PRAXIS 5038 WORLD LITERATURE

Tupac!

From The Rose that Grew from Concrete Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete Proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk without having feet Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams it learned 2 breathe fresh air Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared!

Pavel Basinsky

Russian author who wrote "Flight from Paradise" about Tolstoy

Kostis Palamas

a Greek poet who wrote the words to the Olympic Hymn. He was a central figure of the Greek literary generation of the 1880s and one of the cofounders of the so-called New Athenian School (or Palamian School, or Second Athenian School) along with Georgios Drosinis, Nikos Kampas, Ioanis Polemis.

The Rubaiyat

is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation of a selection of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". . Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light. II. Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky I heard a voice within the Tavern cry, 'Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry.' III. And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted - 'Open then the Door! You know how little while we have to stay, And, once departed, may return no more.' IV. Now the New Year reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. V. Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose, And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one Knows; But still the Vine her ancient ruby yields, And still a Garden by the Water blows. VI. And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine High piping Pehlevi, with 'Wine! Wine! Wine! Red Wine! ' - the Nightingale cries to the Rose That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine. VII. Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. VIII. Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life kep falling one by one. IX. Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say; Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away. X. But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot: Let Rustum lay about him as he will, Or Hatim Tai cry Supper - heed them not. XI. With me along the strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot - And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne! XII. A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness - Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now! XIII. Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! XIV. Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin The Thread of present Life away to win - What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in! XV. Look to the Rose that blows about us - 'Lo, Laughing,' she says, 'into the World I blow: At once the silken Tassel of my Purse Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.' XVI. The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two - is gone. XVII. And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again. XVIII. Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his Hour or two and went his way. XIX. They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: And Bahram, that great Hunter - the Wild Ass Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. XX. I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head. XXI. And this delightful Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean - Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! XXII. Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past Regrets and future Fears - To-morrow? - Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. XXIII. Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, And one by one crept silently to Rest. XXIV. And we, that now make merry in the Room They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom, Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth Descend, ourselves to make a Couch - for whom? XXV. Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend, Before we too into the Dust descend; Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie; Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End! XXVI. Alike for those who for To-day prepare, And those that after some To-morrow stare, A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries 'Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There! ' XXVII. Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their Works to Scorn Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. XXVIII. Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown forever dies. XXIX. Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went. XXX. With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand labour'd it to grow: And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd - 'I came like Water and like Wind I go.' XXXI. Into this Universe, and Why not knowing, Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. XXXII. Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And many Knots unravel'd by the Road; But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate. XXXIII. There was the Door to which I found no Key: There was the Veil through which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was - and then no more of Thee and Me. XXXIV. Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried, Asking, 'What Lamp had Destiny to guide Her little Children stumbling in the Dark? ' And - 'A blind Understanding! ' Heav'n replied. XXXV. Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn I lean'd, the secret Well of Life to learn: And Lip to Lip it murmur'd - 'While you live, Drink! - for, once dead, you never shall return.' XXXVI. I think the Vessel, that with fugitive Articulation answer'd, once did live, And merry-make, and the cold Lip I kiss'd, How many Kisses might it take - and give! XXXVII. For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day, I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay: And with its all obliterated Tongue It murmur'd - 'Gently, Brother, gently, pray! ' XXXVIII. And has not such a Story from of Old Down Man's successive generations roll'd Of such a clod of saturated Earth Cast by the Maker into Human mould? XXXIX. Ah, fill the Cup: - what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday, Why fret about them if To-day be sweet! XL. A Moment's Halt - a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the Waste - And Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd The Nothing it set out from - Oh, make haste! XLI. Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine, To-morrow's tangle to itself resign, And lose your fingers in the tresses of The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. XLII. Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit Of This and That endeavor and dispute; Better be merry with the fruitful Grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit. XLIII. You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. XLIV. And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and He bid me taste of it; and 'twas - the Grape! XLV. The Grape that can with Logic absolute The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: The subtle Alchemest that in a Trice Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute. XLVI. Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendril as Snare? A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a Curse - why, then, Who set it there? XLVII. But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me The Quarrel of the Universe let be: And, in some corner of the Hubbub couch'd, Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee. XLVIII. For in and out, above, about, below, 'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go. XLIX. Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too. L. The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd, Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep, They told their fellows, and to Sleep return'd. LI. Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, Is't not a shame - Is't not a shame for him So long in this Clay suburb to abide? LII. But that is but a Tent wherein may rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. LIII. I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And after many days my Soul return'd And said, 'Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell.' LIV. Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire, Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire. LV. While the Rose blows along the River Brink, With old Khayyam and ruby vintage drink: And when the Angel with his darker Draught Draws up to Thee - take that, and do not shrink. LVI. And fear not lest Existence closing your Account, should lose, or know the type no more; The Eternal Saki from the Bowl has pour'd Millions of Bubbls like us, and will pour. LVII. When You and I behind the Veil are past, Oh but the long long while the World shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As much as Ocean of a pebble-cast. LVIII. 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays. LIX. The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes; And he that toss'd Thee down into the Field, He knows about it all - He knows - HE knows! LX. The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. LXI. For let Philosopher and Doctor preach Of what they will, and what they will not - each Is but one Link in an eternal Chain That none can slip, nor break, nor over-reach. LXII. And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky, Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, Lift not thy hands to it for help - for It Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. LXIII. With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed: Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. LXIV. Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare; To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair: Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why: Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where. LXV. I tell You this - When, starting from the Goal, Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung, In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul. LXVI. The Vine has struck a fiber: which about If clings my Being - let the Dervish flout; Of my Base metal may be filed a Key, That shall unlock the Door he howls without. LXVII. And this I know: whether the one True Light, Kindle to Love, or Wrath - consume me quite, One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught Better than in the Temple lost outright. LXVIII. What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke A conscious Something to resent the yoke Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke! LXIX. What! from his helpless Creature be repaid Pure Gold for what he lent us dross-allay'd - Sue for a Debt we never did contract, And cannot answer - Oh the sorry trade! LXX. Nay, but for terror of his wrathful Face, I swear I will not call Injustice Grace; Not one Good Fellow of the Tavern but Would kick so poor a Coward from the place. LXXI. Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the Road I was to wander in, Thou will not with Predestin'd Evil round Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin? LXXII. Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And who with Eden didst devise the Snake; For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give - and take! LXXIII. Listen again. One Evening at the Close Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose, In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone With the clay Population round in Rows. LXXIV. And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot Some could articulate, while others not: And suddenly one more impatient cried - 'Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot? ' LXXV. Then said another - 'Surely not in vain My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en, That He who subtly wrought me into Shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again.' LXXVI. Another said - 'Why, ne'er a peevish Boy, Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy; Shall He that made the vessel in pure Love And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy? ' LXXVII. None answer'd this; but after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: 'They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake? ' LXXVIII: 'Why,' said another, 'Some there are who tell Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell The luckless Pots he marred in making - Pish! He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.' LXXIX. Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh, 'My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry: But, fill me with the old familiar Juice, Methinks I might recover by-and-by! ' LXXX. So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, The Little Moon look'd in that all were seeking: And then they jogg'd each other, 'Brother! Brother! Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking! ' LXXXI. Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, And wash my Body whence the Life has died, And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt, So bury me by some sweet Garden-side. LXXXII. That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air, As not a True Believer passing by But shall be overtaken unaware. LXXXIII. Indeed the Idols I have loved so long Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong: Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup, And sold my Reputation for a Song. LXXXIV. Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore - but was I sober when I swore? And then, and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. LXXXV. And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor - well, I often wonder what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the Goods they sell. LXXXVI. Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows! LXXXVII. Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse - If dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd To which the fainting Traveller might spring, As springs the trampled herbage of the field! LXXXVIII. Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! LXXXIX. Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane, The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again: How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden after me - in vain! XC. And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass Among the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass, And in your joyous errand reach the spot Where I made one - turn down an empty Glass! TAMAM SHUD

Zorba the Greek

novel by Nikos Kazantzákis, published in Greek in 1946 The unnamed narrator is a scholarly, introspective writer who opens a coal mine on the fertile island of Crete. He is gradually drawn out of his ascetic shell by an ebullient villager named Zorba, who revels in the social pleasures of eating, drinking, and dancing. The narrator's reentry into a life of experience is completed when his newfound lover, the village widow, is ritually murdered by a jealous mob.

Voltaire

1694-1778 one of the greatest of all French writers. Although only a few of his works are still read, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. Through its critical capacity, wit, and satire, his work vigorously propagates an ideal of progress to which people of all nations have remained responsive. His long life spanned the last years of classicism and the eve of the revolutionary era. Wrote "Candide"

Andrew Barton "Banjo"Paterson

1864-1941 Australian poet and journalist noted for his composition of the internationally famous song "Waltzing Matilda."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

1927-2014 Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 (see Nobel Lecture: "The Solitude of Latin America"), mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude).

Margaret Atwood

1939- Canadian writer best known for her prose fiction and for her feminist perspective. ole reversal and new beginnings are recurrent themes in her novels, all of them centred on women seeking their relationship to the world and the individuals around them. The Handmaid's Tale (1985; film 1990; opera 2000) is constructed around the written record of a woman living in sexual slavery in a repressive Christian theocracy of the future that has seized power in the wake of an ecological upheaval; a TV series based on the novel premiered in 2017 and was cowritten by Atwood.

Taslima Nasrin

1962- Bangladeshi feminist author who was forced out of her country because of her controversial writings, which many Muslims felt discredited Islam Wrote poem, "Character"

Sophocles

496-406BCE with Aeschylus and Euripides, one of classical Athens' three great tragic playwrights. The best known of his 123 dramas is Oedipus the King. Wrote "Antigone"

One Hundred Years of Solitude

It was considered the author's masterpiece and the foremost example of his style of magic realism. SUMMARY: This is the author's epic tale of seven generations of the Buendía family that also spans a hundred years of turbulent Latin American history, from the postcolonial 1820s to the 1920s. Patriarch José Arcadio Buendía builds the utopian city of Macondo in the middle of a swamp. At first prosperous, the town attracts Gypsies and hucksters—among them the old writer Melquíades, a stand-in for the author. A tropical storm lasting nearly five years almost destroys the town, and by the fifth Buendía generation its physical decrepitude is matched by the family's depravity. A hurricane finally erases all traces of the city. By the end of the novel Melquíades has been revealed as the narrator; his mysterious manuscripts are in fact the text of the novel. Critics have noted the influence of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in the book's labyrinthine fantasy. DETAIL: Widely acknowledged as Gabriel García Márquez's finest work, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the fictional Colombian town Macondo and the rise and fall of its founders, the Buendía family. Revealed through intriguing temporal folds, characters inherit the names and dispositions of their family, unfolding patterns that double and recur. The mighty José Arcadio Buendía goes from intrepid, charismatic founder of Macondo to a madman on its fringes. Macondo fights off plagues of insomnia, war, and rain. Mysteries are spun out of almost nothing. This beguilingly colorful saga also works out a wider social and political allegory—sometimes too surreal to be plausible, at times more real than any conventional realism could afford. An exemplification of so-called magic realism, this allegorical texture incorporates a sense of the strange, fantastic, or incredible. Perhaps the key sociopolitical example is the apparent massacre by the army of several thousand striking workers whose dead bodies seem to have been loaded into freight trains before being dumped in the sea. Against the smoke screen of the official version, the massacre becomes a nightmare lost in the fog of martial law. The disappeared's true history takes on a reality stranger than any conventional fiction, demanding fiction for the truth to be told. While the novel can be read as an alternative, unofficial history, the inventive story telling brings to the foreground sensuality, love, intimacy, and different varieties of privation. Imagine the wit and mystery of the Arabian Nights and Don Quixote told by a narrator capable of metamorphosing from Hardy into Kafka and back in the course of a paragraph. García Márquez may have spawned clumsy imitations whose too clever inventions merely tire, but this is a strange and moving account of solitude.

Ulysses

first excerpted in The Little Review in 1918-20, at which time further publication of the book was banned. it was published in book form in 1922 by Sylvia Beach, the proprietor of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Co. There have since been other editions published, but scholars cannot agree on the authenticity of any one of them. An edition published in 1984 that supposedly corrected some 5,000 standing errors generated controversy because of the inclusion by its editors of passages not in the original text and because it allegedly introduced hundreds of new errors. The novel is constructed as a modern parallel to Homer's Odyssey. All of the action of the novel takes place in Dublin on a single day (June 16, 1904). The three central characters—Stephen Dedalus (the hero of Joyce's earlier Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising canvasser, and his wife, Molly Bloom—are intended to be modern counterparts of Telemachus, ______ (Odysseus), and Penelope, and the events of the novel parallel the major events in Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War. Occasionally illuminating, at other times these allusions to the ancient work seem designed ironically to offset the often petty and sordid concerns that take up much of Stephen's and Bloom's time and continually distract them from their ambitions and aims. The book also conjures up a densely realized Dublin, full of details, many of which are—presumably deliberately—either wrong or at least questionable. But all this merely forms a backdrop to an exploration of the inner workings of the mind, which refuses to acquiesce in the neatness and certainties of classical philosophy. Although the main strength of _____ lies in its depth of character portrayal and its breadth of humour, the book is most famous for its use of a variant of the interior monologue known as the stream-of-consciousness technique. Joyce thereby seeks to replicate the ways in which thought is often seemingly random and there is no possibility of a clear and straight way through life, and by doing so he opened up a whole new way of writing fiction that recognized that the moral rules by which we might try to govern our lives are constantly at the mercy of accident, chance encounter, and byroads of the mind. Whether this is a statement of a specifically Irish condition or of some more universal predicament is throughout held in a delicate balance, not least because Bloom is Jewish, and is thus an outsider even—or perhaps especially—in the city and country he regards as home. Some scholars regard this classic as a masterwork of Modernism, while others hail it as the pivotal point of Postmodernism.

