Substance

=**WHAT IS SUBSTANCE?**=
 * Substance is the meaning or theme of a work. Substance is the "significance" that you are //"So Whatting."// Substance is made more powerful by connecting to the universal or archetypal. **

**Universal/Archetypal Characters:**

 * Epic Hero: typically the protagonist of an epic who succeeds in his goals.
 * Tragic Hero: protagonist brought down through a tragic flaw
 * Byronic Hero: Proud, Moody, Dark, Cynical; idealized but flawed character according to Lord Byron's works
 * AntiHero: character that is not morally good, but the audience sympathizes for them
 * Outcast: the ostracized individual
 * Scapegoat: The person who unjustly assumes guilt. Killed by a group in a desperate bid for atonement
 * Stranger in the Village: similar to the outcast, but introduces their own unorthdox ideas instead of being

**Universal/Archetypal Women:**

 * earth mother: the warm, receiving mother of all; offers spriritual and emotional nourishment to others.
 * temptress: a shameless slute. Leads men astray.
 * soul-mate: the ideal woman; the female complement to the protagonist. No matter what, their bond cannot be broken.
 * platonic ideal: idealized love that is never actualized; courtly love. Source of inspiration to the hero; intellectual attraction>physical attraction
 * maiden: pure, innocuous, naive; virgin
 * mother: figure with mother-esque characteristics
 * crone: wise and compassionate old lady; also capable of representing discontent

**Universal/Archetypal Images:**
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 * Colors: white=innocence, purity; red=passion, love, danger, violence; green=envy; black=evil; yellow=hope, happiness; purple=royalty so on in so forth. Often corrupted for authors purposes
 * Numbers: 1=unity; 3=new family, triumvirate, trinity, comitatus, 7=circles of hell, deadly sins, 12= circulation, months, 12 zodiacs; 13=bad luck
 * Water: purity, change, tranquility; symbolizes the unconscious
 * Yin and Yang (Juxtaposition): Light and Dark: Knowledge and Ignorance
 * Nature and Garden: edenic,
 * Tree: knowledge

**Universal/Archetypal Plots:**

 * Coming-of-Age (//Bildungsroman//): coming to grips with the bigger question (mortality,sex,loss)
 * Mistaken Identity/Farce: dramatic irony, but who is the real man: the costume, or the man who wears it. Comedy fueld by dramtic irony resulting from mistaken identity.
 * Renewal of Life: You pick yourself up, and you move on
 * Quest/Journey: the journey of the hero.
 * Spiritual epiphany: one becomes spiritually enlightened.

**Novel types:**

 * Bildungsroman: coming-of-age story
 * Dystopian: a ruined utopia.
 * Utopian: a perfect society
 * Epistolary: a novel told in letters
 * Gothic: the dark side of individualism; moral and physical corruption
 * Historical:revists an important element of history
 * Novella: a short novel
 * Novel of manners: novels about society's rules; almost always riddled with satire
 * Social novel: synonymous with novel of manners

**GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS AS CONTEMPORARY "OUTCAST" THEMES**

 * Issues of Gender: //A Doll's House, Jane Eyre,//
 * Issues of Race: //The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, The Poisonwood Bible, Brave New World////, Fences//
 * Issues of Class: //Brave New World, Jane Eyre, 1984//
 * Other Important Themes:**
 * ===Love: beginnings, innocence, satisfaction, splendor, possibility===
 * ===Religion: used to increase the plausibility of fatalism or divine intervention===
 * ===Mortality: when characters face the possibility of their death, they come of age and mature===
 * ===Reality: the most prudent of characters make sure to keep the contrast between reality and idealization in mind===
 * ===Sanity: thee more capricious characters fail to maintain a partition between reality and idealizaion===
 * ===//Carpe Diem//: seize the day (let's have sex)===
 * ===Pastoral: sheep and fields; fertility; idealism of the outdoor life===

**Exploring Literary "Substance" Through Philosophical Thought**

 * Romanticism (vs. Classicism vs. Realism):
 * Romanticism: an adverse reaction to the preceding literary movement Rationalism; Rationalism's main idea is that we can discover truth through application of reason, instead of past, Church, or institutional authority
 * Classicism=Greco-Roman;
 * Realism: see directly below
 * Realism: a writing style developed in between the 1850s and the early 1900s that attempts to depict life as accurately as possible by excluding all idealization or romanticism.
 * Modern Realism: primary emphasis is placed on the common man, a member of the proletariat
 * Magical Realism: mostly Spanish novels; events occur that defy physical and reality, but are accepted as truth
 * Gothicism: emphasis on macabre and ghastly elements within literary works
 * Modernism: experimental writing styles and forms prevalent in literature and other arts between the 1920s and 1945
 * Postmodernism:
 * Existentialism: emphasis on the philosophy of the self as a liberated and unbound individual
 * Absurdism: beliefe that human life is devoid of purpose and order; entropy and inefficiency reign supreme
 * Feminism: see feminist theory

**Literary Theories Of Which College Board Readers Are Aware**

 * Feminist:
 * emphasis on the ways in which literature reinforces or undermines economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women.
 * examines inherently patriarchal elements of society
 * focus on exclusion of women authors from the traditional literary canon
 * three waves
 * **First Wave Feminism ** - late 1700s-early 1900's
 * **Second Wave Feminism ** - early 1960s-late 1970s
 * **Third Wave Feminism ** - early 1990s-present
 * Psychoanalytic:
 * build on Freudian theories of psychology
 * id, ego, and superego
 * id: libido
 * ego
 * selective perception
 * selective memory
 * denial
 * displacement
 * projection
 * regression
 * fear of intimacy
 * fear of death
 * superego: the area of the unconscious that houses internal and external judgment and begins to form during childhood as a result of the Oedipus complex
 * read for psychoanalytical interpretation
 * also builds on Jung's work
 * assume all stories and symbols are based on mythic models from mankind's past
 * Marxist:
 * primary emphasis on socioeconomic differences between classes
 * implications and complications of the capitalist system
 * who does it (whatever "it" may be) benefit
 * the bourgeoisie?
 * the proletariat?
 * how is the proletariat oppressed in both everyday life and literature
 * material dialectic
 * materialism>politics, law, philosophy, religion and art built upon an economic basis
 * perpetual cycle of contradiction, tension, and revolution
 * eternal battle between bourgeoisie and proletariat
 * New Historicism:
 * reconnect a literary work with the time period in which it was produced and identify it with the cultrual and political movements of the time
 * every work is a product of the historic moment that created it.
 * we cannot look at history objectively and are hopelessly subjective interpreters of what we observe
 * Formalism:
 * formalists treat each work as its own distinct piece
 * formalists assume that the keys to understanding a text lie within the text itself
 * heavy emphasis on form
 * Reader-Response:
 * the response an audience has to a literary work serves as the basis for interpretation of the text. Can be applied through several different perspectives
 * psychoanalytic lens
 * feminist lens
 * structuralist lens

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