Summary of literary texts and key concepts of literature

  Humanism is, specifically, an European phenomenon, that includes worldly and secular philosophy. It is anthropocentric. It aims to ennoble and dignify man. It was the product of European Renaissance. The term ‘Renaissance ‘was coined by French historian, Jules Michelet in his Historie de France , published in 1855.It has been defined as the birth of the new world of culture, literature, art and science out of the dilapidated remains of   the dark medieval ages. In the 16 th century, the term humanism was coined to signify studia humanitatis. The humanists were concerned with moral, educational and political themes. They were influenced by classical ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero. Later in the 19 th century the term was applied to denote the view of general nature, general values, and educational ideas to which the Renaissance Humanists espoused to.(M.H.Abrams) . The humanists were scholars of literae humaniores, precisely, the Greek literature, and they were Latin poets, dramati

  In his Poetics, Aristotle defined tragic hero as a person, who is an ‘intermediate kind of personage, a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however,   is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but some error of judgement’( Bywater’s translation). Oedipus enjoys great reputation and a prosperous life. But his life takes a drastic turn from happiness to misery.Oedipus suffers primarily, due to an error of judgement resulted from ignorance or moral shortcoming. In his Poetics, Aristotle asserts that the tragic hero ought to be a person whose misfortune is brought upon him, not by any vice or depravity, but by some error. Oedipus impulsively kills his father and inadvertently ends up marrying his mother.

    Gothic   romance is the type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century in England and has had a considerable influence on the evolution of ghost stories, horror stories and fiction.  Gothic  romances were also known as the novel of terror for   its supernatural aspects and mysterious plot leading to the dark underworld where an innocent heroine is tormented by an uncouth and lustful villain. The setting of the novel is usually dark and gloomy, either medieval ruins or haunted castles. One of the prototypes of this genre is Tobias Smollett’s Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) .The pioneer of this genre was Horace Walpole, whose novel The Castle of Otranto: a Gothic Story became very popular at that time. His legacy was carried on by novelists like Ann Radcliffe, in her The Mysteries of Udolpho, William Beckford (Vathek), Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk), William Godwin and other notable gothic writers. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is considered the progenitor