India of my Dreams

Dr. Rajendra Prasad in his forward to this book observes, "The matchless weapon of truth and non-violence which Gandhi used is needed by the world to cure it of many of its ills." The book, places before the reader not only the basic and fundamental principles of truth and nonviolence, but also indicates how we can help to fulfill them by establishing a polity and social life, through the instrumentality of a constitution and the dedication of the human material which this vast country has thrown upon us to work without any external fetters or internal inhibitions. This book is the most significant of Mahatma Gandhi's writings, as it presents to the reader a concise information of Gandhi's views on all problems related to India and her people, and therefore may prove helpful not only to all students of Gandhian thought but also to constructive workers. Gandhi said, "I would like to see India free and strong so that she may offer herself a willing and pure sacrifice for the betterment of the world. India's freedom must revolutionize the world's outlook upon peace and war. Her impotence affects the whole of mankind. 76 chapters of this book discuss vital issues of Gandhi's view on Swaraj, the Curse of Industrialization, Class War, Problem of Unemployment, Daridranarayan, Sarvodaya, Theory of Trusteeship, Non-violent Economy, Panchayat Raj, Village Industries, Gospel of Swadeshi, Cow Protection, A call to Youth, Evil wrought by Foreign Medium, New Education, Regeneration of Indian Woman, Communal Unity, Peace Brigades, India, Pakistan and Kashmir, India & world Peace, etc. Gandhi had refused to subscribe to the theory that Muslims of India are a separate nation! "My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. For I believe with my soul that the God of the Quran is also the God of the Gita and that we are all, no matter by what name designated, children of the same God. I must rebel against the idea that millions of Indians who were Hindus the other day changed their nationality on adopting Islam as their religion." Therefore, Gandhi, the father of Indian independence should feel little inclined to enthuse over independence that has been drawn on the partition of the country and at the cost of many lives lost.

Miguel de Cervantes

Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. His novel Don Quixote has been translated, in full or in part, into more than 60 languages. Editions continue regularly to be printed, and critical discussion of the work has proceeded unabated since the 18th century.

"The Prophet"

by Khalil Gibran presents the farewell observations on and recommendations about life and death of Almustafa, the chosen and beloved Prophet, as he ends a twelve-year sojourn in Orphalese. Almustafa, the chosen and beloved Prophet around whom the story revolves, has spent twelve years of his youth in Orphalese, serving as the people's harp, flame, seeker of silence and guardian of the night. Much of his time has been spent in the overlooking hills, watching and listening to their lives. The people have generously met Almustafa's physical needs, but he realizes that some have criticized his aloofness. Now the ship he has been watching for to take him home arrives, and Almustafa comes down from the hills to the temple, bittersweet about leaving. The people gather to see him off, hungry to imbibe whatever wisdom he can deliver, for posterity's sake. In the temple and on the prompting of the seer Almitra, who believes in him, a tongue-tied and emotional Almustafa agrees to respond to questions about what separates birth and death. Almitra opens the question-and-answer session, and the responses inspire others to seek guidance about things close to their hearts. Almustafa's responses are all delivered to the whole citizenry of Orphalese, but each is also tailored to the individual questioner, the sincere and the cynical. There are twenty-six questions regarding various aspects of life. Addressing each question individually, Almustafa exhibits a general tendency to show, through allusions to nature and everyday activities, the interrelatedness of life. He rejects many of the formalities and restrictions characterizing such human institutions as law and religion. He dismisses common views about marriage dissolving the spouses' individuality, molding children to the parents' preconceived ideas about their futures and prayer being about intercession in time of need, want or sorrow. Nudity, a significant taboo among all the peoples of the Middle East, is used several times as a symbol for natural purity and to question formalized views on morality. Generosity can result in good or evil, depending on the motivations of the giver and the receiver. Many aspects of life are seen as two sides of a single coin. Almustafa urges the people to see even in life's negative aspects some spark of good, and he urges the people, young, old and middle-aged, rich and poor, male and female, to appreciate the unity of life under God and behave accordingly. As evening falls, Almitra signals that the interchange has ended by blessing the day, the city and Almustafa's sage words. He objects that he has drawn from them more than he has provided. The crowd follows Almustafa tearfully to the docks, where he delivers a moving and lengthy farewell oration, thanking and encouraging the people he has loved and tried to serve, justifying his methods and urging them to seek excellence in all things and wait patiently for the hidden things in life to be fully revealed. Almustafa remains encouraging, challenging, hopeful and - above all - enigmatic to the end, promising, "A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me," words Almitra takes to heart as she alone remains to watch the empty sea.

The Seagull

drama in four acts by Anton Chekhov, performed in 1896 and published in Russian the following year as Chayka. A revised edition was published in 1904. The play deals with lost opportunities and the clash between generations. The main characters, all artists, are guests at a country estate. They are Mme Arkadina, a middle-aged actress; her lover, Trigorin, a successful writer; her son Konstantin, a writer; and Nina, a young aspiring actress whom Konstantin loves. Mme Arkadina, jealous of Nina's youth and promising career, acts cruelly and hatefully toward Konstantin, belittling his new play and withholding the approval he desperately seeks from her. Nina, impressed by Trigorin's fame, ignores Konstantin, who kills a seagull and shows it to her, perhaps symbolically referring to his broken dreams. All four go their separate ways, but two years later they are reunited at the same estate. When Nina again rejects Konstantin, he destroys his writings and shoots himself while his mother, unaware, plays cards in another room. In Act 1, The Nikolaev family is gathered at their awesome summer home. Big brother Sorin, sixty years old, lives at the estate. His famous sister, Arkadina, has arrived for vacation with her lover Trigorin. Arkadina's son Konstantin has been laboring at an original play that premieres that night and stars the beautiful neighbor girl Nina. What could go wrong, right? Everything. Other friends and neighbors will attend the performance: Shamrayev, the farm manager, his wife Paulina, and his daughter Masha; Masha's suitor Medvedenko; and the local doctor Dorn. It's exciting! But it's a disaster. Jealous, spiteful Arkadina undermines the performance and upsets her son Konstantin. He's distraught because he failed in front of Nina, whom he loves. A couple of weeks later, in Act 2, Nina has fallen out of love with Konstantin. When he shoots a seagull and threatens to kill himself, she just moves farther away from him—and toward the writer Trigorin. The attraction is mutual, to the fury of Arkadina. This isn't the only love triangle in the play, however: Medvedenko's in love with Masha; Masha's in love with Konstantin; and Paulina's in love with Dorn (don't forget—she's already married). Sorin's getting sicker and Shamrayev still enjoys torturing the aristocrats by denying them horses. In Act 3, Arkadina and Trigorin are preparing to return to Moscow. Nina indirectly declares her love for Trigorin, who feels the same way. He'd like to stay. No way no how, says Arkadina, and pulls out all the actressy stops to get him back—for now. She's much more concerned about preserving her romantic relationship than the one with her son, who has shot himself in despair over Nina's rejection. Arkadina leaves the house with Trigorin, but not before he has promised to see Nina in Moscow. Masha plans to marry Medvedenko. Act 4 begins two years later. Masha is unhappily married to Medvedenko, and they have a neglected baby. Konstantin lives at home with his uncle. He recounts the sad story of Nina, who hooked up with Trigorin, lost the baby, and was abandoned. And has become a mediocre actress. Because Sorin is very ill—maybe dying—Arkadina and Trigorin drop in to visit. The glamorous couple offers mildly encouraging words to Konstantin, who has become a published writer. While the others socialize, Konstantin receives a visit from Nina. Nervous and ill, she's just stopped in before she has to be on her way again to an acting gig in a small town. Konstantin begs her to stay with him but Nina, still in love with Trigorin, rejects him. She leaves, and Konstantin goes into the next room. He shoots himself.

Lois LOwry

wrote "The Giver" YA

Ancient Eternal and Immortal Spirit

Immortal spirit of antiquity, Father of the true, beautiful and good, Descend, appear, shed over us thy light Upon this ground and under this sky Which has first witnessed the unperishable fame. Give life and animation to those noble games! Throw wreaths of fadeless flowers to the victors In the race and in the strife! Create in our breasts, hearts of steel! In thy light, plains, mountains and seas Shine in a roseate hue and form a vast temple To which all nations throng to adore thee, Oh immortal spirit of antiquity! Kostis Palamas

P.L Travers

wrote Mary Poppins YA

The Little Prince

YA fable and modern classic by French writer, aristocrat, and pioneering pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, published in French, with his own watercolor illustrations SUMMARY: In this enchanting, allegorical tale, the narrator is a pilot who has crash-landed in a desert (similar to Saint-Exupéry's actual crash in the Sahara desert in 1935), and while trying to mend his crashed aircraft he is interrupted by a small boy who asks him to draw a sheep. Although taken aback, he does so and thus begins a series of conversations between himself and the Little Prince. The latter explains that he travels through the universe from asteroid to asteroid, each populated by only one inhabitant. The prince has also cultivated a precious rose back on his planet and is dismayed to discover that roses are so common on Earth. A desert fox convinces the prince, who is generally scornful of logic, that he is responsible for loving the rose and that this act of giving provides his life with meaning. Satisfied, the prince returns to his planet. As well as being a lovely, poetical story that children adore because it depicts the world from their point of view, it is a sharp criticism of the absurdities of adult life. Each grown-up the Little Prince meets, whether a businessman, a lamplighter, or geographer, embodies a flaw possessed by adults, such as greed, or pursuing futile, meaningless tasks. Saint-Exupéry believed firmly that children see the important things in life—such as the bonds of friendship and responsibility—more clearly than adults do because they see with their hearts, not just with their eyes. ("One sees clearly only with the heart," says the fox to the prince in the story's most quoted lines. "The essential is invisible to the eye.") In other words, children see with awe what adults look at with cynicism, and in the conversations between the pilot and the Little Prince the former is reminded of what childhood was like. By the end of the book he has been changed totally by the encounter. Younger children have long loved this simple story, while older readers have been moved by its deep and multilayered message.

Beowulf

is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It may be the oldest surviving long poem in Old English and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. A date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025.[2] The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet. King Hrothgar of Denmark, a descendant of the great king Shield Sheafson, enjoys a prosperous and successful reign. He builds a great mead-hall, called Heorot, where his warriors can gather to drink, receive gifts from their lord, and listen to stories sung by the scops, or bards. But the jubilant noise from Heorot angers Grendel, a horrible demon who lives in the swamplands of Hrothgar's kingdom. Grendel terrorizes the Danes every night, killing them and defeating their efforts to fight back. The Danes suffer many years of fear, danger, and death at the hands of Grendel. Eventually, however, a young Geatish warrior named Beowulf hears of Hrothgar's plight. Inspired by the challenge, Beowulf sails to Denmark with a small company of men, determined to defeat Grendel. Hrothgar, who had once done a great favor for Beowulf's father Ecgtheow, accepts Beowulf's offer to fight Grendel and holds a feast in the hero's honor. During the feast, an envious Dane named Unferth taunts Beowulf and accuses him of being unworthy of his reputation. Beowulf responds with a boastful description of some of his past accomplishments. His confidence cheers the Danish warriors, and the feast lasts merrily into the night. At last, however, Grendel arrives. Beowulf fights him unarmed, proving himself stronger than the demon, who is terrified. As Grendel struggles to escape, Beowulf tears the monster's arm off. Mortally wounded, Grendel slinks back into the swamp to die. The severed arm is hung high in the mead-hall as a trophy of victory. Overjoyed, Hrothgar showers Beowulf with gifts and treasure at a feast in his honor. Songs are sung in praise of Beowulf, and the celebration lasts late into the night. But another threat is approaching. Grendel's mother, a swamp-hag who lives in a desolate lake, comes to Heorot seeking revenge for her son's death. She murders Aeschere, one of Hrothgar's most trusted advisers, before slinking away. To avenge Aeschere's death, the company travels to the murky swamp, where Beowulf dives into the water and fights Grendel's mother in her underwater lair. He kills her with a sword forged for a giant, then, finding Grendel's corpse, decapitates it and brings the head as a prize to Hrothgar. The Danish countryside is now purged of its treacherous monsters. The Danes are again overjoyed, and Beowulf's fame spreads across the kingdom. Beowulf departs after a sorrowful goodbye to Hrothgar, who has treated him like a son. He returns to Geatland, where he and his men are reunited with their king and queen, Hygelac and Hygd, to whom Beowulf recounts his adventures in Denmark. Beowulf then hands over most of his treasure to Hygelac, who, in turn, rewards him. In time, Hygelac is killed in a war against the Shylfings, and, after Hygelac's son dies, Beowulf ascends to the throne of the Geats. He rules wisely for fifty years, bringing prosperity to Geatland. When Beowulf is an old man, however, a thief disturbs a barrow, or mound, where a great dragon lies guarding a horde of treasure. Enraged, the dragon emerges from the barrow and begins unleashing fiery destruction upon the Geats. Sensing his own death approaching, Beowulf goes to fight the dragon. With the aid of Wiglaf, he succeeds in killing the beast, but at a heavy cost. The dragon bites Beowulf in the neck, and its fiery venom kills him moments after their encounter. The Geats fear that their enemies will attack them now that Beowulf is dead. According to Beowulf's wishes, they burn their departed king's body on a huge funeral pyre and then bury him with a massive treasure in a barrow overlooking the sea.

