My subject for today is about world literature. The world as we know it is a big place. There are many different schools of world literature. What i mean by schools of thought is, this world that we live in has many different races of people. Which means that every race of people have there own literature. The Greeks had theirs anyone can go to any library, and read literature about different races such as who was here in the beginning. Was it you  or those before you., my guess is it was people here way before you and i. At the Smithsonian Mueseum they have the skelton of the oldest human ever found by any group of archaeologist. Her name they called lucy, she was found in the land of Africa. Archaeologist suggest that she is the oldest of shelton remains ever found. She was a black woman, said to be Eve.
      So my point is this is history a part of our literature, from around the world. The Greeks claim to be first but with that finding of lucy shelton the Greeks will just have to confess that they were not the first people. Hitler claim to be first or rather the chosen race of people. The Jews claim to be the chosen of God. A lot of different races of people claim this, guess what this is literature from every ones point of view. Which is literature out of different races from around the world as we know it.

World Literature at its best!!!

World Liliterature has a significant meaning to life that's surrounded by diversity. World Literature allows for one to perceive other countriess of orgin in a different perspective other than your own. We learn World Lit to understand about other cultures through novels, non fiction books, poetry, articles and essays. All over the world including global, people have a different way of living. From religion to culture, World Literature allows me to understand other parts of the world and how their rules and regulations defer from my very own. It's interesting to intake what others are doing while I'm at work or school, what may be important to them at a certain time period may not be as important to me. Its shows how things change drastically over days, months, years, decades or centries.

World Literature should be important to everyone because at some point or another in this life, you'll maybe come in conatct with someone from Europe, Japan, Tiland or china for example. Their important beliefs may not be yours and its important to know how your beliefs may offend others or defend yourself. You may find that alot of other countries may have the same intrest and vaule and we can all come together as one to share those similarities. World Literature is the basic study of the WORLD!!!

What about World Lit?

When I decided to take world literature this semester, I didn't really have much of an idea of what to expect. Of course I already knew that I would be learining about world literature from 1650 to the present. But besides that, I was almost clueless as to what I was getting myself into. I had actually been asking around, trying to get other students to give me some kind of advice on what the class would be like and what kind of assignments would be given for homework. I tried to mentally prepare myself for the class by recalling all of the previous times that I had remembered being exposed to literature. The first thing that came to mind was being in 10th grade because I remember us having a literature textbook. I also recall reading well known stories by Shakespeare and analyzing stories and poems in depth. So I expected that the class would be similar to my highschool experience in some small way. When I had gotten through the first two classes of world lit. this semester, I realized that not only would this class teach me about different authors and their stories but that it was going to help me learn how to break things down and analyze in depth. This is the importance of world literature. It exposes you to a wide variety of authors and stories and in doing so it helps you to get a clearer understanding of what you read.

The purpose of studying World Lit.

Why study World Lit? Studying writing from the 1650s to present day is especially important because I believe that literature from this period has a relevance to modern society that ancient texts lack. Reading literature from this period gives us a deeper insight into contemporary historical events, and allows us to experience the consequences of those events first-hand. Also usually the more time spent on something, the better it is, so by 1650 we'd had a ton of practice.

                                              ...and it all began in a cave.

The Enlightenment was especially significant because it championed the importance of reason. Which gave rise to several important literary styles, and it emphasized the dual function of literature as entertainment and education. As quoted from page 98 of Volume D in our textbook, "Stage comedy and tragedy, the early novel, satire in prose and verse, didactic poetry, the philosophical tale: each form developed its own set of devices for creating pleasure as well as for involving audiences and readers in situations requiring moral choice." The satire from this period is especially educational, providing a sincere look into the social issues of the day.

                                                         Pictured: Sincerity

Often times it seems that literature is where revolutionary social ideas first manifest. The ethics visited in these works also had a great deal of influence on the contemporary world. Oroonoko is significant in that it not only challenged the ethics of slavery, but it was also written by a woman, which was rare for the time it was published. Many works from this period would seek to shed light on other societal double-standards. Moliere's Tartuffe, Swift's biting satire, and Voltaire's cynicism would seek out to "call attention to the deceptiveness and the possible misuses of social norms as well as to their necessity" (pg. 95). The cultural relevance of these ideas still persists today. In many cases the themes and messages in these books were being newly introduced into their cultures, or newly refined; and by reading these works we can gain a better appreciation for ideas that are commonplace in modern society.

What is the importance of World Literature?

     

      To say whether we have a need for World Literature in today's society, first I would need to give a Definition of the term, something I had to actually look up myself. To sum up the definition that I Received from Wikipedia for World Literature would be the art of written work, literature can come from a specific time, genre, historical periods, political movements, gender, race, and/or nationality. World Literature gives us an insight on times that have passed or things that are happening or are going to happen in the world. World Lit is important because without the written content of the world everything could be hear-say, personal experience, storytelling, or television. World Literature gives a voice to all to express their opinion, experience, truths, lies, imaginations, and dreams, reality and information. Literature paints a worded picture of places and times that some would not be able to experience without the Literature.  

