is punished but in twentieth century Ireland,
Bloom accepts his wife's dalliance because he can't satisfy her the way she
wants. And the twentieth century begins-- age of free sex, psychoanalysis, science
and technological inventions, megalomania and dictatorships, fascisim and The
Bomb, equal rights for all. Much has remained in the twentieth century but individualism
is taking a beating. What do you think?
Joyce followed epic rather than dramatic form although his book conforms to
Aristotle's unities. Like Professor Evergreen, he tended to oversystematize
everything. In order, we have Scenes: tower, school, strand, house, bath, graveyard,
newspaper, lunch, library, streets, concert room, tavern, rocks, hospital, brothel,
shelter, house, bed. Organs: none for Stephen because he is "spiritual."
then kidney, skin, heart, lungs, esophagus, brain, blood, ear, muscle, eye,
womb, leg, nerves, skeleton, fat. (Interesting that Molly's soliloquy reminded
Joyce of fat.) Discipline: art, theology, history, philology, mythology, biochem,
religion, rhetoric, architect, litearture, mechanics, music, surgery, painting,
medicine, dancce, navigation, science, ---and poor old Molly gets no intellectual
discipline. Technic: narrative, catechism, monologue, narrative, narcissism,
incubism, enthymemic, peristalsis, dialectic, labyrinth, fuga per canonem, gigantism,
detumescence, embryonic development, hallucination, narrative, catechism, monologue.
Symbol: heir, horse, tide, nymph, eucharist, caretaker, editor, constables,
London, citizens, barmaids, fenian, virgin, mothers, whore, sailors, comets,
earth.
So anyone who thinks Ulysses is confusing literary vomit should realize how
carefully it was planned and how laboriously it was written. Nevertheless if
this manuscript were submitted anonymously to New York agents today, it would
have to be dumbed down or put in the slush pile.
"Joyce built a whole universe out of a grain of sand"
Salman Rushdie, the author of the "Week of the Book" present, was
carried along by James Joyce's Ulysses as though the book was rocket fuel.
Somewhere in that hyperactive brain also roams the spirit of the Irish-born
writer James Joyce (1882-1941). Rushdie: "Joyce is always in my mind, I
carry him everywhere with me."
Who it was who called his attention to Ulysses (published in Paris in 1922)
Rushdie does not remember, but he knows that it was in the first year of his
study of history.. "Everyone said that it was such a sealed book, hard
to penetrate, but I did not think so at all. You never hear people say that
there is so much humor in the book, that the characters are so lively or that
the theme - Stephen Daedalus in search of his lost father and Bloom looking
for his lost child - is so moving. People talk about the cleverness of Ulysses
and about the literary innovation. To me it was moving, in the first place"
Stephen and Bloom, those were the characters which touched him immediately.
He quotes from memory: "Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs
of beasts and fowls". Those were the first lines of the second chapter.
"I am myself disgusted by that kind of organs", he grinned. "There
are still so many little things I always have to smile about when I think of
them. That commercial, for example: "What is home/without Plumtree's Potted
Meat?/ Incomplete". That is still funny. Joyce used many stylistic means
which were novel in his time, newspaper headlines for instance. Is it not moving
that he makes Ulysses happen on the day that he met his wife! He kept that newspaper,
carried it always with him and used all of its details, including the names
of the horses in the races. In short, he built a universe out of a grain of
sand. That was a revelation to me: so that is the way one could also write!
To somebody who wanted to be a writer, like me, it was so perfect, so inspiring,
that it made one need to recover. I have thought for some time: I quit writing,
I become a lawyer. Later I thought that there may be some little things still
worth doing."
Such as in the field of linguistic innovation? "Joyce spoke against the
politisizing of literature, but his language is a purposeful attempt to create
an English which was just not a property of the English. He employs a lot of
borrowed words from other European languages and creates an un-English kind
of English". Was that not also the goal of Rushdie himself? "Certainly.
