World Literature

Directions: Choose one question from each point category to respond to (indicate by number which question you are attempting to answer). Give as muchdetail and development as you possibly can. In other words, exhaust the question by providing as much information as possible. You will be evaluated with regard to how well you support your answers. You may use your book and notes to help you, but no other sources are allowed. Please type.

PART I / DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS

20 POINTS

1. How have colors been used to symbolize themes and ideas in works produced during the middle ages? How has symbolism been used in other classic works of Western Literature? Provide examples.

2. Briefly describe the plot and main characters in Homer’s “The Odyssey.” What is important about this work? Provide examples. Are there other works from the ancient world that use these same ideas?

3. As Western Literature developed from the ancient times through the rennaissance, many themes and ideas were used repeatedly, and new ones emerged with the passing of time. Discuss these developments.

15 POINTS

4. Describe the plot and main characters in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.

5. Briefly describe the themes and ideas in Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
6. Discuss Aristotle’s The Poetics. According to Aristotle, what are the important ideas associated with the form of drama known as Tragedy?

10 POINTS

7. Describe the characters and plot of Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale.”
8. Describe the character of Teiresias. What works does he appear in?
9. Describe the character of Absalom. In which work does he appear?
10. How many characters are going to Canterbury Cathedral? What will they do to entertain themselves on their journey? Give a brief description of at least

two of these characters. How does the tale they tell relate to how their character is described?

PART II / IDENTIFICATION

Indicate the work and author of the following quotes and comment on their significance to the work in question. Consider setting, character, and theme.

20 POINTS

11. “What is this plague? How can we purify the city?”

12. “ In Southwark at the Tabard one spring day / It happened, as I stopped there on my way . . .”

13. ‘Nohbdy, Nohbdy’s tricked me, Nohbdy’s ruined me!’

15 POINTS

14. “When zephyrs have breathed softly all about / inspiring every wood and field to sprout”
15. “ don’t you know/ The grief they all had trying to embark / Till Noah could get his wife into the Ark?”
16. “ At a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to remember, there lived a little while ago one of those gentlemen who are wont to keep a lance in the rack, an old buckler, a lean horse, and a swift greyhound”
17. “ Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means”

10 POINTS

18. “Long ago, Apollo told me I was doomed to sleep with my mother and spill my father’s blood”

19. “Nicholas promply let fly with a fart”

20.“ Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills thar rise from that plain”

Part III – SHAKESPEARE

5 POINTS
21. Give a brief summary of The Tempest. Discuss plot, character, and theme.

22. Interpret and explain the following quote: “If by your art, my dearest father, you have / Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.”

5 POINTS

23. Give a brief character description of Caliban. Who is he and what does he represent?

24. How does the theme of “rulership” establish itself in The Tempest. Provide examples.