Conclusion of the Literature Course

Yes, it is difficult to state a conclusion when you have to write it, but really do not want to. But well, this conclusion is meant to be read by people, for them to know what you think. I know at least two people that will be reading this. You never know all of the people who will read your posts, but now I am sure of two. Maybe I can come up with a secret code, but I won't, or maybe I will, I do not know, maybe within the post, there is the "hidden message". Whatever. 

This course. Wow, well, first the typical "Oh, yes I learned a lot, and I found out the meaning of literature and read many interesting things that will help me find a taste for future things I read and everything was so enjoyable: the presentations, the art projects, the novels, the... Yes, and it was the best course in the year and, and, and..." 

But I'm not feeling any of that, am I? What I learned through the year, is that no matter how much or what I read, I actually HAVE the capacity to descipher funny drawings or symbols called "words" to communicate. I went kind of "backwards" and asked, and ask, in present tense...

Words? I understand? Why do I understand? Bleh. Punctuation marks?!="!: Yeah, they help, and you know they are there for something, and someone introduces to your mind that they are there for something, and that they mean something, and their only goal is to make it "understandable". You want more conclusion? I think I will not reach a point?!"=. The course, yes, I liked Night, my "whatever it was" in my "art" project, trying to figure out many things. My reading habits: did not change. My pleasure for reading: did not change. My meaning to words: yeah, that probably changed. And yet, I am here, using my "understandable" english...


I realized I use words such as adjectives or adverbs, and I can not only use words, but choose my words and choose their meaning. adkfjs.

You read it, _______ (insert name here). 

Maybe later I'll also read this. 

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

I've always laughed at the term "science fiction" (in a kind of mental way, not that I laugh out loud every time I hear it). There is something about it, that is not fictitious about it; and science, well, that is another story. I know, I know, fiction is something that does not have to do with our "reality", and our history; our peopled world, our current technological advances, (by the way, Fahrenheit 451 movie came out in the 60s and I smiled at the "wonderful" TV parlor wich was one of our modern plasma T.V.s. Very futuristic for the time it was made in), or maybe the things people do and the way people think... a thousand, a billion reasons. 

My "point" here, if I do have one of those, is that Fahrenheit could just as easy as to be an allegory. An allegory of what? Of our modern times, of our present, that is turning into past every second, every moment. There are always people who are against the system, people who want to just take things as they are, people who do not want or are afraid of THINKING, people who control everything, and people who come and give your life a change... any change, people who think they understand... People, people, people... Arabs, catholics, African-Americans, chinese, mexicans, short people, non-religious people... people, people, people... all so unique, all so different. 

     

In a way, all science fiction has to relate to "now", since topics treated everywhere have to do with our way of thinking, and these topics are discussed, exposed or wahtever by a thinking human being. (Unless there's an animal or plant that writes or paints, which would also be left to the interpretation of us human beings, so it's all the same, anyway). A man that discovers that his life is silly, absurd. The closest person to him, which was never that <linked> to him, the people that did not want others to fill their minds with knowledge so that ignorance would make them "H.a.p.p.y" (what a word in this world, so...). I cannot think of it as science fiction, because they have all the tools we have, the TVs, the incinerators, empty minds, non-empty minds, books... we are just technologically closer, or just like it. Science. Social Science? Technological Science? Fiction? Really? 

Tech is created to fulfill our "needs". Our needs to have what? An easier life? A h.a.p.p.i.e.r world? A less stressed world? A comformist world? Really? Sides. Well, human beings have to choose one, and satisfy their "neeeeeeds". 

Extra no. 1:

Aliens? Maybe the reason we have not "seen" them is because we insist on realting them to human characteristics. We believe what our eyes can see, even with "great" modern tech... Just a thought. 

Extra no. 2:

Montag's chase and sudden death in TV. Kind of reminded me of Osama Bin Laden. Sudden, fast, TV. 

You'll be reading this? Will someday internet be burnt? You know, maybe not a lot of people will mind reading this. It is l.o.n.g.

Words. Words. Words. Bleh. 

"Much ado about Nothing" by William Shakespeare

Words... back... or something. The thing is that now, this is supposed to talk about... nothing! Nothing what? Oh, right. Much ado, much to do, about... no-thing. Even though the title of this story, play, movie, etc., originally by William Shakespeare, can have many meanings and connotations, like the one which has a sexual menaing, or the one where nothing (notting) means to spy someone, I will focus on the "no-thing" thing about this "nothing" play. 

What is this supposed to mean? That nothing happened in the end? That every event just happened and it was just for nothing because everything would have run its course without all the drama? Is it that Shakeaspeare considered all the muttering and love and relationships a really huge "nothing"? Maybe, but that is not up to me to interpret.  

