Step by step...

First step; Realizing we are condemned. Second step; make changes.

The main purpose of this essay is showing how influent and important, Literature applied in the classroom, can be in social changes. Literature is one way through which human beings can realize and critic the way society works and lives. W. H. Auden was a famous Anglo American poet born in England but later naturalized American. He wrote a poem called September 1, 1939. In this poem, Auden dealt with a lot of elements that society in those times suffered related to the way that people lived and the system worked. Even though, Auden was a poet from the Second World War times, he perfectly may be considered a poet from these times. In fact, September 1, 1939 is a very good example of this idea, because he reflected on the way people lived and tried to give some hope to the readers. From my point of view, this poem is fatalist but I think this is not a bad characteristic or connotation of the poem, because when we realize that there is a problem, we can solve it. My intention whit this essay, is to analyze some phrases of the poem in order to support the idea of a “condemned society” that still has hope to change in a good way. I strongly believe that students need to face controversial poetry, as Auden wrote with September 1, 1939, in order to promote critical reflection and encourage active participant in the changed world we need. These participants need to be the ones who believe in that change, they have to think that is it possible. So, Literature and controversial poem can help teachers to promote critical reflection and social commitment in our students.

As a starting point, I consider important developing one idea found in the poem. Auden presented,
“I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”

Bearing in mind this extracted piece of the poem, I would say that is extremely related to teachers’ labor. Do we teachers really know what are schoolchildren receiving as education? Perhaps, this question may be seen as something to broad and without a correct answer. Anyway, I suggest the idea of teachers being part of this possible answer. Nowadays, we see schools “educating” students in order to be useful for the system. For this reason, I think education today is being based on Capitalism. Rarely, we can see teachers or schools that promote teaching values or elements that students will need in the future to be good citizens. According to Kenneth Minoque, “Capitalism is what people do if you leave them alone”. From my perspective, this quotation is related to the idea of individualism. Individuals are now numbers that do not have to speak up, the less they talk the better. If we teachers do not promote students speaking up what they think, and reflecting on world’s issues, they will become useful robots for the business that society is creating. On the one hand, we have teachers that just give information to their students. This information is not processed or reflected because it is imposed. On the other hand, we need teachers that consider students as people who have something to say. Pupils are not only for listening what we, teachers, have to say. If we want them active learners of critical thinkers we need to give them the space they need. Being a good citizens should be understood as the person who help others because is the right thing to do.

All the ideas present in the poem are characterized by a negative perspective. However, W. H. Auden also gave us some hope through the poem when he claimed,
“We must love one another or die”

In such a way, the author is giving us some hope with this quotation. From my view, he is saying that “love” seems to be the only way in which we can escape from this condemned reality. The kind of “love” that Auden mentioned is not determined. So, we cannot say he is only talking about love between men and women. Thus, we have to consider that this phrase was the one which did not allowed the poem being published. This is why, we can infer that the author is nor limiting “love”. He is referring to homosexual love, friends’ love, family love, etc. Based on this, we can start thinking what kind of element love involves. For sure, love needs more than one participant to take place, this is why if we love someone we try to show that love in different ways. In the same way we need to live together and collaboratively to love others.

As a way conclusion, I can say that changes come step by step. First we have to realize what is wrong with the way we live, and then start making changes. It is for sure that in today’s world everything is controlled by money. This is why materialism, individualism and capitalism take place. As teacher s, we need to use Literature as a tool that opens student’s minds and eyes. Educators are very important in the social field, and the influence we can achieve playing a good role seems to be enormous. These needed changes are not something easy to get, but if we believe in change we can start changing society’s thoughts that are wrong. Keeping in mind the image of teachers as people who can inspire students, we can start thinking about Tupac Amaru Shakur’s thoughts. Tupac Amaru Shakur was an African-American singer (rapper). He was always fostering his followers making changes in the world including all the minorities and respecting others. He claimed, “I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world". This is a very good idea that teachers can make part of their life in order to improve our life styles little by little. I suggest this is the way that teachers have to think, because we teachers inspire and we can start making changes in students’ minds. I propose a final question inviting teachers to reflect. Have you thought how influent can be teachers in society’s assumptions and changes?

