Literature of Temptation Over Time
Created by Catherine Golden on Thu, 08/22/2024 - 12:29
This course traces the theme of temptation over time, taking us to texts across centuries and continents. In this course we will move among literary periods and across oceans as we examine this theme that dates to Genesis in the Bible. We will build a timeline as we go and add maps and images and related historical context to tease out the richness of this theme in literary studies.
What events and ideas were circulating at the time each of these texts came out? Let's place the texts we read in chronological order and examine the cultural moment surrounding each tempting text. Be creative!
Timeline
Chronological table
| Date | Event | Created by | Associated Places | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1564 to 1564 |
Birth of Christopher MarloweThis portrait of an anonymous artist is believed to be of Christopher Marlowe (1564-93). It was painted in 1585.
|
Catherine Golden | ||
| circa. 1611 |
Genesis
Genesis in the Bible, recorded in the King James version of the Bible published in 1611, includes the creation of humankind and the temptation of Adam and Eve. The Garden of Eden is described in the Bible as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by G-d. This garden forms part of the creation myth and helps to explain the notion of original sin and mankind's wrongdoings. Eden's location is still under speculation among—is it near the Tigris and Euphrates (northern Mesopotamia), in Iraq (Mesopotamia), Africa, the Persian Gulf, or metaphorical? |
Catherine Golden | ||
| 1811 to 1820 |
RegencyThis is the time frame (1811-1820) when George III was still King but not "sane" so his son, the Prince of Wales, was made Regent (King-in-effect) so that the country would have a legitimate monarch who could act in matters of state for the incapacitated King George III. Prince Regent became King George IV when his father, George III, died in 1820. Jane Austen died in 1817, three years before the Prince Regent became king; thus over the course of her novels George III is King of England and his son is Prince Regent. In Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, the Prince Regent's connection to Brighton figures importantly since the Prince was known for his excesses in spending and self-indulgence, In his association with Brighton as a vacationing spot, Brighton becomes a logical environment for the irresponsible behavior of Lydia in attaching herself to Wickham and in running off with him without being married to him. . |
Bettina Pedersen | ||
| 1813 to 1813 |
Jane Austen Published Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen began working on this novel in the late 18th century under the title "First Impressions." She published it in 1813 under the name "A Lady." |
Catherine Golden | ||
| 5 Dec 1830 |
Birth of Christina Georgina Rossetti Pencil Portrait of Christina Rossetti at about age 15, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, circa 1846. Wikimedia Commons. Christina Rossetti was born in London on December 5 1830, the fourth and last child of Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854) and Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori Rossetti (1800-1886). Her older sister, Maria Francesca Rossetti (1827-1876), became an Anglican nun. Her oldest brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), became an acclaimed Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter. Her other brother, WIlliam Michael Rossetti (1829-1919), was an art critic and writer. |
Lorraine Kooistra | ||
| 10 Jun 1854 |
Sydenham Crystal Palace opens
Opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham on 10 June 1854. Image: The Crystal Palace on fire (30 November 1936; author unknown). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired. The resurrection of the Crystal Palace of 1851 in its new setting at Sydenham, with an expanded architectural complex and enhanced functional brief, embodies the Victorian emphasis upon visuality as a means of acquiring and conveying knowledge. In addition, the new Crystal Palace was shaped by prevailing concepts of rational recreation and beneficial commerce that insisted that private and public interests could be simultaneously satisfied and lead to a stronger nation and even Empire. ArticlesAnne Helmreich, "On the Opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 10 June 1854" Related ArticlesAudrey Jaffe, "On the Great Exhibition" Aviva Briefel, "On the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition" Anne Clendinning, “On The British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25″ |
David Rettenmaier | ||
| 3 Jul 1860 to 17 Aug 1935 |
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ca. 1900, by C. F. Lummis, Wikipedia
Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, was nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Catharine Beecher and grandson of evangelist Lyman Beecher, whose American roots could be traced back to 1637. Frederick Perkins divorced her mother, Mary Westcott, and Gilman and her one surviving brother were poor relations, moving frequently. Known as a writer and lecturer, Gilman, enormously proud of her Beecher blood, began her public career as a poet; her satirical verse withinIn This Our World (1893) enjoyed a near cult following among socialists in the United States and England. However, her treatise Women and Economics (1898) established Gilman's international reputation as a feminist social critic even though she repudiated the term when it came in use in 1891. Today we know her best as the author of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892).
