Week07

Introduction to Western Literature:

1.      Foreshadow: To present an indication or a suggestion of beforehand.

2.      Flashback: A literary or cinematic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative.

3.      Dactylic hexameter: a form of meter or rhythmic scheme in poetry. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry. The premier examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

4.      Telemachus: a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central character in Homer's Odyssey.

Telemachus departing from Nestor

5.      Tantalus: a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus.

6.      Sisyphus: the king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity.

Persephone supervising Sisyphus in the Underworld

7.      Heracles: a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson (and half-brother) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters.

One of the most famous depictions of Heracles

8.      Calypso: one of the Nereids (sea nymphs) in Greek mythology.

9.      Herald: A person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger.

10.  Silver-footed >>> Thetis

11.  Pallas, bright-eyed >>> Athena

12.  Lamentation: a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem.

13.  Ransom: The release of property or a person in return for payment of a demanded price.

14.  Attendant: One who attends or waits on another.

15.  NATO: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

16.  E. E. Cummings: Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems—see name and capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright.Anachronistic: The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.

E. E. Cummings in 1953

17.  Elegy: In English literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

18.  One Art:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

19.  Nemesis: An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

20.  Prey: An animal hunted or caught by another for food.

21.  Predator: An organism that lives by preying on other organisms.

22.  Xerox, Q-lip, kotex, tampon, pampers: named after the name of company.