Austria (N)

The Metamorphosis

-Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself changed into a beetle (or cockroach)

France

La Comedie Humaine (The Human Comdey)

-this is the collective name he gave to his entire body of work

-intended to be a social history of France and inludes: Eugenie Gradet, Le Pere Goriot (The Father Goriot), Les Chouans, and The Country Doctor

France(PL)

Waiting for Godot

-characters: Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, and Lucky

France (N)

The Three Musketeers

 -Characters: Athos, Porthos, Aramis (the 3Ms), D'Artagnan, LouisXIII, and Richelieu

-contains line "all for one and one for all"

France(N)

Madame Bovary: A Tale of Provincial Life

-depressed with her life, Emma Bovary commits adultery and then suicide

France (N)

Les Miserables (The Miserable Ones)

-deals with the life of Jean Valjean who is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's family

France (N)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (french title: Notre Dame de Paris)

-Chatacters: Esmeralda and Quasimodo

France (PL)

The Misanthrope

-Character:Alceste

France (PL)

Tartuffe

-Tartuffe has come to mean a religious hypocrite

 -this play was banned at the demand of the clergy

France

The Spirit of the Law (full title: Concerning the spirit of laws, or the relationship which laws must have to the consitiution of each government, to mores, religion, commerce, etc.)

-a treatise on the origins of law, it is one of the bases for most of the world's constistutions

France (S)

Little Red Riding-Hood

-this version has the little girl eaten by a wolf

France (S)

Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper

France

Remembrance of things Past (french title: A La Recherche du Temps Perdu)

-literal translation of title is: In Search of Lost Time

-was translated into English by C. Scott-Moncrieff who chose the title

-consists of 7 parts: Swann's Way; Cities of the Plain; The Captive; The Sweet Cheat Gone; and The Past Recaptured

-set in the imaginary villages of Combray and Balbec

France (N)

Gargantua and Pantagruel

-consists of fives parts known as Books I-V

-Gargantua is Pantagruel's Father

Francois Rabelais

-real name Alcofribas Nasier -known as the Curate of Meudon

-adjective Rabelaisian has come to mean coarsely and boisterously satirical

The Social Contract

-Contains the line "Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains"

Jean Jacques Rousseau

-born in Switzerland

France

Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology

-a treatsie on his philosophy of existentialism

France (PL)

No Exit

-Contains the line "Hell is other people"

France (N)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

-Characters: Captain Nemo, Pierr Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land

-set on the submarine Nautilus

France (N)

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Candide, ou L'Optimisme

-Characters: Dr. Pangloss and Cunegonde

-contains line: "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds"

-last line: "We must cultivate our garden"

Germany (PL)

Mother Courage and Her Children

-set during the Thirty Years' War

Bertolt Brechet

-developed Epic Theater style of drama

-exiled by the Nazis for his communist beliefs

Germany (PL)

Faust

-about an aging scholar who sells his soul to Mephistopheles (the devil)

-character: Gretchen

Johann von Goethe

-leader of the Strum und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement

Germany

Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

-his autobiography and plan for the future, it was written while serving time in prison for the Beer Hall Putsch

Germany

Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant

-formulate the concept of the Cateforical Imperative

-also wrote Critique of Practical Reason; and Critique of Judgement

Germany

Ninety-Five Theses

-nailed on a church door in Wittenberg, they helped to start the Reformation

Germany (N)

Death in Venice

-Character: Gustav von Aschenbach

Thomas Mann

-1929 Nobel Prize in Literature

 -exciled by Hitler, he became an American Citizen

Germany

The Communist Manifesto

-first line: "A spector is haunting Europe

- the spector of communism"

-last line: "Workingmen of all countries, unite."

Karl Marx

-with Freidrich Engels he formulated the concept of Dialectical Materialism

Germany

Thus Spake Zarathustra, or Sprach Zarathustra

 -usues the Persian philosopher Zarathustra to introduce the concept of the Ubermensch("Overman")

Greece (PL)

Prometheus Bound

Aeschylus

-The Father of Tragedy, he wrote 90 plays but only 7 survive

-fought at the battle of Marathon (where he was wounded), Salamis, and Plactaea

Greece (tirlogy of PLs)

The Orestia Trilogy including:

~Choephoroi (The Libation Bearers)

~ Agamemnon

~ Eumenides (The Furies of the Kindly Ones)

