MASTERPIECES THAT INFLUENCED THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD
STORY IMPORTANT DETAILS AUTHOR
The Bible Not one book, but library of 73 books
40 different writers, 1500 years (15 centuries), claims
one author
Over 10,000 events. One story. Unity of theme. No
contradictions.
“Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Spirit of
God” - 2 Peter 1:21
Mahershalalhashbaz (longest name in the bible)
- Isaiah 8:1
Words occuring only once in the bible
o Gnat (Matthew 23:24)
o Eternity (Isaiah 57:15)
o Grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5)
“Jesus wept” (shortest verse) - John 11:35
Methuselah – the oldest man at 969 y/o (Gen 5:57)
st
Ehud – 1 left handed man (Judge 3:15)
Dogs are mentioned 41 times, cats are never
mentioned.
Joash – the youngest king at 7 y/o (2 Chr 24:11)
Noah’s ark was 450’ long, 75’ wide, 45’ high and had 3
stories (Gen 6:15)
Goliath’s armor weighed 125 pounds (1 Sam 17:5)
Green – the first color mentioned (Gen 1:30)
Amen! – “so be it”
A ball is mentioned only once (Isa 22:18)
Cheese is mentioned 3 times
Abraham was circumcised when he was 99 years old
(Gen 17:24)
Good bye! – “God be with ye”
Quoran Koran / Qur’an
Recitation. Revealed by angel Gabriel to Prophet
Muhammad
114 chapters, 30 parts
Mecca (13) and Madina (10)
The Book of Dead Funerary spell Not written by a single author, but
God of the dead (osiris) written by different scribes and
Guide to the next world artists
200 hymns
Nesitanebisheru
Exodus 20:7-16
Book of the Dead of Nesitanebisheru
Exodus 20:7-16
Written on papyrus
Series of spells and incantation
th
16 century BCE
Earlier text as pyramid texts, coffin texts
Buried with the deceased
Iliad and Odyssey 24 books Homer
Achilles ( ILIAD main character )
Briseis
Thetis (mother)
CHARACTERS- Achilles, Chryses, Hector, Priam, Thetis,
The Gods, Patroclus, Briseis, Agamemnon
Achilles kisses Briseis before she is taken to
Agamemnon.
Thetis asks Zeus that the Trojan win victory after
victory as long as her son Achilles does not fight.
Achilles mourns the death of Patroclus.
Thetis consoles him.
Hephaestus makes Achilles’ new weapons.
Thetis brings Achilles the new shield.
It tells the story uf the trojan war, a ten-year siege of
the city of troy by a coalition of mycenaean greek
states.
Quarrel between king agamemnon and achilles. The
feud is primarily sparked by a dispute over a woman
named briseis.
The iliadd explores themes of glory, wrath,
homecoming and fate.
Conflict began when Paris, the son of troy’s king
priam, seized a willing helen, the most beautiful
woman in the world, from the achean king menelaus.
The acchaeans raised a massive army and sailed to
troy, bent on winning helen back by force.
Trojan war- a conflict between the city of troy and its
allies against a confederation of greek cities, known as
achaeans.
Dactylic hexameter
Opens in medias res – in the middle of things
Hector, the greatest warrior of troy
War, heroism
Gifts presented to achilles: seven bronxe tripods, ten
talents of gold, twenty cauldrons
Odysseus ( ODYSSEY main character )
10 years after trojan war
Ithaca
Penelope
Telemachus (son)
Ten years have passed since the fall of Troy, and the
Greek hero Odysseus still has not returned to his
kingdom in Ithaca.
A large and rowdy mob of suitors who have
overrun Odysseus’s palace and pillaged his land
continue to court his wife, Penelope. She has
remained faithful to Odysseus.
Divided into 24 books and follows the greek hero
odysseus, king of ithaca, and his journey home after
the trojan war.
Hospitality and perseverance.
Been away from home for 20 years, 10 of which were
spent fighting in the trojan war
Held captive by the goddess calypso on a remote
island, while his wife penelope and son telemachus are
being beseiged by suitors vying for penelope’s hand
and ithaca’ throne.
Divided into three parts exosition, journey, return to
ithaca
Mahabharata Pandavas and Kuravas Vsaya
Arjuna wins the hand of Draupadi
Dharma
Ancestors of the Pandavas and Kauravas
“O king, surely a man who meets with
calamity as a result of his own acts should not blame
the gods, destiny, or others. Each of us receives the
just results of our actions.”
Growing Rivalry between the Pandavas and the
Kauravas
“Birth is unclear and men are like rivers
whose origins are often unknown.”
Arjuna wins the hand of Draupadi
“Share your owned to your brothers so your
brothers will share their owned to you.”
The Dice Game and the Disgrace of Draupadi
“Excessive self-centeredness leads to
unrealistic demands and unreasonable expectations
from life.”