Omar Khayyam

1048-1131 Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet, renowned in his own country and time for his scientific achievements but chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation of a collection of his robāʿīyāt ("quatrains") in The Rubáiyát

Dante Alighieri

1265-1321 Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy). Divine Comedy, a landmark in Italian literature and among the greatest works of all medieval European literature, is a profound Christian vision of humankind's temporal and eternal destiny. On its most personal level, it draws on his own experience of exile from his native city of Florence. On its most comprehensive level, it may be read as an allegory, taking the form of a journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. The poem amazes by its array of learning, its penetrating and comprehensive analysis of contemporary problems, and its inventiveness of language and imagery. By choosing to write his poem in the Italian vernacular rather than in Latin, Dante decisively influenced the course of literary development. (He primarily used the Tuscan dialect, which would become standard literary Italian, but his vivid vocabulary ranged widely over many dialects and languages.) Not only did he lend a voice to the emerging lay culture of his own country, but Italian became the literary language in western Europe for several centuries.

Moliere

1622-1673 french actor and playwright, the greatest of all writers of French comedy. Although the sacred and secular authorities of 17th-century France often combined against him, the genius of him finally emerged to win him acclaim. Comedy had a long history before him, who employed most of its traditional forms, but he succeeded in inventing a new style that was based on a double vision of normal and abnormal seen in relation to each other—the comedy of the true opposed to the specious, the intelligent seen alongside the pedantic. An actor himself, he seems to have been incapable of visualizing any situation without animating and dramatizing it, often beyond the limits of probability. Though living in an age of reason, he had the good sense not to proselytize but rather to animate the absurd, as in such masterpieces as Tartuffe, L'École des femmes, Le Misanthrope, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and many others. It is testimony to the freshness of his vision that the greatest comic artists working centuries later in other media, such as Charlie Chaplin, have been compared to him. Tartuffe, comedy in five acts, produced in 1664 and published in French in 1669 as Le Tartuffe. It was also published in English as The Imposter.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749-1832 German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. He is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany's supreme philosophers (who have often drawn on his works and ideas) and composers (who have often set his works to music). Wrote play "Faust"

Mahatma Gandhi

1869-1948 was an Indian activist who was the leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule. "India of my Dreams"

Fyodor Dostoyevski

1821-1881 Russian novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived. Literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology, theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas. Wrote "Crime and Punishment"

Henrik Ibsen

1828-1906 major Norwegian playwright of the late 19th century who introduced to the European stage a new order of moral analysis that was placed against a severely realistic middle-class background and developed with economy of action, penetrating dialogue, and rigorous thought. wrote play "A Doll's House"

August Stringberg

1849-1912 Swedish playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, who combined psychology and Naturalism in a new kind of European drama that evolved into Expressionist drama. His chief works include The Father (1887), Miss Julie (1888), Creditors (1888), A Dream Play (1902), and The Ghost Sonata (1907).

Lady Gregory

1852-1932 rish writer and playwright who, by her translations of Irish legends, her peasant comedies and fantasies based on folklore, and her work for the Abbey Theatre, played a considerable part in the late 19th-century Irish literary renascence. Play: "Workhouse Ward"

Anton Chekhov

1860-1904 Russian playwright and master of the modern short story. He was a literary artist of laconic precision who probed below the surface of life, laying bare the secret motives of his characters. Chekhov's best plays and short stories lack complex plots and neat solutions. Concentrating on apparent trivialities, they create a special kind of atmosphere, sometimes termed haunting or lyrical. Chekhov described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, and he is regarded as the outstanding representative of the late 19th-century Russian realist school. He wrote The Seagull, drama in four acts performed in 1896 and published in Russian the following year as Chayka. A revised edition was published in 1904. The play deals with lost opportunities and the clash between generations.

Luigi Pirandello

1867-1936 Italian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature. With his invention of the "theatre within the theatre" in the play Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore (1921; Six Characters in Search of an Author), he became an important innovator in modern drama.

Maria Elena Cruz Varela

1953- is an award-winning poet, novelist and political activist. She was imprisoned for 18 months between 1991 and 1993 and then held under house arrest before going into exile in 1994. At the time of her arrest in November 1991, she was an active member of Criterio Alternativo, an independent political analysis group. In June that year, the group had published a manifesto entitled 'Declaration of Cuban Intellectuals' demanding reforms, national debates and free elections.

James Joyce

1882-1941 Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods in such large works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Kahlil Gibran

1883-1931 Lebanese American philosophical essayist, novelist, poet, and artist who wrote poem "The Prophet"

Nikos Kazantzakis

1883-1957 Greek writer whose prolific output and wide variety of work represent a major contribution to modern Greek literature.

Boris Pasternak

1890-1960 Russian poet whose novel Doctor Zhivago helped win him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 but aroused so much opposition in the Soviet Union that he declined the honour. An epic of wandering, spiritual isolation, and love amid the harshness of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, the novel became an international best seller but circulated only in secrecy and translation in his own land.

Federico Garcia Lorca

1898-1936 Spanish poet and playwright who, in a career that spanned just 19 years, resurrected and revitalized the most basic strains of Spanish poetry and theatre. He is known primarily for his Andalusian works, including the poetry collections Gypsy Ballads

Bertol Brecht

1898-1956 German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Mother Courage and Her Children, play by Bertolt Brecht, written in German as Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder: Eine Chronik aus dem Dreissigjährigen Krieg, produced in 1941 and published in 1949.

Viktor Frankl

1905-1997 as an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy". His best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning (published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism, and originally published in 1946 as Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, meaning Nevertheless, Say "Yes" to Life: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living. Frankl became one of the key figures in existential therapy and a prominent source of inspiration for humanistic psychologists.[3]

Chinua Achebe

1930-2013 Nigerian novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions of the social and psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of Western customs and values upon traditional African society. His particular concern was with emergent Africa at its moments of crisis; his novels range in subject matter from the first contact of an African village with the white man to the educated African's attempt to create a firm moral order out of the changing values in a large city. wrote "things fall apart"

Amy Tan

1952- American author of novels about Chinese American women and the immigrant experience. She was a highly successful freelance business writer in 1987 when she took her Chinese immigrant mother to revisit China. There, for the first time, met two of her half sisters, a journey and a meeting that inspired part of her first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989; film 1993). The novel relates the experiences of four Chinese mothers, their Chinese American daughters, and the struggles of the two disparate cultures and generations to relate to each other.

Jung Chang

1952- s a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China.

The Joy Luck Club

1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. We're going to be honest here: there's way too much going on in The Joy Luck Club to briefly summarize. You should definitely go check out the chapter summaries to get a better grasp on everything that happens...and everyone it happens to. Here's why: this book details a whopping eight perspectives on living a life that's rich with both Chinese history and traditions and American life and traditions. The novel is comprised of sixteen chapters, with each woman (with the exception of Suyuan) getting two chapters with which to tell her story. And, surprisingly, this novel isn't several thousand pages long. (It weighs in at at relatively slim 288 pages.) The novel opens after the death of Suyuan Woo, an elderly Chinese woman and the founding member of the Joy Luck Club. Suyuan has died without fulfilling her "long-cherished wish" to be reunited with her twin daughters who were lost in China. Suyuan's American-born daughter, Jing-mei (June) Woo, is asked to replace her mother at the Joy Luck Club's meetings. At the first meeting, Jing-mei learns that her long-lost half-sisters have been found alive and well in Shanghai. The other three elderly members of the Club - her mother's best friends and Jing-mei's "aunties" - give Jing-mei enough money to travel to China and meet her sisters. Essentially, Jing-mei has the opportunity to fulfill her mother's greatest wish. Jing-mei's aunties assign her the task of telling her twin sisters about the mother they never knew. The only problem is, Jing-mei feels like she never really knew her own mother. This simple premise allows the book to cast a much wider net—it raises the question of how well daughters know their mothers. The other three members of the Joy Luck Club - Ying-ying, Lindo, and An-mei - all have wisdom that they wish to impart to their independent, American daughters. However, their daughters - Lena, Waverly, and Rose - all have their own perspectives on life as Americans. No shocker here: the moms and daughters don't always see eye to eye, despite loving each other. They're intelligent, complicated women whose lives are made even more complicated by the fact that they live at the intersection of different languages and cultures. At the end of the book, Jing-mei flies to China to meet her half sisters. She's extremely apprehensive about meeting them but, when the sisters do meet for the first time, they instantly hug and cry. Jing-mei's mother's wish has been fulfilled, and through the process, Jing-mei feels that she has come closer to her mother.

Man's Search for Meaning

946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity. The book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory called logotherapy.

Pearl S. Buck

American author noted for her novels of life in China. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Pearl Sydenstricker was raised in Zhenjiang in eastern China by her Presbyterian missionary parents. Initially educated by her mother and a Chinese tutor, she was sent at 15 to a boarding school in Shanghai. The Good Earth (1931), a poignant tale of a Chinese peasant and his slave-wife and their struggle upward, was a best seller. The book, which won a Pulitzer Prize (1932), established Buck as an interpreter of the East to the West and was adapted for stage and screen.

Jonathan Swift

Anglo-Irish author, who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver's Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and "A Modest Proposal" (1729).

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Anonymously written ncient Mesopotamian odyssey recorded in the Akkadian language about the king of the Mesopotamian city-state Uruk he story begins in Uruk, a city in Ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia) where Gilgamesh rules as king. Though Gilgamesh is known to be stronger than any other man, the people of Uruk complain that he abuses his power. The gods hear these complaints, and the god Aruru creates Enkidu, a man as strong as Gilgamesh. Aruru forms Enkidu out of water and clay, out in the wilderness. Enkidu lives in nature, in harmony with the wild animals. Eventually a trapper discovers that Enkidu has been destroying his traps. The trapper describes Enkidu as the strongest man in the world. Both the trapper's father and Gilgamesh tell him that when Enkidu sleeps with a woman, the animals he lives with will reject him. The trapper then brings a temple prostitute, Shamhat, to Enkidu, and she seduces him. Afterwards, when Enkidu returns to the hills where he lives, the animals run away from him. Get the entire Gilgamesh LitChart as a printable PDF. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S. Download it! The epic of gilgamesh.pdf.medium Enkidu eventually travels to Uruk and blocks Gilgamesh's way while walking in the city. They wrestle, but Gilgamesh beats Enkidu. They each commend each other's strength and declare themselves friends. Because of a dream he has that Enkidu interprets, Gilgamesh realizes that he has not yet made a name for himself. He pledges to travel to the Land of Cedars and slay the giant Humbaba who guards it. With the help of Shamash, the sun god, Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat Humbaba. Humbaba pleads for forgiveness, but Enkidu delivers the killing blow. Ishtar, the goddess of love, invites Gilgamesh to her palace and proposes marriage. Gilgamesh turns her down, however, because she treated her previous lovers badly, often turning them into animals. Enraged by his refusal, Ishtar threatens to smash the doors of hell and release the dead unless her father, Anu, releases the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh. Because of her threat, Anu does so. The Bull of Heaven wreaks havoc in Uruk, killing many, but Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat it. The following night, Enkidu has a dream of the gods gathered together and agreeing that one of the two (Enkidu and Gilgamesh) must die for the killing of Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. Enkidu grows increasingly sick. Gilgamesh and the people of Uruk mourn Enkidu as he dies. Again Gilgamesh journeys out into the wilderness, now hoping to find the legendary Utnapishtim, who survived a great flood many years before and was granted immortality. After crossing a mountain range that no man has ever crossed before, Gilgamesh arrives at the Garden of the Gods. Siduri, whom Gilgamesh meets in the Garden of the Gods, warns Gilgamesh that he will not cross the sea. Gilgamesh then searches for Urshanabi the ferryman, and in his anger Gilgamesh smashes an essential piece of Urshanabi's boat. Urshanabi tells Gilgamesh to prepare 120 wooden poles for their journey, and they set off. After crossing the sea, Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim on an island and asks him how to seek immortal life. Utnapishtim says that Gilgamesh will not find immortality, and he tells Gilgamesh a story: Long ago, in a city called Shurrupak, the god Enlil grew sick of the city's noisiness and created a flood to destroy mankind. But one man, Utnapishtim, received instructions in a dream from the god Ea, saying to build an enormous boat. Sure enough, the flood came, and Utnapishtim, his family, his animals, and his craftsmen were safe. They all stayed at sea until a bird they released did not come back to the ship, having presumably found shore. The gods criticized Enlil for punishing mankind too harshly, and in return he granted Utnapishtim his immortality. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that he must stay awake for six days and seven nights to get the sympathy of the gods. After the time has passed, Gilgamesh believes he has stayed awake the whole time, but Utnapishtim had marked each day with a fresh loaf of bread, and now one lies moldy and uneaten, meaning that Gilgamesh slept. Utnapishtim banishes the ferryman Urshanabi from ever returning to his island and tells him to bring Gilgamesh back across the sea. Before they depart, Utnapishtim's wife says that there is a plant that grows under the sea that can restore youth. Gilgamesh ties rocks to his feet and walks along the bottom of the sea until he finds the plant. That night, however, Gilgamesh bathes in a well, and a serpent jumps out of the well and snatches the plant, then disappears into the water. Gilgamesh and Urshanabi then cross the sea back to where they originally came from and travel to Uruk. There, Gilgamesh feels proud of the great walls he built, and we learn that Gilgamesh will be remembered for a long time as having brought the story of the flood (which he recorded on tablets, with the rest of his adventures) to the people of Uruk. The last section of the Epic is titled "The Death of Gilgamesh," and looks back on his reign after he has died. The god Enlil declares that Gilgamesh will be remembered for longer than any other man. The people of Uruk mourn Gilgamesh in the streets. The epic ends with praise for Gilgamesh, proclaiming him the best of men and a faithful servant of the gods. It ends with "O Gilgamesh, lord of Kullab, great is thy praise."

