Laurence Chan, Class Summary

Our World Literature Class taught me a fairly large amount on the texts we've read in class as well as random facts on literature in general. I thoroughly enjoyed many of the required readings especially the Greek tragedies. I think other classmates would agree with me when I say the choices were fantastic except for the Sufi poetry. Perhaps it was just a lack of my own patience that I did not enjoy such work. Overall the class went well and I was happy to be a part of it. Diviani, if you remember what you told me in the library that night we both stayed up to do work (haha), then I still disagree with you.

The class was a very nice experience for me, and I'm glad for being exposed to, and understanding the books we needed to read. Thanks.

Laurence Chan, Class Presentations Pt. 2

For my own presentation, I had decided to go a different route to the rest of the class, but similiar to the original course. I followed our own class themes of reading world texts, epics, stories of origins, and comparative literature. For my own idea I wanted to suggest a text that would easily mix and match with our other texts. In picking Virgil's The Aeneid, the class would have more material to compare and contrast with the other stories and texts of our class. I suggested some of my ideas in class for possible comparisons and contractions. Examples were comparing the tragic stories of women in Greek and Roman tragedies, such as Medea vs. Dido. A comparison of the heroes and their different glorified characteristics would also be a topic; Achilles was famous for his bloodlust and strength, but Aeneas while also a fighter was known as a respectful and dutiful leader.

Besides, the book was just fun to read.

Laurence Chan, Class Presentations

I was very interested in seeing the choices and methods in which my classmates tackled the class presentations. Actual student made variations of the syllabus, powerpoint presentations, and handouts helped make each presentation unique and engaging. Common ideas were taking famous texts from many different locations in the world. Books and stories like Things Fall Apart and the Chinese Legend of the Monkey King were stories I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. A book that was recommended several times wasDon Quixote. I have never read it but now I am very curious about it and will definitely be checking it out.

Overall I felt the presentations were a great idea as it offered the rare chance of a student's perspective and suggestion. If I ever had to make my own real syllabus for class I would definitely add student presentations in it.

William Chiu

This semester has been a great for me to discover teh text fro around the world which emcompass every theme imaginable. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this class had to have been the beginning material concerning the creation myths. The myths grabbed my attention because of the different ways the world's creation was represented within time periods and cultures. it was also very striking in the way the flood myths possessed similarities which hint at the actuality of such events looking at the assumption that the stories may be too extreme to have occurred. The stories that had the least positive effect on my enjoyment would have to be the tragedies. the content is of course gloomy and telling of acts which exemplify violence and trickery. although i didnt not take much pleasure in reading the genre of tragedy, it was very informative of the culture of Shakespearean and Greek times. By reading those tragedies i was able to not only interpret the ways in which peopled lived according to customs and religion but the way they thought and acted towards one another as well.

Felicia Ooi; Class Summary

I enrolled in World Literature I because I really do enjoy reading books and literature in general. I realize that my own reading experience is not as vast as many others' and I would love to be able to expand my horizons by reading literature from around the world. This class introduced me to texts that I had mostly never read before, as I am an international student and I do not learn world literature in high school back home. 

Though I must admit I did not enjoy reading each and every one of the books assigned to us, I especially enjoyed reading the Greek Tragedies because I found them very interesting, albeit slightly morbid, what with all the killing and revenge stories. I also really liked reading the excerpt from Aristophanes' Frogs that we read, as it was really funny.

Overall, I think the syllabus was very well-rounded and really fit the subject of World Literature. I learnt many new things about writing and it also gave me chances to improve on my "compare/contrast" essays.  

Felicia Ooi; Class Presentations

I watched several presentations by my classmates, and I found their choices of books to be very diverse and very interesting. There were some books that I would have loved to learn about, some books which I had already read, and some I had never heard of before.

My own syllabus consisted of 3 different areas of comparison. The first area 2 novels were ones that dealt with the darker side of human nature/animal nature that were brought to the surface by a total liberation of rules and authority - William Golding's Lord of the Flies versus George Orwell's Animal Farm. The next area was a lighter one, satirical comedies that involved the respective authors making fun of society in their respective eras - Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest versus Aristophanes' Frogs. Finally, I also chose 3 poems that dealt with family and the importance of appreciating family - William Wordsworth's We Are Seven versus D.H Lawrence's Piano versus E.E Cummings' Parents.