The Importance of Dharma
“None should ever perform virtue with a
desire to gain its fruits. Such a sinful trader of virtue
will never reap the results. ... Do not doubt virtue
because you do not see its results. Without doubt, the
fruits of virtue will be manifest in time, as will the
fruits of sin. The fruits of true virtue are eternal and
indestructible.“
Preparations for War
“Frustrations and anger can lead to defeat.”
Dharma – hindu moral law
The story revolves around two family- the pandavas
and kauravas – who battle for the throne of
hastinapura in the kurukshetra war.
18 parvas
th
4 century or earlier
Longest epic
The lot of the mahabharata revolves around a struggle
for political power between two groups of cousins, the
pandavas and the kauravas.
Yudhistira- the eldest of the pandava brothers
Arjuna- pandava prince and the mpst skilled archer in
the world
Bhima- pandva prince, strongest warrior
Draupadi- the wife of the five pandava brothers
Krishna- an avatar of the god vishnu
Karna- kaurava prince, son of kunti
Duryodhana- the villain
Bhishma- kuru prince
The war lasts for 18 days
The Divine Comedy The Circles of Inferno Dante Alighieri
o Good Pagands and Unbaptized
o Lust
o Gluttony
o Squanders and Greedy
o Wrathful and Slothful
o Heretics
o Violent
o Fraud
o Traitor
Heaven / Paradise
Sunlight – feelimgs/individ (1-4)
Spiritual light – individ/consciousness (5-9)
o Moon – break a vow
o Mercury – ambition
o Venus – verity
o Sun – wisdom
o Mars – predestination
o Jupiter – justice
o Saturn – cotemplation
o Stars – reflection of spiritual light
o Primum Mobile – connection with universe
1321
Divided into three parts- inferno, purgatorio, paradiso
Dante, is miraculously enabled to undertake an
ultramundane journey, which leads him to visit the
souls in hell, purgatory and paradise.
Virgil and beatrice – the guide… virgil to inferno and
purgatorio and beatrice to heaven
Dante explores human nature with a deep level of
understanding and points out human weaknesses
th
The Song of Roland 11 century Turold
About the chivalric death of roland and his
companions, how he is betrayed by ganelon, and
aveged by charles.
One Thousand and One Arab Unknown
th
Nights 14 century
Prose, prose adventure tales, romances
Scheherazade, Shahrayar
El Cid El Cantar de Mio Cid Abbot Peter
Spanish literature
Oldest Castillian epic poem (epopeya) based on true
story
3700 verses, 14-16 syllables, each with a caesura
between the hemistiches
The Canterbury Tales 29 pilgrims Geoffrey Chaucer
Harry Bailey (host)
Each pilgrim was to narrate two tales on the way to
canterbury and two more while returning
120 should be the tales
Cook’s and the Squire’s tals are unfinished
The knight tells the first tale
The Canterbury Tales consists of the stories related by
the 29 pilgrims on their way to Saint Thomas Becket’s
shrine in Canterbury. Harry Bailey, the Host, had
proposed a scheme in the General Prologue whereby
each pilgrim was to narrate two tales on the way to
Canterbury and two more while returning. In the
course of the journey the Canon and his Yeoman join
the pilgrims. However The Canterbury Tales are
incomplete. There should have been a hundred and
twenty tales in all according to the original plan but
Chaucer only completed twenty-three tales. Out of
these, the Cook’s and the Squire’s tales are unfinished.
Two tales are imperfectly attributed to the teller: the
Sea captain’s tale begins as though a woman were
telling it and was actually earlier meant for the Wife of
Bath, while the Second Nun refers to herself as an
"unworthy son of Eve". The Knight tells the first tale.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Not a novel, its purpose is to edify, to teach and to Harriet Beecher Stowe
transform society
Analects of Confucius Kun Fu – Tzu (551-479 BC) Confucius
Kung / Kong – family name
Zhong ni – personal name
“Master Kung”
“Confucius”- Latinization of “Kung Fu-Tzu”
Topics
o The Chun-Tzu (the Confucian hero) (1-3)
o Virtue (jen, ren) (3-5)
o Propriety (li) (5-7), including filial piety (5-6)
& religious propriety (6-7)
o The Silver Rule (central ethical principle) (7)
o The importance of studying & learning (7-8)
o Words & actions (8-9)
o “Three Things” (9)
o Government (9-11)
o The Dao (11-12)
o Miscellaneous teachings (12-13)
o Descriptions of Confucius (13-14)
The traditional version of the Analects is not typically
organized.
Confucius claimed to derive his teachings from “the
Ancients,” whose wisdom is embodied in “The Five
Classics” (Wu Jing)
o The I Jing (“Book of Changes”)
o The Shu Jing (“Book of History”)
o The Shih Jing (“Book of Odes” *poetry+)
o The Li Ji (“Book of Rites”)
o The Ch’un-ch’iu (“Spring & Autumn Annals”)
Analects (Lun-Yu)
The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong)
The Great Learning (Ta-hsueh)
The Book of Meng-Tzu
The Ancient State of Lu (JINAN)– where Confucius was
born
His influence spread to Korea and Japan
Lunyu- conversation
-zhu xi
Sichu- four books
