LITERARY MOVEMENTS & TERMS
AUTHOR BIOS
QUOTES AND IDEAS
SUMMARY 1
SURPRISE!
100
Known as the "Age of Reason." (Bonus: what very famous philosophical statement is associated with this period?)
What is the Enlightenment? (Bonus: What is, Cogito ergo sum / I think therefore I am? - Descartes)
100
All three of his sisters died in concentration camps during WWII.
Who is Kafka?
100
For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with ______________. (Bonus point: identify the work and offer an interpretation of this phrase.)
What is "coffee spoons"? What is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (Eliot)? (World-weariness; fear that one has wasted one's life; critique of a shallow, superficial society; feeling that there is nothing new or surprising in life.)
100
"Endure. Discipline. Despite." are the watchwords of which author?
Who is Gustav von Aschenbach?
100
A character's made-up name for an economic system that advocates communal rather than individual ownership of property and resources. (Name work and author.)
What is scotchalism? ("My Innocent Uncle," Ch'ae Man-Sik)
200
Describes works or situations that evoke feelings of senselessness, disorientation, helplessness, and being overpowered by bureaucracies, often in surreal, nightmarish settings.
What is Kafkaesque?
200
Though he was born in America, this author emigrated to England at age 25 and later became an English citizen.
Who is T.S. Eliot?
200
"For beauty, _______, mark me well--only beauty is both divine and visible at the same time, and thus it is the way of the senses, the way of the artist, to the spirit." Name the (fictional) speaker of this quote and his imagined addressee, as well as the two characters they represent.
Who are Socrates (Aschenbach) and Phaedrus (Tadzio)?
200
Animals used to advertise for the Heaven Silk Store.
What are camels?
200
This author's father died in a street battle against Western forces during the Boxer Rebellion.
Who is Lao She?
300
Style of realism originally developed in the Soviet Union which glorifies the working class and opposes anything elitist. Rejects metaphor, allegory, figurative language.
What is socialist realism?
300
This author, a prominent critic of National Socialism (Nazism) fled his homeland when Hitler came to power in the 1930s.
Who is Thomas Mann?
300
"I must say, I'm astonished. I'm astonished. I had taken you for a quiet and sensible individual, but you seem set on indulging a bizarre array of moods." Name the speaker, the work, and the author. Bonus point: describe the context of this quote.
What is the chief clerk, The Metamorphosis, and Kafka? Bonus point: The chief clerk has come to see why Gregor missed his train. He implies that Gregor may have stolen money that was entrusted to him.
300
Old folk remedy for tuberculosis. (Name author and work too.)
What is a mantou (large steamed bread roll) soaked in human blood? ("Medicine," Lu Xun)
300
German philosopher who identified two major (and often competing) strains in Western art. Bonus point: which classical figures are used to represent these two strains?
Who is Nietzsche? Who are Apollo (reason) and Dionysus (chaos, creativity)?
400
Refers to the idea that who you are depends on a great number of factors (in other words, how we present ourselves changes in different situations). Bonus point: this term is associated with the works of which of our writers?
What is relativism? (and) Who is Pirandello?
400
This author revolutionized his country's literature by writing in the vernacular (or the language of the common people). After his death, he became a figure of inspiration for a major political movement in his homeland.
Who is Lu Xun?
400
"But isn't that the cause of all the trouble? Words! We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world...Whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself too. We think we understand each other: but we never do." Name the author and work. Bonus point: interpret it. Bonus bonus point: what literary movement is this work associated with?
What is Six Characters and an Author (Pirandello)? Bonus point: language is slippery, so we can't ever know each other or make ourselves known; our private realities are incommunicable. Bonus point x 2: postmodernism.
400
A recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, often associated with a particular character.
What is leitmotif?
400
"__________ is an axe for the frozen sea within us." Bonus point: who said it?
What is literature? Bonus point: Kafka.
500
Literary movement that sought to restore passion, feeling, strong emotion, etc. to art and literature. Asserted primacy of individual over the collective (associated ideas: genius, the heroic "I"). Promoted spontaneity and imagination over rationalism and logic. Bonus point: what's the name of the poet associated with this movement who we parodied in the first week of class?
What is Romanticism? Bonus point: who is Wordsworth?
500
This author's wife went mad and accused him of having a secret affair with their daughter.
Who is Pirandello?
500
Fill in the blank: "So I started leafing through a history book to look it up. There were no dates in this history, but scrawled this way and that across every page were the worlds BENEVOLENCE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and MORALITY...Finally I began to make out what was written between the lines; the whole volume was filled with a single phrase: __________!" Bonus point: identify the speaker, the work, and its author. Bonus point x 2: interpret it!
What is "EAT PEOPLE"? Bonus point: The mad younger brother in "Diary of a Madman" by Lu Xun. Bonus point x 2: reading history "between the lines," i.e. seeing the real meaning of such slogans; the madman having more insight into society than the sane; cannibalism = a diseased, mad society devouring itself.
500
Name three of the "modern" strategies used by the Heaven and Village Silk Shops to improve business.
What are: 1. Camels 2. Unrolling the silk 3. Offering free cigarettes 4. Feeding customers sesame cakes 5. Allowing customers to haggle over prices 6. Letting customers feel like they're getting a good deal
500
"Though he was excluded, he took a bizarre pleasure in pressing knowledgeable people with insidious questions and forcing those who were part of the conspiracy of silence to utter explicit lies." ______ and _______ are two such people who lie to this character, while _______ tells him the truth.
Who are: 1. The shopkeeper selling coral necklaces and trinkets 2. The Venetian musician 3. The English clerk at the travel agency
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