...Hamartia in Oedipus the King According to the Aristotelian characteristics of good tragedy, the tragic character should not fall due to either excessive virtue or excessive wickedness, but due to what Aristotle called hamartia. Hamartia may be interpreted as either a flaw in character or an error in judgement. Oedipus, the tragic character in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, certainly makes several such mistakes; however, the pervasive pattern of his judgemental errors seems to indicate a basic character flaw that precipitates them. Oedipus’ character flaw is ego. This is made evident in the opening lines of the prologue when he states "Here I am myself--you all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus." (ll. 7-9) His conceit is the root cause of a number of related problems. Among these are recklessness, disrespect, and stubbornness. Oedipus displays an attitude of recklessness and disrespect throughout the play. When he makes his proclamation and no one confesses to the murder of Laius, Oedipus loses patience immediately and rushes into his curse. Later, he displays a short temper to Tiresias: "You, you scum of the earth . . . out with it, once and for all!," (ll. 381, 383) and "Enough! Such filth from him? Insufferable--what, still alive? Get out--faster, back where you came from--vanish!" (ll. 490-492) If an unwillingness to listen may be considered stubbornness, certainly Oedipus would take advice from no one who would tell him to drop the matter of his...
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...genres, I will give a brief analysis of the plays and the playwrights we have studied in class. Finally, I will make a few objective points about my personal performance, the instructor’s performance and the contribution of the course to my academic career. Drama is a literary work generally performed by actors in a kind of stage which involves conflicts and action crisis in it with a plot, characters and dialogues. Setting, costuming, props, blocking, movement, gestures, pacing, intonation are main elements of the spectacle. The distinct period in all arts with drama begins in 1960s. Until 1950s, the words American Drama and Broadway have almost same meanings. In the very beginning times of American Drama, plays were not originals; they were wholly borrowed from London. But after 50s, American Drama changed radically. Actors, directors, and others from Broadway came to America, because now they did not have any job there. After they came, they established their own Off-Broadway companies here. The most popular and affection dramatists of time in America were Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Among the whole literary works, drama is accepted to be the unique way of expressing human feelings and thoughts. In drama, there is always a hero, and the hero has the greatest mission to do. I mean there is always a conflict to be solved by the hero. So the hero takes a risk in a sense in the processing of solving the conflict. The hero whoever he or...
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...University FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LOVE AND TIME IN SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS GRADUATE: SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR: -2016- Important aspects about William Shakespeare William Shakespeare, English dramatist and poet He is considered the greatest writer of the English language literature of all time The first one (until approximately 1598) belongs to a series of pieces in which youth girded Shakespeare’s current fashions, adapting issues to public taste In the second Shakespearean stage, which runs from 1598-1604, are located the pieces often called "middle works", characterized by a higher stage virtuosity Dramas Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Othello announce the next period, known as the great tragedies (1604-1608), in which Shakespeare delves into the deepest feelings of the human being The final phase (1608-1611) shines his latest masterpiece, The Tempest, in which fantasy and reality intermingle offering a testimony of wisdom and acceptance of death. •Human vision (caught in the passion play); •Relationship with the company and provided genius; •Nature, love and art - universal ways of saving time and evil attack. Sonnets give the feeling and eventually even convince the reader to visit a temple and understands that the priest officiating the ritual union between text and reading is a creature with a special expertise whereof modern poetry can not even have the feeble idea ANALYSIS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S MOST REPRESENTATIVES...
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...Literary Criticism Review Paradigm: a framework containing your basic assumptions, ways of thinking and methodology about how something should be done, made or thought about. Cognitive dissonance (psychology): the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by the individual who: * Holds 2+ contradictory beliefs, ideas, of values simultaneously * Is confronted by new info that conflicts with existing BIV Is/ought dilemma: us aging -> the world as we wish to be OR the world as it actually is HISTORICAL LENS/NEW HISTORICAL LENS Historical criticism -> insisted we need to know a literary piece, that we need to know authors bio, social background, ideas during that time, cultural milieu (environment) New historicism New Historicism: seeks to find meaning in a text by considering the work within framework of prevailing ideas/assumptions of its era. *All about paying close attention to historical context of literary works (e.g: poems, novels, plays) GOALS: 1) Study how a work of literature reflects its historical/sociocultural context 2) Understand how literary works comments on and relates to its context Therefore, approach is interdisciplinary Example of this lens: Always by Erasure MARXIST LENS (Karl Heinrich Marx + Friedrich Engles) * A form of critique for interrogating all societies and their texts in terms of certain specific issues like race, class, and the attitudes shared within a given culture (see terms) * Marxist critique may...
