A Tour through Literature

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A Tour through Literature

• Nicole Schiavoni
• Nicole Braswell

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A Midsummer Nights Dream
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
By Shakespeare
This story tells of love between fairies and
mortals. There are many characters such as
Thesesus, the Duke of Athens, Hippolyta, Queen of
the Amazons. Demetrius, who loves Hermis, who
loves Lysander. And Helena who loves Demetrius.
Also there are Oberon, the fairy King, Titania,
the fairy queen, and Puck, the kings merry
servant. Also there is a group of villagers who
wish to perform a play at the wedding of Thesesus
and Hippolyta. The main village craftsman is
Bottom who Queen Titania falls in love with for
an interlude. It takes you through their night in
the forest and all the wonders that happen to
them. At the end of the play the only one that
remains is Puck who asks that the audience
remember it as if it were a dream.
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Hamlet
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Hamlet
By Shakespeare
Shakespeares longest play, Hamlet is a classic
revenge tragedy.  The play opens with two guards
on watch at the castle.   The ghost of Hamlet's
father appears to the men but disappears without
saying a word.  The next night Hamlet joins the
men and speaks to his father's ghost. The ghost
reveals to him that he was murdered by his own
brother Claudius. The ghost also asks Hamlet to
swear to avenge his death. Claudius is now the
king and is married to his mother. His apparent
madness worries the king who orders that Hamlet
leave Denmark and be sent to England. Hamlet
returns, and with a mix of poison and swords,
everyone ultimately dies. The theme of the story
is revenge, however Shakespeare questions whether
or not it is significant if one dies achieving it.
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Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet
By Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet is arguably Shakespeares most
famous play. The prologue establishes that the
play will be a tragedy, and that the children of
two feuding families, the Montagues and the
Capulets, will fall in love and ultimately die.
Romeo and Juliet fall in love at first sight,
initially unaware of each others status. When
it is revealed that they are supposed to be
bitter enemies, Juliet decides to fake her own
death in order to be with her one true love.
Upon Romeos arrival, Juliet has yet to wake and
Romeo too thinks she is dead. Deciding hed
rather join her than be without her, Romeo drinks
poison thus killing himself. Juliet wakes to
find him dead, then takes his dagger and kills
herself as well. Although reconciliation is
acquired, it is at great sacrifice. Through
mix-ups and misunderstandings, the story is a
tale about chance, young love, and impulse.
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Beowulf
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Beowulf
This story begins in the middle of things. King
Hrothgar of the Danes, is having a problem with a
monster named Grendel. Beowulf, a Geatish
warrior, comes to help him. The monster, Grendel
is killing the men in the mead hall at night.
Beowulf kills the monster, then has to fight the
monsters dam, aka mother. After that Beowulf
goes home and becomes King in his land. He
eventually has to fight a Dragon and that will
lead to his end. Beowulf has many themes for
discussion in it such as, the comiatatus bond,
the importance of honor, the tension between the
heroic code and newer things, the traditions of
mead halls and oral stories. This story shows an
end to the heroic age when Beowulf meets his end.
Author Unknown
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Oedipus
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Oedipus
By Sophocles
Written by Sophocles, Oedipus the King is one of
the greatest tragedies ever told. Like most
Greek tragedies, the irony is emphasized and fate
is inevitable. In this particular story, the
main character is looking to find, reveal, and
chastise the assassin, who turns out to be
himself. Oedipus is similar to a modern day
murder mystery/psychological thriller, about a
man whose predestination wills him to kill his
father and marry his mother. The Greeks felt
that humans needed to experience tragedy to
obtain normalcy. Their myths and legends were
their way of explaining their particular beliefs.
In Oedipus the King, Sophocles proves that ones
fate is predetermined and unavoidable at all
costs.
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The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nick Carraway moves to New York, in the summer of
1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a
house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a
wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the
new rich, which are people who have recently made
their wealth and are prone to garish displays of
it. His neighbor is the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It
turns out that once long ago Nicks cousin Daisy
had a relationship with Gatsby and he is in love
with her still. This story take you through the
idiosyncrasies of the newly rich and the
craziness of people. It brings up the decline of
the American dream in the 1920s, the hollowness
of the upper class, and many different problems
in society.
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Canterbury Tales
Canterbury Tales
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The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales begin with a narrator
revealing that he, along with several other
travelers, will be making a pilgrimage to
Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint Thomas
Becket. These pilgrims include a Knight, his son
the Squire, the Knight's Yeoman, a Prioress, a
Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk,
a Man of Law, a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a
Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a
Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller,
a Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the
Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. The narrator,
also referred to as the host, presents the
travelers with a game. During their pilgrimage
each person is to tell four stories, two on the
way to Canterbury, and two on the way home. The
host will then decide whose tale is the best, and
that person will have a lavish feast at everyone
elses expense. The tales range from comedy to
tragedy, however each as intriguing as the one
before. The descriptions of the various
characters as well as their social roles reveal
the importance of the estates (military, clergy,
and laity) of fourteenth-century English society.
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Frankenstein
Frankenstein
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Frankenstein
By Mary Shelley
In a series of letters, a man named, Robert
Walton describes his meetings with a man named
Victor Frankenstein to his sister. Victor had
studied for many years and believed he had found
the secret to life. Victor collects body parts
from graveyards and creates his creature. He is
obsessed the whole time he does it and when he is
done he flees, believing it to be ugly and
horrible. The book takes you through Victor and
the creatures life and their eventual doom. It
brings up a lot of topics such as nature VS
nurture, dangerous knowledge, desertion, parents
and children, secrecy, and many more.
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Beowulf The Great Gatsby Frankenstein A Midsummer
Nights Dream Oedipus Canterbury
Tales Hamlet Romeo and Juliet