Things Fall Apart

As a young man, Okonkwo becomes one of the greatest wrestlers in the clan. Okonkwo values strength and aggression, traits he believes are masculine, and his worst fear is to be thought of as feminine or weak, like his father, Unoka. Okonkwo's wealth and status within the tribe grow, and he becomes one of the greatest men in the land, with three wives and a large stock of yams. He treats his family with a heavy hand, believing that the only emotion worth showing is anger. Okonkwo is particularly worried about his eldest son, Nwoye, in whom he sees signs of laziness reminiscent of Unoka. Get the entire Things Fall Apart LitChart as a printable PDF. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S. Download it! Things fall apart.pdf.medium One day, the clan settles an argument with a neighboring village by demanding the sacrifice of a virgin and a 15-year-old boy named Ikemefuna, who lives with Okonkwo's family for the next three years. While living with Okonkwo's family, Ikemefuna becomes very close to Nwoye, sharing folktales and encouraging him to enjoy masculine tasks. Okonkwo approves of his influence on Nwoye and grows fond of Ikemefuna himself. Ikemefuna soon starts to call Okonkwo "father." After three years, when the oldest man of the tribe, Ezeudu, informs Okonkwo that Ikemefuna must be killed, he advises him not to participate in the killing, since "the boy calls you father." Okonkwo ignores this advice, fearing that others will find him weak or effeminate, and he proceeds to strike the killing blow when they take Ikemefuna out to be killed the next day. Soon, Ezeudu passes away, and his funeral celebration draws the entire clan. During the burial, Okonkwo's gun explodes, killing Ezeudu's 16-year-old son. Having killed a fellow clansman, Okonkwo has no choice but to flee the clan with his family. Because the crime is a "female," or accidental, crime, they may return in seven years. During their time in exile, Okonkwo and his family work hard to start a new farm in Okonkwo's motherland, Mbanta. His mother's kinsmen treat them kindly, but Okonkwo is extremely discouraged by the circumstances. He plans for the day he can return to his rightful place in Umuofia. While he works in Mbanta, the white men begin to appear among neighboring clans, causing stories to spread about their power and destruction. When they finally arrive in Mbanta though, the clan is fascinated but finds their religion ridiculous. Nwoye, however, is captivated by the hymn he hears on the first day, and soon joins the Christians to get away from his father, who is outraged. When Okonkwo finally returns to Umuofia, the white men have changed his clan as well. Mr. Brown, a white missionary who is popular for his patience and understanding approach, has built a school and hospital, and many clan members are enrolling their children in the school so that they can one day become clerks or teachers. However, soon after Okonkwo's return, Mr. Brown leaves the country due to health reasons, and Reverend Smith replaces him. Reverend Smith is uncompromising, encouraging acts among the converted clan members that provoke the rest of the clan. When Enoch, a fanatical convert, rips the mask off of one of the clan's masked egwugwu during a ceremony. The clan retaliates by burning down the church. Reverend Smith reports this transgression, and the District Commissioner tricks the clan's leaders into meeting with him before handcuffing them. The clan leaders, including Okonkwo, suffer insults and beatings before they are released once the village pays the fine. The morning after their release, the clan leaders speak of war before they are interrupted by the arrival of court messengers. Full of hate, Okonkwo confronts the leader, who says that the white man commands the meeting to stop. In a flash, Okonkwo strikes down the messenger with his machete. Seeing that none of his clansmen support him in his violent action, Okonkwo walks away and hangs himself. When the District Commissioner comes to fetch Okonkwo the next day, the clansmen lead him to his hanging body instead, saying that they cannot touch it, since it's an abomination for a man to take his own life. The District Commissioner finds this custom interesting, making note of it for his book on Nigeria, which he plans to title The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

Waltzing Matilda

Australia's best-known bush ballad, and has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".[1] The original lyrics were written in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Paterson, and were first published as sheet music in 1903. Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." Chorus: Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong. Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee. And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus) Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred. Down came the troopers, one, two, and three. "Whose[N 1] is that [N 2] jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag? You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus) Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong. "You'll never catch me alive!" said he And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong: "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (Chorus)

Antigone

By Sophocles: Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, the former king of Thebes. She is willing to face the capital punishment that has been decreed by her uncle Creon, the new king, as the penalty for anyone burying her brother Polyneices. (Polyneices has just been killed attacking Thebes, and it is as posthumous punishment for this attack that Creon has forbidden the burial of his corpse.) Obeying all her instincts of love, loyalty, and humanity, Antigone defies Creon and dutifully buries her brother's corpse. Creon, from conviction that reasons of state outweigh family ties, refuses to commute Antigone's death sentence. By the time Creon is finally persuaded by the prophet Tiresias to relent and free Antigone, she has killed herself in her prison cell. Creon's son, Haemon, kills himself out of love and sympathy for the dead Antigone, and Creon's wife, Eurydice, then kills herself out of grief over these tragic events. At the play's end Creon is left desolate and broken in spirit. In his narrow and unduly rigid adherence to his civic duties, Creon has defied the gods through his denial of humanity's common obligations toward the dead. The play thus concerns the conflicting obligations of civic versus personal loyalties and religious mores.

The Miracle Worker

By William Gibson, a YA play twenty-one-year-old Annie Sullivan teaches a young Helen Keller how to read. Helen was left deaf and blind by an early childhood illness. Sullivan teaches Helen to use American sign language and helps her understand the world around her. In her early years, Helen Keller was isolated by her disabilities, unable to comprehend the world around her. She was prone to throwing tantrums and running into things and was at one point institutionalized. Annie Sullivan, a young woman who has just completed her own education at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, is hired as a governess for Helen. Through the use of sign language and stern teachings, Annie finally teaches Helen how to use language. At the end of the play, Helen herself goes to the Perkins Institute to begin her education.

Eamon Grennan

Cat Scat I am watching Cleo listening, our cat listening to Mozart's Magic Flute. What can she be hearing? What can the air carry into her ears like that, her ears swivelling like radio dishes that are tuned to all the noise of the world, flat and sharp, high and low, a scramble of this and that she can decode like nobody's business, acrobat of random airs as she is? Although of course a bat is better at it, sifting out of its acoustic habitat the sound of the very shape of things automat- ically-- and on the wing, at that. The Magic Flute! What a joy it is, I feel, and wonder (to the end this little scat) does , or can, the cat.

Crime and Punishment

Dostoyevsky's first masterpiece, the novel is a psychological analysis of the poor student Raskolnikov, whose theory that humanitarian ends justify evil means leads him to murder. The act produces nightmarish guilt in Raskolnikov. SUMMARY: Raskolnikov's tragic story is a classic of Russian literature. It is the disturbing and haunting tale of a young man's descent into criminality, horror, and guilt and his eventual punishment. A former student, Raskolnikov lives in poverty and chaos and is eventually driven to murdering an aged woman (a pawnbroker) and her sister. He believes he has devised the perfect crime, as no one will regret the loss of his victims. It is a crime novel without a mystery, as from the very outset of the novel Dostoyevsky draws the reader into the interior of Raskolnikov's mental life; the reader knows "who did it" (i.e., the crime) and sees his reasoning and can explain his actions. The narrative's feverish, compelling tone follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov's emotions and elaborates his struggle with his conscience and his mounting sense of horror as he wanders the city's hot, crowded streets, and the novel's status as a masterpiece is chiefly a result of its narrative intensity and moving depiction of the recovery of a diseased spirit. In prison, Raskolnikov comes to the realization that happiness cannot be achieved by a reasoned plan of existence but must be earned by suffering. The story is one of the finest studies of the psychopathology of guilt written in any language, and Dostoyevsky's sublime skill at observing the working of Raskolnikov's terror and remorse make it an uncomfortably memorable novel in which the palpable tension is sometimes unbearable.

Sandra Cisneros

Eleven What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that's the part of you that's still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five. And maybe one day when you're all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you're three, and that's okay. That's what I tell Mama when she's sad and needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eleven years old is. ....

Faust

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragic play in two parts. Although rarely staged in its entirety, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages. it is considered by many to be Goethe's magnum opus and the greatest work of German literature.[1] Faust is a learned German scholar who, at the beginning of the poem, is disillusioned and demoralized by his inability to discover life's true meaning. Despite his worldly accomplishments he is assailed by frustration because the traditional and conventional modes of thought that he has mastered cannot help him to discern a coherent purpose or form behind all the numerous and varied phenomena of life and nature. In all his adventures in both parts of the poem Faust is driven by the need to perceive, without the aid of revelation, a rational order as the framework of the world in which he lives. Because of this desire and its effect on his outlook, Faust's philosophical dilemma has been held by many to typify the alienation of man in the modern world. In the poem, Faust is intended by Goethe to represent all humanity. He possesses all the qualities of human ability and motivation, and is, in effect, an archetypal "everyman" figure. All Faust's virtues and faults, his strengths and weaknesses, are magnified so that his adventures and moral development are presented on a scale that is larger than life. This gives his story a stature and dignity equal to its cosmic theme, and makes Faust's life a mirror of human existence which all men may learn from. Although he is granted salvation at the end of the poem, Faust is a great tragic hero. His tragedy has been described as that of "titanism," for he tries to step beyond the limitations of humanity to seek that which is not given to mankind to know or experience. Because of this his career is a constant series of disappointments and frustrations, but Faust never loses heart and continues the struggle. Ultimately he comes to understand the meaning of life and is received into Heaven, a conclusion that is meant to be an inspiration to all those who read the poem.