Felicia Ooi; Sufi Poetry

Sufi Poetry was a rather different style of poetry than the others that we have been exposed to in the class. The poems were mostly about love, and God, and each different poet has a different style of writing. Symbols like birds and flowers and water were used to represent several different aspects of love and religion.

I enjoyed reading Sufi Poetry because the poems were very soothing and easy to read, and they were also very meaningful.

Sufi,Santigui Tounkara

The past week, we have been looking at Sufi poems from Attar, Hafiz and Rumi. The poems were all really religious. They also talked a lot about love. They used many symbols such as birds, flowers and god to discuss their ideas. The main focus of the poems was about devotion to god and love to god. I really enjoyed reading the Sufi poems because it expressed spirituality through literature, which I think its really nice to read.

Catullus,Santigui Tounkara

Catullus was very different from Sappho. Catullus's ideas were straight to the point without using a bunch of different ways to pass his message across.I think that I prefer that style because you exactly know what the author is talking about. Catullus was definitely using liberal writing and wasn't using any kind of censorship in the poems.Overall, I preferred Catullus over Sappho because of the fact that his ideas were clearer.

Presentations

This past week we observed everyone's different adaptations of a world literature syllabus. It was interesting to see how pieces of literature from all over were brought together to be taught in a single world literature course.

Overall, I did enjoy this class. As much as I complain that I hate writing papers, or dislike reading at times, it really was not as bad as i thought it would be. I took this course because I needed a year of english to fulfill med school requirements, but I have to say that I liked this class a lot more than some of my other science classes that I was taking.

Willie Ho

Our last presentations to conclude the class showed everyone's different outlook on what books constitute as world literature. I think that we can safely say that there are too many books in the world to label any as world literature. To be able to decide that, one must read all those books, and that would be impossible.

I enjoyed the presentations in the fact that people had different themes and I also liked to see if the few books I have read on their syllabus actually match their theme. The presentations have informed me of some books that I should read because they are books that everyone should read.

The class as a class was quite enjoyable. To say that it was interesting is an understatement. I think the most enlightening class experience was probably the introduction to Sufi poetry. Sufism was something I never heard of and learning about it was quite the experience. It made me understand poetry as a whole better, which I had absolutely no interest for prior to the class.

William Chiu

The in class presentations were very interesting considering the vast differences in classmates opinions on the subject matter for a world literature class. I especially liked how some classmates decided to have a course structure that included books from such popular book titles as Dracula, Lord or the Rings, and Twilight. I was excited how some included a film viewing of the movie adaptations of the books at the end of the class. Perhaps the widely used book among classmates was Chinua Achebe's "things fall apart" which i also used as well. this book would be an excellent source of knowledge of the customs and lives of the Obo people in Nigeria Africa. Giving not only accounts of their traditions but traditions adapted from the white settlers we can see the change in history as well. The presentations was a very good way for us classmates to see how each others thinks and and insight into books we may not have read or heard of before this class.

John Torres "Class Summary"

Throughout the class I learned a lot about different cultures and different periods through the text that we covered. The course also taught me to look at literature in a more analytical way. It was also interesting to read texts and compare them to very similar and different texts. The course concluded with student presentations. It was interesting to see how people took their own spin on the class and incorporated different things in their syllabus. It was also interesting to see how many students chose similar books to discuss in class. Many books often came up in different syllabuses. All-in-all I was satisfied with the structure of the class and was happy with what I got out of it.

Presentations,Santigui Tounkara

I think that most of the presentations were interesting. Everyone had a different syllabus and different ideas on how the class should be.It was unfortunate that we ran out of time for the last couple presentations and therefore, had to rush them.I also think that the presentations were a good way for the teacher to see how the class could be improved with new ideas from the students.Overall, I really enjoyed being in the class.I feel like I learned a lot of different style of literature. I will certainly try to have a World Literature class next semester!

