This is a short essay that compares a common theme or motif in two works of literature.
Choose two works of literature that we have studied so far in this course.
At least one of these works must be from Unit 3 or 4.
Choose a common theme, topic, or motif in these two works.
Your essay should explore the following:
- Similarities and differences between how the two works treat your theme, topic, or motif.
- The significance of your theme, topic, or motif.
- The main point you want to make about the theme, topic, or motif—in other words, an argumentative thesis statement.
- Details from the literary works that support your thesis statement.
This essay should follow the basic introduction, body, conclusion structure learned in College Composition.
Your essay should be at least 500 words long.
Epics and the Otherworld Epics and the Otherworld ENG2043 Unit 2 Part 1: What is an epic? An epic is a long narrative poem about an adventure of some kind - usually, but not always, a journey. Furthermore, an epic must tell a story of great significance, like the origin or destiny of a nation, a culture, or the cosmos. Homer's great war epic, The Iliad, focuses on the doom of Troy. The Odyssey explores the aftermath of that war. Virgil's Aeneid, which was inspired by Homer's work, looks back at the mythological origins of Rome. The Greek and Roman gods intervene in the events of all three poems, so the stories have cosmic as well as human significance. Later epics, like Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost, also explore the relationship between humanity and the divine, but within a Christian rather than a pagan framework. Epics are not an exclusively Western genre, though. India produced major epics like The Ramayana and The Bhagavad Gita. Epics like Sunjata provide insight into pre-colonial African cultures. Across cultures, the epic hero is exceptional in some way. In the older, mythological epics, an association with divinity serves as the marker of this exceptional status. Achilles from The Iliad and Aeneas from The Aeneid are the sons of goddesses. Arjuna from The Bhagavad Gita has the god Krishna as his chariot driver. In Korean shamanist ballads, which are epic in scope, the legendary Princess Bari transforms into a goddess. Part 2: Inanna and Sumeria Some of the world's oldest epics were written in Mesopotamia, or modern-day Iraq, which was home to the great Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations. From these cultures we have the Epic of Gilgamesh and the even older hymns to the goddess Inanna. We still have access to this ancient literature because, as Anne Trubek put it in an article for Smithsonian Magazine, the Sumerians wrote their literature on "iPhone-sized clay tablets" that could survive for millennia if not broken. The Sumerian gods were depicted as having emotions similar to those of humans: love, rage, jealousy, and regret. The Inanna hymns, then, give us a human-like goddess as an epic heroine, in contrast to the later godlike humans. Inanna frequently comes off as a trickster goddess in the Sumerian mythology. One poem, for example, tells of a visit with Enki, the god of wisdom. Inanna gets the older god drunk and convinces him to give her a collection of magical objects that symbolize his wisdom and power. When Enki sobers up the next morning, he regrets what he has done and sends his servant to chase after Inanna. She nevertheless escapes with her loot (ETCSL 1.3.1). Unlike the Greek goddess of wisdom Athena, who springs fully formed from the head of her father Zeus, Inanna must plot to claim her power. Stories like this one portray Inanna as an ambitious goddess working her way up the Sumerian pantheon. Part 3: Inanna's Descent The most famous Inanna tale, though, describes her descent into the underworld. This may also be the oldest surviving written epic. The use of repetition at the beginning of this poem suggests that this work has oral and ritual roots. That is, it was chanted or sung before ever being written down. Nevertheless, the poem soon moves into a truly, well, epic adventure. Inanna descends from heaven to the underworld to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law, the Bull of Heaven. Her sister Ereshkigal, however, does not welcome Inanna. Instead, Ereshkigal forces Inanna to strip off her garments of power. Then Ereshkigal puts Inanna on trial and ultimately has her executed. Afterward, the goddess' corpse is hung on a wall hook (ETCSL 1.4.1). Inanna knows in advance, though, that her sister's reception might prove unfriendly. Even before her descent, Inanna puts in place a scheme for her own resuscitation and rescue. Inanna's plan works, but it comes with a price: someone must take her place in the realm of the dead. Inanna refuses to sacrifice anyone who is mourning for her. However, she finds her own husband, Dumuzi, sitting happily on his throne. In her fury, Inanna sends the underworld demons after him. The tablet containing the last piece of this story is damaged, but we are able to fill in the plot details from other sources (ETCSL 1.4.1). The demons catch Dumuzi, but his sister, Geshtinanna, agrees to take her brother's place for half of the year. Since Geshtinanna is an agricultural goddess, this contributes to the cycle of the seasons (Mark). Part 4: Interpretation What are we to make of this story? Diane Wolkstein and Noah Kramer provide a great deal of guidance for us in the commentary portions of Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, but you can read their book at your