The Irish did it, so did the American and the Caribian writers. While English
traveled around like that, the people felt the need to innovate it. So I did.
But the Joycean innovation was the greatest of all. It is an example that deserves
to be followed".
And what about Joyce's famous monologue intérieur ? "That stream
of consciousness was not an invention of Joyce, but he used it more subtly than
anyone else. Bloom's inner voices were about very common things, about a hungry
feeling or so. Joyce demonstrates that the material of daily life can be as
majestic as any great epic. The lives of ordinary people are also worthy of
great art. One can create grandeur out of banality. That was precisely the criticism
Virgina Woolf had on Joyce. Woolf was a bit too snobbish for it."
As the best example of the stream of consciousness Rushdie "of course"
considers Molly Blooms monologue at the end of the book. "In the past I
could recite whole parts of it: "and first I put my arms around him yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his
heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes." That conclusion
is absolutely rocket fuel at the end. You have a book behind you in which the
behavior of people is not strictly transparent and then suddenly you feel not
only the skin of that woman, but her whole body, all her flesh and blood, that
is a baffling climax. Of course also very erotic, although as yet the novel
was not erotic at all. At that time literature did not extend to erotics, to
the sexual fantasies of women. Impossible to imagine Virginia Woolf doing something
like that."
Ulysses is in fact a national epic about Ireland. "It is a grand homage
to the country that has never understood him" says Rushdie. "He was
regarded there as a pornographer and blasphemer. Now he is viewed as Ireland's
national monument. Well, that's easy. I do understand how Joyce felt. I am close
to him. I feel a kinship, not so much between our types of authorship, but rather
between his eye and ear, his mind and mine. The way one looks at things..."
Nevertheless, they would not have become friends, he believes. "Joyce was
not very good at friendship. There is a story about his put-down of Samuel Beckett,
who adored him and often came along his place. He plainly told him that he only
loved two people in the world: the first being his wife, the second his daughter.
His only encounter with Proust was also very comical. Joyce and Proust met each
other when leaving a party. Proust had his coach standing at the door and was
wrapped up fom head to foot, afraid as he was to catch a cold. Joyce jumps into
the coach uninvitedly, lights a cigar and opens the window widely. Proust says
nothing, neither does Joyce. It is like a silent movie. Two masters of the word,
who say nothing to each other and yet disclose themselves. Fantastic!"
In Portrait of the artist as a young man Joyce mentions the weapons
with which a writer can defend himself against the outer world: silence, exile,
and cunning. Are those the weapons Rushdie recognizes? "Well, that was
a very good stratagem in the time of Joyce. Like Voltaire, Joyce believed that
a writer should live near a border, so that he could leave immediately if problems
arose. At present that does not work anymore: I have experienced it personally.
And silence is an overrated artform, which people now too often impose upon
you."
But are writers not regarded more and more as intellectuals and are they not
continually asked for an opinion? "I believe that worldwide there are more
and more efforts to impose silence upon writers - and that not only applies
to me. It is easy to point to the Arab world, or to China, but even in the United
States there are people who want to ban Harry Potter books from schools, because
they contain something about witchcraft. Even something harmless like that provokes
an attack. We live in a time with an increasing urge to censorship. Various
interest groups--including antiracist or feminist movements-- demand it. When
Kurt Vonnegut is banned from public libraries and not everywhere it is allowed
to teach about Huckleberry Finn, then you just cannot assume straight-away that
there is something like freedom. Against silence it is that now we have to fight.
And exile does not work. Therefore, cunning is the only thing that remains."
WHICH LES MIZ CHARACTER ARE YOU?
Provider: MV Communications
Tolstoy: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Aristotle: Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Tragedy is the shattering of forms and our attachment to the forms; comedy, the wild careless sensuality of present life, its joy and ultimate imperfection. Anger and exaggeration feed comedy, but tragedy often blooms with understatement of horror, simplicity, classical forms, resignation and sadness. Terror is the feeling which arrest the mind in the presence of whatever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.
