Western Literature Week Six－The Odyssey

A. Suggestion Page Numbers for Self-reading
a. xix-xxiv   b. 3-25   c. 181-188(Homer), 189-290(Iliad), 290-381(Odyssey)
* Special mark- 189, 193, 200, 208, 215, 217, 232, 235, 238, 239, 241, 242, 245, 247, 258, 
   267, 268, 269, 272-279, 283-286, 290

 Text book of this course

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B. Book Discussion
On page xix-xx
a. Several features to define Epic Poetry-- It always associate with god, immortals, hero, and war. It is lengthy narrative poems. These were used to perform (sing) for royal family and nobles, so the topics above were their favourites. 
b. The Divine Comedy is one of the Epic Poetry.
c. Ulysses-- It is derived from Ulixes, the Latin name for Odysseus, a character in ancient Greek literature. It is a modernist novel which was used the motif of Odyssey to write by Irish writer James Joyce. 
* This kind of novels called stream of consciousness. The authors usually let an grownup man look back to his previous life. They would obey the unity of time, place, and plot (which means all the events in the book would happen in one day) to write this kind of novels.
c. Aeneid is an epic poetry which was created for the Roman Empire to show how this country thrive on. The main character is Aeneas who was a prince from Troy.

On page xxi
a. Three crucial topic of this course includes Greek, Roman, and Christianity. 
b. "Christ" is a title that Jesus gave himself.--Jesus Christ
c. Judaism doesn't regard Jesus as a Savior so they are still awaiting their Savior.
d. Christian can be separated into two systems. One is Catholic (old one) and Protestant (new one). However, in Taiwan, there are several names for Christian and all of them sounds like individual systems such as 基督教 and 天主教. In fact, they all belongs to Christian.

On page xxii
a. Classical Greece includes ancient Greek and ancient Roman.
b. The Divine Comedy  by Dante
(a) After Dante went back to Florence, he wrote Divine Comedy.
(b) There are 100 cantos in the book which includes one canto about Prologue and ninety-
      nine cantos about Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradiso (33 each). 

(c) Virgil took the main character to visit the Inferno. 

* Satan and Lucifer are fallen angels.-- Hubris

* Paradise Lost --main characters are Adam, Eva, and Satan.

On page xxiii

a. Goethe is the man who brought up the concept of World literature.

 Goethe

b. There are two kinds of Poetry. One is narrative poetry and the other one is lyric poetry.

On page xxiv

a. Hypothesis of this book is the western literature includes classical Greek, Roman, Christianity, and Hebrew Bible.

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C. Keywords in Pages

a. cuneiform + hieroglyphic => Phoenicians -- on page 5

b. Alexander is the student of Aristotle.-- on page 15

 Aristotle was teaching Alexander

c. Nazareth-- where Jesus from

d. secular <=> religious

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D. Vocabulary
a. hierarchies-- a system in which people or things are arranged according to their importance
* "Hier" stands for level and "arch" stands for order.
b.  Protestant-- "Protest" means rebel.
c. Purgatorial-- "Purga" is awaiting for saving.

 Purgatory