Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett / The Absurd

The Absurd is a particular subset of Modernist writing. 

Absurdist writers, feeling that the world is incapable of being deciphered or comprehended, try to cause in their audience or readers the pointlessness and confusion they believe everyone should feel upon recognizing the absurd nature of existence. 

Modernism

The Modernist Era begins around 1914 and ends around 1950.  Main influences include

Kafka

Kafka, “The Hunger Artist”

Franz Kafka (who was highly influenced by Freud and said so in his journals) wrote in a style known (now) as Magical Realism.  

Global Lit: Tolstoy's Folk Tales

Leo Tolstoy, who lived and worked in Russia during the Enlightenment, Romantic, Realist, and Naturalist periods (even a bit into the Modernist era), is one of the most influential writers in the world. 

Global Lit Assignments: November 9 through Nov 29

Thursday November 9 Tolstoy, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" and "Three Questions"

Global Lit: Blake, Tennyson, Browning

William Blake

William Blake is an early Romantic poet.

Romantics

Romantics  are reacting to the Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and England – you’ll remember that the Enlightenment were those 18^th Century philosophers and scholars who believe, more or less, in the power of human reason to fix the world; who believe, that is,

Global Lit: Assignments November 2 - November 16

Thursday November 2: William Blake, 582-587; Tennyson, 644 - 645; Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "The Musical Instrument."