Week 17 Reading Notes Part A & B

ReadingNotes

Week 17

Part A &B 

Last Week

• Mahasweta Devi in the text is said to be one of the "most important fiction and prose writer in the Bengali language since India's decolonization in 1947". Devi was born 1926 into a Hindu family that was very well educated and many people in her family had careers mostly in literature. 
• As she was being educated it came to a halt when she married Bijon Bhattcharya who was also know for his work in plays like "Nabanna" that depicted the 1942 Bengal famine. His work was said to "reform modern indian drama". He also was an activist like Devi but specifically in the Communist Part in India before it was officially banned in 1949. A side note in a different class I was just talking about something similar to this and being thankful that the US doesn't go as far as violating our rights and blatantly say you can't believe in whatever you choose. 
• They both had a son in 1948 but thing became rocky when it came to the  finical aspect of raising a family for Bijon being overwhelmed by theater work and barley coming home at times and without an income this forced Devi to live in poverty at a time and struggle with malnutrition. 
• She eventually was able to feed herself as income came in when she began to work and Bijon and Devi divorced and this allowed Devi to finish her graduate studies and this started her back on the path of literature were she would soon write some powerful material. 
• On being "Giribala" a story of a women seeming similar to Devi life just because her life seemed to pause when she became married and both of their marriages affected their lives drastically at one point in time. 
• Although there are many things different between Giribala and Devi because in the story the young women is involved in an arranged marriage with a man that wasn't who he seemed to be at first and head an addiction to weed.  

Reading Notes Week 14 Part A&B

Reading Notes 

Week 14

 Part A&B

• James Baldwin was an African American novelist that lead the rest with his prose stylists during the twentieth century. His most famous work included poetry laced with "the classics of English literature and the tones of biblical prophecy, combine personal reflection with a wider view of social justice"(pg.735). 
• As a youth Baldwins stepfather was a preacher and he was very involved in the church at a young age and was some way shunned because of his later involvement in secular literature. Although he did stay in close relationship with several churches over time and even preached when he was still a young man. 
• Also don't let me forget he was one of the icons of the civil rights movement. 
• In 1943 he was expected to go take care of his mother and siblings when he received the news of his fathers death but instead he moved to Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan to work as a writer and met other older writers and here in the place he "became aware of his homosexuality"(pg.735). 
• Leopold Sedar Senghor a poet who was also the founder of the movement Negritude and the first ever president of independent Senegal. His main subject was the personal and social conflicts between Europe and Africa. 
• A part of the poem "Black Women" is you could feel the pain in the words of the poem and the repeating of" naked black women" was used to further the point of the disrespect shown to black women and how they were subjected to that image only being naked. "Moaning under the hands of the conqueror, Your deep contralto voice is the spiritual song of the Beloved, Naked woman, dark woman"(pg. 680-681). 
• Very moving line because it showed how the black woman was the strongest through this whole poem because of the trails told. Also the disgust of the imagery of someone who conquered you and your people and they take advantage of you because they see you as "a black woman and beautiful" 

Reading Notes Part A&B Week 13

Reading Notes 

Part A&B

Week 13

• Modern poetry era was one where modern poets believed that all poetry was good poetry and the embrace of your feelings for the overflow of power. Although modernist weren't too solid with that mindset instead they swayed more towards the facts things more clearly answered. Modern Poetry introduction gives the feeling of when poetry began to be more free and writers wrote true feelings in word form and even though there were those who didn't believe or agree the movement of this type of literature grew. 
• William Butler Yeats is know for his outstanding imagery and for me as a reader this is always great to know about writers because I love imagery and seeing the picture the author is trying to paint. Yeats went through a lot of personal problems since he was in Europe around the chaos of World War One and to cope with of the pain he created a "private mythology". 
• Thomas Stearns Elliot or aka T.S. Elliot was a factor in the impact on modern poetry in the world. And was know mostly for his memorable poems linked with "spiritual and intellectual conflict" and Elliot also was in Europe during the First World War and this inspired his poetry as well as Yeats. 
• Anna Akhmatova is one of the greatest Russian poets in the twentieth century and her poems were personal and told in a poetic voice to enhance the voice of a "lover, mother, and wife". 
• One thing I can say about all of the authors poetry is that it had emence imagery to give feeling to the poem and to help readers understand their grief in this moment in time of war. 
• My favorite section of text from one of the authors has to be from Anna Akhmatova  when she says "For someone a fresh breeze blows, For someone the sunset luxuriates. We wouldn't know, we are those who everywhere, Hear only the rasp of the hateful key, And soldiers tread."
• It is profound how Anna compares the settings of people around the world and how there are people living good right now while she was in a place of hate and the only sound was of soldiers boots gives superfluous imagery to me as a reader.