Crash Course AP Literature

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1
lender, Shylock. The condition of the loan, if it is not repaid, is that Shylock
may take a pound of flesh from Antonio.

Tags: anti-Semitism, disguise, gender roles, marriage, Portia’s famous speech
on mercy

Moll Flanders by
Daniel Defoe,
1722


Genre: novel, episodic

Setting: London, Virginia

Main characters: Moll, her mother, numerous men, some of whom she marries

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: The full title says it all: “The Fortunes and
Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and
during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood,
was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own
brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at
last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own
Memorandums.”

Tags: alienation of lower classes, poverty, adventure, marriage, self-
determination

Mrs. Dalloway by
Virginia Woolf,
published 1925


Genre: novel

Setting: England, post World War I

Main characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Smith

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: All of the present action takes place on one day in
June. The author uses flashbacks to other times and locales. Mrs. Dalloway
prepares for a party and thinks of her marriage and those she has loved.

Tags: stream of consciousness, feminism, homosexuality, value of inner life
(thoughts, emotions), effects of war

Murder in the
Cathedral by T. S.
Eliot, first
performed in 1935


Genre: poetic drama

Setting: Canterbury, England, 1170 (when Archbishop Thomas Becket was
murdered) in the archbishop’s hall and in the cathedral

Main characters: Chorus, as in a Greek drama, comments on the action in the
play. The archbishop, himself, knights, three tempters.

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Thomas Becket is murdered and martyred.

Tags: individual versus authority, anti-fascism, power of church versus state
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