Humn 303N Week 4 Discussion: Literary Movements

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

  • Textbook: Chapter 7, 8
  • Lesson
  • Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook – for historical/political influences)

Initial Post Instructions
Choose one of the literary movements that you read about this week and at least one work from that movement. Movements, authors, and famous works are discussed in the lesson as well. You do not have to choose authors or works discussed in the lesson, but you may. For your initial post, address one of the following:

Option 1: Examine the movement and specific work in relation to historical and political influences of the movement. Include a one paragraph summary of the plot before moving on to the examination of the work in relation to the movement.

Option 2: Examine a specific artwork influenced by a literary work and how the artist captured the subject or story. Here are a few examples, but you are not restricted to this list:

  • Asher B. Durand’s Thanatopsis (influenced by William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”)
  • John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott (influenced by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”)
  • Sir John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (influenced by Shakespeare’s Ophelia from Hamlet)
  • Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne or The Rape of Prosperina (influenced by ancient myths)
  • Ancient Greek vase painting (influenced by various ancient myths)

 

Solution:

For this discussion, I will be working on option 2. I selected Sir John Everett Millais’s Ophelia inspired by Shakespeare’s Ophelia from Hamlet. The painting in question is approximately 762 x 111.8 cm in size (Tate, n.d). The oil on canvas is a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece and is often described as one of the most outstanding masterpieces created in the pre-Raphaelite style. The image depicts the death of Ophelia. In Act IV, Scene VII of Hamlet, Ophelia is said to have fallen into a stream, where she drowned (Martin & Jacobus, 2018). She had been mentally disturbed following the realization that her lover, Hamlet, had killed her father. In the painting, we see her seemingly lifeless body floating on the stream.

In this painting, it is impossible to miss the artist’s attention to details, especially in the manner in which he depicts nature. The plants around the female figure have painstaking details.,,,,,Please click the icon below to purchase full answer at only