Literature Section II - Literary Journeys and Quest Narratives Flashcards

Mimetic Storytelling

Literary representations of the external social world, traced back to antiquity starting with Homer's Odyssey.

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

A 1946 masterpiece of literary criticism by Erich Auerbach that traces how cultures represent reality through journey narratives.

Erich Auerbach

A Jewish-German exile living in Istanbul during World War II who wrote Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.

Mt. Moriah

The location to which Abraham treks with his son Isaac in a Biblical quest marked by three days of travel, mystery, and narrative gaps.

Quest Narrative

Any sort of story in which a journey is undertaken to complete some goal, during which the protagonist experiences some significant change.

Archetype

A story element, such as a character type or a plot structure, that recurs across multiple generations and cultures.

Epic of Gilgamesh

A Sumerian epic written around 2000 bce that features archetypal elements of quest narratives.

Beowulf

An epic poem written sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries containing archetypal quest narrative features.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

An extant story from Arthurian mythology written around the fourteenth century containing archetypal features of a quest narrative.

The Count of Monte Cristo

An 1846 novel featuring a quest narrative centered on exacting revenge rather than defeating a monster or saving a realm.

The Remains of the Day

A 1989 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro featuring a butler taking a leisurely car ride while reflecting on his life, choices, and personal dignity.

Ethical Transformation

A narrative transformation where the primary emphasis is on how the hero's values, beliefs, and ideas of right and wrong change as a result of a quest.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

An 1885 novel by Mark Twain featuring an ethical transformation as Huck shifts his unreflective racist ideas about slavery and racial segregation.

Shōgun

A television series adapted by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks from James Clavell's novel, depicting John Blackthorne's ethical transformation regarding English views on honor and death.

The Lord of the Rings

A 1954–55 epic where geography symbolizes a binary moral value system, with the quest leading from natural goodness to the industrial brutality of Mt. Doom.

Heart of Darkness

An 1899 novel by Joseph Conrad in which Marlow's pursuit of Kurtz into the Congolese interior symbolizes a descent into the human psyche.

Geographical Transformation

A transformation in narrative involving journeys into places radically different from home, unexplored areas, different time periods, or other planets and dimensions.

Annihilation

A 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer featuring geographical transformations through journeys into disturbing locations that violate the laws of nature.

Existential Transformation

A transformation focused on a hero's changed self-definition, including conversions of religion, national identity, or understanding of life purpose.

Creation Lake

A 2024 novel by Rachel Kushner where a spy's surveillance of an environmental group leads to an existential transformation regarding human relation to nature.

Bildungsroman

A coming-of-age story about the growth and maturation of a young character, often combining geographical, ethical, and existential transformations.

Wilheim Meister's Apprenticeship

A 1795–96 Bildungsroman by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in which a young character matures after traveling away from home.

The Underground Railroad

A 2016 novel by Colson Whitehead featuring geographical and existential transformations as Cora travels for freedom while redefining her view of U.S. core principles.

Travel Writing

A popular literary form that explores the nature and purpose of traveling, working as an autobiographical project or an extended presentation of local nature and society.

The Wonder of England

A fictional guidebook written by Jane Symons, filled with descriptions and illustrations, used by Stevens to plan his motoring trip in The Remains of the Day.

Orientalism

A term coined by Edward Said in 1978 referring to the process by which European travel writing created an enduring, false constellation of ideas about non-European cultures.

Edward Said

The scholar who coined the term Orientalism in his influential 1978 book to describe how European narratives created false concepts of non-European cultures.

Contact Zones

Social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination.

Mary Louise Pratt

The scholar who defined contact zones as social spaces where disparate cultures encounter one another under asymmetrical power relations.

Jane Symons

The fictional author of the travel guidebook The Wonder of England featured in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day.