Finally, I wanted to share some Tupac’s quotes that made me reflect a lot in the way we are living now. In my opinion, Tupac Shakur and Auden were controversial and reflective artists that invited us to reflect. You think about this paying attention to these quotations;

- "I am society’s child, this is how they made me, and now I’m saying what's on my mind and they do not want that. This is what you made me America."
- "If God wanted me to be quiet he would've never showed me what he does."
- "They got money for wars but they can't feed the poor."
- "My Mama used to tell me if u can't find something to live for, you best find something to die for"


work cited:

http://depts.washington.edu/pswrite/grading.html. Dec 3, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_1,_1939. Dec 3, 2009.
http://en.proverbia.net/citastema.asp?tematica=156. Dec 3, 2009.
W. H. Auden. September 1, 1939. October 18, 1939.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01/. Dec 3, 2009.
http://www.numberonestars.com/tupacshakur/tupacquotes.htm. Dec 3, 2009.
http://www.wordreference.com Dec 3, 2009.

"Living death"

Outline:

1. Auden and his ideology.
2. How do we people live?
3. Who is in control of the world?
4. The consequences of living as we live.
5. Why is this topic of interest?
6. Conclusion


Salomon Galvez

Criticizing the way we live

In the poem September 1, 1939, the author deals with a lot of element that are still present in our times. At the beginning of the poem said, “Auden: A poet for our times”. I totally agree with this idea because the components mentioned here seem to be timeless. For instance, the poem contains hope, love, private lives, death, evil, etc.

These elements mentioned above are found in today’s world. From my point of view the author is criticizing the society. First, Auden talks about a Collective Man. This kind of Collective man seems to be attacking the concept of individuals negatively. Society is seeing human beings as numbers. We are not anymore special individuals because we are just the mass. At the same time, we are being considered mass in front of a hidden leader that Auden mention as a “psychopathic god”. In my opinion he presents this god as the one who controls everything and dictates what thing are good and bad.

Concluding, Auden gave us some hope saying, “We must love another or die”. This statement was the one that did not permit this poem being published. I really like this poem and I would recommend it.

Pamela's Blog

I really like the way in which Pamela analyzed this work (The Rocking-Horse winner). I think that it is essential when we are children, feel that we are loved by our parents. Otherwise we can have problems in the future that will make us feel that we lack something. I am saying all this because Pamela pointed out as the main issues of this work the relationship between mother and son which in my opinion apply.
From my point of view, Pamela did a very god job comparing the unhappy woman found in the Rocking-horse winner, with Lawrence's mother and her unhappy life with her husband because of poverty.

At the same time, Pamela is making distinction of this to mothers saying that Lawrence's mother was great and loved him. In contrast, the mother shown by the author in the Rocking-horse winner was cruel with her son because she did not love him and she tried to supply this lack of love by material things.

Maybe as a recommendation, I would suggest Pamela checking the punctuation of her post. Anyway, I think she did an amazing job and her works always expresses very strong ideas suppored correctly by the works we read.

Congrats

The Waste Land by T.S Eliot

T.S Eliot is one of the most influential writers during the twentieth century. The Waste Land is also one of the most powerful, intense and influential piece of work written by T.S. Elliot. This is why, from my point of view this is a very interesting poem. However, the poem was very hard to analyze and understand, I think that is important to share what I felt reading it.

The poem was about the isolation and depression that people suffer sometimes in this world. We have to consider that this poem was written after the World War I and people were afraid of leader’s power. The earth was devastated with death and people who did not measure consequences. For this reason I think the author promotes the word “death” as one of the most important one. Death is present in this poem and in the same way because this word brings another important word to the show, which is disillusioned. Why this word “disillusioned” is important in the poem? I think because you felt you were protected in the world by your family, institutions or remarked leaders such as; the president or God maybe. Once you face a War you realize how vulnerable you are and that situation makes you feel disillusioned as the author include it intrinsically.