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...written, and perhaps the very best. Why do the literary critics say this? In this essay let’s examine the play to see what makes it a prizewinner. Phyllis Abrahms and Alan Brody in “Hamlet and the Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy Formula” give some detail about the reasons for the undying popularity of this play: No play demonstrates the power and glory of Shakespeare’s tragic vision more than Hamlet, which for over 350 years has excited us with its action, its insight, its brilliant language. Hamlet is an unparalleled adventure story, complete with suspense, intrigue, murder – even a battle at sea with pirates. It is a play of intense emotional and physical violence. Yet underlying all of this are some of the most profound explorations of the mysteries of human existence. (43) This play is ranked by many as the very greatest ever written. Cumberland Clark in “The Supernatural in Hamlet” gives the consensus regarding Hamlet that exists among literary critics of today: At least six or seven years pass after the writing of Midsummer Night’s Dream before we find Shakespeare engaged on Hamlet, the second of the great plays with an important Supernatural element, and, in the opinion of many, the greatest tragedy ever penned. (99) There is no more exalted ranking than the above. Richard A. Lanham in the essay “Superposed Plays” maintains that no other English tragedy has generated the literary comment which this play has produced: “Hamlet...
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...Commitment to Family or Freedom to Self The three literary pieces The Glass Menagerie, Barn Burning, and Ulysses all have something in common. A significant character from each work abandoned his family to seek out his own needs. As I read the three different literary works recently I reflected on what a one-of-a-kind thing a family is to each of us. Is it wrong to put our own needs above that of our parents, our brothers and sisters, or even our spouses or children? Even when raised by the by the same parents, in the same community we all grow into unique individuals with directions of our own, independent from the aspirations of our parents and siblings. As I read the three pieces of literature The Glass Menagerie, Barn Burning, and Ulysses it got me thinking about some of the ways in which I feel about my own family situation. I know I could never leave them, but I do know so many people who have set off away from their families. I sometimes desperately envy those with that freedom. In all three works, there is a balance to be found towards responsibility and commitment to family, and freedom and choice to self. For the purpose of this essay I will compare the roles of Tom from The Glass Menagerie, Sarty in Barn Burning, and Ulysses in the poem Ulysses. Although they each served a different role in the family as a brother, father, and a son, they in the end all made a decision to leave their families in each literary piece. | In the play The Glass Menagerie by...
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...am Friday Sections Professor Rachel Havrelock Associate Professor Department of English raheleh@uic.edu Office 1909 University Hall Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 1:00-2:00 pm Professor Scott Grunow Lecturer Department of English Cobelli@aol.com Course Description This introductory class presents a literary perspective on the Bible. Texts from the Bible stand at the center of analysis, while accompanying textbooks help us to contexualize biblical materials within history. Each week revolves around a particular theme with one lecture on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and one on the New Testament. Themes include creation, birth, the hero, the mountain, the community, the Temple, suffering, and the end of time. As we place biblical texts in their historical contexts, we will consider the Bible as a literary work with distinct genres, themes and conventions. The thematic connections between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament will be explored at the same time that differences in their style and message are investigated. While reading the Bible, we will develop a vocabulary for discussing literary texts as well as a vocabulary specific to texts from the ancient world. This lively and pluralistic course provides a thorough introduction to the literature of the Bible. Course Objectives The Bible is a central text that has influenced literature, history, and global politics. This course instructs students in reading and interpreting...
