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.

Felicia Ooi; Catullus Poetry

Catullus' poems seem quite similar to Sappho's poems in that they are both very passionate, and more often than not, are about love and/or sexual relationships. The poems that we read about were all those dedicated to Lesbia. Catullus appears very devoted to Lesbia, she is his girl whom he loves deeply and he would do anything to make her happy. In fact, a great majority of the poems are titled "..: to Lesbia", and to me that signifies that Lesbia is a very important person in Catullus' life. An interesting thing is that Catullus makes use of his poems to insult others and he is very blunt with his words, yet his words cut deep.

Felicia Ooi; Poems of Sappho

Sappho's poetry is very emotional, and very heart-felt. When I read the stanzas, I could feel the passion emanating from the words. The phrases used are also very graphic and descriptive, and if you just exercise your imagination a little, you can almost envision the scenes that you are reading about. Aphrodite is mentioned several times, and Sappho appears to be praying/talking to the goddess. One thing though, it was a bit difficult to grasp the overall meaning of the poem as the poem was rather disjointed, and there were missing parts.

Felicia Ooi; Othello

Overall, Othello was a story that I felt played entirely on major human weaknesses, like jealousy, greed, and pride. The main character, Othello, was portrayed initially as a noble character, who despite being a Moor, was a man of relative power and position. However, he eventually fell for Iago's vindictive lies, deceptions and falsehoods, and because of his own pride, he ended up murdering Desdemona, and then committing suicide. Iago was indeed a character who is to be both despised, yet admired. In a perverse manner, Iago emerges victorious from the whole tragic fiasco, and he is the only one who accomplished his goal of making Othello suffer. He is to be admired in the fact that despite his conniving and vicious lies, he is never caught red-handed as being the one to blame for everything because he thinks carefully before taking action. Nevertheless, to me, when compared to Shakespearean Tragedy, Greek Tragedy is a lot more dramatic and "tragic" in the most literal sense of the word.

Felicia Ooi; Othello Acts I & II

I found the plot of Shakespeare's Othello to be one full of deception and intrigue as well as a lot of political conflict. While Othello is the protagonist of the play, Iago definitely has to be the antagonist, albeit one who does not outwardly portray himself as an antagonist. In fact, Iago plays the role of Othello's supposedly faithful ancient (ensign bearer). What we do know though is that Iago is nursing a grudge against Othello for not choosing Iago to be his liutenant, overlooking him in favor of Michael Cassio. The first act itself shows Iago plotting with Roderigo against Othello in an attempt to overthrow Othello's from his current position in the military by convincing Brabantio that Othello had stolen Desdemona away. However, this plan failed as Othello managed to convince the Duke of his and Desdemona's mutual love for each other.

The second act showed us more of Iago's devious plots, even convincing Cassio to turn against Othello. Iago plays on the fact that both Roderigo and Cassio are in love with Desdemona and uses this to his advantage. Iago is certainly the epitome of a conniving and treacherous back-stabber. What puzzles me though is how Othello can be so oblivious to Iago's treacherous actions.

Felicia Ooi; Medea

Medea is an extremely apt example of the epithet “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. After all the help she gave Jason in his quest to obtain the Golden Fleece and saving his life on several occasions, even betraying her father and country, I could sympathize with Medea when Jason decided to remarry another woman of royal birth – the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth at the time. However, that is the extent of my sympathy.

Medea is portrayed as a woman who is very prideful and her most important priority is that of her honor. She is deeply upset when Jason leaves her and this grief drove her to madness, to a rage that was murderous enough to go beyond any natural, human, motherly/wifely instincts that she might have possessed. There is no doubt that Medea is a woman of great cunning and with many skills at her disposal. However, her life is riddled with deaths, all of her own orchestration, from the dismemberment of her half-brother to the death of Pelias, to the deaths of her own children and Creon and his daughter.

Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel that yet again this was in part because of the gods’ intervention in mortal lives. It was after all Aphrodite who caused Medea to fall hopelessly in love with Jason. However, it was Medea herself who chose to exact her revenge on Jason in such a cruel and cold-blooded manner that involved the deaths of her own innocent children. All though she does show some regret and indecision at killing her own children, she ends up choosing revenge over her children and this makes Medea an extremely vicious character, even by Greek tragedy standards.

Felicia Ooi; Oedipus Rex

I found the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex to be a compelling story of self-denial, especially by the main character, Oedipus himself. I felt that Oedipus was initially a very sincere person, who eventually became nothing more than a victim of cruel fate. The Greek society places grave importance on the roles played by oracles and seers and they strongly believe that fate cannot be changed, that your destiny is set out for you.

To me, Oedipus was really nothing more than a victim of his fate. Before he was born he was doomed to kill his father and marry his mother. As a result, his father wanted to kill him as an infant but fate won out and Oedipus grew up as a prince of Corinth instead of as the rightful prince of Thebes. Oedipus too places faith in fate, and because he did not wish to kill his adoptive father and marry his adoptive mother, he headed away from Corinth back to Thebes and from there on sealed his fate.

Oedipus became a character who was willfully blinded, first to the truth about his fate. Soon after he realized the truth, he physically blinded himself because of the great crime he had unintentionally committed. I actually felt quite sorry for Oedipus because he was just trying to avoid the dark fate prophesied about him, but wound up falling into fate’s trap anyway.

Felicia Ooi; Agamemnon

Agamemnon was an interesting read. It gave me more insight into Agamemnon's story. I did not like his character in the Iliad and this tragedy did not portray Agamemnon in a more favorable light. The Chorus basically narrates the story starting from how Paris stole Helen from Menelaus and started off the Trojan War. What I don't understand is why Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon for being "unfaithful" cheating on her with Cassandra when she herself was having an affair with Aegisthus, who is Agamemnon's cousin. Once again, the gods are shown to play a very big part in the struggles between mortals.

Felicia Ooi; The Ramayana

The Ramayana is a smriti text which means it is a remembrance of an event and it is attributed to Valniki, who could be either a single author, or a person who compiled the works of many authors into a single text. The main character in the Ramayana is Ram; hence the name Ramayana, which literally means the "voyage of Ram" or the life of Ram.

Ram is portrayed as a very wise scholar who is the epitome of wisdom and intelligence. He is widely believed to be the reincarnation of Vishnu, one of the 3 main deities in Hinduism. He is shown to be the ideal man as the system in India at this time was one that valued knowledge above all things. The Ramayana is basically about Ram's life, and the cantos that we focused on involved the kidnapping of Sita (Ram's wife; the ideal wife) by Ravan (Ram's enemy) and about how Ram finally rescued her.

I did not really find it easy reading the Ramayana, it was slightly confusing even, perhaps because I had no idea about the many characters who were referred to occasionally throughout the cantos. Whereas in the Iliad, I had a little bit of background knowledge on the Greek gods/goddesses and the Greek heroes, which made me enjoy reading the Iliad.

Felicia Ooi; The Iliad Books I and XXII

I read the Iliad - Books I and XXII in prose and I found it a very interesting read, even more so than Metamorphoses was. The story involves both gods and mortals and it shows us how the lives of the mortals are so easily altered on the whims and fancies of any and every one of the gods. Even gods have favorites among the mortals and Achilles is portrayed as one of those favored semi-mortals, the son of a mortal (Peleus) and a nymph (Thetis).

The epic started in midias res, as is typical of epics. Book I is mainly about the rage of Achilles, as mentioned at the start of the text, and how this rage of his affected the relatoinship between Achilles and Agememnon and how it ultimately affected the Trojan War. In this first book, Achilles is shown to be the perfect Greek hero who takes great pride in his strength and self-worth. Book XXII also is about Achilles, but this time it focuses on the "battle" between Achilles and Hector. Achilles ends up killing Hector, once again with the help of Athena, and Achilles shows absolutely no sign of mercy towards Hector, despite pleadings from Priam and Hecuba (rulers of Troy and Hector's parents).