Sappho,Santigui Tounkara

I found Sappho interesting to read because It was way different from other poetry I read.You can tell in the poems that Sappho wrote them with a lot of passion and emotion.However, something I didn't like so much is the fact that it was hard to understand the translation.It happened with many stories we read and it's kind of annoying but at the same time it makes you try to learn more about it. I also liked the uses of the metaphors.

Othello 2,Santigui Tounkara

The ending of Othello was pretty sad.Othello found out about Ilago's lies right after he killed Desdemona.Emilia, Ilago's wife told the thruth to Othello and told him that she gave Ilago his Handkerchief.After Othello knew the whole story, he then stabbed Ilago and ended up killing himself by the bed where Desdemona was laying on.

I found Othello very similar to the Greek tragedies because they both involves killing a husband or a wife.I beleive that Shakespear was inspired by the Greek tragedies to write Othello.Overall, the story was very interesting.

Class summery

I found this this class to be very interesting and useful to my knowledge of literature. I also really enjoyed the section we did on epics. The reason i liked this section the most was that the epics were full of action and were exciting to read. The section that was my least favorite as the section on tragedy's. I did not enjoy this section because i did not find the tragedy's that interesting and it took up a huge part of the class. All in all i really enjoyed the class and would recommend it to people who are thinking about taking it.

presontation

The final week consisted of everyone giving a presentation about how they would make a syllabus for this class. I found this week very interesting because it gave you different perspectives of how the class could be taught. It also gave many summaries of different novels that could have been used for the class and i found this very cool because i found many of these books intreasting. I also liked makeing or changeing the sylabus becouse it gave you a perspective of what being a teacher could be like.

presentation

The final week is a presentation week. I inspired a lot from my classmates' works. The texts they chose were very interesting to read. I also enjoy the course through the whole semester. Even though the ancient epics are a little bit boring and hard to understand, the others like Greek tragedies are really valuable to read. When I prepared for my presentation, I did a lot of researches and recognized that the Greek literature had played an important role not only on the development of Western literature but also on their political attitudes and many other areas. Basically, world literature is not a easy course to teach because of the translation problem. If you are able to read the original text, you may find the perspectives in original texts may vary from the English translation version. But, all in all, this course is fine.

Presentations

I thought that the student presentations in class this week were pretty interesting. I liked this project because it allowed us to be a little bit creative in what we thought would make a good world literature syllabus and it gave us a break from writing papers. It took me awhile to decide which pieces of literature I wanted to include in the course. This was the first English/Comparative Lit. class I have taken and I thought it was an enjoyable class. A lot of the literature we read was interesting and I liked that most of the major themes connecting the stories were easily understood. I had read some of the tragedies and creation stories in high school but I didn’t remember them too well and it was interesting to look at them again.

A Semester in Review

This was a very great class for me this semester. With my other classes like organic chemistry and ecology, i could always come to this class with my mind at ease. I learnt a lot from all the books we read. Before coming to this class, i didn't know anything about Greek tragedy so it was fun to read the plays like Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Medea. Those were the highlights of this class for me. I also learnt a few things about Indian literature from Ramayana and the last texts we read, the suffi poetry.
Posting on the blog is fun too and it helps to think about the texts read in class more deeply.
I took a different COLI class last semester "Literature and Psychology" and i had the best time just like i did in this class. I think i like comparative literature and i am thinking seriously about making it my minor.
All in all this class was awesome!

Presentation

In preparing for my presentation this week, i thought not only about books/stories that i read and liked but literary texts that would impact my class in a great way and something they would enjoy reading. While i have read some of the texts in my syllabus, some of the others i have not read but hope to read very soon.
My syllabus also follows a flow in time from like history texts to modern ones. I started with Aristophanes, Lysistrata then "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare, Beowulf, Dante Inferno, Some verses of the New Testamest, Chinau Achebe "Things Fall Apart", Wole Soyinka "Death and the Kings Horseman", and last but not the least Haruki Murakami "Norwegian Wood."
My best part of this syllabus is the modern part- the last three books-because they are not only fun to read but teach a lot of things. Norwegian wood is my favorite which i read my first semester freshman year and fell in love with. I feel like its a book one will always remember after reading.