-Characters:Clyemnestra, Orestes, and Electra

Aeschylus

-The Father of Tragedy, he wrote 90 plays but only 7 survive

-fought at the battle of Marathon (where he was wounded), Salamis, and Plactaea

Greece

 Fables containing:

~The Boy Who Cried Wolf

~The Tortise and the Hare

 ~The Fox and the Grapes

Aesop

-was a freed slave

Greece (PL)

The Birds

-set in Cloudcuckooland

Greece (PL)

 The Clouds

-attacks Socrates for his methods of teaching

Greece (PL)

The Frogs

-tired of modern writers, the god Dionysus goes down to Hades to get a playwright and in a contest Aeschuylus defeats Euripidies

Greece (PL)

The Trojan Women

Greece (P)

The Illiad

-deals with the Trojan War

-Written in dactylic hexameter

Homer

-mystery sourrounds him and his books

Greece (P)

The Odyssey

-recounts the adcentures of Odysseus after the Trojan War

-it has been called the first novel

Greece

The Republic, or On Justice

-in it Socrates describes the ideal state which is neither a democracy of tyranny

-contains the line: "Necessity is the mother of invention"

Plato

-real name supposedly Aristocles

-student of Socrates

-founded the Academy

-wrote 29 dialogues which explain his and Socrates philosophies

Greece (PL)

Oedipus Tyrannos aka Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King)

-Oedipus solves the riddle of the sphinx (the answer was man) and thus becomes king of Thebes

-characters: Jocasta (his wife and mother -Part of the Theban Trilogy

Sophocles

-introduced the use of a third actor in his plays

-considered the greatest of the Greek playwrights, he defeated Aeschylus in a contest with his first work The Theban Trilogy

Greece (PL)

Antigone

 -Antigone is one of Oedipus' daughters

-character: Creon

Sophocles

 -introduced the use of a third actor in his plays

 -considered the greatest of the Greek playwrights, he defeated Aeschylus in a contest with his first work The Theban Trilogy

Ireland (N)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

-an autobigraphical novel it was first published as Stephen Hero

-Character: Stephen Dedalus

James Joyce

 -used stream of consciousness style extensively

 -went blind later in life

 -his works deal with his rejection of Catholicism, family, and nationalism

Ireland (N)

Ulysses

-considered the greatest novel of the 20th century, it too 7 years to write

 -was banned in the US

-set in Cublin it deals with the day of June 16, 1904 in the life of Leopold Bloom

 -characters: Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus

James Joyce

 -used stream of consciousness style extensively

 -went blind later in life

 -his works deal with his rejection of Catholicism, family, and nationalism

Ireland (N)

Finnegans Wake

-originally titled Work in Progress, it took 17 years to complete

-his last novel, he considered it his masterpiece -character: Humphrey Earwicker

 -due to his unique use of of language the work is impossible to read without special study

James Joyce

-used stream of consciousness style extensively

-went blind later in life

 -his works deal with his rejection of Catholicism, family, and nationalism

Ireland (PL)

Pygmalion

 -the basis for the musical My Fair Lady

-Professor Henry Higgins trandsforms a Cockney girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady. She falls in love with him, but they don't marry.

George Bernard Shaw

-awared the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature

 -lived and worked in England

-was a member of the Fabian Society, a group of socialist

Ireland (N)

The Picture of Dorian Gray

-painting by Basil Hallward

Oscar Wilde

-leader of the "art for art's sake movement

 -sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor for homosexuality

Ireland (PL)

The Importance of Being Earnest

-character Algernon Moncrieff

Oscar Wilde

-leader of the "art for art's sake movement

-sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor for homosexuality

Italy

Summa Theologica (full title: Summa totius theologica, meaning Summary of all Theology)

-doctrinal basis for the teaching of the Catholic Church

St. Thomas Aquinas

 -known as the Angelic Doctor of the Dumb Ox

 -joined the Dominican Order and studied under Balbertus Magnus

Italy (P)

 The Divine Comedy

-original title: Commedia -divided into thee parts which deal with his journey through religion:

~Inferno: he meets Vergil who guides him through the 9 levels of Hell, at the bottome he meets Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot, the three worst sinners in history

 ~Purgatorio: Vergil guides him to Purgatory where he meets Beatrice, the symbol of divine revelation

~Paradiso: Beatrice guides him through the 9 spheres of heaven. He is left with St. Bernard and allowed to gaze upon the trinity

Dante

 -full name: Dante Alighieri

-he fell in unrecirocated love with Beatrice Portinari, who became the inspiration for and appeared in several of his works

