Question.2372 - Introduction to World Literature Comprehensive Final Exam This exam consists of 3 essay questions. Each question should be answered with a thesis statement, followed by supporting evidence from the text. You may use the anthology contained in Blackboard along with the course material in Blackboard to respond to the questions, but you are not allowed to use any sources outside of the anthology or the course. When you use quotes from the stories, be sure to use MLA in-text citation. Ex: (Chaucer 27). For poetry, use author and line numbers. For plays, use (Act 1:S2:3-6). Be sure to indicate the question number you are responding to. The response to each question should be a minimum of 500 words. Each section has a total value of 33 1/3 points. Submit your completed exam to the Turn-it-In link designated for the Comprehensive Final Exam Essay by end of day 12/1021. QUESTION #1: Consider the Iliad, Odyssey, Ramayana, and The Aeneid. Is there a unified view of duty in these works? Answer the question in a thesis statement. Explain your answer with examples from the text of each epic. QUESTION #2: Consider The Thousand and One Night frame tale and Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath Prologue” and “Wife of Bath Tale” from Canterbury Tales, both of which are considered stories from the same era, the Middle Ages (Medieval era), but from different cultures (Arabic/Islamic and British). What do these stories say about the similarities and differences between Islamic and British cultures? In responding to the question, consider types of society, characters of Shahrazad and Alison, storytelling, religious aspect, and how women are treated in their respective cultures. Use examples from the stories to support your ideas. QUESTION #3: Consider Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. How do each of these works approach the notion of identity? Support your response with examples from the texts.
Answer Below:
Answer 1 Thesis statement: Unified view of duty in Iliad, Odyssey, Ramayana, and The Aeneid. The primary trait of a loyal person is that he would do anything to prove his loyalty towards something or someone with honesty trust as well as commitment. This loyalty factor is very common in the four epics of the world The Iliad, The Ramayana, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid where the characters perform duties for the sake of loyalty they have for some people or beliefs. In the Iliad, we see that the son of Troy’s ruler Hector illustrates a very obvious phase of his character; a strong and sensible tool of loyalty and compassion towards his loved ones and his subjects along with the people of Troy by standing upfront on the enemy lines leading his side during the war (Macintosh et al. 56). This aspect of him showed the people that he is prepared to fight for the country and is also willing to die if necessary for his family. He showed his loyalty toward his younger brother even after knowing that he is the sole reason for the Trojan War. Even Achilles stays loyal to his friend Patroclus and takes part in the war which in the past he rejected for his friend’s revenge on his murderer. In Ramayana Rama is an ideal prince as well as an ideal man. He is loyal to his father and stepmother (Wood, 78). It does not take him any time to obey the orders from his father which in disguise was his stepmother’s wish. Rama is not the only one showing this characteristic of loyalty but also Hanuman and Bharat towards Rams. In Ramayana how Bharat had waited for his elder brother Rama to arrive from his fourteen years of exile and took care of the empire just for his elder brother to come and take over the throne. Hanuman was with Rama at all times of hardships and was the key element to finding Sita (Macintosh et al. 28). Odysseus and Aeneas were loyal to their motherland and 3 had taken some thorny journeys such as leaving their families behind and taking up weapons in their hands to defend their homeland. As Odysseus being a painter and sculptor took arms into his hands for the sake of his motherland, it took him 10 years to return home and reunite with his loving wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Aeneas's story is also very similar to that of Odysseus as he also fights bravely for his country yet couldn’t help but notice his city being burned to the ground. He flees from the city leaving behind his family (Wood, 75). Despite all these hardships, Aeneas transports the gods of the city to the land of Italy where in the future the Roman Empire was founded. He brought the legacy of his homeland on his forces to Italy. The loyalty of the heroes in these four epics inspires the readers and glorification makes the reader look up to them (Macintosh et al. 95). Loyalty seems to play a key role in the summoning of these epic heroes. Despite these epics written in different times and languages, readers find them connected through the aspect of finding an appealing and praiseworthy hero. Answer 2 Thesis Statement: Similarities and differences between Islamicand British cultures, considering types of society, characters ofShahrazad and Alison, storytelling, religious aspect, and the way the women are treated in theirrespective cultures. During the Islamic Golden Period, a corpus of Middle Eastern folk stories was gathered in Arabic and titled One Thousand and One Nights. Since the first English-language version, it has been referred to as the Arabian Nights (Bagliolid, 52). The Wife of Bath's Tale is one of the most well-known tales in Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It sheds light on women's roles in the late Middle Ages, and it was likely of significance to Chaucer personally, as the character is one of his most complex ones, with a Prologue that is longer 4 than her Tale.According to the church's conception of a woman is that her husband is her head and she should submit to him (The New American Bible, Ephesians 5: 22-24) (Warren, 12). Because of all that had been said about bad spouses by men, the fifth husband was questioning his woman (Wife of Bath, pg 699). The Prologue of The Wife of Bath lists and criticizes the extensive heritage of misogyny across medieval and ancient literature. As Cooper points out, the Wife of Bath's "materials are part of the vast medieval stock of antifeminism," citing one of many instances as St. Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum, which was "written to refute the proposition put forward by one Jovinianus that virginity and marriage were of equal worth." The fact that she is widowed and has remarried multiple times contradicts medieval expectations. She debunks Jerome's claim about chastity and marriage by pointing out that if God had demanded virginity, He would have condemned matrimony and procreation. Her inclusion of God as a defence for her carnal appetites is crucial since it demonstrates her extensive reading (Bagliolid, 63). The Thousand and One Nights revolve around a virtuous king who was betrayed and emotionally wounded by his wife, causing his morality to be warped. He swore to marry a maiden every night and then murder her the next morning. Shahrazad, the king's daughter, took a stand and married the king. She was able to save not just her own life, but also her kingdom, owing to her wit and storytelling (The Thousand and One Nights, pg 554) (Warren, 12446). Shahrazad was a decent woman who was willing to put her life on the line. It is indeed worth noting that Shahrazad manages to voice her rights and safeguard other women without dramatically changing her community. Her fierce individualism, distinctive wit, and seeming appeal transformed her into a feminist hero who transcends without fundamentally altering society's attitudes. 5 Women in medieval literature are stereotyped as being promiscuous, manipulative, malicious, and unfaithful. Women's treatment as immoral and untrustworthy is contrary to their nature and who He designed women to be (Bagliolid, 32). Women are not scandalous and manipulative in the way that men portray them; they are decent wives, try to live a holy life like the Blessed Mother, and therefore support men. According to most of the literature of the same medieval era, women were believed to be pure and were allowed to have offspring only after they are married. Women were portrayed as second-class citizens. Answer 3 Thesis statement: Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the works approach the notion of identity. There exists a similarity between Cervantes and Shakespeare in the sense that they both write stories assuming that the character in itself is the reader, the reader can either be functional or dysfunctional. The two readings might be different in the sense that they depict two different situations or plots but the intention and style of presenting the plot remain the same in both of their work (Tuan, 28). The protagonist Don Quixote and Prospero both are acting as dysfunctional readers since they are unable to operate religiously in their specific society (Milan for Don Quixote and La Mancha for Prospero respectively). Here also we can notice the difference between the characters we observe that Don Quixote epitomizes chivalric romance whereas, Prospero epitomizes the study of magic and liberal arts. The communities of both the protagonist display the will of functioning within themselves i.e., the community of Don Quixote insist on others to attune to the chivalric utopia of Don Quixote, whereas, in the case of Prospero, he governs an island that is ruled under magic (Jaramillo, 20). From being the dysfunctional reader, they change into functional 6 readers in the case where something or someone else catalyzes the conversations, for Prospero it was Miranda’s marriage and for Don Quixote, it is the printing press. In becoming the functional reader, both Don Quixote and Prospero disavow their respective community and the book which created them. Essentially, we are the readers of such readings thus, it is we who engage with Prospero and Don Quixote’s community. Cervantes makes use of the Part I prologue for deliberately engaging the outside readers, with a message of granting blessings to any interpretation which our respective strategy may lead us to: “you can say what you will about the story without fear of being abused for any ill or rewarded for any good you may say of it” (Jaramillo, 72). Shakespeare narrates a postlude in Prospero’s voice that makes the character implore us “But release me from my bands/With the help of your good hands. As you from crimes would be pardoned be/Let your indulgence set me free", he is specifically asking for applause and implicitly asking or begging for freedom from his community and allowing him to return to Milan. Here Shakespeare, very implicitly asks the readers to appreciate his work (Jaramillo, 125). Here in both the cases, the authors talk to us in direct speech like a one-to-one conversation using eloquence and this impels us into the conversation. Intertextuality was issued to understand how to have these two authors concurrently write two characters as dysfunctional and functional readers. Intertextuality is the idea of texts existing in ongoing knitted relation with one another. This concept is used for drawing connections between characters of the authors who appear to be different initially but which aren’t (Tuan, 298). however, such concepts are considered trivial by some for the fact that the authors mention the sources for their writings and which can be checked for verifying or forming a link. Basnett used four books for proving the link which is – Titus Andronicus, Don Quixote both Part, and The Tempest. 7 References Bagliolid, Valentina. "The Clerk, the Wife of Bath and the Merchant: perspectives on women in the" Canterbury Tales"." (2020). http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12608/21933 Jaramillo, Eder. From Erotic Conquest to the Ravishing Other: Imperial Intercourse in Shakespeare's Drama and Anglo-Spanish Rivalry. Diss. The University of Nebraska- Lincoln, 2020.https://www.proquest.com/openview/90d8f8ab867393064349db27f341832e/1?p q-origsite=gscholar&cbl=44156 Macintosh, Fiona, et al., eds. Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press, USA, 2018. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TE5yDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP 1&dq=Consider+the+Iliad,+Odyssey,+Ramayana,+and+The+Aeneid.++Is+there+a+u nified+view+of+duty+in+these+works%3F++&ots=mkkcCVp_Di&sig=jpISEnME16 d99O1Jpqr5gtEUFq4&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false Tuan, Iris H. "Translocal Mobility: Hakka Opera Betrayal Inspired by Shakespeare’s Lost Play Cardenio." Transnational Performance, Identity and Mobility in Asia. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore, 2018. 19-38.DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-7107-2_2 Warren, Michelle R. "Chaucer and the future of world literature." Literature Compass 15.6 (2018): e12446.https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12446 Wood, Barry. Invented History, Fabricated Power: The Narrative Shaping of Civilization and Culture. Anthem Press, 2020. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y48HEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP 1&dq=Consider+the+Iliad,+Odyssey,+Ramayana,+and+The+Aeneid.++Is+there+a+u 8 nified+view+of+duty+in+these+works%3F++&ots=j8gYa- tQDD&sig=IXl6Pujzb4tbkOmpuB2izmTLHug&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=falseMore Articles From Literature
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