Othello,Santigui Tounkara

Othello is quite interesting.There is a lot of stuff going on in the first 2 acts.Iago first convice his friend Roderigo that he will help him get with Desdemona even though she is married to Othello. Iago first tries to convince Desmona's father that Othello got married to his daughter by spells.Finally, when Desdemona affirms that it wasn't true, the accusations were dissmissed.Later on, Iago plotted another plan but this time including Cassio.His plan was to convince Othello that Cassion and Desdemona are having an affair!

Final Thoughts.

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. It gave me a new perspective on world literature that I had not possessed prior to taking this course. While I was somewhat familiar with a number of the tragedies presented in class, the depth we went into them was refreshing and offered a new perspective I had not noticed before, especially with the Greek plays. While the Iliad was familiar to me, the Ramayana was new and interesting, and helped me appreciate the Indian culture in a way I had not experienced before. The creation stories also provided an interesting look. Gilgamesh and Metamorphoses are two stories I had absolutely no idea about, and helped me understand how various cultures around the world interact to form different identities and cultures. The simularities between the various stories supported the idea of an interlaced world, each with it's own personal tastes and flavors but sharing many main identifying features. I am happy I took part in this course.

Agamemnon II

Agamemnon had numerous themes running throughout it. One of the primary themes is the idea of feminism, and how this relates to Clymnestra. She is portrayed as strong willed and goal oriented, but at the same time blinded by her desire for revenge (as she cannot think what she will do past killing Agamemnon). Another aspect can be seen via the submission of the chorus, which shows how they were willing to relinquish control to a woman. Another facet of this feminism is how Agamemnon killed their daughter, and why Aeschylus chose this instead of a son.

Another theme running through the play is the worship of the gods. Zeus is mentioned when Agamemnon is killed, and his daughter is sacrificed to the gods in order to procure a good wind. The religious themes winding their way through this work suggest that religion played a large part in these people's lives, as well as in this play. However, no dieties actually show up in the work, which was actually unique for this time period.

Agamemnon

One of the more interesting stories told in the course was the play Agamemnon. In it, Agamemnon's wife schemes to kill her husband over the death of their daughter. The wife, Clytemnestra, plans her revenge very carefully, and when she executes it she does it with brutal efficiency. The chorus, played by all older males, reviles her for this act, and yet come to terms with her actions by the end of the play. She kills Agamemnon in a very ceremonial manner, via 3 dagger strikes, the third while praying to Zeus. Undoubtedly, she tried to emulate the same manner that her daughter was struck down. He quest for vengeance has blinded her to all other thoughts and concerns, only worrying about how she will kill Agamemnon. After the deed is done, she shows no remorse or hesitation to announce the grim results of her actions. Clytemnestra is a character who planned and schemed, until she achieved what she wanted to all along: she is portrayed as a cunning and brilliant, if somewhat deviant, woman who can be seen as a role model as to how women can be equal to men.

In-Class Presentations

I thought the in-class presentations were interesting in the choices of texts used. A lot of the texts were what I was expecting, though I was surprised how often Don Quixote came up considering how long the book is. I especially liked the more unconventional pieces of literature chosen, such as Ender's Game, A History of Violence, and Wicked. These books have a lot of value that gets overlooked just because they aren't considered canon. Many of them are, in my opinion, just as good as the revered classical texts taught in literature courses, and have the advantage of being more readable and more interesting in many cases. I did enjoy reading the tragedies and the epics, but they simply didn't fascinate me and hold my attention in the same manner as, say, the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin did. You could teach an entire semester-long course on amazing pieces of literature like this and get just as much out of it. Granted, it may not be as much of a window into the author's culture and society as much as the Iliad came to be for the ancient Greeks, but there is still a lot that can be analyzed and learned from the different characters and their incredibly complex interactions.