As a way of conclusion, I would recommend this poem for those you really like poetry because they will see the huge influence of Eliot in the following writer. Recommending this poem should include the warning that is not an easy poem and it has to be analyzed in carefully.

The price of priceless things...

From my point of view, D.H Lawrence showed two images of cruel women that were just interested only in money and materialism. First, in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” we can find a mother who is just interested in money and giving her son material things because in that way she showed him love. She was not acting as a mother that loves her son. The pressure of having money made the boy get crazy and mad and at the end he died.

Similarly, in the “Odour of Chrysanthemums”, there is an image of a cold and materialistic woman who did not care about her husband in order to know him. In addition when he died she was more concerned about her husband’s money and not of his death. This was because she was worried about the things she owned, and not in her inferior husband who was just a miner.

As a way of conclusion, I would say that these works show us that money does not make people happy. There are other essential elements in life that are forever in our hearts, as values. We do not have to wait to lose what we love to realize that we really love and need it in our lives.

Equity...

Even though I think Virginia Wolf was a very feminist writer, I totally agree with some critical thoughts about how women were treated without respect and unfairness. In the work, “A room of one’s own” the author tries to show that every woman needs what men had.

First of all, there are Gender issues very well known that can be identified in this work, such as the necessity of having our own space where we can think, produce and express ourselves. This space deals with the idea of having a physical space to be what you are naturally. In addition there is also a metaphorical space that can be understood as “women in the society”. As we know women in the past were not allowed to write freely because their ideas were not respected and considered as men’s

As a way of conclusion, I strongly believe that this is not a problem of genders but is a problem of minorities and abuses. At first, men and women must be considered human beings. Starting with this idea we can respect others’ opinion and be balanced in our society avoiding discrimination in all its terms.

It is extremely sad and painful seeing people which do not have anything to eat daily, or any decent place to live in. Oliver was just one of millions of little kids that are alone living in terrible conditions. This was a very common situation during this period, due to the fact that a third of urban population lived in poverty.

From my point of view, in this book Dickens wrote from hi heart because he also suffered a poor life when he was a child and his father was in prison. Oliver Twist was a boy that did not choose to have the kind of life that he was living. I am a believer that nobody deserves to be alone in this world and punished all the time as Oliver was. As it is known the Victorian time involves progress, and I think that progress also involves ambition. As we can notice all the people around Oliver was ambitious and maybe this was because of the progress that society was suffering.

As teachers, we can be the support of thousand of Oliver Twists that probably we will face in the future. Our main objective must be the inclusion of these kinds of kids to the society as persons more than as employers. Teachers can be the rescuers of bad influenced or wrong adviced children that are in places they do not want to or doing things that they disapprove.

The Signal Man: The Price of Progress

The signal man could be considered a very strange story, but it is true that can catches the attention of every reader. In this story, Charles Dickens involves important elements which can be related to the reality of society in those times. For example, the train by itself represents something strong that cannot be stopped easily. The same happens with the economical system today, which looks just for useful people or machines in order to produce more in a cheaper way.

Progress during this time was the most important word and even today people are always talking about this. We have to know that every change has a price to be paid, and from my point of view, the improvement of technology in a society, systematize people bringing another concept, isolation. As we read in The Signal Man, the protagonist was in a box. I think that today we are all in the same box just observing from outside all the economical progress and all the problems that these advances bring.

Nowadays, we can see that nobody cares about otherness because people are so busy and worried about the debts they have.

Decisions: Are you sure about that?

Frankenstein deals with a very interesting story about a creature who did not ask to come to this world. I really enjoyed reading this book because it is easy to imagine all the events of the book and relate them to real life. Why do I say this? This is because life contains all the words that we as students reflect in classes. Discrimination could be the first word that came to my mind when I finished the book. Frankie was discriminated because he was different. He was taller, stronger and his appearance was scary.