Tom Junod

My mother, Frances Junod, was not just a mother, not just a mom. She was a dame. She was a broad. She went through her entire life as a Harlowesque platinum blond, and I never knew the real color of her hair. She liked to go to the track, and she liked to go out to restaurants. She did not like to cook. That she did it anyway — that she had no choice — owed itself to generational expectations, and to the fact that if my mother was a doll, in the Runyonesque sense of the word, my father was a guy, a pinkie-ringed sharpie who spent many nights going to the New York City restaurants my mother longed to frequent, but who, on nights when he came home, loudly expected food on the table. So my mother put food on the table. She cooked three hundred nights a year. She cooked spaghetti with butter and cheese. She cooked hamburgers, panfried without added fat on a hot, salted cast-iron skillet, until they formed a hard crust. She cooked scrambled eggs, made idiosyncratic by the addition of a teaspoon of water. She cooked shell steaks sprinkled with salt and Ac'cent — MSG — and she cooked chicken parts lathered in a sweet-sour sauce called Saucy Susan. For dessert she made Junket or Jell-O or My-T-Fine chocolate pudding. I had to like her cooking, and I did, as long as she observed the Mashed Potato Rule. The Mashed Potato Rule, simply stated, is this: There is no such thing as bad mashed potatoes as long as they're actually potatoes, mashed. We had mashed potatoes a lot — I can still see the blood from my hamburger running into them on my plate — and it didn't matter that they were lumpy and grainy and that my mother had no talent for making them; they were Edenic so long as she did. I loved them, as I loved her. But while on my plate they formed the barrier between the battleship-gray lamb chops and the olive-drab green beans, in my heart they formed the barrier between the discovery that my mother hated cooking and the altogether different discovery that my mother hated cooking so much that she even hated cooking for me. See, I had figured that my mother hated cooking for the obvious reason that she hated cooking for my father. She could never satisfy him. Indeed, she hated cooking for him so much that he kept their marriage intact by absolving her of the responsibility — by taking her to Roosevelt Raceway, where they ate at the Cloud Casino while I stayed home and panfried a shell steak. But I was absolved of responsibility as well. I was in high school, stoned and rapacious and suddenly free to be disloyal, by which I mean I was free to tell the truth. Like most human beings, I grew up making the connection between food and love; what I began to realize when I started cooking for myself was that the more necessary connection was between food and honesty. "Oh, I'm a terrible fibber," my mother would say and then blithely assert that she'd spent "hours over a hot stove" cooking the package of frozen Banquet fried-chicken drumsticks on our plates. She'd say this with a knowing cackle that served simultaneously as an admission of guilt and a warning that we must never say that she was guilty. Food was love all right, and we had to tell my mom that we loved her by swallowing a fiction that everybody knew was untrue. I was still in high school when my mother first broke the Mashed Potato Rule. From another perspective: I was in high school when I first broke the rule that if food was to be love, then so was the obligation to accept my mother's untruths about it. Me: Ma (I always called her Ma), what's with the potatoes? My mother: What's wrong with the potatoes? Me: They're not potatoes. They came from a box. My mother: So what if they come from a box? They're still potatoes. Me: They're not potatoes! My mother: You can't tell the difference. And with that my mother uttered the signal words of my culinary existence. I could tell the difference, and I spent the rest of my life proving that I could. Just as my mother had come to the conclusion that It's not worth it, I was coming to the conclusion that It is. My mother was a good mother. I was a good son. My mother was a betrayed woman — I think I knew that from an early age — and so I was careful never to betray her, as she, by instinct, never betrayed me. But now I felt betrayed, and I betrayed her in return by learning to cook. When she would visit, I would make her chop, according to specification. "How's this?" she'd ask of her haphazardly chopped broccoli, and when I'd say she had to chop it smaller, more uniformly, she'd say, "You're some pain in the ass" or "What a pill." I was perversely proud of her exasperation. My mother wasn't college-educated, but she wasn't stupid, either. She knew what was going on. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW And yet hunger won out, as it always does in human affairs. After my parents moved near us, we'd have them over for Sunday supper — a term that seemed the province of a family not my own — and I'd serve pot roast, the one meal that, as any novice cook knows, obeys a variant of the Mashed Potato Rule: There's no such thing as a bad pot roast as long as you put enough stuff in the pot and you roast it long enough. But my mother didn't know. Because she'd become too old and uncertain to chop, she'd watch me do the work and laugh to herself, as was her habit. "What are you laughing at, Ma?" "Nothing. Just laughin'." But she was interested not just in what she still regarded as my folly but in what made my folly worth it — what made the food good. "What kind of meat do you use?" she'd always ask, and when I'd wonder why she wanted to know, she'd say, "Well, it's always so tender." And that's how I knew what I wasn't supposed to know all along: My mother didn't know how to cook. She didn't know the rule that can get you through just about any meal: If it's tender, cook it fast over high heat; if it's tough, cook it slow over low. I thought for a long time that my mother hated cooking because she was a bad cook, because she rejected cooking as a way of rejecting us, because she was, at heart, a liar. Now I understood that she hated cooking because she didn't know how to do it and so had no idea how a meal might turn out. After my father died, my mother went into assisted living — or, to be precise and unsparing, I put her there. She flourished, though food was an issue. "Ma, eat something." "I'm not hungry." "C'mon. The food's not bad" — and to prove it, I'd eat platefuls of it. "It stinks," she'd say, and that was that. One day, in her ninety-second year, she simply stopped eating, and when she went to the hospital for intravenous fluids, she suffered a stroke that deprived her of her ability to feed herself. I had a conversation with her gerontologist, in which he told me the way she would die, in which he told me that unless she was fed via feeding tube, she would die of the complications of malnutrition — of hunger. He didn't want to give her a feeding tube. Neither did I, versed as I was in the letter and spirit of her living will and her medical directives. But I never asked her about it. I simply went every day, and tried to spoon-feed her cottage cheese that dribbled from her mouth like sand. I even cooked for her — the spaghetti with butter and cheese that was the first food I ever loved; the pot roast that was the last food she ever called delicious. I was the family cook, which meant that I was driven to preserve my family by making them care about something they had to do: eat. But my mother didn't have to care anymore. She didn't even have to eat. The family cook, I fed her tenderly to the last, and she starved to death.

Wild Swans

Nonfiction by Jung Chang The book starts by telling the story of the author's grandmother, Yu-Fang. At the age of two her feet were bound, an extremely painful process that prevented the feet from growing in the normal way, a common practice inflicted of female children in China where tiny feet are considered beautiful. As the family was relatively poor, Yu-Fang's father decided a scheme to have his daughter taken as a concubines to a high-ranking warlord, Generak Xue Zhi-heng, in order to gain status which was incredibly important in dictating quality of life. The General already had many concubines and after their wedding ceremony the young lady was left alone in a luxurious, wealthy household with servants and did not see her husband again for six years. Despite the luxurious surroundings and exquisite accommodations life for Yu-Fang was stressful and tense as she feared that the servants would report rumors or lies about her to the General's senior wife who would then pass them on to him. Because of this she never felt secure in her position and feared constantly for her safety. Although she was permitted to visit her parents at their home she was never allowed to stay there overnight. After his six year absence, the General made a brief conjugal visit to his young concubine, during which a daughter was conceived. The General did not stay for long even once his daughter arrived, but he named her Bao Qin, which means "precious zither". During her daughter's infancy, Yu-Fang put off persistent reauests for her to be brought to the General's main household, but once he became seriously ill the requests became orders and she had no choice other than to comply. Whilst visiting the household the General's condition deteriorates and realizing that there was no male heir, Yu-Fang knows that their child is now of great importance to the future of the family. Fearing that the General's wife would now have complete control over both her life and her daughter's,Yu-Fang flees to her parents' home and sends false news to her "husband's" family, telling them that sadly the child has died. Unexpectedly with his last words, the General proclaims Yu-Fang free at the age of twenty-four. Eventually, she falls in love with an older man, a doctor who adores her, and they make a home together with her daughter in Jinzhou, Manchuria, where Yu-Fang learns what it is like to be not a concubine but a beloved, true wife. The book now moves on to tell the story of the author's mother, Bao Qin/De-hong. At the age of fifteen she begins working for the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong's infamous Red Army. As the Chinese Revolution progresses, her work for the Party helps her rise up through the rank and file, and enables her to meet a high ranking officer, Wang Yu. They are soon married but not permitted to spend a great deal of time together as dictated by the rules of the Communist Party. Eventually the couple are transferred to Wang Yu's home town of Yibin. The transfer itself was a long and arduous trek that Chang's mother was forced to make on foot because of her rank, whilst her husband rode more comfortably in a jeep. He was unaware that she was pregnant at the time of the trek and once they arrived at Nanjing she undertook mandatory military training which was grueling and difficult. This combined with the trek on foot precipitated a miscarriage, prompting her husband to swear that never again would he be I attentive to the needs of his wife. In the years that followed Chang's mother gave birth to Yang and four other children, shifting the focus of the book to the author's own autobiography. When Chanf was a teenager the Cultural Revolution began. Though she recoiled from much of their barbaric brutality she nonetheless willingly joined the Red Guards. As the cult of Mao grew, life became more difficult and greatly more dangerous. Chang's father became a target for the Red Guards when he criticized Mai openly for the suffering that the Cultural Revolution had caused the Chinese people. Although this criticism had actually been very mild, Chang's parents were labelled capitalist roaders and made the subjects of public torture. Chang remembers that her father quickly detoriorated both physically and mentally until his death. The way that her father had been persecuted prompts Chang's earlier doubts about Mai to resurface and come to the fore. Like thousands of other young people, Chang was sent down to the countryside for education and thought reform, a difficult, harsh and ultimately pointless form of brainwashing conducted by the peasants. At the end of the cultural revolution Chang returned home and dedicated herself to her studies, working diligently to earn a place at university. Not long after she succeeded in doing so, Mao died. Although the whole nation was devastated and shocked into public mourning Chang observed that they had all been masking their fear and loathing of Mao for so long that they confused this public facade with their true feelings, prompting her to privately question how many of the tears were genuine. Chang herself was exhilirated by his death. At university Chang studied English which ultimately allowed her to escape China all together. After graduation she worked briefly as an assistant lecturer before winning a scholarship to study in England where she settled, only occasionally visiting China with permission from the Communist authorities.

Workhouse Ward

One Act play by Lady Gregory Two paupers, Mike MacInerney and Michael Miskell, both confined to their adjacent beds in a hospital ward, are bitter enemies. However when the sister of Mike MacInerney arrives and offers to take him home to work on her farm, he suggests she bring the other Michael also, as they never synchronise their periods of illness, thus she would always have an able hand. She refuses to take the two, and Mike MacInerney insists on staying with his 'companion'. As soon as her back is turned to go out the door, they begin their bitter arguments once again.

Don Quixote

Originally conceived as a comic satire against the chivalric romances then in literary vogue, it describes realistically what befalls an elderly knight (Don Quixote) who, his head bemused by reading romances, sets out on his old horse Rosinante, with his pragmatic squire Sancho Panza, to seek adventure. Widely and immediately translated (first English translation in 1612), the novel was a great and continuing success. DETAIL: Don Quixote has read himself into madness by reading too many books of chivalry, and so sets out to emulate the knights of old, first by getting himself some armour (out of pasteboard) and a steed (a broken-down nag), and then by getting himself knighted. He goes to an inn, which he thinks a castle, meets prostitutes whom he thinks high-born ladies, addresses them and the innkeeper, who is a thief, in language so literary that they cannot understand it, and then seeks to get himself knighted by standing vigil all night over his armour. The ludicrous transformation of the sacred rituals of knighthood into their ad hoc material equivalents parallels a similar desacralizing going on Europe at the time. In all this it is the knowing reader, rather than the characters or the action, that is the implied subject of address. Cervantes here invents the novel form itself, by inventing the reader. Reading begins with the Prologue's address to the "idle" reader, and by implication extends throughout the first book, as Quixote's friends attempt to cure his madness by burning his books to stop him reading. In the process we meet readers, and occasions for reading, of all kinds. In 1615, Cervantes published a second book in which Don Quixote becomes not the character reading but the character read, as many of the people he meets have read Book I and know all about him. Indeed this combination of the always already read and the force of perpetual reinvention is what continues to draw the reader in.

The Analects of Confucius

September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC)[2][3] was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. Wrote this: is a collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the Chinese sage and philosopher, Confucius, believed to have been compiled by his followers. Although their exact source and age are unknown, they are believed to have been compiled during the Warring States period, from 475-221 BCE, and completed during the Mid-Han Dynasty from 206 BCE to 220 AD. Although it was originally considered to be a simple commentary on the "Five Classics" (Classic of Poetry; Book of Documents; Book of Rites; I Ching; and Spring and Autumn Annals) compiled by Confucius, the Analects of Confucius has come to be considered one of the central texts of Confucianism. Divided into short chapters that explore themes of social philosophy, political philosophy, and education, as well as what it takes to be a good person, Book one serves as a general introduction to the principles of Confucius's worldview, while book two largely deals with issues of government. Books three and four are the core text, outlining Confucius' philosophy. It has been translated into a number of languages and is still studied widely today, as one of the most important classical Chinese texts. Although it does not have a clear narrative, it explores several distinct concepts in depth. These are the Tao, or the way; the chun-tzu, or the gentleman; Li or ritual, Te or virtue, and Jen or goodness. The Tao, or the Way, refers to a literal path or road. In the context of the Analects, it means the manner in which anything is done, or a method or doctrine. Confucius refers to the Tao under heaven, meaning a good path to achieving morally superior goals. This can be as individual as self-conduct, or as wide-reaching as the way a kingdom is ruled. Jen is usually translated as goodness or humanity. The gentlemen, or chun-tzu, is one who possesses the quality of Jen. Although the term can be defined as goodness, it is also juxtaposed with other terms in order to provide a more nuanced picture of how Confucius defines goodness and other positive qualities of humanity. The words altruistic or humane are often associated with this term. The term Te is usually used to describe virtue, although scholars disagree about its meaning. It is more specifically used to mean character or prestige, a quality that Confucius defines as desirable in a human being.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The Bhagavad Gita