Sufi Poetry

The interesting aspect of Sufi poetry is the interconnecting tangents they all seemed to contain. Major themes running through all the pieces included entrapment and flying, as well as the definition of love, namely the love of God. The idea of self intoxication as a means to achieve a state of Nirvana via intoxication and interpretation of the feelings in this state seems different to most teachings, but in fact is a novel and unique approach to achieving oneness with God.

The ideas of entrapment and flight as a means of escape suggest that Sufi poets consider the mortal body nothing more than say, a coffin, to which our soul is trapped. When a person forces themselves into an intoxicated state, then they can achieve the flight, or freedom, from this mortal ball and chain. As such, Sufi poets must interpret euphoric feelings of being intoxicated as God's direct love, and associate it with being freed from mortal chains.

Sufi Poetry, Yeonsoo Kim

Compare to the other Sufi Poetry, Rumi’s expression on his poem was much stronger. I could see what he was trying to say in his poem and his voice was very conspicuous throughout the poem. And he used a lot of self questioning – answering style to progress his idea. I felt like his poem is really philosophical and deep. But frankly, I liked the two other Sufi Poetries. In their poems, they were speaking of love and god – religion, and no identity issue.
I enjoyed reading all the famous ancient epics and literary from various culture. I did not realize how broad the world of literature before I took this class. It was definitely good time to explore the variety of literacy in the world.

Courtney Lum

Overall, I thought we read some very interesting literature in this World Literature class. I would’ve enjoyed reading more modern classics and poetry, but given the course requirements and description I think the pieces we read during the semester were quite intriguing as well as just classic literature that is necessary as a foundation for global writings. However, I found the final presentation to be more difficult than it appeared, for there is so much literature out in the world that it is extremely difficult to pick and choose ones deemed important or classic. Though in doing that assignment I give the teacher a lot of credit for choosing such interesting reads.

Margaret Yoon: Syllabus Presentations

I enjoyed the presentations; they were very unique and intriguing in their various themes and goals. However, I do not think the task of presenting a “World Literature” syllabus is practical. There is too much literature that constitutes such, and the term itself changes with every individual. Thus, I focused my presentation on a specific psychological approach to world literature, specifically with the German texts from the Enlightenment to post Modernism. In this way, I think the class would be more effective as a learning experience and would have more of a focus. The students would come away with thorough knowledge about a specific period, which they would be able to apply to future literature classes and their own worldview.

Laurence Chan, Medea II

After finishing the play, I am surprised at how much I enjoyed the rest of the play. I was waiting to see Medea's rationale on killing her own children and totally destroying Jason's happiness, and I must say I liked it. Medea is a victim of an unwanted spell of love. She had given Jason everything she could, done everything possible under the sun to help him achieve his dreams and the only thing she had asked for was to be his only wife. I felt no pity towards Jason and though I don't approve of all her actions I fully understand. Medea won my sympathy.

Overall I thought the play was a fun read. It pleased me to see the gods and chorus had been on Medea's side as well. Good example of Greek tragedy.

Sufi, Emily Clarke

I enjoyed reading the Sufi poetry because I had never heard of this religion/dance. I think the moral behind Sufi are very compelling and inspirational. Though I follow a different religion, I was very moved by and agree with the settings of sufi. But to say that I agree with Sufi and to associate myself with Sufi is almost going against the entire point.

Sufi Poetry, Ralph Monfort

Normally I am not a fan of poetry however, I seem to tolerate Sufi Poetry more than other poetry. One thing I was not found of was the fact that it was very big religion. Sufi Poetry uses a large amount of imagery with the birds and the flowers. I didn't like that use of the metaphors. However, overall Sufi Poetry is interesting and not as complicated as other poetry.

Laurence Chan, Medea I

I have heard of the play Medea before reading it. I knew it was going to be a bloody tragedy involving many murders and betrayal. "A mother who kills her own children." I wasn't sure what I would think as I began reading the play but to my surprise I am enjoying it. Medea had fallen in love with Jason unwillingly, and when the play begans she already had forsaken her own homeland and betrayed her people. The spell love casts over people is strong, and perhaps though the play is fiction, people can be brainwashed and step over lines they never knew they could for it. Many people have often gave up their own families for love.. and unfortunately it usually does not end well.

