Sarah Kells Class Notes Jan 24-Feb 4

Medievalism and Allegory
Common Motifs include:
-Church/faith
-Values
-Allegory
-Salvation/damnation
-Life/death

Important info from the worksheet:
Literature is an embodyment of culture.
Allegory is something external to validate a text - something can be utterly unrealistic, but if there is a   commonly told story or myth to "validate" it, this is allegory.
An Everyman is a character that represents culture as a whole - a "common man," often unnamed with very few characteristics.  I am not sure, but I thought that the Lawyer and the Accountant at the beginning of Heart of Darkness were everymen - they were characterised by their careers, and they were merely listening rather than participating.

Trends in Western Literature
Classical --> Medieval --:> Renaissance --> Romantic --> Modernist --> Post modern
Protagonist: God/nobility -----------------------------------------> lower class/common man
Themes: God/nobility -----------------------------------------------> individualism, self, family
Motivations: Religion/fate ----------------------------------------> self, family, nothing
Forms: Epic/drama ---------------------------------------------------> essays, papers, novels
Techniques: 3rd person, all knowing ------------------------> 1st person, not all knowing
---------------------------------------power slips---------------------------------------->
Plot-------------------------------------------------------------------character driven--->
loyalty to Gods-----------------------------------------------------------------family---->
all knowing-------------------------------------------------------------------...not------->
nobility-----------------------------------------------------------------------everyman--->
---------------------------------------less formal----------------------------------------->
---------------------------------------less limited----------------------------------------->
------------------------------moves towards human narrators----------------------------->

Why do we need to know this?  This enables us to make reasonable assumptions of when a piece was written.

Northrop Frye
First to develop the idea that all literature is based upon one story.
Start at a great place: if it goes down to trials and ends well, it is a quest.
                                 if it goes to trials and does not return, it is a tragedy.
Start at trials: if it goes up to a great place, it is a comedy.
                     if it goes around and around in little circles, it is an irony.

When writing...
Capitalize a specific time if the person lived in that time.
Keep it lowercase if the person didn't live in that time.

Structure and Support
-Topic sentence
-clear, arguable claim
-sufficient evidence (3 pieces of evidence, 2 quoted)
-evidence relates to claim
-all required information included

Style and Usage
-Plain style (precise, clean)
-avoid first person
-include parallelism, repetition, sentence length
-no informal diction or usage
-correct syntax and diction