What I think is that in the end, what counted was inside the characters, and sooner or later, it would have appeared, through one means or the others.  Beatrice and Benedick, they both loved each other so secretly, that one day, maybe, without others' "help", their love would have ocme out to surface for them and everyone to see. Claudio and Hero, well, what a pair of confused and tender-lovings! 

Maybe the end as we know it would not have ended that way if no one would have interferred. I mean, it would have ended with Claudio's death, with Don Pedro's one by his evil brother, with all the "loving couples" being together in the end, wether in life or death (as in R & J, in the case of Claudio and Hero), or nothing could have happened, just the prince and everyone else arriving to Messina, doing whatever they went to do, and bye-bye. Nothing, nothing could have happened, and nothing happened, so, there was too much doing about just nothing. 

"Taxi" by Amy Lowell

When I go away from you 

The world beats dead

Like a slackened drum. 

I call out for you against the jutted stars

And shout into the ridges of the wind. 

Streets coming fast, 

One after the other,

Wedge you away from me,

And the lamps of the city prick my eyes

So that I can no longer see your face.

Why should I leave you

To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

So, taxi, a taxi that could take you far away, a taxi that you hope to be arrriving somewhere, but you cannot know for sure, a taxi that you just want to take you away from the pain. Yes, I like the sound of it, the sound of the Inception quote I changed in order to fit it to the poem, but those words can sound silly, too. The poem tells us about this girl who maybe broke up with her boyfriend or just left him for the night because either she or he had something else to do. And then she is suffering like hell, either way. But is that my interpretation or what the poem really wants to say? But even though someone tells me what the poem "really wants to say", I would interpret it. So my interpretation is that, and I find it really silly. And I can say that because of the interpretation I gave to it, it is not a good poem. But people have taught me that poems should be judged not from the topic, but by the way they are written. So yes, I like that there are metaphors (but kind of simple, though) and the images (like the 3d neon lights coming right into your eyes full of tears, hurting them). I like those, but not the poem itself, maybe there is a good arrangement of the verses, but that I cannot be sure of, even though that I can actually say I like. So to me, it is not a poem I can put in the category of "Poems I consider to be good". 


And I would have liked for the title to be more of a metaphor.

"Exile" by Julia Alvarez

This was kind of a mixture of what I like about poetry and what I do not. To start with, I like the set of metaphors the author used, as I really like metaphors. But on the other hand, I do not really like narrative poetry. I mean, it is nice and I think it can be very good, but I still cannot find a way to look at the verses and not want to put them all together as in prose, because my mind thinks that either way, they continue being the exact same thing. My mind considers that there can be more "poetic" phrases or paragraphs, also full of metaphors in a novel, but that is interpretation, as everything.

But aside all of that, I think Exile is a very well done image of what the title wants to say. To imagine this girl plunging into the sea, going away from the land she knows and into the unknown, but still with faith, is a very clear image for me. And the way she puts her point of view as a child, a child who could just follow his dad to his "holiday in the beach", can bring us many thoughts, like what if she was older and had the possibility to choose? Or, what if she had fought to stay and not only go away? What will she do in the new and unknown place?

I believe this poem really makes us project ourselves in it, asking and answering ourselves, to what could happen to the mirror we see in this girl.

William Shakespeare

I could start by saying when our dear friend Will was born, or everything he did and did not, but I think there is one important thing: what if Shakespeare had never existed?

We all know (as the world in general) about Romeo and Juliet, maybe about Hamlet's quote "to be or not to be", or about the Globe... and everything ends up relating to dear Willy. But what if this great playwright had never put the stereotypes and famous quotes in history? Maybe nothing would have happened: we could have had another typical model to stand for the well-known "Romeo", or tragedies would not be represented with a skull because of the play Hamlet, but maybe with a knife stabbing a heart, or swords crossed (or swords crossed with a skull haha) But anyway, I cannot buy the fact that Shakespeare was that important. Yes, I like his work, I've seen a thousand representations of Romeo and Juliet and like to know about him, his times, etc. But besides all that, I think of William Shakespeare as a very good playwright that was able to become popular by accident. Then, his work started spreading like smoke and everyone soon knew about this guy, or about his work. Only by accident was that the stereotypes we have today are what they are, and the sound to his name is known by most of the people, even though they might not know a thing about him. 

He was born as everyone else, wrote as anyone else could have, and reached fame as everyone else could have. Destiny? I cannot say, but he is a guy that should be very credited for many of the "lettered" world we have today, and after about 400 years after his death, he is still part of our world. So yes, nothing could have happened, but after all, he left his print and is present somehow. 

