Week16

Young-adult Fiction:

1. Lord of the Flies: Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.

The original UK Lord of the Flies book cover

2. William Golding: Sir William Gerald Golding CBE (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was an English novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his novel Lord of the Flies, he won a Nobel Prize in Literature, and was also awarded the Booker Prize for fiction in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book in what became his sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth.

Golding in 1983

3. Deus ex machine: Deus ex machina (Latin: [ˈdeʊs ɛks ˈmaː.kʰɪ.naː]: /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkiːnə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækᵻnə/; plural: dei ex machina) is a Latin calque from Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós), meaning 'god from the machine'. The term has evolved to mean a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object. Depending on how it is done, it can be intended to allow a story to continue when the writer has "painted himself into a corner" and sees no other means to progress the plot, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or as a comedic device.

Deus ex machina in classical theatre: Euripides' Medea, performed in 2009 in Syracuse, Italy

4. Medea: In Greek mythology, Medea (/mɪˈdiːə/; Greek: Μήδεια, Mēdeia, Georgian: მედეა) was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason. In Euripides' play Medea, Jason abandons Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers his daughter Glauce. The play tells of Medea avenging her husband's betrayal by killing their children.

Medea by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (painted 1866-68); its rejection for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1868 caused a storm of protest

5. Jason: Jason (/ˈdʒeɪsən/; Greek: Ἰάσων Iásōn) was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He was also the great-grandson of the messenger god Hermes, through his mother's side.

Jason and Medea - as depicted by John William Waterhouse, 1907.

6. Helios: Helios (/ˈhiːli.ɒs/; Ancient Greek: Ἥλιος Hēlios; Latinized as Helius; Ἠέλιος in Homeric Greek) was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia (according to Hesiod), also known as Euryphaessa (in Homeric Hymn 31) and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. Helios was described as a handsome titan crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. In the Homeric hymn to Helios, Helios is said to drive a golden chariot drawn by steeds (HH 31.14–15); and Pindar speaks of Helios's "fire-darting steeds" (Olympian Ode 7.71). Still later, the horses were given fire related names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon.

Head of Helios, middle period, Archaeological Museum of Rhodes

7. Argo: In Greek mythology, the Argo (/ˈɑːrɡoʊ/; in Greek: Ἀργώ, meaning 'swift') was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece. She was named after her builder, Argus.

The Argo (ca. 1500–1530), painting by Lorenzo Costa

8. Corinth: Corinth (/ˈkɒrɪnθ/; Greek: Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, pronounced [ˈkorinθos] (About this sound listen)) is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality of Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It is the capital of Corinthia. It was founded as Nea Korinthos or New Corinth (Νέα Κόρινθος) in 1858 after an earthquake destroyed the existing settlement of Corinth, which had developed in and around the site of ancient Corinth.

9. Savagery:

A. The quality or condition of being savage.

B. An act of violent cruelty.

C. Savage behavior or nature; barbarity.

10. Archetype: The concept of an archetype /ˈɑːrkɪtaɪp/ appears in areas relating to behavior, modern psychological theory, and literary analysis. An archetype can be:

A. a statement, pattern of behavior, or prototype (model) which other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy or emulate. (Frequently used informal synonyms for this usage include "standard example", "basic example", and the longer form "archetypal example". Mathematical archetypes often appear as "canonical examples".)

B. a Platonic philosophical idea referring to pure forms which embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing in Platonism

C. a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present, in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology

D. a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology (this usage of the term draws from both comparative anthropology and from Jungian archetypal theory). In various seemingly unrelated cases in classic storytelling, media, etc., characters or ideas sharing similar traits recur.

11. Knight: A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the monarch or country, especially in a military capacity. Historically, in Europe, knighthood was conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as a fighter for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback. Since the early modern period, the title of knight is purely honorific, usually bestowed by a monarch, as in the British honours system, often for non-military service to the country. The modern female equivalent in the United Kingdom is Dame.

Maximilian Gothic plate armour, 15th century

12. Hierarchy: A hierarchy (from the Greek hierarchia, "rule of a high priest", from hierarkhes, "leader of sacred rites") is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another.

13. Alice Munro: Alice Ann Munro (/ˈælᵻs ˌæn mʌnˈroʊ/, née Laidlaw /ˈleɪdlɔː/; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize winner. Munro's work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade." Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario. Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style. Munro's writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction," or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov." Munro is the recipient of many literary accolades, including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work. She is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction and was the recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award, as well as the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Runaway.

14. Nuclear warfare: Nuclear warfare (sometimes atomic warfare or thermonuclear warfare) is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on the enemy. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time-frame and can have a long-lasting radiological warfare dimension. A major nuclear exchange would have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to a "nuclear winter" that could last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack. Some activists had claimed in the 1980s that with this potential nuclear winter side-effect of a nuclear war, almost every human on Earth could starve to death. However analysts, who dismiss the nuclear winter hypothesis, calculate that with nuclear weapon stockpiles at Cold War highs, in a surprise countervalue global nuclear war, billions of casualties would have resulted in the nuclear holocaust with billions of more rural people, nevertheless surviving.

15. Conch: Conch (/ˈkɒntʃ/ or sometimes /ˈkɒŋk/)[1] is a common name that is applied to a number of different medium to large-sized shells. The term generally applies to large snails whose shell has a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends).

Apertural view of an adult shell of the queen conch Lobatus gigas, from Trinidad & Tobago

16. Beelzebub: Beelzebub or Beelzebul (/biːˈɛlzᵻbʌb/ bee-EL-zə-bub or /ˈbiːlzᵻbʌb/ BEEL-zə-bub; Hebrew: בַּעַל זְבוּב‎‎, Baʿal Zəvûv; Arabic: بعل الذباب‎‎, Ba‘al adh-dhabâb) is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron, and later adopted by Abrahamic religions as a given name to a winged demon. The name Beelzebub is associated with the Canaanite god Baal.

"Beelzebub and them that are with him shoot arrows" from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)

17. Testament of Solomon: The Testament of Solomon is an Old Testament pseudepigraphical work ascribed to King Solomon. It was written in the Greek language, some time in the early 1st millennium CE. It describes how Solomon was enabled to build his temple by commanding demons by means of a magical ring that was entrusted to him by the archangel Michael.

18. Mephistopheles: Mephistopheles (/ˌmɛfɪˈstɒfɪˌliːz/, German pronunciation: [mefɪˈstɔfɛlɛs]; also Mephistophilus, Mephistophilis, Mephostopheles, Mephisto, Mephastophilis, and other variants) is a demon featured in German folklore. He originally appeared in literature as the demon in the Faust legend, and he has since appeared in other works as a stock character.

Mephistopheles flying over Wittenberg, in a lithograph by Eugène Delacroix.

19. Erinyes: In Greek mythology the Erinyes (/ɪˈrɪniˌiːz/; sing. Erinys /ɪˈrɪnɪs/; Greek: Ἐρῑνύες [ῠ], pl. of Ἐρῑνύς [ῡ], Erinys), also known as the Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance; they were sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" (χθόνιαι θεαί). A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath". Walter Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called "Eumenides" in hell, "Furiae" on earth, and "Dirae" in heaven.

Clytemnestra tries to awake the sleeping Erinyes. Detail from an Apulian red-figure bell-krater, 380–370 BC.

20. Electra: In Greek mythology, Elektra (/ᵻˈlɛktrə/; Greek: Ἠλέκτρα, Ēlektra "amber") was the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus princess of Argos. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father.