Written by Vyasa as part of the Mahabharata The blind King Dhritarashtra asks Sanjaya to recount to him what happened when his family the Kauravas gathered to fight the Pandavas for control of Hastinapura. His family isn't the rightful heir to the kingdom, but they have assumed control, and Dhritarashtra is trying to preserve it for his son Duryodhana. Sanjaya tells of Arjuna, who has come as leader of the Pandavas to take back his kingdom, with Sri Krishna as his charioteer. The Gita is the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna leading up to the battle. Arjuna doesn't want to fight. He doesn't understand why he has to shed his family's blood for a kingdom that he doesn't even necessarily want. In his eyes, killing his evil and killing his family is the greatest sin of all. He casts down his weapons and tells Krishna he will not fight. Krishna, then, begins the systematic process of explaining why it is Arjuna's dharmic duty to fight and how he must fight in order to restore his karma. Krishna first explains the samsaric cycle of birth and death. He says there is no true death of the soul -- simply a sloughing of the body at the end of each round of birth and death. The purpose of this cycle is to allow a person to work off their karma, accumulated through lifetimes of action. If a person completes action selflessly, in service to God, then they can work off their karma, eventually leading to a dissolution of the soul, the achievement of enlightenment and vijnana, and an end to the samsaric cycle. If they act selfishly, then they keep accumulating debt, putting them further and further into karmic debt. Krishna presents three main concepts for achieving this dissolution of the soul -- renunciation, selfless service, and meditation. All three are elements for achieving 'yoga,' or skill in action. Krishna says that the truly divine human does not renounce all worldly possessions or simply give up action, but rather finds peace in completing action in the highest service to God. As a result, a person must avoid the respective traps of the three gunas: rajas (anger, ego), tamas (ignorance, darkness), and saatva (harmony, purity). The highest form of meditation comes when a person not only can free themselves from selfish action, but also focus entirely on the divine in their actions. In other words, Krishna says that he who achieves divine union with him in meditation will ultimately find freedom from the endless cycle of rebirth and death. He who truly finds union with God will find him even at the moment of death. Arjuna stills seem to need evidence of Krishna's divine powers, so Arjuna appears to him in his powerful, most divine form, with the "power of one thousand suns." Seeing Krishna in his divine state, Arjuna suddenly realizes what enlightenment can bring him in union, and he now completely has faith in the yogic path. He goes on to ask Krishna how he can receive the love of God, and Krishna reveals that love comes from a person's selfless devotion to the divine, in addition to an understanding that the body is simply ephemeral -- a product of prakriti, emerging from purusha, and is subject to endless rebirth. A person must let go of their body's cravings and temptations and aversions to find freedom. The Gita ends with Krishna telling Arjuna he must choose the path of good or evil, as it his his duty to fight the Kauravas for his kingdom. In that, he is correcting the balance of good and evil, fulfilling his dharma, and offering the deepest form of selfless service. Arjuna understands and, with that, proceeds into battle.

I am Malala

Written in collaboration with critically acclaimed National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick, MALALA tells her story - from her childhood in the Swat Valley to the shooting, her recovery and new life in England. She's a girl who loves cricket, gossips with her best friends, and, on the day of the shooting, nearly overslept and missed an exam. A girl who saw women suddenly banned from public, schools blown up, the Taliban seize control, and her homeland descend into a state of fear and repression. This is the story of her life, and also of her passionate belief in every child's right to education, her determination to make that a reality throughout the world, and her hope to inspire others.

The Book Thief

YA 2005 historical novel by Australian author Markus Zusak and is his most popular work. After the death of Liesel's young brother on a train to Molching, Liesel arrives at the home of her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, distraught and withdrawn. During her time there, she is exposed to the horrors of the Nazi regime, caught between the innocence of childhood and the maturity demanded by her destructive surroundings. As the political situation in Germany deteriorates, her foster parents harbor a Jewish fist fighter named Max Vandenberg. Hans, who has developed a close relationship with Liesel, teaches her to read, first in her bedroom, then in the basement. Recognizing the power of writing and sharing the written word, Liesel not only begins to steal books that the Nazi party is looking to destroy, but also writes her own story, and shares the power of language with Max.

The Westing Game

YA novel by ELLEN RASKIN Sunset Towers is a new apartment building on Lake Michigan, north of Milwaukee and just down the shore from the mansion owned by reclusive self-made millionaire Samuel W. Westing. (Despite the name, Sunset Towers faces east - into the sunrise.) As the story opens, a man named Barney Northrup is selling apartments to a carefully selected group of tenants. It soon emerges that most of the tenants - regardless of age or occupation - are named as heirs in Westing's will. The will is structured as a puzzle, with the 16 heirs challenged to find the solution. Each of the eight pairs, assigned seemingly at random, is given $10,000 cash and a different set of baffling clues. The pair that solves the mystery will inherit Westing's entire $200 million fortune and control of his company.

"Character"

You're a girl and you'd better not forget that when you cross the threshold of your house men will look askance at you. When you keep on walking down the lane men will follow you and whistle. When you cross the lane and step onto the main road men will revile you, call you a loose woman. If you've no character you'll turn back, and if you have you'll keep on going as you're going now. Taslima Nasrin

Scott O'Dell

author of Island of the Blue Dolphins, YA is told from the point of view of Karana, a teenage girl who lives with her tribe on an island in the South Pacific. Exposition Russian Aleuts come to Karana's island to hunt for otter pelts. The two peoples come to an agreement that allows the Aleuts to get pelts and keeps Karana's people safe. Conflict The Aleuts go back on the established deal. A bloody battle ensues between the Aleuts and the native islanders. Rising Action The conflict has made it too hard for the villagers to stay on their island. The villagers leave on a ship, but Ramo gets left behind. Karana leaps out of the boat and swims to shore, so her little brother would not be alone. The two siblings must work together to survive on their own. Climax Wild dogs attack and kill Ramo. In her grief, Karana burns down her village because she can't stand to be there by herself any more. She vows to kill all of the wild dogs. But when she gets the chance, Karana decides not to kill the leader of the pack of dogs and tames him. She names him Rontu, or Fox Eyes. Falling Action The Aleuts return to her island and Karana retreats to a cave. She makes a tenuous friendship with Tutok, an Aleut girl. Karana yearns for human company, even if not of her tribe. One day Tutok does not come at their normal meeting time, and Karana watches the Aleut ship sail away. Resolution Karana is rescued from her island and from her solitude. She has been alone on the island for several years. She discovers that the rest of her village did not survive the journey on the ocean.

Nelson Mandela

black nationalist and the first black president of South Africa (1994-99). wrote "Long Walk to Freedom"

The Handmaid's Tale

dystopian novel (1985) by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The book won numerous awards and has been widely adapted for film, television, and stage, including opera and ballet. In this widely discussed work, Atwood creates a dystopic future in which the population has become threateningly infertile and women are reduced to their reproductive capabilities. Patriarchy takes on a new, extreme aspect; one that oppresses in the name of preservation and protection, one in which violence is perpetrated by the language of ownership and physical delineation. In this nightmare society women are unable to have jobs or money, and are assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the Wives. The tale's protagonist, Offred—so named to denote the male master to whom she belongs (Of-Fred)—recounts her present situation with a clinical attention to her body, now only an instrument of reproduction. A counterpoint is provided through moving glimpses into her past life: memories of a sensual love for her lost family. Set in a future Cambridge, Massachusetts, and partly inspired by New England's puritan American society, Atwood transforms the institutions and buildings of a familiar landscape into a republic called Gilead, after a military coup of extreme Christians has killed the U.S. president and most of Congress and installed a totalitarian theocratic regime under an elite group of men called Commanders. The population is kept in check through fear. Torture is commonplace, spying and denunciation are encouraged, and there are frequent public executions. The society is strictly hierarchical, women are subservient, and most people are infertile due to pollution and sexually transmitted diseases; hence the need of official breeders for the ruling elite. Offred is in her mid-30s and is running out of time before being sent to the colonies to clear up hazardous waste. She is considered a debauched woman, because she was married to a divorced man when the coup occurred; the new regime does not recognize divorce, meaning Offred is officially an adulterous. Her growing despair with her existence permeates the book. Fred is Offred's current Commander, and as a leader of the regime, he feels he can bend the rules: instead of confining his contact with Offred to the monthly insemination ceremony, he seeks out her company, even giving her material to read, which is forbidden to women. His wife, Serena Joy, is desperate for a child, so dangerously arranges for Offred to have sex with the chauffeur, Nick. Offred learns from another handmaid, Ofglen, that there is an underground rebellion. When Ofglen is found out, she commits suicide rather than betray other members of the group, thus buying precious time for Offred. Nick helps Offred to escape, but is he a member of the rebellion or really a government agent? The story ends with Offred being taken away. An epilogue then explains that the events of the story are part of a symposium on Gileadian Studies in 2195 and hints that a more equitable society followed the Gileadian theocracy. Atwood's prose is chillingly graphic, achieving the sense that all of life's past physical pleasures have been reduced to mechanical actions, throwing the value of desire into sharp relief. Through her imagined world, she shows sexual oppression not so much taken to its extreme conclusion, as sexuality obliterated from the desiring body; an act every bit as violent as sexual violation. Atwood expertly handles the different forms that power manages to take within the handmaids' emotional dilemmas, as she describes the timeless tensions evoked by the body's immediate needs and our ability to look beyond desire to greater political ends. It has long been praised for its chilling glimpse at the horrors that can occur when religion and politics collide. It has also long been studied for its portrayal of women and sexual politics, and it has often been classified as a work of feminist literature. Some schools and libraries initially banned or condemned the book due to its graphic discussion of sex and use of profanity.

The Divine Comedy

by Dante. It is usually held to be one of the world's great works of literature. Divided into three major sections—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—the narrative traces the journey of Dante from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light, culminating in the Beatific Vision of God. Dante is guided by the Roman poet Virgil, who represents the epitome of human knowledge, from the dark wood through the descending circles of the pit of Hell (Inferno). Passing Lucifer at the pit's bottom, at the dead centre of the world, Dante and Virgil emerge on the beach of the island mountain of Purgatory. At the summit of Purgatory, where repentant sinners are purged of their sins, Virgil departs, having led Dante as far as human knowledge is able, to the threshold of Paradise. There Dante is met by Beatrice, embodying the knowledge of divine mysteries bestowed by Grace, who leads him through the successive ascending levels of heaven to the Empyrean, where he is allowed to glimpse, for a moment, the glory of God.

Kaleidoscope

by Maria Elena Cruz Varela (tr. Mairym Cruz-Bernal & Deborah Digges) All of us were there: the one who fell marked by the water spurt the one who ruined his countenance through ineptitude the one who did not strike a flame and violated the city in martial law. The one who suffered the sin of clairvoyance the one who fertilized with bizarre feces the one who could not give more nails to the torture the one who was not on time for the demolitions the one who came early the one who didn't come and resolved by saying he wasn't informed. All of us were there: the innocent ones because they didn't know and the guilty ones for legal ignorance the more cultivated accomplices the ones who fed themselves with prejudices the more elaborated ones the more cyclic ones the singers with the lagger tone the blind blind from not wanting to see the ones subject to criticism the critics subject to their dogmas the denominators with their tabula rasa the unbeaten facade the marked backs All of us were there waiting for medals and judgments