World literature through another's eye

World literature from my perspective is the history of how writings from different cultures and ages were experienced to what individuals feel, how they live, understand, perceive in and out, and explore. Studying world literature is a major way to live inside the head and heart from different lifestyles, knowledges, and history that built the world for so many years. World literature gives people a chance to let go of their ethnocetrism by becoming a little apart of another one's standards and values from going into the mind and art of such a broad range of cultural writings. A person is custom to their own beginings and beliefs and tends to over look someone else's life understanding, so reading a piece of literature gives an open mind and heart for the reader from the writer. World literature is major way of life that educates the world apart from their own. The world comes more involved in eachother through world literature and it can become more broad to expand, as well as influence and subject to everyone else.

Who Cares?

Around many institutions of education,  an age old question is asked "Why do I need to know this?" Most students in general do not understand the importance of reviewing the past.  In many cases, students feel that history in no way affects their current lives and has no value.

Most historians and professors will agree with the statement, "If you don't know the past you are bound to repeat it". I believe this statement. Valuable information can be learned from the readings and teaching of the past. Literature is a great tool that can provide a consistent message of ones experiences that may be applied to daily life. For instance "The Diary of Anne Frank" gave an interesting depiction of a certain era which I would not want to repeat.

Although we may be uncertain of the authors true message, classic tales teach values that are a important in today's `society. Examples include the Bible, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men and the Scarlet Letter. All works of literature which are internationally known. Many of which individuals base what is acceptable in modern society.

Why do we Need World literature?

 The different type of literature we read helps us to understand one another. The words that's expressed in literature or from someone personal journal can be their emotions or feelings written on paper hoping that it will reach a  person who it can relate to. To me literature is like history it needs to be researched and understood before we make an decision on expressing what we've read. Literature sometimes can be exciting or hurting. The exciting part is when you can relate to what is written and can laugh with the author. The hurting part is when you can relate to the unchanging experience of death and can tie the author emotions with yours. I believe that without literature we would not understand the world and not have a voice to speak to let others know what we are feeling.

Why Study World Literature

World Literature to me is a very challenging subject. So I decided to write about why we should have to study world literature, or better yet who cares. After sitting and thinking about what world literature mean to me I discovered that without world literature we would be missing the great masterpieces of poetry and novels of writers from the past. World Literature allow us to read and view a world of different cultures and to anaylze different piece. I remember the first day of class Mrs. Baldwin gave the entire class an orange to anaylze or to describe what we thought about the orange. We all had different opinions on what we thought about the orange, from the way it looked, felt, smelled and tasted. I myself had never really observed an orange before in my life so it was a little challenging but I was able to do it. So it is with world literature, we will be analyzing different short stories and learning about the world around us. I can say that my compII class has prepared me for analyzing poems because that's all we did in that class was read short stories of different writers and had to interput what they were talking about. I'm looking forward to discovering more about literature and why I need to know about it.

To convey, or not to convey, that is the question.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
C. S. Lewis
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Literature, as a part of communication, is one of the most important vehicles for human compassion and understanding. Through literature we achieve a kind of freedom not allowed in verbal interpersonal communication. With verbal interpersonal communication, our prejudices, preconceived notions, and social stigmas prevent us from allowing the true meaning of an expression to come through, especially in the case of someone unfamiliar to us. In the pages of a book, the author controls how much the reader knows of his or her personal experience and, in that way, controls the lens through which the reader sees the message. This freedom allows the author to guide our imagination and revel meaning in the intended time. This transference of perspective gives us the ability to walk in the shoes of another person, to see through their eyes, to hear their thoughts. There can be no greater form of empathy. There is a strong desire to convey experience in our species and no one can say which vehicle is the most efficient method to share understanding. If you were to ask me, I would say that the underlying drive to share is more important than the method by which the sharing takes place. Literature is a vital part of the mosaic of human compassion. I suppose the answer is yes, then. We choose to convey.

Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Going Back Is Hard!

I really don't get this whole process yet.  Blogging...Schoolwork on computers...sending your homework through email...It all seems difficult to learn.  I'm going back to school after being out for about 20 years.  I still remember my senior year of typing...not computers...typing.  I know I'm aging myself.  I'm am still learning the whole process of using a computer.  Blog...use a video...or photograph.  How do I get that?  I am willing to learn though.  It's just hard to wrap my brain around.  My kids know more about computers than I do...and they love it.

I enjoy the reading we have done so far, but it is difficult to understand.  I'm not a deep thinker...I'm a simple person who enjoys the simple things...so getting into a book and learning to analyse it seems a little difficult.  I haven't been a reader in the past, but this last year of college is making me one.  I hope I get better at this whole blogging thing.  I have to get things on paper first.  I can bull my way through a paper and make it seem interesting...but I did that in high school...so I won't be doing that this time around.  My girls are planning on mommy making the same grades they do.

Maybe in my next blog I will feel more comfortable about saying something about what we have read...but for now this will have to do.  So the first day of class we examined an orange. What it looks like, feels like, smells like, etc.  I enjoyed eating it!  I hope to start looking at what we are reading in the same way.

Why we should study world literature.

                  

              I think we all should study world literature at one point of our life. World literature is not just about reading a story by one person specific but it is about learning the deeper meaning of why they wrote it. It is also important to know who the author was and what might had been the reason the why he or she wrote about the specific topic. There is more to world literature  then just reading a story that someone has created it also gives us the chance to imagine what it was like in that certain time. Like for example the Author Achebe: Chilke’s school days. The small biography that we read about him helped us to familiarize with what the story was about and about his personally experience. So in my theory I personaly think that world literature helps us establish a personal relationship with the author.