"Revolting Rhymes (Snow White)" by Roald Dahl

Snow white ended up with the seven dwarves because they made a fortune at the racetrack. Not the usual "Oh, and she lived happily ever after with lovely Prince Charming, and the rainbow shone, and the birds sang and everything was just so annoyingly perfect..." No, this is something that can be both more linked to our everyday life, but on the other hand, way more farther from it. Now it was like "Oh, and then she stole the mirror just because and the dwarves made a fortune and she fell in love with them (or their money, either way) and then the lights fade out..." Yes, very funny because of the way it turns a childish story into a double sense and with balck humor story. But even though it can have the double sense, (and the images contribute a lot to this) and it might be "less fantastic" or "less childish", one does not go listening to stories about a woman who slept with seven little guys at the same time because they were rich. I mean, everything can happen, the rainbowish ending, or the... lovely alternative ending. 

That is what I consider great about everything, you can mock about everything you want, and the way Roald Dahl arranges the stories in his Revolting Rhymes, and puts them together in a very "poetic" way, makes them even funnier. It is a very good joke. 

Roald Dahl has a very particular ability to put words together to tell elegant rhyming jokes without having to speak them. That is what I can see from Revolting Rhymes.

Image from: http://www.liquorsnob.com/pictures/ho-white.jpg

"Night" by Elie Weisel [Part II]

I cannot speak about Night. I talked to a friend trying to find the words, but it wass impossible. We spent the night talking, and still it did not happen. It is so hard to say something that does not sound stupid. We probably think too much. I mean, what is war? What is peace?  What is to be mentally sane? Not knowing? And to be mad? Is being mad perceiving what others do not?

When was the last time you saw yourself in the mirror and looked at a normal person there?
I would like for you to give me a definition of a weird person, please. 
Everybody lives a Night. But I gues that some people that could seem to understand that, just won't.


And now, go here and watch: http://vimeo.com/1965247

"Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou

I was listenig to a song, and I listened to a part that says:

What a feeling.

Bein's believin'.

I can have it all, now I'm dancing for my life.

Take your passion

and make it happen.

Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life.

Now I hear the music,

close my eyes, I am rhythm.

In a flash it takes hold

of my heart.

       (Flashdace, what a feeling - Irene Cara)

I know it might not sound anything related to the Phenomenal woman poem, but as I listened to it, it caught my attention for the way I instantly realted it to the poem. This is like the explanation I could give to the poem with another one. What Maya Angelou is proud about is for the fact of being herself, the feeling she gets about her. 

There is still so much discrimination against women all over the world. They are not taken into account in political decisions, they are used as means of pleasure, according to a misinterpretation of religion. Ancestral traditions, even since primitive people, women stay at home, men go to work.   Having made so much progress in human thinking, in human perspective, there are still many things to be aware of. Like these. Women's situation in the world. This song is what every woman should think, want to think and still want to be. 

It is achieving a high position with ourselves, defeating what others think and having all at the palm of our hands. It is fighting for the right to be free: "Take your passion and make it happen. Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life". It's a matter of being proud of what we are, not taking into account what we must be. Women and men are not the same, but it is that special characteristics, that "secret that lies inside us" that make us so special, but not so "discriminable". Human beings after all. "Close my eyes I am rhythm. In a flash it takes hold of my heart." I believe that is a beautiful image. A woman closing her eyes feeling the pride emerging, knowing that she is worth it, and then she feels it all over her heart. 

I believe Maya Angelou is quite right about feeling proud of being a woman, and to feel everything that define us as our identity, as our common factor that make us indispensable in the world. But what is more, is that she feels very deeply great for her being African American, which was difficult to bear in those times. She was a very brave woman that clearly shows us that definitely, a world without women would not be the same.

"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker

This is a short story that tells the story about a mother and her two daughters. One is very humble, nice and shy. The other one is proud, vain and at least, physically nicer. One day, Dee, the vain daughter goes to visit her mother and sister. She had changed her name to Wangero. She asked to have the old quilts that Maggie owned, to exhibit them. The sister would say yes, but the mother would feel it was Maggie's right to keep them. In the end, Wangero (Dee) did not keep them and said good-bye to them. 

I came to know today that the reason African-Americans changed their names from the "European" ones they had, was to recover their roots and feel more proud about them. I believe Wangero, even though she seems to be the evil one in the story, has arrived to the new world of freedom for this people. The African-americans now had rights, she would be receiving College education and the freedom to travel. Besides that, she was a woman, and women rights were also beginnig. So at the new freedom that she found in front of her eyes, she could not feel anything but pride of her roots and the success they had achieved. "She would look anyone in the eye", she would not feel less in front of white people, she would stand and be proud of who she was. 