Tartuffe

comedy in five acts by Molière, produced in 1664 and published in French in 1669 as Le Tartuffe; ou, l'imposteur ("Tartuffe; or, The Imposter"). It was also published in English as The Imposter. Tartuffe is a sanctimonious scoundrel who, professing extreme piety, is taken into the household of Orgon, a wealthy man. Under the guise of ministering to the family's spiritual and moral needs, he almost destroys Orgon's family. Elmire, Orgon's wife, sees through Tartuffe's wicked hypocrisy and exposes him. There's a storm brewing at Orgon's house. According to his mother, Madame Pernelle, Orgon's family has become decadent and depraved. They're unable to see the greatness of Tartuffe, a beggar and holy man Orgon recently took in. According to the rest of Orgon's family, Orgon has been "taken in." They think Tartuffe is a hypocritical, self-righteous con artist. When Orgon returns from the country, we find that he's become obsessed with Tartuffe; he would rather hear about him than about his sick wife. Orgon is offended when his brother-in-law, Cléante, tells him he's been acting like an idiot. When Orgon attempts to explain why Tartuffe is such a great and admirable man, Cléante sees right through his brother-in-law's unsound reasoning. Cléante asks Orgon about the rumored postponement of Mariane's (Orgon's daughter) wedding. Orgon confirms that it has indeed been postponed, but he will say nothing further. Cléante is rightfully concerned. Orgon calls Mariane in for a chat. He wants to know how she feels about Tartuffe. When she acts surprised, he tells her how she's supposed to feel: she respects him, is fond of him, and will marry him. Mariane is speechless, but luckily Dorine, a saucy servant, isn't. She comes in and asks Orgon if Mariane is really going to marry Tartuffe. When her boss confirms this, she makes fun of him, calling the idea ridiculous. Dorine proceeds to annoy Orgon, preventing him from talking further with Mariane. Once Orgon leaves, an irritated Dorine tells Mariane that she can't believe how weak she acts in front of her father. Although she is hard on Mariane, Dorine eventually relents and agrees to help the girl. Valère, Mariane's fiancé, enters. He's heard the bad news about their wedding plans. Soon enough he and Mariane are arguing over nothing in particular. Dorine gets them to kiss and make up. The clever servant instructs Mariane to stall the wedding to Tartuffe and tells Valère to spread word of Orgon's foolishness around town. When Damis, Orgon's son, hears about his father's plan to marry Mariane to Tartuffe, he flips out and tells Dorine that he's going to give Tartuffe a knuckle sandwich. Dorine has a better idea: she's arranged for a meeting between Tartuffe and Elmire, Orgon's wife. Damis insists on watching, and spies on the conversation while hiding in a closet. During the meeting, Tartuffe makes a rather awkward attempt to seduce Elmire. When he fails, Elmire strikes a deal with him. If he refuses to marry Mariane, she says, she won't tell Orgon about what just happened. While Tartuffe seems fine with this, Damis does not. He leaps from the closet and confronts Tartuffe. When he tells Orgon - who just happens to walk in - what he's just seen, Orgon doesn't believe him. As a result, Orgon disinherits Damis and gives Tartuffe the rights to his whole estate. Cléante attempts to reason with Tartuffe and get him to give Damis a second chance, but Tartuffe refuses. All the while, things get worse: Mariane can no longer bear the stress of her impending marriage. When Orgon appears, marriage contract in hand, Mariane, Dorine, and Elmire plead with him. Though he has pangs of conscience, he stands firm. Elmire takes matters into her own hands, and promises to show him the truth about Tartuffe. She makes him hide under a table and tells Dorine to call in Tartuffe. When Tartuffe arrives, she does her best to "seduce" him. He is skeptical of the whole situation, given the quick about-face, and demands that she give him some concrete sign of her affection. Elmire becomes increasingly antsy, and eventually asks Tartuffe to step outside the room and look to make sure her husband - Orgon - isn't around. When he does, Orgon pops out from under the table, enraged. Elmire tries to get him to hide again, in order that he might watch more and really make sure he's satisfied, but Tartuffe comes in before he can hide. When Orgon confronts Tartuffe, Tartuffe reminds him that he has the rights to Orgon's property and promises to get his revenge. As it turns out, not only does Tartuffe have the rights to Orgon's property, he also has a number of documents that, if they were to come to the attention of the King, could get Orgon in serious trouble. Damis returns, ready to fight Tartuffe - literally - but he's interrupted by Madame Pernelle. She can't believe the rumors she's heard about Tartuffe. Orgon attempts, unsuccessfully, to convince her, and only becomes frustrated in the process. Their argument is cut short by the arrival of Monsieur Loyal, a messenger sent by Tartuffe. He serves Orgon with a notice of eviction, and let's them know that he and his family should be out of the house by the next morning. Just when things seem like they couldn't get any worse, Valère comes in and tells Orgon that he must flee the country, as Tartuffe has denounced him to the King. Orgon is just about to leave with Valère, when Tartuffe shows up, accompanied by a police officer. He tells Orgon what he already knows and, after being insulted, tells the officer to arrest Orgon. The officer arrests Tartuffe instead, telling Orgon that the King saw through Tartuffe's scheme immediately. Turns out, Tartuffe is also a well-known criminal. Orgon is pardoned by the King, on account of his loyalty and prior aid to the Crown. Orgon begins to curse Tartuffe, but Cléante makes him stop. Instead, he tells Orgon, we should pray for his salvation. Orgon relents, and tells everyone to get ready to see the King. Once the King has been properly thanked, Orgon says that Valère and Mariane can finally be married.

The Ramayana

comparable to the Odyssey or the Bible, the it is a classic of world literature. The poem details the adventures of Prince Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, along with his devoted wife Sita and his dear brother Lakshmana. Written in classical Sanskrit and dating between the 5th and 2nd centuries BCE, it is a massive epic poem consisting of more than 24,000 verses. Relatively little is known about the author of the text, but it is traditionally attributed to Valmiki, a sage who is also credited with developing Sanskrit poetic forms. Born during an age when the demon Ravana terrorized the world, Rama is the virtuous, wise, and powerful prince of Ayohya. As a young man, he is able to accomplish what no other man has ever done: he lifts and strings the bow of Siva, and by so doing her earns the right to marry the beautiful Sita. Just when he is about to ascend the throne of Ayodhya, his father Dasaratha is forced to exile him for fourteen years to the forest due to a vow made long ago. Unruffled, Rama accepts his exile; his wife Sita and his loyal brother Lakshmana accompany him. In the forest, the princely brothers kill many demons and visit many wise men and women. The evil demon Ravana hears of Sita's beauty, and kidnaps her. He has fallen in love with her and tries to seduce her, but she rebuffs his advances for nearly ten months. Desperate to win her back, Rama and Lakshmana form an alliance with the monkey king Sugriva, and invade Lanka with an army of monkeys. After many violent battles, Rama defeats Ravana and wins back Sita. He is concerned that she has been unfaithful during her long captivity, and so Sita undergoes a trial by fire to prove her chastity. Rama takes her back, and they return to rule Ayodhya for many wonderful years. In another version of the tale, Rama hears his people gossiping about Sita's imagined indiscretions, and he banishes her to the forest, where she gives birth to Rama's twin sons. Sita and the children confront him years later; he tries to explain his harsh actions to Sita, but she vanishes into the earth to escape him.

Miss Julie

full-length drama in one act by August Strindberg, published in Swedish in 1888 and performed in 1889. The play substitutes such interludes as a peasant dance and a pantomime for the conventional divisions of acts, scenes, and intermissions. Julie, an aristocratic young woman, has a brief affair with Jean, her father's valet. After the sexual thrill has dissipated, they realize that they have little or nothing in common. Heredity, combined with social and psychological factors, has determined their futures. Strindberg portrays Julie as an aristocrat whose era has passed and Jean as an opportunistic social climber to whom the future beckons.

Jodi Lynn Anderson

is the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches, Tiger Lily, and the popular May Bird trilogy. YA Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell. Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything - her family, her future - to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter. With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart. From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Long Walk to Freedom

is the autobiography of former South African President, Nelson Mandela. First published in 1994, it covers Mandela's life from his youth in Apartheid South Africa, his coming of age and education, his embrace of political activism and his role in the anti-apartheid movement, and his twenty-seven years in prison on the notorious Robben Island, where he was imprisoned as a terrorist for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed African National Congress. The narrative also covers the period after his release, and chronicles the fall of apartheid and his ascension to the Presidency, which he held at the time of the book's release. Exploring themes of racial equality, political protest, and the ability of the human spirit to overcome great hardship, it is considered one of the most acclaimed and important autobiographies of the late 20th century. The winner of the Alan Paton Award from The Sunday Times in 1995, it has been translated into multiple languages including Afrikaans. Widely read and studied as an essential text on the fall of apartheid in South Africa, it was adapted into a 2013 film directed by Justin Chadwick and starring Idris Elba.

Doctor Zhivago

novel by Boris Pasternak, published in Italy in 1957. This epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath on a bourgeois family was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987. One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an international best-seller. Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks; wandering throughout Russia, he is unable to take control of his fate, and dies in utter poverty. The poems he leaves behind constitute some of the most beautiful writing in the novel.

The Good Earth

novel by Pearl Buck, published in 1931. The novel, about peasant life in China in the 1920s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. It follows the life of Wang Lung from his beginnings as an impoverished peasant to his eventual position as a prosperous landowner. He is aided immeasurably by his equally humble wife, O-Lan, with whom he shares a devotion to the land, to duty, and to survival. Buck combines descriptions of marriage, parenthood, and complex human emotions with depictions of Chinese reverence for the land and for a specific way of life. The novel opens on Wang Lung's wedding day. Wang is a Chinese peasant farmer who lives with his father; his mother died six years earlier. His intended bride, O-lan, is a slave in the prosperous House of Hwang. Wang walks to the House of Hwang, where he is embarrassed by his shabby appearance, and collects O-lan after appearing before the Ancient Mistress of the House. The couple returns to Wang's farm, where O-lan prepares dinner for guests — including Wang's unnamed uncle and the uncle's unnamed son — invited to celebrate the wedding. Later that night, Wang and O-lan consummate their marriage. Over the next few months following their marriage, O-lan tends the house and joins Wang in cultivating the fields. We learn at the end of Chapter 2 that she is pregnant. The events of her pregnancy are skipped over, and we soon find O-lan ready to deliver her baby; she asks Wang for nothing except a newly peeled reed, slit, so that she may cut the baby's umbilical cord. She delivers a son and soon rejoins Wang in working the fields. The harvest is prosperous, and Wang and O-lan are able to hide silver dollars from the harvest in their house. On the second day of the New Year, Wang and O-lan, dressed in new clothes that O-lan has sewed, take their son to the House of Hwang to present him to the Ancient Mistress. Their appearance of prosperity is in stark contrast to Wang's appearance the first time he visited the House. O-lan relates to Wang her suspicion that the great House of Hwang is having financial difficulties, so much so that the House is looking to sell a portion of its land. With the silver coins from their previous harvest, Wang purchases the land. Soon thereafter, O-lan delivers a second son. Along with this second son comes another prosperous harvest, even better than before, and Wang and O-lan again are able to stash silver in their house. At the same time that O-lan is delivering yet another child — a girl this time — Wang's uncle approaches Wang and cajoles Wang into giving him silver to be used as a dowry for his eldest daughter. Wang resists giving the money to his uncle, who is a despicable character, but out of guilt — and the threat of blackmail of his good name — Wang acquiesces. Times grow bad for Wang and the other farmers, but he continues to buy land from the House of Hwang — although he does not tell O-lan that he's using up all of their silver. Food grows scarce, and the family is forced to slaughter their ox and eat it. Wang's uncle maliciously spreads the false rumor among the farmers and villagers that Wang has hordes of food and silver, and men force their way into Wang's home and take what little food they find, to which Wang comforts himself by saying that at least no one can take the land that he owns. Wang decides to move his family in hopes of finding a job, but he refuses to sell his land. Along with many others, Wang and his family take a train south. Arriving in an unnamed city in the south, Wang and his family support themselves by O-lan and the children begging for food and Wang hiring himself out as a ricksha driver. Daily they eat at the public kitchens. Soon, armed soldiers regularly appear in the city, for there is talk of war; the rich begin fleeing the city, abandoning their opulent houses. A mob of people including Wang break into one of these abandoned houses, and Wang forces a man who failed to flee the house to give him gold. With this gold, Wang and his family return to their land and once again establish themselves as prosperous farmers. Wang learns from O-lan that while in the southern city she stole a cache of jewels from the house where Wang stole the gold. With this newfound prosperity, Wang buys up all of the remaining land of the House of Hwang. He is becoming as rich and established as the House of Hwang formerly was. Seven years pass of increased fortune, but in that seventh year a great flood comes and covers the fields. With idle time on his hands, Wang begins visiting the town's tea shop. There, he is introduced to a woman named Lotus Flower and takes her for his concubine, moving her and her servant into his house. The household further grows when Wang's uncle and aunt and their son forcibly move themselves into Wang's house. Additionally, Wang's sons marry, and they and their families live in the house. It is during this time that O-lan and Wang's elderly father both die and are buried. Wang's oldest son approaches his father and suggests that the family move into town, into the great house formerly occupied by the House of Hwang. Wang likes this idea, and the entire family — except Wang's uncle and aunt — move; Wang's uncle's son goes to join the war. The House of Hwang has now become the House of Lung. Wang spends less time surveying his many lands, and he begins renting some of his lands to tenants — just as the Old Lord of the House of Hwang had done. It is during this time that Wang's uncle dies, and Wang moves his aunt into the house in town. As Wang grows older, he becomes less attracted to Lotus Flower and finds that his affection for a slave named Pear Blossom increases. Ultimately, he takes Pear Blossom as his new concubine. His passion for her soon wanes, but he remains fond of her. He, Pear Blossom, and his first daughter return to the house on the land. His two oldest sons visit him, and they promise him that they will never sell the land — but it is clear that they are lying, and that they eventually will sell the land once Wang dies.

A Modest Proposal

satiric essay by Jonathan Swift, published in pamphlet form in 1729. Presented in the guise of an economic treatise, the essay proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords. Swift's proposal is a savage comment on England's legal and economic exploitation of Ireland.

Candide

satirical novel published in 1759 that is the best-known work by Voltaire. It is a savage denunciation of metaphysical optimism—as espoused by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—that reveals a world of horrors and folly. It was influenced by various atrocities of the mid-18th century, most notably the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the outbreak of the horrific Seven Years' War in the German states, and the unjust execution of the English Admiral John Byng. This philosophical tale is often hailed as a paradigmatic text of the Enlightenment, but it is also an ironic attack on the optimistic beliefs of the Enlightenment. Voltaire's critique is directed at Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason, which maintains that nothing can be so without there being a reason why it is so. The consequence of this principle is the belief that the actual world must be the best one humanly possible. At the opening of the novel, its eponymous hero, the young and naive _____, schooled in this optimistic philosophy by his tutor Pangloss, who claims that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," is ejected from the magnificent castle in which he is raised. The rest of the novel details the multiple hardships and disasters that _______ and his various companions meet in their travels. These include war, rape, theft, hanging, shipwrecks, earthquakes, cannibalism, and slavery. Although these experiences gradually erode _______'s optimistic belief, he and his companions display an instinct for survival that gives them hope in an otherwise sombre setting. When they all retire together to a simple life on a small farm, they discover that the secret of happiness is "to cultivate one's garden," a practical philosophy that excludes excessive idealism and nebulous metaphysics. Throughout the novel Voltaire mercilessly lampoons science, philosophy, religion, government, and literature. A caustic and comic satire of the social ills of its day, ______'s reflections remain as pertinent now as ever.