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...create a trend or a genre, therefore it gives the piece of work a feeling of transcendetality. Two great authors from the Western civilization that take part of a modern literary culture that is characterized for its epic stories and epic characters that follow along the definition of an epic hero. An epic hero is a brave and noble character in an epic poem, admired for great achievements or affected by grand events. Dante’s Aligheri’s Inferno and Homer’s The Odyssey respectively have two characters that fulfill what is like to be recognized as a brave and noble character. Throughout both poems, we can see how each character has unique qualities that make them outstand and set them up as a leader, but at the same time, they have the flaws of any human being. It is clear when a character overcomes the status of any human being and sets the lead as a hero. An important trait of an epic hero is the fact that starts a journey; it may be of a personal matter, such as Dante, or of societal matter, like Odysseus. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is a war hero travelling home after a period of twenty years. In this epic, Odysseus is brought out as a hero with superhuman courage. In most cases, he has been shown fighting with supernatural forces. One characteristic of this journey that is different from Dante is that the hero in this epic fights against external forces. Odysseus faces many challenges while traveling home. To begin with, he is cast on an island that is surrounded by waters. Some...
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...2. Annotate. Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text. ... 3. Outline, Summarize, and Analyze. ... 4. Look for repetitions and patterns. ... 5. Contextualize. ... 6. Compare and Contrast. When you write about literature . . . Some Tips for Academic Writers Sentence Style 1. Use simple sentences as rubrics (pointers). 2. Use compound sentences to suggest balance and to present pairs of ideas of equal value. 3. Use complex sentence to emphasize the most important ideas and to subordinate less important ideas. 4. Avoid "empty" sentence frames that say little or restate the obvious. 5. Use present tense when referencing details in a literary work except for passages written in the past tense. 6. Incorporate short, key quoted phrases into analytical sentences. 7. Avoid the use of such words and phrases as "you" and "the reader" that often lead to wordiness. 8. Avoid the phrase, "In conclusion," when opening the concluding paragraph. 9. Avoid gratuitous complements and superlatives. Paragraph Development 1. Use Pattern 1 paragraph frames for most paragraphs in the body of academic essays. 2. Begin body paragraphs with claims as topic sentences that repeat key concepts from the thesis sentence. 3. Always introduce the speaker, context, and/or significance of block quotations. 4. Always follow block quotations with a response that clarifies the significance of the quoted...
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...A Guide to Writing the Literary Analysis Essay I. INTRODUCTION: the first paragraph in your essay. It begins creatively in order to catch your reader’s interest, provides essential background about the literary work, and prepares the reader for your major thesis. The introduction must include the author and title of the work as well as an explanation of the theme to be discussed. Other essential background may include setting, an introduction of main characters, etc. The major thesis goes in this paragraph usually at the end. Because the major thesis sometimes sounds tacked on, make special attempts to link it to the sentence that precedes it by building on a key word or idea. A) Creative Opening/Hook: the beginning sentences of the introduction that catch the reader’s interest. Ways of beginning creatively include the following: 1) A startling fact or bit of information Example: Nearly two hundred citizens were arrested as witches during the Salem witch scare of 1692. Eventually nineteen were hanged, and another was pressed to death (Marks 65). 2) A snatch of dialogue between two characters Example: “It is another thing. You [Frederic Henry] cannot know about it unless you have it.” “ Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you [priest].” (Hemingway 72). With these words, the priest in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms sends the hero, Frederic, in search of the ambiguous “it” in his life. 3) A meaningful quotation (from the book you are analyzing...
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...Character Analysis Hamlet Hamlet is an enigma. No matter how many ways critics examine him, no absolute truth emerges. Hamlet breathes with the multiple dimensions of a living human being, and everyone understands him in a personal way. Hamlet's challenge to Guildenstern rings true for everyone who seeks to know him: "You would pluck out the heart of my mystery." None of us ever really does. The conundrum that is Hamlet stems from the fact that every time we look at him, he is different. In understanding literary characters, just as in understanding real people, our perceptions depend on what we bring to the investigation. Hamlet is so complete a character that, like an old friend or relative, our relationship to him changes each time we visit him, and he never ceases to surprise us. Therein lies the secret to the enduring love affair audiences have with him. They never tire of the intrigue. The paradox of Hamlet's nature draws people to the character. He is at once the consummate iconoclast, in self-imposed exile from Elsinore Society, while, at the same time, he is the adulated champion of Denmark — the people's hero. He has no friends left, but Horatio loves him unconditionally. He is angry, dejected, depressed, and brooding; he is manic, elated, enthusiastic, and energetic. He is dark and suicidal, a man who loathes himself and his fate. Yet, at the same time, he is an existential thinker who accepts that he must deal with life on its own terms, that he must choose to meet...