Laurence Chan, Sufi Poetry

The last week we have been studying Sufi poetry. We've read and analyzed many poems by several poets. As we were attempting to write our own Sufi-style poetry, I was reminded of the frustration I felt through the usage of metaphors and nature. Most sufi poems have the same characteristics of nature, birds and flying, and flowers. The poems could provide good lessons or insight, but most are too vague considering they are religious poems that are supposed to guide you.

Sufi Poetry

We have read several differnt types of peotry in the class. However, Sufi poetry by all three authors; Attar, Hafiz, and Rumi were very religious and symbols such as birds to represent after life. As an atheist, I found their poems are very nonsense. It contains lots of meaning in that short lines, and sometimes it was really confusing to understand underlying meaning of specific symbols. The poems give meaning of life in definitions of religions but i figure it is very hypocritical and idealistic to follow certain ideas. But the wordings and descriptions were beautifully written, and makes the reader to imagine the whole scene. I really dont prefer to read religous literatures but some poems are remarkably attractive regardless of its meaning in religion.

Sufi Poetry

I do not often like to read poetry but with the Sufi poetry it was not difficult or painful to read. I liked the sufi poetry because i found it to be enlightening and inspiring. I liked that the dominant themes were life and love. I did not find the fact that poetry was also very religion related to be much of a problem, in fact most of the time it didn't register with me that they were religious because the poems often applied to many subjects. They were also easy to read because they were not very long. I also enjoyed the use of symbolism and metaphors because it allows the reader to put more thought into the poetry and possibly come up with more then one meaning.

Sufi Poetry

Sufi poetry is by far the most existential poetry we've come across in class to date. It's interesting that this poetry is considered to be related to religion in that it references and discussed God, yet it outwardly derides traditional religious practices as being too showy. It discusses transcendence and achieving a higher state of being, of experiencing ecstasy upon the reunion of the personal soul with the great Soul. A lot of natural imagery is used in Sufi poetry, such as birds, clouds, and flowers (the rose especially), to signify the longing and desire to achieve the highest state of consciousness in which the self dies to the whole. Traditionally, Sufis have had many methods of altering one's state of consciousness, including singing, dancing, and partaking of mind-altering substances such as bhang, a cannabis plant derivative. I'm sure the bhang helped contribute to the strong theme of love being the underlying force of the universe. Love is more than just the theme of most of the poems; it seems to be the purpose of life to a Sufi. Feeling love and sharing love are very important to the dedicated Sufi.

William Chiu

The Sufi poems differ from the poems we read last week in both content and language. These poems are very relaxing to read because they deal with very mellow topics such as love, flying, and death. However they are not my style of poetry because they feel very cheesy portaying hippie themes almost. The poem that was the most interesting for me to analyze would be the poem by Attar dealing with the meaning of life. I found it very interesting how the auhtor says that people should find themselves while they are alive. These poems which deal with life make one wonder how one should go about living life to fully grasp what their life's meaning is. After reading this short yet inspiring poem, I was thinking about myself for a good few minutes. The other poems seem very much alike because of the repetitious subject matter so I did not find as much appeal in those poems.

John Torres "Sufi Poetry"

Sufi poetry can be characterized by the extensive use of love with symbolism and metaphors. Many of the poems also have interesting comparisons. The poems were easier to read and grasp than some of the poems we read in previous weeks. Also these poems were not as vulgar as other poetry styles dealing with more physical aspects of love. Sufi poetry was similar to the other poetry discussed in class and it was interesting to see how different cultures deal with similar topics such as love in this specific case.

Sufi Poetry

As most students in the class, I was a bit nervous to try and write a Sufi poem because I felt only the poets who’d master this style could produce such a work. I tried to capture the imagery that is so common in many of the poems, using key themes like flight, love, god and death. I actually liked how my poem turned out. I find Sufi poetry to be interesting when it is actually broken down into simple terms in class; the underlying messages can give one a lot to think about when it comes to life, morals and things of that kind.

