Reading Notes Week 12 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 12 

Part B

• James Joyce helped shape modern literature by conducting experiments with the narrative form to begin a new literature movement that in the end would become popular during the twentieth century. 
• Joyce with the help from Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf the group helped followers of literature to understand the mind. 
•  Joyce came from a big family of about ten children and another three who died as infants but he was the eldest surviving child. 
• A theme I see with a lot of these english literature writers who helped changed history they come from wealthy family 's most of the time when the introduction tells the back story of the writers life. Basically like education is the same now too then because more money better schools and better opportunities. 
• The text says for Joyce to support that large family " His father held a well paid and and undemanding post in the civil service and the family was comfortable until 1891" His father end up losing his job in 1891 and he refused to get another job and decided to live off a small pension. 
• Going from well paid to no work Joyce's family began to drop down the economic ladder and his dad which became what he described as " a praiser of his past, a drunk, tax gatherer, and a bankrupt"pg. 174 
• From this description I can tell that Joyce wasn't happy even at his young age of his dad just giving up on living well-paid to live where you barley have anything. Also what could have sparked this frustration is since his father lost his job at the age of nine Joyce was taken out of his well known Catholic prep school because they could not afford his tuition anymore. 
• Joyce proving that he was meant to be chosen to be read in this history book today, let two years past and Joyce was admitted into another rigorous well know Belvedere College in Dublin on a scholarship furthering that education.
• I appreciate Joyce's life story and his never give attitude where he is presented with a problem but instead chooses to run right around the challenges with a fight about himself.  
• Also his story "The Dead" has an interesting concept saying being a "dream of a better life against a dismal improvised background and since it was fiction but had so much realism incorporated this became a new wave. 

Reading Notes Week 11 Part B

Reading Notes 

Part B

Week 11

• Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a man who wrote in an era that writing was becoming a secondary rate of occupation and used theater to mark his territory in literature. 
•  Ibsen in the nineteenth century used the new technology theater into a further spectacle by investing money into improvements like special effects and the latest stars to impress audiences all over.
• Ibsen's writings portrayed real life issues and painted a picture for the audience which shocked them to noticing the genius of his theater show. Also he captivated audiences by the perfectly draw characters and well rounded dramatic scenes to keep the people coming back. 
• Ibsen was well know for the revival off theater and made a good case for the "originator of modern drama" 
• Ibsen at a young age of twenty years old changed the way theater was approached rather than complicated plots and action filled Ibsen went a different direction with his first two pieces "Brand" and "Peer Gynt". He wrote both of these for dramatic poetry and was not made to be read as a theater play. 
• Ibsen introduced theater to realism and this was such a big deal because this had been done on the level of writing a novel involving realism but no one yet used realism in theater until Ibsen decided to exposes audiences on how to understand emotion and moral truth. 
• Interestingly enough Ibsen's work the text is focusing on is the theater play of "Hedda Gabler" and how the story is of a daughter of a general marries a man named Tesman. Although the couple of Hedda and Tesman as a read as soon as I begin to read I notice that things are uneven in the relationship. 
• Tesman has a positive outlook on life and is ready to being his life with his new trophy wife not really knowing that she was basically mean and only truly married to Tesman for odd reasons. She would leave him but is trapped by marriage. She is unhappy because she is used to upper middle class and Tesman was from the lower bottom class and can not please Hedda finically. 

Reading Notes Week 10 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 10

Part B 

• Higuchi Ichiyo was the first major Japanese woman writer in six centuries. This was such an interesting revelation because she wasn't like most writers that I've read were she was born into money. 
• This was so important because I know right now in todays society without money it is hard to obtain knowledge when your funds aren't as significant as a person who is born into money. But Ichiyo was recognized for her work as a writer and she had to climb from the bottom to obtain this status of first Japanese woman writer. 
• Nothing came easy to Ichiyo and to others she emerged out of the nowhere but she fought through poverty and was barely educated. In her time she was born Japanese women weren't even expected to be educated at all.
• Her stories consisted of real life situations that shot her straight to the top of what her peers considered to be one of the greatest writers. She wrote stories about orphans that were left on the street, mistreated sex workers , and just urban working class life styles. 
• Her skill brought forth all the praise and acclaim she could have hoped for which was cut short when she suddenly died in her prime age of twenty four. Making her rain over the literature would last only a short four years. 
• Reading her works introduction the story of "Separate Ways" interested me from the quick summary I was given because it was drama filled and left me as a reader wanting to know more. 
• In reading we see the two main characters being the highlight of the story. Where a women was left with a life changing decision to either stay in the poverty or be subjected to a life of sexual dependence which would lead to luxury. The other character a street urchin is this women friend who lends support without judging or telling her exactly what she should do. 
• This story is one of the better ones in my opinion because it is in clear english and it makes it even better to read.