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...Analysis * We start out with a short summary: Write a short summary to show, in chronological order, what the text is about. Many will choose to put the analytical elements required into their summary, which makes it look a bit more professional. This way of writing an analysis makes it easier to keep to the essay genre. However, many of you may find it quite a lot easier to simply write a summary first, and then write an analysis at the end by making a list of the points required. It is up to you. * Point of view. When you want to find out a novel or short story’s point of view, you also analyze your own experiences and encounters with the characters and events. The way the story is told, the author’s chosen narrator(s), will play a large part in how much insight you get into the story and its characters. In other words: how well you will get to know the characters and the events relies a lot on the narrator (fortelleren). Therefore you should take a close look at the novel’s point of view, and write a paragraph about how the point of view allowed you to understand, like or identify with the characters, the events and the content in general. It is particularly common to write in the first and third person, yet, omniscient or God-like perspective or point of view is also frequently used. (“Guds” perspektiv - allvitende) It can also be that a story is narrated in the third person perspective, but contains an omniscient perspective as well. 1. First...
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...think in the question “What is literature?” The definition of literature has change over time. The only thing that is certain about the meaning of literature is that the definition will change. The concepts about what is literature about also change over time. In order to get a clear understanding of exactly what literature is, first we need to know its definition. According to the Merriam-Webster, literature is defined by “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age; the body of writings on a particular subject: printed matter.” Literature has to do with letters, but some people often think that literature is only one thing, not knowing that it is composed by several elements that we use every day. These important elements include poems, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels. Poetry is created from the soul. It comes from your emotions and it needs every piece of creativity inside you. It has been called the art of “saying the unsayable” because trough this you can express your feelings with no limit, and nobody can tell you that is wrong. If you make a poem and you think it is not good enough, well it is no good. You as the author or the reader, can only judge if it is good or but for you but maybe for some one else it is the opposite as it is for you. A good place to start when looking back at how poetry has evolved during time is the epic poetry. Most of the first poems where from the epic poems, some of them starting...
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...book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three specific aims. The first is to create or to encourage in every student the desire to read the best books, and to know literature itself rather than what has been written about literature. The second is to interpret literature both personally and historically, that is, to show how a great book generally reflects not only the author's life and thought but also the spirit of the age and the ideals of the nation's history. The third aim is to show, by a study of each successive period, how our literature has steadily developed from its first simple songs and stories to its present complexity in prose and poetry. To carry out these aims we have introduced the following features: (1) A brief, accurate summary of historical events and social conditions in each period, and a consideration of the ideals which stirred the whole nation, as in the days of Elizabeth, before they found expression in literature. (2) A study of the various literary epochs in turn, showing what each gained from the epoch preceding, and how each aided in the development of a national literature. (3) A readable biography of every important writer, showing how he lived and worked, how he met success or failure, how he influenced his age, and how his age influenced him. (4) A study and analysis of every author's best works, and of many of the books required for college-entrance...
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...Beginning theory An introduction to literary and cultural theory Second edition Peter Barry © Peter Barry 1995, 2002 ISBN: 0719062683 Contents Acknowledgements - page x Preface to the second edition - xii Introduction - 1 About this book - 1 Approaching theory - 6 Slop and think: reviewing your study of literature to date - 8 My own 'stock-taking' - 9 1 Theory before 'theory' - liberal humanism - 11 The history of English studies - 11 Stop and think - 11 Ten tenets of liberal humanism - 16 Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis some key moments - 21 Liberal humanism in practice - 31 The transition to 'theory' - 32 Some recurrent ideas in critical theory - 34 Selected reading - 36 2 Structuralism - 39 Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs Signs of the fathers - Saussure - 41 Stop and think - 45 The scope of structuralism - 46 What structuralist critics do - 49 Structuralist criticism: examples - 50 Stop and think - 53 Stop and think - 55 39 Stop and think - 57 Selected reading - 60 3 Post-structuralism and deconstruction - 61 Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism - 61 Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet - 65 Stop and think - 68 Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences - 70 What post-structuralist critics do - 73 Deconstruction: an example - 73 Selected reading - 79 4 Postmodernism - 81 What is postmodernism? What was modernism? -...
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