Sufism

After being introduced to Sufi poetry, it seems to me their main focus is their devotion to god and love. For instance, there are poems that deal with flight and death as a way to get closer to god. Also is a sense of searching for who they are and where there place in life is. Sufi poems are often in first person narrative which makes the words and context more personal and reflective. The video, along with the background information, of how Sufi poetry can be performed was really interesting. I found the whole idea of “tripping” in order to fully experience the style quite attention-grabbing.

Courtney Lum

I actually found Sufi poetry to be quite beautiful and interesting to read. I found the language and the imagery created in the poetry to be simple, yet truly beautiful. I liked how the poems were in reference to religious views of love, life, and death, and yet the religious views were not imposed and thrown upon the reader as a means of spreading their religion and converting new followers. The simple imagery, especially of that of death, is a huge theme in many of these poems, but death is not something that is feared, but almost revered in the poems. The poems make death sound natural and beautiful.

Sufi Poetry: Attar and Hafiz, Yeonsoo Kim

Sufi Poetry was definitely something I enjoyed reading. Although the poetry itself was mainly dealing with the Islamic view of life and love, it did not quite seem like they were enforcing their religion to the readers regarding with topic. Rather it would seem like more of a philosophical type of poem. What I liked about Attar was the way he identifies the meaning of love. That love is not about oneself but it has to do with the individual soul and god. And Hafiz’s poem gave me such an impression. I liked the part where he described himself as if he overcame the hardest part of life. Being happy about speaking frankly and be free about love.

Willie Ho

Sufi poetry expanded my understanding of poetry as a whole. I always thought that the language of poets was difficult to understand but after reading Sufi poetry I think that most of the language used was probably just representative ideas and nouns. In Sufi Poetry, flowers represent love; flight represents reunification with the great soul; birds represent the fallen sub-souls of the great soul. The fallen sub-souls love the great soul and long only to reunite with it. Though they can only achieve this through death. Death is viewed as something not to be feared but something good because with death, souls can become a part of their whole form again.

On another note, for the presentations next week, I really have no idea how we should explain why some book deserves to be on the syllabus moreso than another book. I really can't think of a good reason.

Sufi poetry

After reading several samples of Sufi Poetry it is clear that those who practice Sufism see themselves to be on a mental and spiritual journey towards God. Many of the poems attempt to guide those who seek God and describe the path leading to this level of spiritual attainment. We also discussed how Sufism is an offshoot of mainstream Islam. The two differ in several ways. While muslims believe that they are on a pathway to God once they die, Sufi's also believe that is possible to reach a connection or degree of closeness with God while still alive. Sufi poetry embraces love and God while exploring some of the deepest aspects of our consciousness. This is clear with the language employed by Sufi poets. I found the poems to be quite vivid and a good read for a change. I think this is because I can be a little more relaxed knowing that I wont have to write a paper on it or make sure that I have to fully understand or analyze it.

Sufi Poetry

This week in class we read Sufi poetry, which was an interesting topic. In Suffism, two types of love exist, profane and sacred. Sacred love is the love for God, while profane love is the love shown for everything else. The poems were full of symbolism, especially involving love, flowers, birds, and God. I found that it wasn’t too hard to understand the broad meanings of the poems, but it was difficult to catch on to a lot of the deep symbolism. One poem we read was about the transferring of an STD between lovers. After reading that poem, not in a million years would I have thought it meant that. Another poem was about God, and the conditions needed to truly love Him, and for him to love you in return. One belief that is displayed in much of Sufi poetry is that God and creation are one in the same, since God exists inside of everything.

Sufi poetry

Love is an universal subject in Sufi poetry. The poets believes that there is nothing but love exists at the beginning of the universe. According to Alcoran, Allah loves his people and vice versa. Allah is the first person who falls in love with his people. Sufism also believes that the one who behaves like the slavery of love is a very wise person. Therefore, the only valuable topic in Sufism is love. In Persian literature, the person who dies for love is always regarded as a hero. "Dies for love" is the only way makes a person immortal. Attar uses polo ball and cue to reflect the will of assimilation of two lovers. In "Montīq- at- tayr", Attar tells a love story between a ordinary person and king. The ordinary person is executed at the end because he is not willing to die for love.