I liked the way the story flowed smoothly, even though there were so many different characters. Homer makes this epic a very grand one, with a very interesting storyline.

Felicia Ooi; Metamorphoses

I found Ovid’s Metamorphoses to be a poem that was really very interesting. Besides the creation story and the flood myth, Ovid gave us an insight into the lives of the gods of Lycaon’s time. A similarity to Gilgamesh would be how the many gods in both texts are portrayed as having very human-like tendencies, whereas a marked contrast with the Bible is that God is the one and only divine being who is omniscient. God in the Bible is a loving and kind God who is merciful. In constrast, the gods of Metamorphoses and Gilgamesh are a discontented and fractious bunch, and they are in constant opposition of each other. The gods in Ovid’s literary masterpiece are shown to be almost human, and Ovid writes stories about how the gods seduce humans/nymphs and turn them into non-human creatures based on their whims. Clear examples are Daphne being turned into a laurel bush and Io into a heifer.

I also found that the reference made to Caesar by Ovid piqued my curiosity. It gave me a reason to research Roman and Greek mythology and I was then able to picture the kind of comparison Ovid was trying to make between Caesar and Lycaon. Overall, I preferred reading Metamorphoses to reading Gilgamesh.

Felicia Ooi; Gilgamesh - Tablets I & XI

I found reading Genesis 6 - 8 a lot easier as compared to Gilgamesh Tablets I & XI, both in terms of actually reading it as well as understanding it. There are indeed similarities between the two texts, yet at the same time they are vastly different.

Genesis 6 - 8 was primarily about God sending the flood to purify the earth of all the unclean and unrighteous people and it tells us about how Noah was the one chosen to carry out God's wishes. In that way, Noah was the clear "hero" of the story. There is a flood story in Gilgamesh as well. However, it was not Gilgamesh himself who was the hero who saved humanity from the flood; it was Utanapishtim who was chosen by Ea to save humanity and he was recounting the flood story to Gilgamesh. I felt that the main story in Tablet XI was actually Gilgamesh on a quest for immortality and the flood story was merely an explanation of how Utanapishtim attained immortality.

A similarity would be the element of repetition in both texts, though it is much clearer in Gilgamesh as many verses are repeated several times throughout the text. Reading the same phrases several times did not make the meaning of the phrases any clearer to me though. In addition to that, both texts contain very specific instructions as to how the vessel of humankind's salvation was to be built.

Only a small part of Tablet XI is actually about the flood. After the recounting of the flood, the focus of the story shifts back to Gilgamesh's quest for immortality that takes him to the ends of the earth to look for a plant that could restore youth.

The Bible is an obviously religious text that depicts God as wrathful, but also loving and merciful. Gilgamesh, on the other hand is not a religious text. It is instead a collection of stories about Gilgamesh, a cultural hero of his time and the stories are just that - stories. They have no religious basis and were possibly intended as mere entertainment for the people of that time.

Felicia Ooi; Genesis 6-9

I feel that the story of Noah and the ark is one that is very compelling in the sense that it shows the power of God and that He is definitely capable of destroying what He first created. Noah and his sons are portrayed as the ones who are righteous among all the evil men of the world, "blameless", in fact. And so they were ordered to build the ark and to bring with them pairs of animals so that the new world would be one that was righteous and "clean", so to speak.

Despite the massive destruction that the flood caused, wiping out all traces of evil in the world, I was awed by the remorse that God showed after the flood had receded. So much so that He made a covenant with Noah to never again send a flood to destroy the living creatures of the world.

The one part I wasnt too clear about was why Noah cursed Canaan rather than Ham. My perspective on it is that Noah was angry that Ham had seen him naked and inebriated and rather than covering him up, Ham instead told his brothers (Shem and Japheth) who then proceeded to cover their father's nakedness. Perhaps Noah felt that a stronger way of cursing his son was to instead curse his son's son, which would probably make Ham feel even more remorseful as his innocent son had to take the blame for his wrongdoing.