The Tempest

After reading "The Tempest" and listening to it on the iTunes download, the pictures have completely changed the way I imagined the characters in the play. Personally, I enjoy reading books before watching the movie because seeing characters in your imagination is much more fun than someone showing you what the character looks like. Reading a description, and even listening to one like Rachel and I did for "The Tempest" makes it a mystery without photos. One of the pictures on the Emory site of Caliban looked like an ape. After listening to his voice on the download, I definitely would not think that he was an ape-looking person. The pictures for Ariel on the Emory site are each different, and they do not look at all like what I would have pictured after hearing her sing on the audio version of the play. Some of the pictures from the Tate Museum in London that are of "The Tempest" are cool, or maybe I just like them because I was at the Tate... But unfortunately I can't remember seeing these particular paintings.

Literary Theories

I was looking at the different types of theories and found that they are all similar in the fact that they are each critiquing texts --only from a different point of view. Literary Theory is a scholarly approach to reading texts. With Literature being undefinable, the theories revolve about shuch a wide varitey of text. The roots go back to Ancient Greek and Rome. Theory and Criticism are the main focuses on each of these theories, which are all unique in their own way.
According to Wikipedia, MARXISM, refers to the philpsophy and social theory-- and what Karl Marx believed.
FEMINIST LITERARY CRITCISM is about womens roles and lives and the feminist politics that go along with their lives. This theory aims to understand women, all while critiquing them at the same time. It is interesting reading about this theory because I have never actually compared it to literature-- especially something like what we have read in class.
The FRENCH FEMINIST THEORY is also interesting, although it is very similar to the plain Feminist Theory. It deals with the critique and conteporary developments in continental philisophy. Their are specific French Writers, such as Chantal Chawaf and Catherine Clement who are labeled as "French feminist"

More News about War

Article about news reporter killed: http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_id=11893

This article is about a news reporter from the UK being shot by American's in Iraq. He was killed on March 22, 2003, and the article has just now confirmed his death and cause. The article says he was killed in the first few months of the "US-led invasion" which is interesting.. and the article mentions the term "US-led invasion" many more times. It is interesting to hear the term "US-led invasion" becauase in our news it is never worded in that fashion. The article goes on to say that his death was unlawful and a war crime.


http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11898
the other version of the article I found on CNN.COM last night

War in the News

Here are a few articles I found tonight:

Four U.S. Soldiers
Iraq reality check
Iraqi Violence

War and Terrorism

My roommates and I just watched the movie, Munich. As we watched it, we were talking about this english class and our blogs, and how it could relate to a blog posting. The movie is about terrorism, and the attacks in Munich, Germany in the 70's during the Olympic games. There were 11 Olympians that died on the terrorist attack, but in the next few months, many more died. People hire people to find things out- and money is a big part of who helps who-- it is a big crazy circle, and kind of hard to explain. If you have not seen the movie, we reccomend it. It is almost three hours long, but you learn quite a bit about the lives people live and what people go through in different parts of the world.

Authors Den

I looked at the "Authors Den" Website, which showed quite a few more poems about war. I liked the "A Date To Remember" poem because it made you think about the wars in our past and how they effect the war today. The poem talks about "the war to end all wars" but how it didn't really end it, and it questions if war will ever end. I think that question is a good one--- and the answer should be obvious, but I guess some people do not agree otherwise it would have stopped by now.

Poets Against War

I looked at the "Poets Against War" website, and found quite a few interesting poems about the protesting of war through the thoughts of poems. War Zone, was one that stuck out to me because the author, Camilla Flintermann, is right-- Children will again be victims. This poem discusses how children see things they should not be exposed to, and I believe this is true. Reality is something that needs to be taught to children, but I do not think that showing them certain parts of the war is the right way to show them. You see enough things as an adult that you don't want to see, so why ruin childrens minds?

War Poetry

I looked at the poem, Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, and I realized that it was similar to the Mark Twain poem, The War Prayer, for the fact that poems about war are very truthful, honest, and to the point. Also, I have found that these poems contain a large amount of imagery that has you think of things you have never seen and never thought of before. I do not like the fact that these poems are sad, but they are real, so after reading them you think about alot of things that are not usually on your mind. The Shooting an Elephant Poem is interesting because he writes it like a story and it has so many details in it. Orwell tells you exactlly what was going on, and what he was thinking. Part of the poem, "But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. " is an example of that.

In my English 3070 class right now, we have are doing some things on poetry and two of the books we are using in the class are called, "Poems of Protest" and "Cry Out: Poets Protest the War". The books are filled with poems by famous authors about their opinions and views on war.

MY Odyssey Translation!!!

My summary of the odyssey is of the beginning of Book 2.
At first this assignment seemed hard, and I was not really looking forward to it- but after looking at the Odyssey again I enjoyed putting it into my own words.
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.2.ii.html is a translation by Samuel Butler from 1900, and the website I used to look at Book 2.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/4979/ody-123.html is a translation by DW Myatt from 1996 that I also used to look at Book 2.


When the beautiful red morning sun started to shine through the bedroom window, Telemachus woke up, showered and got dressed. He put his sandals on his feet, brushed his teeth and put his sword over his shoulder before leaving the house looking handsome as ever. Then, he sent an announcement around to call the everyone of the town together for a meeting. Telemachus does not travel alone, so he took his two cute little dogs with him to meet at the gathering place. After walking by the people of the town to get to his seat, the most prestigious men even made space for him to pass through. Telemachus had a classy presence to him as he took over his fathers chair.