According to Aristotle, poetry sprang from a desire to bring order to chaos, a need to imitate life, and a love of harmony and rhythm. He divides tragedy into plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song, in order of importance. Aristotle still influences Hollywood with concepts such as catharsis achieved by crisis erupting in climax followed by resolution or denouement complicated by reversal, recognition, scenes of suffering and the like. See Screenwriting Syllabus for discussion of dramatic structure and further links.
Oedipus Rex, written soon after 430 B.C. is considered by many to be Sophocles' greatest work, and the model play for Aristotle's Poetics.
Thought to have been written between 1603 and 1606, Macbeth was probably performed in 1606 at Hampton Court. The play is shorter than the other tragedies and the story came from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of Scotland, as well as current events such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Prompted by the prophecies of three mysterious witches and goaded by his ambitious wife, Macbeth murders Duncan, King of Scotland, in order to succeed him on the throne. This foul deed soon entangles the conscience-striken nobleman in a web of treachery, deceit and more murders that ultimately spells his doom. Set amid the gloomy castles and lonely heaths of medieval Scotland, MacBeth paints a striking dramatic portrait of a man of honor and integrity destroyed by a fatal character flaw and the tortures of a guilty imagination.
Dante completed the Inferno, an allegorical journey through hell, around 1314. The Inferno is part epic, narrative and satirical poetry, satirising the Pope and other characters from Florentine politics. The work is considered a comedy, although it is neither low brow nor slapstick in our sense of the word, because it is written in the vernacular and has a happy ending as we move from hell to heaven.
Inferno opens on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300. Traveling rhough
a dark wood, Dante Alighieri has lost his path and now wanders fearfully through
the forest. The sun shines down on a mountain above him, and he attempts to
climb up to it but finds his way blocked by three beasts--a leopard, a lion,
and a she-wolf. Frightened and helpless, Dante returns to the dark wood where
he encounters the ghost of Virgil, the great Roman poet, who has come to guide
Dante back to his path to the top of the mountain. Virgil says that their path
will take them through Hell and that they will eventually reach Heaven, where
Dante's beloved Beatrice awaits. He adds that it was Beatrice, along with two
other holy women, who, seeing Dante lost in the wood, sent Virgil to guide him.
Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell--Abandon all Hope, you who enter
here. They enter the outlying region of Hell, the ante-Inferno, where the souls
who in life could not commit to either good or evil now must run in a futuile
cahse after a blank banner, day after day, while hornets bite them and worms
lap their blood. Dante witnesses their suffering with repugnance and pity. The
ferryman Charon then takes him and his guide across the river Acheron, the real
border of Hell. The First Circle of Hell, Limbo, houses pagans, including Virgil
and mnay of the other great writers and poets of antiquity, who died without
knowing of Christ. After meeting Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, Dante continues into
the Second Circle of Hell, reserved for the sin of Lust. At the border of the
Second Circle, the monster Minos lurks, assigning condemned souls to their punishments.
He curls his tail around himself a certain number of times, indicating the number
of the circle to which the soul must go. Inside the Second Circle, Dante watches
as the souls of the Lustful swirl about in a terrible storm; Dante meets Francesca,
who tells him the story of her doomed love affair with Paolo da Rimini, her
husband's brother; the relationship has landed both in Hell.
In the Third Circle of Hell, the Gluttonous must lie in mud and endure a rain
of filth and excrement. In the Fourth Circle, the Avaricious and teh Prodigal
are made to charge at one another with giant boulders. The Fifth Circle of Hell
contains the river Styx, a swampy, fetid cesspool in which the Wrathful spend
eternity struggling with one another; the Sullen lie bound beneath the Styx's
waters, choking on the mud. Dante glimpses Filippo Argenti, a former political
enemy of his, and watches in delight as other souls tear the man to pieces.
