21st Century World Literature Reviewer

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering African, Anglo-Saxon, English Renaissance, Victorian, Modernist, Japanese, and Chinese literature, as well as the elements of drama.

Proverbs (African Literature)

Short, deep sayings that use everyday nature, animals and community life to teach moral lessons, share wisdom, and guide human behavior across generations.

Dilemma Tale

An African story-form intended to provoke discussion.

The Ashanti Folktales

African folktales that often tell a moral lesson, describe a myth, or answer a question about the natural world.

Epic

An extended narrative in poetic and/or musical form dealing with topics or themes that are central to the cultures in which these epics are produced.

Sunjata

The hero of an African Epic popular among the people of Mali in Sabel region of West Africa.

Negritude

Defined by Léopold Sédae Senghor as the sum of the cultural values of the black world as they are expressed in the life, the instiutions, and the works of black men.

David Diop

Author of Africa, one of his most famous poems in which he explores the history of colonialism in Africa and expresses hope for a post colonial Africa.

Wole Soyinka

Poet and playwright, a towering figure in world literature who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.

Ousmane Sembéne

Known as the father of African films and as one of the most prolific French-speaking African writers in the first century of creative writers in francophone Africa.

Telephone Conversation

A poem by Wole Soyinka that exposes the presence of racial discrimination at the individual level in society even after the passing of laws against it.

Alfred the Great

The Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex from 871 to 899 who is considered the founder of the modern English Nation.

Beowulf

An epic hero who possesses superior physical strength, is supremely ethical, and embodies the highest ideals of Anglo-Saxon culture.

Geoffrey Chaucer

An English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier, and diplomat known as the Father of English poetry.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The last of the Pearl Poet's poems, acknowledged by virtually all critics to be the masterpiece of the manuscript.

Sonnet

A 14-line iambic pentameter poem that became the most favorite poetic form during the Renaissance Period.

Ben Jonson

An important English playwright, poet, and literary critic during the Renaissance Period who was a contemporary of William Shakespeare and known for satirical plays and poetry.

Francis Bacon

An English philosopher, statesman, and essayist best known for championing the Scientific Revolution and developing the empirical scientific method based on inductive reasoning and careful experimentation.

John Donne

The founder of the metaphysical school of poetry and the greatest representative of the metaphysical poets, born of a family with a strong Roman Catholic tradition.

Romanticism

A literary movement whose most important tenets were belief in the importance of the individual, imagination, and intuition.

William Wordsworth

Known as the father of Romantic Poetry who revolutionized poetry by writing about ordinary life and nature in common language.

Victorian Age

A literary period from 1837 to 1901 characterized by a shift to society, realism, and social problems, moving from personal expression to objective surveying of human life's problems.

Charles Dickens

Famous English realist novelist who created unforgettable characters and scenes of London's working poor.

Wuthering Heights

A novel published in 1847, remembered as the single novel published by English novelist Emily Brontë.

Modernism

A literary period characterized by uncertainty, changes, and experimentation.

The Tale of Genji

A work of tremendous length and complexity by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, considered as the world's first true novel.

Tanka

The most prevalent verse form in traditional Japanese Literature, consisting of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables including one pause.

Haiku

A Japanese verse form consisting of 3 lines of 5-7-5 syllables, characterized by precision, simplicity, and suggestiveness.

Book of Songs (Shih Ching)

The oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works.

The Analects

An ancient Chinese book (also known as Lun Yu) composed of a large collection of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius.

Drama

Derived from the Greek word Dran meaning To do or To Act, defined as a story told in front of an audience.