Lauretta Oseni

I am trying to make up my posts so i am going to talk about my presentation and how i am preparing for it.
I like that we were given the freedom to pick any texts we liked in the beginning but as i kept doing my research and finding the texts i wanted to use, it then became a problem because there are so many texts i like and i want to put all of them in my presentation which is not possible. So i have to figure out which ones i like better than the other or which would have a greater impact on the reader.
I am a little confused/overwhelmed now but i am hoping to get it together and make a great world literature syllabus!

Sufi Poetry

The suffism poetry we read in class this past week was not only interesting but very inspiring. It was very touching and made me think about something outside of everyday life. How these people (Attar, Hafiz,Rumi) try to find God is very inspiring and shows a lot of dedication.
According to what was said in class, there are two types of love in suffism, sacred and profane. The sacred is love for God while the profane is earthly love (for a person). According to suffism, God is not a perfect being that is unreachable. To them it is possible to draw closer to God more fully in present life than in death. In suffism, you are not required to buy redemption but rather to achieve and find your path to God.
There are also certain symbols that have to be in a suffism poetry such as "flight", "wine", "birds", and these symbols were used to portray the main content of the poem.

Catullus Poetry

Catullus poetry is very different from the previous Sappho poetry we had read in class earlier. While Sappho poetry tended to be more reserved and proper, relying heavily on metaphors and similies to carry a message across, Catullus tended to be more direct and honest in his summations of various topics. He often used vulgar language and crude imagery to blast opponents in his writings. Another difference is that Catullus used poetry to attack a number of enemies and lambast friends who had appearently wronged him in some manner. I was not familiar with this sort of writing, especially one that had existed so long ago. The erotic poems obviously owe a debt to Sappho's writing, as they seem to have a fair amount in common with her while still retaining their own crude style and formation. Overall, Catullus poetry is an interesting look at a time when this sort of liberal writing was allowed, and clearly censorship had not developed in order to curtail the writer's ambitions.

Jenelle Fiori; Sufi Poetry

The Sufi poems we read for class were very interesting and easy to understand. Their main focus surrounds love and devotion of God. Each author talks about transforming their entire lives so that they could live up to the standards of God and be deserving of Him. For example, Attar is so intoxicated by his love for Gos that he writes about how to be deserving of God's love in return. Theses include the characteristic of not being greedy, hard working- as we owe God a debt-, brave and ready for death, and finally humble- as God is watching. If all of these are completed, then you can grow wings and fly away to God. Hafiz also talks about becoming a bird to fly to god. He talks of being a slave of love and until God is content and allows Hafiz to enter the glory heaven. Lastly, Rumi poem is a letter of God. He tells God that he searched a long time for a gift worthy of God's glory but could not find one good enough so he gave God a mirror to remind God that his love is full of ecstasy and endless. These three poems reflect the Arab religions in their devotion to God and are very interesting to see how people display their love.

Margaret Yoon: Sufi Poetry

I enjoyed reading Sufi poetry because all three poets, Attar, Hafiz of Shiraz, and Jelaluddin Rumi express the depths of spiritual life very lyrically. I felt like when they describe their relationship with God, or the path to achieving reunion with God, it could almost seem like a “profane” or wordly relationship with another human being if taken out of context. They employ passionate tones that express their desire for complete oneness with God. Sufi poetry has had great influence on world literature, such as Goethe. He published his West-ostlicher Divan, a collection of lyric poems inspired by a German translation of Hafiz. American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson admired Persian poetry as well and published many essays that discuss it: Letters and Social Aims, From the Persian of Hafiz. A question I have for the Sufi poets is: How do you realize your purpose in the beginning? What made you desire this reunion with God-what was the stimulation?

Cattullus

I thought that the Cattullus poems were very interesting and well written. I rally liked how direct and explicit they were. I also found them really sad and depressing when Cattulles thought Lesbia was unfaithful. Compared to most poetry i thought this was very good and interesting escpeially becouse it was areal relationship.