On the other side, yes, she had a problem with leaving simple stuff as it was, and not stopping herself from wanting to own everything. She was already free, but she did not realise she had some responsibilities, for example, to make her shy sister proud of who she was. Maybe Wangero just wanted her to realise it, or maybe she just found her stupid for acting like that and expected her to already be proud. But that would not happen. I think Wangero has a point where she says "It's a new day for us. But from the way you and mamma still live, you'd never know it." Of course I believe that was a good advice, in the sense of being free as African-americans. But then again, she could not difference between social comfort and family and personal comfort. Maggie and her mom already had the family comfort. Maggie may have needed more self-esteem, but she had a simple, happy life beside her mother. She was happy, she was going to get married, and she did not complain about things. She was comfortable with life and really did not expect to have a life like her sister's. Maybe she envied her body, as she was burnt, but in soul, she was simple. And this we can see with the quilts she makes. She thinks family is important, and personal heritage is too. Wangero thought it had to be for the world, to show the traditions of the people. 

So I do not think that Wangero was a diva or a mean girl, she just saw things from another point of view, and both sisters and her mother, just for being human beings, were not perfect.

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house.

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?


This is a very clear poem that gives us a very good idea of what the life of this boy was, specially during Winter. He was poor, living with his family and living in the routine. His father would take care of him, but the fact of beeing poor made him be cold in his treat, not meaning he was in his heart. No, he would polish this boy's shoes and made the fire burn to warm the house. But this was taken for granted by the boy and the family. "No one ever thanked him." And because of the coldness of his dad and the hard work he had to do, there would be argues in the house, and the boy would be indifferent to his dad, to avoid a possible anger from him.

It is a sad passage. It tells us about this poor family who do not have a comfortable life and have to face it every day, trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible, but with the fact that they have to work and take care of each other. A unite family for keeping each other safe, but not very united in the meaning of heart. The kid would not run to neither of his parents to talk or laugh. They had a serious reletionship between them. Maybe the Winter Sundays did not only refer to the season...

What is Poetry?

After seeing all that poetry could be, I can honestly say I still do not know what it is. It sounds ilogical, but this art, usually in the form of words, I cannot describe with them. It would be defining it with itself. I could say poetry is the art of putting words together and creating images, feelings and experiences... but that is Literature in general. Maybe a definition to me would be "Poetry is how we put words together to form everything but them". Quite unclear, but maybe I could make something out of there. I also liked the definition seen in class about the third level of how to say things. 

It is said that poetry in life does not have to be exactly what poetry as a literary genre is. And then I say, why not? Somehow they have to relate from each other, otherwise, they would not be called the same. A poetic life, is it a life full of exaggerations? (And I am not meaning only the bad exaggerations) Maybe. But can it also be the way a person feels and tells their life? Yes, but that anyone can do. So poetry is nothing? Nothing but a mere nice arrangement of words put together so that a situation, an image, or whatever it describes sounds nicer, more powerful, and so on? Yes, maybe. So what I can say is that poetry is not staying in the middle, it is not being in where the water is liquid. It is choosing a side, a side in which either the water will boil or will freeze. It means not to be in the steady part of whatever situation, but going deeper into it, telling it, giving meaning to it, put the situation in the right place so that it can fit many others in its meaning. It means not only to describe, but to put a layer of words that can tell better and at the same time worse what we want to say.

 I believe it has to be that unclear, that it comes out together completely clear. Maybe I am not making myself clear trying to define poetry, but I guess that is the trick. And as I said, I just cannot describe precisely what poetry is. Dictionaries, who wants a static thing to define another thing that is not at all static? They do not understand each other. 

Maybe with another example. What happens when you mix dirt, water and a seed? Many things, but then the perspective in which a poet sees it, can change the whole context and not only make a plant grow. 

As in cooking, poetry can have many recipies. And I have my favorite poetry dish. It can be baked in endless combinations, but still, the ingredients are what make the dish special to me. I rather prefer poetry that has a lot of figurative language, metaphors, similes... I like it to be like a code, a code that can be desciphered, not only by imagining it, but also by living it as you read it. "To read between lines", I do not like it. I prefer to read under lines in poetry, because there is a hidden meaning, and then when you can feel the meaning and know the feeling, that is when you get a poem and say "Wow". That is what I like. 


And form. I believe poetry can be found in so many ways, that a line in the middle of a novel can be poetry. It can also have the traditional form of lines, but then again, we have examples of poems making shapes or drawings. Everything but steadiness. So as a conclusion, I do not know what poetry is.