The Wonderful World The Wonderful World of Literatureof Literature

The Wonderful World The Wonderful World of Literatureof Literature

Part IV -- Shakespeare and The Part IV -- Shakespeare and The BibleBible

When in doubt…

• It’s from Shakespeare– Any Literature between the 18th and

21st centuries is dominated by the Bard.

Famous Lines:• To thine own self be true.• All the world’s a stage, and all the men

and women merely players.• What’s in a name? That which we call a

rose by any other word would smell as sweet.

• What a rogue and peasant slave am I.• Good night, sweet prince, and flights of

angels sing thee to thy rest.

• Get thee to a nunnery!• Who steals my purse steals trash.• Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound

and fury, signifying nothing.• The better part of valor is discretion.• A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!• We few, we happy few, we band of

brothers.

• Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.

• By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

• O brave new world, that has such people in it.

• To be or not to be, that is the question.

If not Shakespeare…• It’s from The Bible.

– Garden, serpent, plagues, flood, parting of waters, loaves, fish, forty days, betrayal, denial, slavery and escape, fatted calves, milk and honey.

Writers use scripture ALL the time:

• Stories of the Apocalypse.• The Four Horsemen

– The pale (or green) horse is Death.– Clint Eastwood -- Pale Rider

• Loss of innocence

– In “Araby”, this could be The Fall.

– Every story about the loss of innocence is really about someone’s private reenactment of the fall from grace.

Here goes…• A young boy (11, 12, or 13 years

old) has experienced a life of safety—uncomplicated—limited to attending school, playing in the street, when suddenly…

– He discovers girls.

Early adolescence…• The narrator has no way of dealing with

the object of desire—or even to recognize that what he feels is desire.

• His culture does all it can to separate boys and girls.

• He promises to buy this girl something from Araby– She can’t go because of a religious retreat

at her school.

• After many delays and much frustration, he arrives at the bazaar just as it is closing.

• He finds a stall open—turns away from what he sees and suddenly recognizes…– he sees he is no different from anyone—that

the girl is average—that he’s been a fool—that the girl has never really thought about him.

Loss of innocence, fine…

• …but The Fall?• No serpent, no apple, no garden.• OOPS!

• But…• The doors are protected by two great

jars.• So what? So what you say?

Well…• They’re described as being “like two

eastern guards”.

• Genesis 3:24 -- “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

• The swords keep man from a former innocence.

• And this is a loss-of-innocence story.• It’s harsh because these stories are so

final.• You can NEVER go back—that’s why the

narrator is so upset—his childhood and innocence is gone forever.

• Authors know their religion.