Week 9 Reading Notes Part B

Reading Notes 

Part B

Week 9

• Ghalib was the most famous routinely quoted poet of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And most people who were fans knew poems by heart. The style of writing Ghalib practiced was one of making his words become an image for his readers. 
• While reading the poems flowed so well they made me feel Ghalib was ahead of his time because I understand his focus of the poem and actually get lesson from reading. 
• This type of writing on pg. 594 "Ghalib, it's no use forcing your way with love: that doesn't catch when lit and doesn't die when doused" Ghalib leaves readers with images running through the brain of a boy trying to catch his love which is the flame. Well at least thats what I am getting from the poem. 
• Also while reading I catch the theme in the poems of the author Ghalib talking in third person and although that is a new way of poetry I have never witnessed. In a way it made me feel like he was having a conversation with me. 
• "Tonight somewhere, you're sleeping by the side of another lover, a stranger: otherwise, what reason would you have for visiting my dreams and smiling your half smile". Reading this part of the text made the poem feel more like a conversation or a text message exchange this day in age. 
• The short couple of poems in the beginning of the reading also caught my attention on page 591 and it goes a little on to pg. 592. "Now go Live in that place" was an interesting one because it was such a harsh punishment given to whoever in the poem. One part says " and if you die, no one to mourn you there". 
• Such a harsh punishment but given in such detail with only six lines of poetry which is beautiful I wish my communication skills were that good to where I explain something like hate into six lines of poetry just as Ghalid on pg. 591 did. 

Reading Notes Week 8 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 8

Part B

• Walt Whitman left an astonishing legacy by bringing free verse poetry to modern practice. He saw poets as leaders and fighters. Whitman strayed away from poetry ordinary rhyme and meter approach. His poems also included a heavy sense of prized free and sexual pleasures. 
• With this bubbling new era of poetry an era that was laced with poets who before Whitman would have no place in poetry those who were defiant, energetic, and willing to experiment. 
• Born on Long Island and moved to Brooklyn as child Whitman dropped out of school at the tender age of 11 to work random odd jobs. As he became older he worked jobs as a school teacher, builder, bookstore owner, journalist, and poet. 
• Whitman personally loved the South but imposed its slavery and petitioned against it and looked up to public figures at the time like Abraham Lincoln. 
• In 1865 he met Peter Doyle who eventually became his lover and he moved to Camden, New Jersey were he resided at for the rest of his life. 
• He worked on poet at a young age and wrote a bunch of good and bad poems and eventually came up with a collection that was titled "Leaves of Grass" which he had to revise man of times probably till his death just because how bad the critiques attacked his art but in future time he would be appreciated call Whitman ahead of his time.
• I like how Whitman structured his poems they are spaced perfectly and are long stanzas like a story. But it is truly hard to follow the meaning of his poems or should I say understanding the meanings of the poems. Starting with the titles being the subject of the poem in the beginning and as you go on reading in my experience the subject of the poem got farther away from how it was started. 
• pg. 465 this poem has to be the easiest to follow and is like a song in a musical which in the beginning introduction said Whitman enjoyed theater. says it on pg. 447 at the mid top of the left side of the page. 
• And on pg.  399 is a start of a poem that is quiet familiar to me I don't know from where but I felt like I have read it before 

Reading Notes Week 7 Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 7

Part B 

• In London 1840 two women were denied the right to speak at a World Anti Slavery Convention, outraged by the bigotry eight years later in Seneca Falls New York,  Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton held a Women's Right Convention with over 300 delegates at attendance. 
• They came togethers  to discuss their need  for a right to vote and more equal rights for women.
• The plea for women's rights made the press and many religious leaders feel shocked and against the terror women voting would bring. 
• The fight for women's right to vote would take another seventy years to be a reality in the US
• pg. 51 "the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands". 
• Women were being to start a new conversation using their knowledge to learn the laws and challenge the inequality's that were clearly against women having any say in anything. 
• The law basically made men all powerful in the eyes of society 
• "He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education-all colleges being closed to against her". pg. 51 
• On pg. 52 "He  has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself".
• "we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges, which belong to them as citizens of those United States". 
• Herman Melville wrote the most famous book "Moby Dick" but his "Bartleby" included a character to remember Bartleby who raises multiple philosophical questions 
• Walt Whitman and Herman Melville were both nineteenth century Goliath in literature also both born in New York in the year 1819.
• Both democrats and opposing slavery
• "Or even the narrator concludes, Bartleby can-not be interpreted at all: he is an unknowable cipher, one of the enigmas of a plural and puzzling "humanity". 
• A complex character who is also hard to forget after reading this story of rebellion that takes place in a dark office on Wall Street. 