From my point of view, the main responsible or guilty of this entire situation was his creator Victor Frankenstein. He did not measure the consequences of his decision and all the problems that his lack of satisfaction could bring. He acted like parents when abandoning babies, and I think this is why Frankie was full of hate.

Sometimes we human beings do not think on the consequences of our actions or decisions. Due to the fact that we are not perfect and we commit errors, we have to know that if we make a mistake it is correct assuming the consequences and not to escape. At the end, our problems or errors will find us, and this is why we must face them.

Nature and Freedom

First of all I would like to say that this was a very good poem that produced good feelings on me. From my point of view, Wordsworth tried to represent the daffodils as a new season that brought happiness and freedom to poets’ lives. The author imagined himself as a cloud, event that could be understood as a human that flew freely and without any worry or problem in his mind.

When I read and caught all the passion that Wordsworth put on his poem, I imagined that he was sharing past experiences related to peaceful and fun from his childhood. Similarly, I interpreted that he was dealing with a rebirth in the person that was around these daffodils, and that was why he wrote, "A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company".

Concluding, I would say that as we have seen in other poems from Romanticism that this poem contains nature elements as clouds, daffodils and mountains that feel as human beings do. In the same way the author includes the concept of freedom, because from my point of view flying is such a liberty.

Scared to death... "When I have fears that I may cease to be" by John Keats

From my point of view, the poem “When I have fears that I may cease to be” presents the author’s life as a stage which is just waiting for the end. It is for sure that during our lives we have thousands of fears. Perhaps, even when human beings know that one day all of us will die, it seems that in this poem the author is very hopeless and sad about this situation.

According to my interpretation, the idea of passing away involves more than just the fact of dying. It goes beyond in terms of our image, our names and the way we will be remembered. For that reason, I think that the author thought about a question such as; what will happen with me once I die? In order to answer this question, I would include one key word to understand the writer’s message, feelings or aim. Egocentricity was the word that came to my mind when I knew that the protagonist of the poem was worried about his image after his death, because as a Christian I am not afraid or worried about mine because of my faith on eternal life.

As a way of conclusion, I would say that in general humankind is scared of unknown elements, and one of the most unknown things to humanity is death. That is way the writer is freaking out about this.

Nature, feelings and thousand of interpretations... poem by Samual Coleridge

“Poetry is an art…of representing, in words, external nature and human thoughts and affections, both relatively to human affections, by the production of as much immediate pleasure in parts, as is compatible with the largest sum of pleasure in the whole”.

After reading this poem, I got a little bit confused and strange because I was trying to understand what the author tried to express. Knowing that poems could have more than one interpretation I would say that Samuel Coleridge used a lot of element from nature. The fact that the author included nature in his poem makes me think that Romanticism’s components are present.

Trying to interpret the message of Coleridge, I have to take in consideration that he had taken drugs. For that reason, I think that Samuel Coleridge’s poem deals with the description of a special place where he goes when he is drugged. This description includes: thoughts, feelings and experiences through nature, as romanticism does. Poetry is for sure an art, and this poem took me to an imaginary world full of strange movements of nature, more vivacious and unknown.

Cloudy and Sunny lives...

From my point of view, "The little black boy" by William Blake deals with the relationship of a mother and her son. At the same time, in the poem we can find important elements that are explained through nature. For example, in the poem says that the little black boy is “covered” by a cloud, which could be understood as the darkness in his skin. According to my understanding of the poem in terms of black and white people, the author expressed that there were differences. The black boy was not loved by God because the body and the soul were different elements in front of boy. The white boy was loved, but at the end when the black boy became just soul, black and white will be equal and loved by God in the same way.

