Crash Course AP Literature

who has a destructive series of love affairs with other men.

Tags: Lost Generation, disillusionment

The Tempest by
William
Shakespeare

Genre: play

Setting: the Renaissance, on an island probably off the coast of Italy

Main characters: Prospero, Miranda, Ariel, Calaban

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Prospero, the duke of Milan and a powerful

magician, is banished from Italy and cast out to sea by his brother, Antonio, and

Alonso, the king of Naples. Prospero seeks to use his magic to make these lords

repent and restore him to his rightful place.

Tags: the theater, magic, revenge

Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett,
first produced in
1953

Genre: two-act play

Setting: a country road by a tree, 20th century

Main characters: Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo and Lucky

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Two men wait unsuccessfully for someone named

Godot to arrive. They say he is an acquaintance but, in fact, hardly know him,

admitting that they would not recognize him if they saw him. To occupy

themselves, they eat, sleep, talk, argue, play games, and contemplate suicide—

anything “to hold the terrible silence at bay.”

Tags: existentialism, life is a game

All the King’s Men
by Robert Penn
Warren, published
1946 (won Pulitzer
Prize in 1947)

Genre: novel

Setting: 1930s, the American South

Main characters: Willie Stark, Jack Burden, Anne Stanton, Adam Stanton

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Willie Stark turns from an idealistic lawyer into a

charismatic and powerful governor. On his way, Stark embraces various forms

of corruption and builds an enormous political machine based on patronage and

intimidation. His approach to politics earns him many enemies in the state

legislature, but his constituents are nonetheless drawn to his fervent populist

manner.

Tags: Huey Long, political corruption, nihilism, Calvinism, charismatic public

figures

Genre: novel

Setting: Texas, Mexico, 1949