|
Catherine Golden | ||
| Mar 1862 |
Goblin Market and Other Poems Published "Golden curl by golden curl," title page for Goblin Market Goblin Market is a Victorian narrative poem written by Christina Rossetti and illustrated by her brother Dante Gabriel. Rossetti felt that the collaboration with her brother was crucial to her overall work, that she deliberately delayed the publication until Dante Garbiel’s illustrations were ready for press. He designed a total of two illustrations, the frontispiece and title page, for The Goblin Market. Both images were pressed using wood engravings, evoking the pre-raphaelite designs popular during the 1860’s. The passages appeal to the senses through vivid descriptions of colours, textures, aromas and taste. Critics assigned the poem to various general categories over the following decades and throughout the twentieth century. It was first viewed as a fairytale but was later viewed as an allegorical piece. Feminist critics often analyzed the poem’s social commentary on gender relations and the relationship between two sisters. Later in the nineteenth century, readers, reviewers, illustrators, and composers began to focus on the poem’s powerful aesthetic qualities. Its sensuous patterns, religious images, and social implications inspired the focus of school studies and as well as musical settings and performances. The power of its visual images, and the two wood-engraved designs by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the poem’s first publication, turned to evoke numerous artistic interpretations, ranging from stained glass windows to gift books.
Curated by Kisha Rendon, Joseph Pereira, and Payton Flood Public Domain; source: COVE Goblin Market edition by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Antony Harrison |
Payton Flood | ||
| circa. 1892 to circa. 1899 |
Publication of "The Yellow Wall-Paper"
Cover of the 1899 edition of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" From its first publication in the January 1892 issue of New England Magazine until the early 1970s, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" was viewed variously as a story in the genre of Poe, a ghost story, and as an attack on gender relations. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" now finds its place in the nineteenth-century American literature canon, hailed in the feminist canon, and reprinted in major anthologies. Gilman tells the story of a woman who very much wants to write; denied opportunities for self expression, she is tempted to read the patterns on the ubiquitous yellow wallpaper on the room of her nursery/prison where she is forced to undergo a rest cure. Critics variously call her psychic journey in the story a victory, a defeat, and a qualified victory. |
Catherine Golden | ||
| 1894 to 1894 |
Peacock Edition of "Pride and Prejudice"In 1894, George Allen published the Peacock edition of Pride and Prejudice with a beautifully embellished cover and illustrations by Hugh Thomson. The Irish artist provides ample humorous drawings that emphasize Austen's wit and also capture Regency fashions and domestic settings.
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Catherine Golden | ||
| 29 Dec 1894 |
Death of Christina Rossetti The Rossetti Family Grave, Highgate Western Cemetary Christina Rossetti died on 29 December 1894 and was buried in the Rossetti family plot, alongside her parents and Elizabeth Siddal. |
Dino Franco Felluga |
Christopher Marlowe was a leading Elizabethan playwright and poet . The most important dramatist before William Shakespeare, Marlowe earned a reputation for the establishment of dramatic blank verse. His playwriting career lasted just over six years, but he achieved greatness and is best known today for Dr. Faustus, published posthumously in 1604 and 1616. His career was cut short. Marlowe died young and under mysterious circumstances. Was his death in a brawl over a lodging house bill linked to his alleged involvement as a spy in Queen Elizabeth I's secret service? 
The Fall of Man (1615) by Jan Brueghel de Oude en Peter Paul Rubens
