Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Final Blog

Death –Questions why death and the afterlife is so prevalent in all ancient civilizations

The supernatural but mortal Beowulf-Related Beowulf to Gilgamesh.


"Spit her out...Let the girl go" –This is the quote from Antigone, It was probably my favorite post to think and write about.



I have selected these three posts to represent my best work over the semester,  because I feel that they represent my work as an overall.  I selected “Death” because in writing this post I felt that it made me think about a particular social aspect of the time, death and the afterlife.  It made me question why it seems like in every culture in literature, death and the afterlife is attempted to be written about.

“The supernatural but mortal Beowulf” I selected because in writing the post it made me refer to and connect a relationship between the two works Gilgamesh and Beowulf.  I enjoyed thinking about the two texts and finding similarities.
“Spit her out…Let the girl go” I selected because I enjoyed thinking about and writing about the quote.  When I read this quote from Antigone, I immediately took a pen and underlined it, I loved the quote, and one of these days will memorize it.
Since this is my fourth literature class from CWI, I kind of knew what I was getting into.  I think my ideas of literature have changed a little bit, not in a huge way, but I am definitely learning better skills of analyzing and writing about texts, which I enjoy getting better at.  From this course I believe I have learned to read literature at a more critical level, analyzing and drawing meaning from the text. 
One part of the course that I feel that I have learned the most was when reading from the Hebrew Text.  I have grown up with reading the bible and the Old Testament, it was fun and I learned how you can interpret, and especially analyze the bible in a academic way.  It made me look at the text in a different way, and look specifically what the text was saying, not what others interpret the text to say.
I believe that my performance in class was overall positive.  I did not miss a class the entire year, and participated in class activities and discussion.  Most of the time I completed the reading, and was prepared for class, class activities, and class discussion.
My strength as a writer is that for the most part I enjoy writing.  My weakness in writing is that I am not strong in vocabulary, punctuation, and the editing.  In thinking, I can come up most of the time, with original ideas (I have learned to do this from practicing analyzing texts).  My weakness in thinking is it takes a lot of effort on my part, and most of the time I have to put a lot of time into it.
If I were to give myself a grade in this class that reflects my performance in the class it would be an A-.  I feel that I have done the assignments, participated in class, and though I have received A’s on my papers, I feel it balances out.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Dante VS Beowulf

After having read some of Dante’s Inferno, and thinking about our final essay, I’m leaning towards Dante’s Inferno for the most relevant work for our society, compared to Beowulf.  Having read up to Canto 24 in Dante’s Inferno I am gathering an overall feel for the text. 
In Dante’s Inferno, it is teaching that what we do today, affects our future (this life and the next).  We can see this principle within the text.  As the people who are in hell, most have committed sins, some more severe than others, and are assigned punishment according to their sins.
 In their mortal life they may have gotten away without punishment for their misdeeds, but in the next life they were punished.  I think that this can be related to us in society today.  It seems that we can get by with a lot of bad deeds and not get caught doing them, but according to the lesson learned in Dante’s Inferno it will catch up to us in the end.  Lesson: do good deeds.
In Beowulf an overall lesson that could be applied to society today is the concept that the hero should be regarded not the villain.  It seems sometimes in today’s society that the villain is sometimes regarded as the hero, movies of people stealing cars, or money and are regarded as the hero come to mind.  In Beowulf, we find the hero as someone who was looking out and bettering the state of others, while conquering over evil. 
Looking at these lessons taught in the two works, I imagine that Dante’s Inferno has more relevance in today’s society.  I am thinking for my final paper I will have to go through the sources listed in the hand out, and read up on them to help me come to a more definite conclusion.  I also might be able to gather more information through finishing Dante’s Inferno as well.