The relationship of the mother and the black boy is based on love. The message that the mother wanted to deliver to her son was basically giving hope and telling him that one day he will be loved and accepted too. The action taken for the mother, giving support and hope to his son was part of being a mother. In that sense, we can see in the painting “Woman peeling apples” by Gerard Ter Borch that the mother is also being a mother and “playing her role” in order to feed her soon.

Immortal term, "Discrimination"

The main purpose of this essay is to show how discrimination takes place in some literary works. Shakespeare and Chaucer were two of the most important literary authors in the past. Works like; “The Tempest”, “The Merchant of Venice” (Shakespeare) or “The Wife of Bath” and “Truth” (Chaucer) are excellent inventions from which we can extract very good examples of old discrimination. At the end of this paper there will be some important question to make, in order to establish a relationship between literature, discrimination and education. For example; Do we human beings still suffer or commit discrimination? Is discrimination the same that was in the past? Is there a method to avoid discrimination? Do we find this problem in the educational field? These questions are essential to reach the main aim or purpose of this essay.
In order to understand the discriminatory practices in these literary works, it is necessary to present a definition of the word discrimination. From my point of view, discrimination is neither something new nor old. As the Anti-Discrimination act (1991) says, “In general terms, discrimination is any practice that makes distinctions between individuals or groups that disadvantage some and advantage others.” It could be also understood as an act against a person of a certain group determined by beliefs (religion), racial characteristics (color of skin), gender, education, social status, etc. This act goes beyond the individual merit because it is full of prejudices. In our world we have different types of discrimination related to; age, disability, national origin, race based, religion, etc.

Having presented a brief definition of what is discrimination, the next step would be to introduce the first of the two authors that we are going to see in this paper. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England on 1564 (as Galileo). His father was a trader in agricultural goods and a farmer. Shakespeare family was in the middle of the social system. William Shakespeare studied at the Stratford Grammar School. During his early twenties, he wrote lots of plays, about thirty six. He wrote histories of love, romance and romantic tragicomedies and poems. Shakespeare was not a typical poet and he was successful economically. He finally died in Stratford on April 23 when he was fifty two years old. It is good to say that Shakespeare does not have any descendants, because all his children died pretty young.
After all these antecedents, we can start working of Shakespeare works. This time, we are going to start talking about “The Tempest”. In “The Tempest”, Shakespeare presented two main characters that develop the whole story, Caliban and Prospero. Caliban was the unknown element or character in front of Prospero. Caliban’s appearance was weird and his life style was totally different comparing to Prospero. For example, Caliban did not name thing as Prospero did. This situation could be understood as the non-educated action that Caliban had, what made him inferior in front of Prospero’s eyes. It is obvious that we have discrimination in this relationship between Caliban and Prospero, because as Prospero was more educated than Caliban, he committed discriminatory practices punishing Caliban or showing him that he was inferior. In this situation we can say that there is more than one type of discrimination. If we talk about appearance we can be talking about racial discrimination. We can also say that there is some social discrimination, because as Caliban is not as educated as Prospero, he is condemned to obey and follow Prospero’s rules. If we stop to think about this, maybe we will found that in today’s world the same happen between Latin American populations and the United States, because they think they are more educated than us and they commit so many times discrimination against us.
In addition to the previous analysis, Shakespeare also is the author of “The Merchant of Venice”, in which we can find evident and horrible acts of discrimination. In “The Merchant of Venice”, there are a lot of discriminatory practices. For example, if we stop and analyze what happened with Jews and Christians in Venice, we can see that Christians made Jews go to live in places called ghettos, and Jews were kept there all night long. Jewish people also were not able to have any possession, for that reason they were obligated to practice the usury. If we want to label this kind of discrimination in a more contemporary way, we can name these acts as Anti-Semitism (famous term in the Nazis’ times).
Following with the act of discrimination in literary works, we can say that another important author was Chaucer. In his well-known work called “Truth”, he tried to tell the humanity how they had to live their lives in order to reach the heaven. From my point of view, he is discriminating because for those people that did not live “properly” or under these rules, they were not be saved or reached the heaven. This could be discrimination focused on ways of living and religious beliefs.
Chaucer also created “The Wife of Bath”, which from my point of view criticize the way that Alison (the main character) lived. Alison was a woman that had had more than one husband. In the past if a woman had more than one man during her life, she was condemned and mistreated. According to this, the kind of discrimination that we can identify here would be related to “gender”, because due to the fact that Alison was a woman she was prejudiced.
After this overview of some literally works, it is extremely necessary making a conclusion of all these events and try to find a solution. As I said at the beginning of the paper, “discrimination is neither something new nor old”, because unfortunately we can still see discriminatory practices in our world and in our schools, and maybe we will see them in the future. If we want to avoid discrimination, I think we have to follow two main steps. First of all, we have to make our students conscious that we have to “accept” that there are differences in the world, in order to assimilate these differences among people and live with them. Once we accepted these thousands or millions of differences, we have to “respect” them. It is very obvious that we will face discriminatory problems at school for many reasons. Our objective has to be that students must know how bad it is to commit these acts, and one way to do it is showing it through Literature.
“I think that discrimination will not disappear, but it has to evolve in order to be controlled and managed”.