Virgil and Dante next proceed to the walls of the city of Dis, a city contained
within the larger region of Hell. The demons who guard the gates refuse to open
them for Virgil, and an angelic messenger arrives from Heaven to force the gates
open before Dante. The Sixth Circle of Hell houses the Heretics, and there Dante
encounters a rival political leader named Farinata. A deep valley leads into
the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who were violent toward
others spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. Virgil and Dante meet a group
of Centaurs, creatures who are half man, half horse. One of them, Nessus, takes
them into the Second Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where they encounter
those who were violent toward themselves (the Suicides.) These souls must endure
eternity in the form of trees. Dante there speaks with Pier della Vigna. Going
deeper into the Seventh Circle of Hell, the travelers find those who were violent
toward God (the Blasphemers); Dante meets his old patron, Brunetto Latini, walking
among the souls of those who were violent toward Nature (the Sodomites) on a
desert of burning sand. They also encounter the Usurers, those who were violent
toward Art.
The monster Geryon transports Virgil and Dante across a great abyss to the Eighth
Circle of Hell, known as Malebolge, or "evil pockets;" the term refers
to the circle's division into various pockets separated by great folds of earth.
In the First Pouch, the Panderers and the Seducers receive lashings from whips;
in the second, the Flatterers must lie in a river of human feces. The Simoniacs
in the Third Pouch hang upside down in baptismal fonts while their feet burn
with fire. In the Fourth Pouch are the Astrologists or Diviners, forced to walk
with their heads on backward, a sight that moves Dante to great pity. In the
Fifth Pouch, those who accepted bribes steep in pitch while demons tear them
apart. The Hypocrites in the Sixth Pouch must forever walk in circles, wearing
heavy robes made of lead. Caiphas, the priest who confirmed Jesus' death sentence,
lies crucified on the ground; the other sinners tread on him as they walk. In
the horrifying Seventh Pouch, the Thieves sit trapped in a pit of vipers, becoming
vipers themselves when bitten; to regain their form, they must bite another
thief in turn.
In the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell, Dante speaks to Ulysses, the
great hero of Homer's epics, now doomed to an eternity among those guilty of
Spiritual Theft (the False Counselors) for his role in executing the ruse of
the Trojan Horse. In the Ninth Pouch, the souls of Sowers of Scandal and Schism
walk in a circle, constantly afflicted by wounds that open and close repeatedly.
In the Tenth Pouch, the Falsifiers suffer from horrible plagues and diseases.
Virgil and Dante proceed to the Ninth Circle of Hell through the Giants' Well,
which leads to a massive drop to Cocytus, a great frozen lake. The giant Antaeus
picks Virgil and Dante up and sets them down at the bottom of the well, in the
lowest region of Hell. In Caina, the First Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell,
those who betrayed their kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake's ice.
In Antenora, the Second Ring, those who betrayed their country and party stand
frozen up to their heads; here Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity
gnawing on the head of the man who imprisoned him in life. In Ptolomea, the
Third Ring, those who betrayed their guests spend eternity lying on their backs
in the frozen lake, their tears making blocks of ice over their eyes. Dante
next follows Virgil into Judecca, the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell
and the lowest depth. Here, those who betrayed their benefactors spend eternity
in complete icy submersion.
A huge, mist-shrouded form lurks ahead, and Dante approaches it. It is the three-headed giant Lucifer, plunged waist-deep into the ice. His body pierces the center of the Earth, where he fell when God hurled him down from Heaven. Each of Lucifer's mouths chews one of history's three greatest sinners: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and Cassius and Brutus, the betrayers of Julius Caesar. Virgil leads Dante on a climb down Lucifer's massive form, holding on to his frozen tufts of hair. Eventually, the poets reach the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and travel from there out of Hell and back onto Earth. They emerge from Hell on Easter morning, jsut before sunrise.
N.B. Now that you know the story, concentrate on the poetry and don't give us plot summaries in class.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Not until he was blind and finished with government work did Milton bring everything
together sometime after 1660 in his Christian epic, Paradise Lost, which was
written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse. Each book is prefaced
with an argument or summary or prologue. The purpose of Book I is to tell about
the fall of man and justify God's ways to man.