Reading Notes W5: Part B Cao Xueqin ,

Reading Notes 

Week 5

Part B 

• Can created one of the most best and worst of traditional China into one story. "The Story of Stone" 
• Powerful story and began to move people's hearts and minds. Through a story that took a deep dive into sex, lust, and differences between both sex. 
• Can was raised by a Han Chinese family which ruled the ethic group numbers in China. And his family helped in a prominent and lucrative jobs working as Imperial  Textile Commission 
• With the fame of the Cao family there are not many details on the life of Cao Xueqin but it is know that his family's mansions and property's were swiped by a new emperor over optical reasons. 
• From 1740 to 1750 Cao was working on "The Story of Stone" living in the suburbs of Beijing where he was forced to move after losing everything. Also he was living just above the means of survival selling painting to make ends meet while working on his story. on pg.518
• It was claimed that Cao story was of real life so since there was even less information on his life the story he wrote gave clear inside, especially of what happened to his family's wealth.
• It is tradition for Chinese novels to be very long. And since Cao's followed that tradition made it hard to summarize or even pull out the important parts. 
• On pg. 519 it points out a similarities of the settings in the story and to where Cao lived in real life
• On pg. 521 it gives good insight on to the themes the story uses to become great and allows readers to stay intrigued. 
• It is very interesting that the story had a genealogy to give information further into the beginnings of the characters and makes it even feel more of a true story with the added genealogy. 
• At the bottom go pg. 527 it says "The accumulation of good and bad deeds that determines a soul's future lives". showing the relationship between Buddhism and the way the characters lived in the story. 
• Beautiful poems on pg. 617 and through out the reading 

Reading Notes W4: Early Modern Chinese Vernacular Literature, Part B

Reading Notes 

Week 4 

Part B 

• pg. 415 explains how this section of the book on the Chinese Vernacular Literature would not be included in conversation with these other writing in the early twentieth-century. This is because writings like poems, prose, and tales were consider more important but now these pieces are works of art.
• This literature felt with themes such as sex, violence, corruption, social satire, and slapstick humor. This type of literature was set apart at the time from the rest because it was a time of intellectual literature. But this writing used the living vernacular of everyday speech. 
• In China this literature caught fire throughout all classes and since it was even more relatable it became very profitable as well. 
• Vernacular literature took the place of classical writings and became triumph over time by flooding the public with plays, verse romances, and prose fiction. 
• The beginnings of this writing began during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) on pg. 416
• Only during the Ming Dynasty was China introduced to the genre of drama and was not like the Greeks who had a classical tradition of drama. 
• Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) was one of the more famous drama play writers with his play Peony Pavilion that dived into the more romantic side. 
• The  Romance of Three Kingdoms was the struggle of three kingdoms that was one of the most famous romances thats was able to survive. And on pg. 417 it shows a picture. 
• on pg. 424 is the beginning of the story of The Journey to the West and it begins with a large amount of descriptive writing that gives you a sense of the setting. Also the imagery it gives when explaining how the money was born is amazing. 
• The monkey who was born from the egg was born being able to walk, climb, and with all his limbs. He made friends with other animals like the tiger, lizard, wold, and many more animals. 
• On pg. 425 also had stanzas of what looked like poems in between the story which is unique and the structure shows the openers in structure of writing. 

Reading Notes W#02: Beattie...ect,Part B

Reading Notes 

Beattie..

#Week 2 

James Beattie

On pg. 130 - I appreciated the way the author set up his argument he found an error with Hume's statements when he spoke about slavery. He didn't wait and just keep this knowledge to himself but was enraged and wrote an essay on truth.

Also on pg.130 - This introduction for James Beattie is beautifully outline of the just of his argument in his letter. And I am also excited because I caught an error also in Hume's comments in my last notes. Mr. Beattie says "such assertions of inferiority and superiority necessarily legitimate the practice of slavery."This part of his argument was most moving because Hume who even had not much experience with African people just made the assumptions that his was superior. Well, in the moment physically since we were slaves they were on top but not proven mentally.

Mary Wollstonecraft 

On pg.133 - It was powerful how Mary stepped out with courage with The Vindication of Men in 1791. Being a women in her time challenging mens theory's showing that women could also be enlightened. But one year after she made her presence really know in the community around her. 

Also on pg.130-133 - It shows the courage that Marry Wollstonecraft reviled by doing a twist to her letter in the previous year to make a The Vindication of Women speaking up for her sex and basically starting a strong female stance. Arguing the basses of how marriage was demeaning as prostitution and left most women in the same place as slaves. No education or even laws that make men and women equal. 

A quote from pg. 134- "..that till the manners of the times are changed, and formed more reasonable principals, it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain, by disregarding themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to nature and equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart." This quote shows how Mary believes the walk that women have in society is unfair and must be changed so that both sex were equal. 

De La Cruz Poems 

On pg. 262 - I enjoyed Poem 164 the most because of the imagery it gave when reading it. Also how it goes into detail of love in heartbreak in such of a quick poem where as on Poem 92 went on way longer poem outline to share their poem. 

On pg. 263- The poem was almost dedicated to women and showing how only a weak man would always throw blame on his women. Where instead the man is the stubborn figure that needs to be more open and less of a dictatorship. 

An interesting quote on pg. 264 - " Or which more greatly must be faulted, though either may commit a wrong: she who sins for need of payment, or he who pays for his enjoyment? Why then are you so alarmed by the fault that is your own? Wish women to be what you make them, or make them what you wish they were." This quote shows the equal wrong between men and women and how women are not to blame the stubborn man mostly is and just also shows when it say make them what you wish they were just shows how much men in those times had over women. No ways being equal at all.