Has the world change as we think?

Outline:


1.- Introduction
2.- Summary
3.- Christians and Jews, how was the context?
4.- The importance of women virginity for Christians
5.- Opinion and Conclusion of the film review. Why would be comedy and drama?

I would like to start saying that in this Merchant of Venice’s review I will try to describe and make a comparison with today’s world and the world presented in the film, in terms of believes, thoughts or ways of think. In both kinds of “times” we can see discrimination, roles, and things like these but anyway this contains differences.

First of all we should know the main idea of this story. Shylock was a Jewish rich man that lived in Venice with his daughter, he practiced usury and was criticized because of that. We also have two friends, Antonio who was a merchant in Venice was always helping his friend called Bassanio. Porthia was a kind of princess waiting for his future husband. The story started when Bassanio arrived to Venice and visited Antonio’s house because he wanted to ask him a favor. This favor was basically that Bassanio wanted money to go and get to the princess Porthia and he needed money to do it. Antonio decided to help his friend Bassanio and he went to this Jewish rich man called Shylock because he practiced usury and had enough money for Bassanio’s pretensions, so Antonio asked Shylock for the money but the Jew was discriminated and abused bye Antonio anyway he lend the money with the condition that if Antonio did not give back the money on three months Shylock will cut one pound of Antonio’s skin.

Even though Venice was one of the most powerful city-states of Europe, discrimination was there too. Jews were affected for intolerance and abuses by Christians, in fact Jews had to live in ghettos that were guarded or patrolled for Christians. At the same time Jewish people had to wear a red hat during the day in order to be recognized. The other thing that needs to be mentioned is that because of laws Jewish citizens were not able to have belongings, and for that reason they were practicing usury. Usury was hard criticized by fanatic Christians because this practice involved interests to the requested amount of money. I would say that this kind of discrimination is among us today and in some ways Jews were obligated to take this determination or decisions because laws were unfair.

Another important element that really called my attention is the fact that a woman when is virgin is considered a treasure. I think for Christians is something very important and more in those times. From my point of view the idea of making love when you are married and not before shows an old fashioned way to think today. Anyway I think that being virgin or chaste till marriage it is good but today is not very common see guys asking for virginity as an essential requirement what it is totally in my opinion justifiable.

I would like to finish this review saying that this is a very good movie to realize how was treated Jews in the past. In the film we can find very good actors and actresses so that make a better performance. Having seen this movie I just could say that discrimination, segregation and abuses with Jews was not fair and make me really get upset but I think that Shylock also acted in a non appropriated way looking for revenge and for that reason he was kind of punished. When the purpose is dark and bad the results in our lives will be the same. Another action that I disagree was when Porthia as the doctor that had saved Antonia, asked for Bassanio’s ring because that is not a legal way to play, that is why I did not like it. Finally if I have to choose between comedy or drama I would say that the Merchant of Venice has components of both, for example Porthia dressed as a man would be considered comedy, and all the Shylock's story would be drama.