Italy

The Prince

-dedicated to the de Medicis in an attempt to get a jobe with them

-Cesare Borgia is offered as the nodel Prince

-contains the parable about how a ruler must be cunning like the fox and strong like the lion

Norway (PL)

Peer Gynt

-about the legendary hero Peer Gynt

Henrik Ibsen

-father of modern drama

Norway (PL)

A Doll's House

-Nora Helmer leaves her husband because he expects her to be a doll and not a person

Henrik Ibsen

 -the father of modern drama

Rome

De Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War)

-about the 7 years he spent conquering Gaul

-first line: All of Gaul is divided into three parts

Rome (P)

Metamorphoses

Ovid

-full name: Publius Ovidius Naso

-exciled by Emperor Augustus for an unknown reason to the Black Sea

Rome (P)

The Aeneid

 -first line: "I sing of arms and the man"

-contains the line: "I fear the Greeks, even though they bring gifts"

 -it was supposed to be destroyed at his death

-it is the national epic of Rome

Vergil

-full name: Publius Vergilius Maro

Russia (PL)

The Seagull

-the gull represents the ruined hopes of the main character, Konstantin

Anton Chekhov

-while earing his medicaldegree he wrote under the pseudonym The Doctor Without Patients

Russia (PL)

The Cherry Orchard

-about the Ranevsky family

Anton Chekhov

-while earing his medicaldegree he wrote under the pseudonym The Doctor Without Patients

Russia (PL)

The Three Sisters

-sometimes considered the greates drama of the 20th century

-characters: Olga, Masha, and Irina Prozorov

Anton Chekhov

-while earing his medicaldegree he wrote under the pseudonym The Doctor Without Patients

Russia (N)

Crime and Punishment

-deals with Raskolnikov's justification of a murder he committed and his eventual confession

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

-graduated from the Military Engineering School

-was imprisioned, nearly execute, exiled to Siberia, and then forced to join the army because he was a member of the radical Petrashevsky circle

-was plagued by a gambling addiction and epileptic attacks

Russia (N)

The Brothers Karamoazov

-deals with the murder of Fyodor Karamazov and the reaction of his four sons: Dmitry, Ivan, Alyosha, and the bastard Smerdyakov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

-graduated from the Military Engineering School

-was imprisioned, nearly execute, exiled to Siberia, and then forced to join the army because he was a member of the radical Petrashevsky circle

-was plagued by a gambling addiction and epileptic attacks

Russia (N)

Doctor Zhivago

-rejected for publication in Russia

-deals with the experiences of Yury Zhivago during the Russian Revolution

Boris Pasternak

-awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature, the furor this raisd in the Soviet Union forced him to reject it

Russia

The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956

-was exiled from Russia for this work

-a history of the Soviet prison system

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

-awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature -was a physics and mathematics professor

-was imprisoned while serving in the army for slandering Stalin

-exciled in 1974, he lived in Cavendish, Vermont until 1994

Russia (N)

War and Peace

-originally to deal with the 1825 Decembrist revol, it was eventually changed to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia

-characters: Natasha Rostova, one of the five hundred in the book

Count Leo Tolstoy

-fought in the Crimean War

-his criticism of the church and state cause his excommunication

Russia (N)

Anna Karenina

-characters: Count Aleksei Vronski, Konstantin, and Kitty Levin

-Anna kills herself by jumping in front of a train

Count Leo Tolstoy

-fought in the Crimean War

-his criticism of the church and state cause his excommunication

Russia (N)

Fathers and Sons (also translated as Fathers and Children)

-popularized by the philosophy of bihilism

 -character: Evgeni Bazarov

Spain (N)

Don Quixote (full title: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha)

-real name: Alonso Quijano

-Character: Dulcinea del Toboso(really Aldonza Lorenzo) and Sancho Panza

-Quixote's horse is named Ricinante and Panza's donkey is Dapple

-one famous scene in the work is when Don attacks several windmills

-contains the famous sayings: "All that glistens is not gold"; "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"; and "Honesty is the best policy"

Miguel de Cervantes [Saavedra]

-fought in the battle of Lepanto where he lost the use of his left hand

 -captured by Barbary pirates, he was a slave for 5 years

Sweden (PL)

 Miss Julie

Johan August Strindberg

-suffered a mental breakdown after his acquittal on the charges of blasphemy

-most of his novels deal wit hteh conflict between men and women