Mother Courage and Her Children

play by Bertolt Brecht, written in German as produced in 1941 and published in 1949. The work, composed of 12 scenes, is a chronicle play of the Thirty Years' War and is based on the picaresque novel Simplicissimus (1669) by Hans Jacob Christoph von Grimmelshausen. In 1949 Brecht staged Mother Courage, with music by Paul Dessau, in East Berlin. Brecht's wife, Helene Weigel, performed the title role. This production led to the formation of the Brecht's own theatre company, the influential Berliner Ensemble. The plot revolves around a woman who depends on war for her personal survival and who is nicknamed Mother Courage for her coolness in safeguarding her merchandise under enemy fire. The deaths of her three children, one by one, do not interrupt her profiteering. Don't be fooled by the covered wagon. Mother Courage, whose real name is Anna Fierling, might own one of these, but you definitely won't find her in Little House on the Prairie. This isn't Minnesota, folks. Our play starts way back in seventeenth-century Sweden, with Courage running a canteen business during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Itching to learn more about the Thirty Years' War? Good thing we have plenty to say about that in our "Setting" section. For now, we'll keep it simple. The Thirty Years' War was long, very long, lasting—you guessed it—thirty years. In this war, European countries fought to make each other either Protestant or Catholic. Mother Courage takes place after the war has already started, and ends before the war has concluded, so war is basically everywhere in this play. Let's move on to Mother Courage's business. Start by imagining a restaurant, a bar, and a general store, all rolled into one covered wagon. Add war and soldiers, and you should have a pretty good idea what a war canteen was like in the seventeenth century. Courage follows around armies, trying to buy up stuff and sell it to the locals, all while keeping the brandy flowing. She's assisted by her children: Eilif (eldest son), Swiss Cheese (second son), and Kattrin (only daughter). Kattrin doesn't speak, after a serious incident with a soldier left her mute as a child. Now, back to the storyline. We meet Mother Courage when she's stopped on the road by a sergeant and a recruiter for the Swedish army. It turns out she's traveled all the way from Germany to profit off the war up north. We also learn that she hopes to keep her children out of harm's way by keeping them involved with the business. But before the scene is over, Eilif, her oldest son, leaves the stage as the Swedish army's newest recruit. So much for that. Trailing the Swedish army through Poland, Courage runs into Eilif again. He's getting all sorts of kudos from a Swedish general, who praises him for tricking the local peasantry and stealing their cattle. It's a brief reunion, and soon she's back on the road. Roll on, Mother Courage, roll on. The trek continues with the Swedish army. Her second son, Swiss Cheese, becomes a paymaster, carrying around the army's cash in a moneybox, and we also meet Yvette, Courage's friend as well as an army prostitute. Mother Courage spends some time shooting the breeze and discussing politics with the general's cook and the army chaplain. The peace—er, war—is disturbed when the Catholics invade and take them all prisoner. Mother Courage and her friends decide to pretend they're Catholics and join the other side, but Swiss Cheese worries he'll be found out if they catch him with his Protestant moneybox. So, he decides to hide it by the river. Bad idea, S.C. Catholic spies capture Swiss Cheese in the act and arrest him. Courage tries to sell Yvette her wagon, in order to get enough money to bribe the Catholics for Swiss Cheese's release, but she gets cold feet when she realizes it'll leave her with nothing to live on. She delays too long and misses her window of opportunity. The Catholics shoot Swiss Cheese eleven times. When they bring her his body for identification, she tells the soldiers she doesn't know him. To make matters even worse, the Catholics trash Mother Courage's wagon and charge her a fine. She decides to file a complaint with a Catholic colonel, but gives up after telling a young soldier that there's no point to standing up against injustice. Let's see. Mother Courage has lost one son to the war. Her wagon has been trashed. So, what does she do? She gets back on the road and follows the Catholics into Germany. Tough lady, huh? She and her friends come across some injured peasants along the way, and Courage reluctantly gives away some of her shirts to be used as bandages. Later, during a Catholic general's funeral, the chaplain hooks her into believing the war will go on forever. He tells her that her best bet is to stock up on more supplies while prices are low. So, Courage sends her daughter Kattrin into town to pick up some stuff. On the way back, Kattrin gets attacked by soldiers, leaving a nasty gash on her face. Looks like Chap knew what he was talking about. After stocking up, Courage reaches the height of her canteening career. But just then, the Swedish king goes and gets himself killed. Peace is declared. Courage fears her business is ruined—after all, who needs a canteen lady during peacetime? On the bright side, Yvette returns after a long absence, and boy, have things changed for her. Now she's the wealthy widow of a count. She recognizes the cook as her long-lost lover and she's not exactly happy to see him. Turns out peace really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Mother Courage has to rush to sell off her surplus goods. In the meantime, Eilif tries to pull another fast one with the peasants, but since it's peacetime now, this means he gets in trouble for committing a crime. As he's taken off to execution, the chaplain goes with him to lend his support. Mother Courage, who's still away on business, doesn't find out about Eilif's death. The chaplain is gone now, but the cook's still hanging around with Mother Courage. They have to beg for food. But the cook has news; he's inherited an inn from his mother, and wants Mother Courage to come settle down and run it with him. The catch? She has to leave Kattrin behind. No way, cooky; Courage turns him down. Courage and Kattrin park their wagon on a peasant farm. The Catholics start a secret, nighttime attack on the town, when Courage is off doing business there. But that doesn't stop our girl Kattrin. She figures out what's up, takes a drum from the wagon and bangs on it until the townspeople are alerted. Catholic soldiers threaten and plead with her to stop drumming, and eventually, they shoot her. Dead. That's three children Mother Courage has lost to the war. She definitely must be ready to give up the canteening lifestyle, right? Wrong. Courage sings a lullaby for Kattrin, pays the peasants for Kattrin's burial and then she's off, ready to get right back into business. What a...trooper?

Six Characters in Search of an Author

play by Luigi Pirandello A group of actors are preparing to rehearse for a Pirandello play. While starting the rehearsal, they are interrupted by the arrival of six characters. The leader of the characters, the father, informs the manager that they are looking for an author. He explains that the author who created them did not finish their story, and that they therefore are unrealized characters who have not been fully brought to life. The manager tries to throw them out of the theater, but becomes more intrigued when they start to describe their story. The father is an intellectual who married a peasant woman (the mother). Things went well until she fell in love with his male secretary. Having become bored with her over the years, the father encouraged her to leave with his secretary. She departs from him, leaving behind the eldest son who becomes bitter for having been abandoned. The mother starts a new family with the other man and has three children. The father starts to miss her, and actively seeks out the other children in order to watch them grow up. The step-daughter recalls that he used to wait for her after school in order to give her presents. The other man eventually moves away from the city with the family and the father loses track of them. After the other man dies, the mother and her children return to the city. She gets a job in Madame Pace's dress shop, unaware that Madame Pace is more interested in using her daughter as a prostitute. One day the father arrives and Madame Pace sets him up with the daughter. He starts to seduce her but they are interrupted when the mother sees him and screams out. Embarrassed, he allows the step-daughter and the entire family to move in with him, causing his son to resent them for intruding in his life. The manager agrees to become the author for them and has them start to play the scene where the father is in the dress shop meeting the step-daughter for the first time. He soon stops the plot and has his actors attempt to mimic it, but both the father and the step-daughter protest that it is terrible and not at all realistic. He finally stops the actors and allows the father and step-daughter to finish the scene. The manager changes the setting for the second scene and forces the characters to perform it in the garden of the father's house. The mother approaches the son and tries to talk to him, but he refuses and leaves her. Entering the garden, he sees the youngest daughter drowned in the fountain and rushes over to pull her out. In the process, he spots the step-son with a revolver. The young boy shoots himself, causing the mother to scream out for him while running over to him. The manager, watching this entire scene, is unable to tell if it is still acting or if it is reality. Fed up with the whole thing, he calls for the end of the rehearsal.

A Doll's House

play in three acts by Henrik Ibsen, published in Norwegian as Et dukkehjem in 1879 and performed the same year. The play centres on an ordinary family—Torvald Helmer, a bank lawyer, his wife Nora, and their three little children. Torvald supposes himself the ethical member of the family, while his wife assumes the role of the pretty and irresponsible little woman in order to flatter him. Into this arrangement intrude several hard-minded outsiders, one of whom threatens to expose a fraud that Nora had once committed without her husband's knowledge in order to obtain a loan needed to save his life. When Nora's act is revealed, Torvald reacts with outrage and repudiates her out of concern for his own social reputation. Utterly disillusioned about her husband, whom she now sees as a hollow fraud, Nora declares her independence of him and their children and leaves them, slamming the door of the house behind her.

Gypsy Ballads

verse collection by Federico García Lorca, written between 1924 and 1927 and first published in Spanish in 1928 as Romancero gitano. The collection comprises 18 lyrical poems, 15 of which combine startlingly modern poetic imagery with traditional literary forms; the three remaining poems were classified by Lorca as historical ballads. All 18 poems were written in the traditional ballad metre of eight-syllable lines. Many of the poems were imbued with mythic allusions, Freudian symbolism (green symbolizes sexuality and blue, innocence), and indirect metaphors Moon came to the forge in her petticoat of nard The boy looks and looks the boy looks at the Moon In the turbulent air Moon lifts up her arms showing — pure and sexy — her beaten-tin breasts Run Moon run Moon Moon If the gypsies came white rings and white necklaces they would beat from your heart Boy will you let me dance — when the gypsies come they'll find you on the anvil with your little eyes shut Run Moon run Moon Moon I hear the horses' hoofs Leave me boy! Don't walk on my lane of white starch The horseman came beating the drum of the plains The boy at the forge has his little eyes shut Through the olive groves in bronze and in dreams here the gypsies come their heads riding high their eyelids hanging low How the night heron sings how it sings in the tree Moon crosses the sky with a boy by the hand At the forge the gypsies cry and then scream The wind watches watches the wind watches the Moon

Katherine Paterson

wrote Jacob Have I Loved Sara Louise Bradshaw was born on Rass Island, but neither she nor her sister will die there. Let her explain ... It's the summer of 1941, and Louise is 13 years old. She has a best friend named Call who never laughs at her jokes; she has a grandmother who loves to quote vicious Bible verses to anyone who'll listen; and she has a twin sister, Caroline, who does everything beautifully and always manages to steal the spotlight from Louise. Caroline has been hogging all of the attention since the moment she was born because she nearly died, while Louise was perfectly healthy. Ugh ... Caroline. When a mysterious older man comes to town, Louise and Call manage to make friends with him while trying to guess all kinds of weird secrets about his past. Eventually, Caroline is able to ruin this, too, when she makes friends with this man—whom they call the Captain—after helping him get rid of some old house cats. Louise dreams of getting off Rass Island, but it's Caroline who gets the chance when the Captain offers to pay for her to attend a private music school in Baltimore. Seriously, Caroline? Call leaves to join the Navy and fight in World War II, and Louise is left behind to help her father on his crab and oyster boat. When the war ends in 1945, Call returns home and announces—surprise, surprise—he's going to marry Caroline. Now, this is just getting silly. Louise has to wrestle with her own issues and finally decides, after a near-fight with her mother, that she has to leave Rass Island. She's always wanted to be a doctor and that's what she's going to do, darn it. No more Caroline to overshadow her—she's going to live life on her own terms instead of always feeling like she's second fiddle. So, Louise leaves and ends up becoming a nurse-midwife in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. There, she helps the people in town and meets her future husband. One night, she assists in the birth of twins and helps to nurse the younger, struggling twin back to health. In that moment, she's finally able to forgive her sister and make peace with herself, too. Aw. We love a happy ending.

Sherman Alexie

wrote The Absolutely True Diary, a first-person narrative from the perspective of Native American teenager Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior", a 14-year-old budding cartoonist.[3] The book is a bildungsroman, detailing Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and his decision, upon encouragement from a reservation high school teacher, to go to an all-white public high school in the off-reservation town of Reardan, Washington.[7] The novel has 65 comic illustrations by Forney, which sometimes act as punchlines while also revealing Junior's character and furthering the plot.[8]

Phillip Hoose

wrote The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) opens at the outset of World War II as Denmark chooses not to resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested. But their efforts were not in vain: the boys' exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance. Interweaving his own narrative with the recollections of Knud himself, Phillip Hoose weaves an inspiring non-fiction story of young war heroes.

Cynthia Levinson

wrote Weve Got a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black elementary-, middle-, and high school students who voluntarily went to jail in Birmingham, Alabama, between May 2 and May 11, 1963. Fulfilling Mahatma Gandhis and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s precept to fill the jails, they succeededwhere adults had failedin desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America. Focusing on four of the original participants who have participated in extensive interviews, Weve Got a Job recounts the astonishing events before, during, and after the Childrens March.