leisure. As a supplement, though, let's consider Joshua Mark's intriguing article "Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice" from the Ancient History Encyclopedia. Mark acknowledges the popular Jungian archetypal interpretation of this story: namely that Inanna must confront her "shadow," go through a process of death and rebirth, and ultimately emerge as a more complete person. Mark doubts, though, that the epic would have meant this for the original Sumerian audience. Instead, Mark draws attention to an episode in the related Epic of Gilgamesh. There, Inanna's pride sets in motion the events that lead to the Bull of Heaven 's death. That is, Inanna brings about the death of Ereshkigal's husband, and the latter goddess seeks to avenge him. Thus, according to Mark, this is a tale about how Inanna escapes justice and transfers the consequences of her irresponsible behavior onto others. To be clear, this is hardly the final word on the subject. For example, the philosopher James Cunningham acknowledged Mark's central point, but argued that Inanna nevertheless functions as the romantic heroine of the story (211). Structurally, the epic is Inanna's story, not her sister's. When weighing different interpretations of any literary work, we must understand that literary criticism is different from arithmetic - for literature generally doesn't lend itself to a single correct solution. Instead, there may be multiple plausible interpretations of a story. Critics must make the case for their favored readings. That is, critics must show why their interpretations are plausible and how they contribute to our understanding. Part 5: Underworld and Otherworld Inanna's epic is a classic example of an otherworld adventure. In her case, the otherworld is an underworld. Descent, though, is only one passageway into the otherworld. In some Native American folklore, the otherworld is not down, but up. That is, there is another world in the sky. We see this in some of the Winnebago tales collected by Paul Radin. Let's consider, for example "The Orphan Boy Who Was Captured by Some Bad Thunderbirds." Like Inanna, the hero is taken prisoner by hostile spirits in the otherworld. Like Inanna, he must be purged before the hostile spirits can kill him - although rather than surrendering his clothing, they want him to empty his stomach. Like Inanna, he receives assistance and escapes in the end. The Winnebago folktales, of course, aren't epics. For one thing, at least in the versions Radin collected, they're prose rather than poetry. However, like the Inanna hymns, they reflect their culture's fundamental mythology. There are a surprising number of parallels between these ancient tales from opposite sides of the globe, and together they help remind us how much our earliest literature is connected to the world of myth. (CSLO 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4, 1.4.1, 1.4.2, 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.5, 2.2.6, 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 3.1.4, 3.1.5, 3.1.6, 3.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.3) References The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL). University of Oxford. 30 November 2016. Mark, Joshua J. "Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice." Ancient History Encyclopedia. 23 February 2011. Radin, Paul. "Winnebago Tales." The Journal of American Folklore 22.85 (1909), pp. 288-313. Trubek, Anne. "What the Heck is Cuneiform, Anyway?" Smithsonian Magazine. 20 October 2015. Wolkstein, Diane. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. Harper, 1983. Old Stories, New Spain Old Stories, New Spain ENG2403 Unit 4 Part 1: Sor Juana's Life Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was perhaps the first truly great writer to emerge on the North American continent following the European conquest. Anna More has provided a brief biography of Sor Juana's life in the introduction to the Norton Critical Edition we're using for this unit. As such, all we need here is an even briefer summary. Sor Juana was a seventeenth century writer, intellectual, and nun (sor is Spanish for "sister"). She lived in what is now Mexico and was nicknamed the "Tenth Muse" for the quality of her literary works. During her teenage years, she was a lady-in-waiting in the viceroy's court, and she maintained connections to powerful friends even after taking holy vows. The last years of her life are a bit mysterious. In a short period of time, Sor Juana faced a gender-driven attack on her intellectual activities, then offered a fierce defense of the same, before ultimately renouncing her intellectual life. Although scholars continue to debate the topic, we will probably never know for sure to whether this decision was driven by internal motivation, or by external coercion, or by some complex mixture of the two. The documentation needed for a clearer picture simply doesn't exist. What does still exist, though, is Sor Juana's significant corpus of written works. Let's turn our attention to those. Part 2: Colonialism Christian writers during the Renaissance used Greek and Roman myths for allegorical or metaphorical purposes. Consider the story of Phaethon from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Phaethon was a demigod who perished while trying to drive his father's chariot, the sun. In Sonnet 49, Sor Juana transforms Phaethon into a symbol of heroic striving. In Ballad 44, she uses allusions to both Phaethon and Icarus (who flew too close to the sun) to suggest the riskiness of love. As