The epic often begins in media res. Satan and the other rebellious angels awake
to find themselves in Hell on a lake of fire. Satan is lying beside Beelzebub.
Satan raises himself from the lake and flies to the shore. He calls for the
other angels to do the same, and they assemble by the lake. Satan tells them
that all is not lost and tries to inspire his followers. Led by Mammon and Mulciber,
the fallen angels build their capital and palace, Pandemonium. The highest ranking
of the angels then assemble for a council.
In the council, Satan asks what the demons think should be the next move against
God. Moloch argues for open warfare. Belial twists Moloch's arguments, proposing
that nothing should be done. Mammon, the materialistic angel, argues that they
do the best with what they have. Finally, Beelzebub, Satan's second in command,
proposes that the angels try to get at God through his new creation, Man. Beelzebub's
proposal, which is really Satan's proposal, is adopted, and Satan volunteers
to find the new world and new creatures. He leaves at once, flying to the Gate
of Hell. There, he meets his children, Sin and Death. Sin opens the gate for
Satan who flies out into Chaos and Night. Sin and Death follow him. Finally,
in the distance Satan sees Earth.
God watches Satan approach Earth and predicts his success in corrupting Man. Man has free will. But God omnisciently knows what will happen. God adds that Man can be saved through mercy and grace, but he must also accept the just punishment of death, unless someone takes on death for Man. The Son offers to become a man and suffer death in order to overcome it. Then angels rejoice.
In the meantime, Satan, sitting on the edge of the Earth, cannot see the way to Man. Satan disguises himself as a cherub and flies to the sun to talk with the archangel, Uriel. Uriel shows Satan the way to Man.
Looking at earth, Satan is taken with its beauty but quickly overcomes his sympathy to concentrate on what he must do. He sees Adam and Eve and is entranced with their beauty. As Satan listens to the pair, they talk about God's one commandment that they not eat from the Tree of Knowledge under penalty of death. Satan immediately beings to formulate a plan.
Uriel, on the sun, becomes suspicious of the cherub whose face shows changing emotions and goes to warn Gabriel. Gabriel says that he and his angels will capture any interlopers in the Garden, and late that night Ithuriel and Zephron capture Satan whispering in Even's ear. The two angels bring Satan before Gabriel, who, with God's help, banishes the tempter from Earth.
When Eve awakes, she tells Adam of her troubling dream. Adam comforts her, reminding her that they are safe if they obey God. God decides to send the angel Raphael to warn Adam and Eve to be wary of Satan. Raphael goes to Earth where he eats with Adam and Eve. After the meal, Raphael tells Adam about the great rebellion in Heaven.
Raphael says that Lucifer was jealous of the Son and trhough sophistic argument got his followers, about one third of the angels, to follow him to the North. There, only one of Satan's followers stood up against him-- Abdiel, who returned to God.
Satan attacks God and the Heavenly Host, whose power has been limited by God. Nonetheless, God's forces have little difficulty in defeating the rebels. Michael splits Satan in half, which is humiliating but not deadly, because Satan, as an angel, cannot ie. After the first day of battle, the rebels construct a cannon and begin the second day's battle with some success. God's forces begin to pull up mountains and hurl them at the rebels, burying them and their cannons. God is amused at the presumption of the rebels but does not want the landscape destroyed. He sends the Son forth by himself in a chariot. The rebels are quickly herded into Hell.
Next, Raphael responds to Adam's questions about the creation of the world. The angel explains the day-to-day creation of the world in six days. Then, in an effort to keep the angel engaged in conversation, Adam asks about the motions of the heavenly bodies. Raphael explains that Adam should leave some questions to God's wisdom. Next, Adam describes his own creation, his introduction to Eden, and the creation of Eve. He describes how beautiful Eve is to him and the bliss of wedded love. Raphael gives Adam a final warning about Satan as he leaves.