The Faerie Queene

First of all is very important to say that for me this allegory is acting like a fable. Why do I say this? Because this letter is expressing real issues such as, social problem, power, etc, by a short moral story.

In the “Fairy Queen” the author is criticizing the “dominant class” or the Kingdom but in a very intelligent way. All we know that maybe when we criticize people that is in the power we can be punished, for that reason Spencer did it intrinsically and taking care of his back. This letter was very difficult to understand and if readers do it just one time and rapidly will get confused and will not pay attention on the real intention of this expression of thoughts and ideas in this letter. From my point of view the writer was very smart looking for virtues of Arthure because is tempting to concentrate the attention on the virtues and not in the hidden critic that was done.

Although it was complex to understand the letter reading it more than one time I liked it and I can label this letter as the strangest thing I have ever read.

What is women desire?

I do not think there is an answer for this question. Today’s world in mi point of view it is a little bit crazy because freedom it is confused with the word “licentiousness”. But we have to know that there is not a correct way to live this life. Having said this I think that the woman in the tale was not the typical woman for those times, but in these times she could fit perfectly because the world in general is opening its mind in these themes. I am not saying that this is bad or good I just would say that is different. The stereotype of women in the past was a conservative one and today that has change in order to equal men and women rights. According to be just the humanity without differences among us, I totally agree with the woman in the tale. No more chauvinist and feminist thoughts, I know this is something difficult at least in Chile because people is used to live with a chauvinist life style.

Destination of the trip... Heaven!

In my point of view this poem called truth by Chaucer would be seen as two remarkable roads or truths that exist. It could be related with the good side of the world which involves God. In this world we have the bad side and the good side of everything and in this poem in some ways the author wanted to make a critical thinking of society. For example with the phrase “greed entails hate and social climbing uncertainty” he is telling us that having more material belongings such as gold of fancy clothes will make us climb socially. Anyway, I think this is a religious poem because it shows us the kind of good side of life or that idea of “Be a good human being”. Only in this way you will get the heaven, but being good is very subjective at least for me.

One thing that I really love of this poem was that it is suitable in any period of our history. The idea of having more than your neighbor was in history for example through lands possession what made you powerful, or if you were traders who had more slaves was in a higher level. In today’s world we can see this situation with money or belongings like houses, cars, computers, etc. This is what makes me think we can read this poem fifty years in the future and it would be seen in some ways as a poem of those times.

My definition of an Epic Poem...

Maybe an epic poem is the way that writers tell us not real events using heroes that are the main characters of the story. Heroes would be understood like the person who learn through the peom. This character is superpowerful and incredible but is not real so we can say that stories are fiction. At the end of the heroe's life he is better and he have learnt a los of thing leaving legacy.

Linteracture...

For me, literature is all the things we represent or express through writing and then we give them some interpretation such as history, poetry etc. When we write something is based on experiences we have lived before. We write trying to show our point of view and it is necessary to make explicit our position in order to reach more credibility (ethos). When we write we want the world know what we think about a specific theme.
For me literature is the thoughts of written works such as poetry, plays, music and also fiction (they can be also spoken), because if we write something fictional we are intrinsically applying lived experiences or thoughts we have figured out by living in a society. That is why it is important to say your position in front of the reader (ethos) to let the reader know what you think or why you think what you wrote in your work.

Concluding, Literature is completely related with interaction and constructivism, because without others’ points of view Literature would not exist. I think that something is literary when it has a legacy and transcendence in a society or in other way, it would be just words in a paper and not a literary work.


“We are all formed from what other people give us: first our parents and then other people near us. Literature opens to the infinite this possibility of interaction and thus enriches us infinitely…” page 17.