Having been gone from Eden for eight days, Satan returns, sneaking in through a fountain near the Tree of Knowledge. He takes the form of a serpent to try to trick Man. When Adam and Eve awake, they argue over whether they should work together or alone. Eve finally convinces Adam to let her work by herself. Satan, in serpent's form, approaches Eve and, using clever but fallacious arguments, convinces her to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. After Eve eats, she reveals what she has done to Adam, who, unable to bear the thought of losing Eve, eats also. Having eaten the fruit, the two are overcome with lust and run to the woods to make love. When they awake, they are filled with shame and guilt. Each blames the other.
In Heaven, the angels are horrified that Man has fallen, but God assures them
that He had foreknowledge of all that would happen. He sends the Son to Earth
to pronounce judgment on the humans and the serpent. The Son goes to Earth and
makes his judgments. He adds though, that through mercy, Adam and Eve and all
humans may eventually be able to overcome death. In an act of pity, the Son
clothes the two humans.
Sin and Death meanwhile have sensed an opportunity on Earth. They construct
a huge causeway from Hell to Earth. On their way across, they meet Satan returning
to Hell. They proceed to Earth while Satan enters Hell in disguise. Satan appears
on his throne and announces what he has done. Expecting to hear the applause
of all the fallen angels, he instead hears only hissing as he and all his followers
are turned into snakes. When they eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge which
appears before them, it turns to bitter ashes.
On Earth, Sin and Death see infinite opportunities. God, looking down on the
two, says eventually they will be cast into Hell and sealed up. Adam and Even
lament, but Eve submissively asks Adam's forgiveness. He relents, his love overcoming
his bitterness. She suggests suicide as a way to avoid the terrible curse on
the world, but Adam says they must obey God.
God sends the angel, Michael, to take Adam and Even out of Eden. Before doing
so, Michael takes Adam to a hill and gives the humans a vision of biblical history,
ending with the birth of Jesus who will be the savior of Man. Adam rejoices.
Adam and Eve together are led out of Eden. Behind them a flaming sword guards
the entrance; ahead, they face a new life in a new world.
Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, reinterprets traditional
folklore, spicing it with political allegory and satire, in Arabian Nights and
Days, published in 1982.
Mahfouz has written wonderful descriptive narratives of Islamic Cairo in Cairo
Trilogy, Children of the Allegy, The Harafish and others.
Arabian Nights and Days isn't an innocuous fairy tale, but a veiled seething
satire of the chaos and frustration before and after the assassination of Sadat
and the imprisonment and torture of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well
as the stance of clerics and professors at Al Azhar University. However, it
also exists a delightful, timeless narrative.
Characters: Sultan Shahriyar, Vizier Dandan, Shahrzad, Sheikh Abdullah al-Balkhi,
Zubeida, his daughter, doctor Abdul Qadir al-Maheeni, Sanaan al-gamali, son
Fadil, Hamdan Tuneisha and Karam al-Aseel, Sahloul and Ibrahim al-Attar the
druggist and his son Hasan, Galil al-Bazzaz the draper, Nur al-Din the perfume
seller, and Shamboul the hunchback, Ragab the porter and Sindbad, Ugr the barber
and his son Aladdin, Ibrahim the water-carrier and Ma-rouf the cobbler, Qumqam
the genie, Ali al-Salouli, Gamasa al-Bulti, Khalil al-Hamadhani, Umm Saad, Husniya,
Buteisha Murgan, Zarmabaha,
Best American Poetry 2002, edited by Robert Creeley, a visiting NYU professor, includes a poem, "Long after (Mallarme)," by NYU Master Teacher, Ruth Danon. Most poems in this edition were published after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In the foreward, David Lehman writes that "poetry remains the touchstone art, a supreme signifier, emblematic of soulful artistry, the adventurous imagination, and the creative spirit."
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If you have specific questions, email Professor Keefer <julia.keefer@nyu.edu>.