Catallus

Catallus's poetry was definitely a contrast from Sappho's poetry. It was more direct and to the point. Modern poetry also has these contrasts and there is no specific style that is common in today's poetry, just like ancient poetry apparently. Catallus has a direct style where you know exactly what he means, something I appreciate in literature. Whats the point in taking the time to make a point if you can't get the point across to your readers? However its hard to compare the two poets because most of Sappo's poems were in fragments. I think that he is making fun of sappho when he takes her poems word for word, and criticizing her indirect confusing style.

Sappho

I think there is evidence that the poems of Sappho are written from her perspective because she puts her own name into the poem. This would suggest that she is the one feeling all of these emotions that she puts in her poems. However, it is possible that because men were dominating the arts world at the time that she wanted to make her poems fit in more and was writing from the perspective of a man. She might have been trying to find out how a man feels about a woman and that was the inspiration to her poetry. She is a really interesting poet because she is not afraid to say what she thinks even if it might make other people uncomfortable.

Othello

So this week I finished Othello. I had never read it before, I really enjoyed it. My favorite thing about shakespeare is his ability to have complex character development and struggle, while also having entertaining comical scenes. He hides a lot of jokes in his script. The character Iago seems ridiculous because he ruins peoples lives completely simply because he didn't get a job promotion. He used his friends and caused the death of Roderigo and Desdamona. I feel the worst for the women of this play because they have no authority. No matter how many times Desdamona tells Othello she hasn't cheated on him, he never believes her and will only believe what Iago tells him. Even at the end when Iago's wife Emilia is trying to say what has really happened, she has to struggle to get people to take her seriously.

Frogs

I started reading Frogs, and actually found it really interesting. The translation seemed more modern and the style was more like stichomythia instead of long monologues. It also refrenced well known playwrights which was interesting, however it is not a traditional Greek Tragedy, but more like a comedy. I would be interested in reading other Greek comedy's after reading so many Greek Tragedy's and really understanding that Genre.

Medea

I really liked reading Medea. it was different from the other Greek tragedies because it had a feminist point of view which was interesting. It has a female chorus which was a new concept, and Medea was a strong character who had been betrayed. It is interesting comparing her and Clytemnestra because Clytemnestra kills her husband because of the death of her child, but Medea kills of her children because of her passion turned to hatred for Jason. Medea puts her husband above her children, even her revenge against him, while Clytemnestra is only concerned with avenging her child, even though her husband is considered a Hero and did nothing directly to her.

Agamemnon

Agamemnon is a really depressing play, which i guess is a common characteristic of a tragedy. It was hard for me to decide whose side I was one between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. How is it fair that killing a King is so much more of a crime than killing an innocent girl. I was already a little negative towards Agamemnon from the Iliad when he was so obnoxious to Achilles. It is also understandable Clytemnestra's rage at losing a daughter at the hand of her own husband. There was no other possible revenge other than killing him, because he murder was not deemed a crime.

It is interesting how different authors take on the same characters to write about. Agamemnon shows up in the Iliad and has his own tragedy. His wife is also mentioned in the Iliad. How did these characters remain constant through different stories?

Agamemnon

I liked reading the Greek tragedies that I read in high school, I read Oedipus and Antigone. Agamemnon is hard to get through because the chorus talks for longs periods of time. Even a live performance of this play would be difficult to keep paying attention to because there would be no action happening on stage, basically just the chorus lecturing the audience on past events. I'm not sure how I feel about Clytemnestra. She is a strong character, and is continually compared to a man, which is seems in Greek history and social society would be a positive thing, however, she is head strong and selfish and will do anything to get what she, regardless of whether or not it is good for the country. It is crazy to think though that Agamemnon, he husband, was gone for 10 years! Most people would have moved on, but i guess during ancient wars it was more common for men to be gone long periods of time.

Ramayana

This translation of the Ramayana is done well because the verses rhyme in english, so it is easy to understand that rhythm, however it is hard to understand what is going on. The video is class was really helpful. It was interesting seeing it preformed. The story about how Ram is exiled seems crazy! He is supposed to be King, but because his father's youngest wife got his father to promise to give her anything she wanted, she asked for her son to be King. Ram agrees to go into exile to keep his father's word honest, but you think the good of the country matters more than his father's reputation. Instead of doing what was best for the country and claiming the throne like he was supposed to, he left the country to unknown and possibly incapable hands, just so his father, who isn't even King anymore, doesn't look like a fool. I Think either was his father seems kind of dumb, why would he promise to give his wife anything she asked for? I think that's obviously a very dangerous thing to promise.

Illiad Books 1 and 22

I really liked reading the Iliad because I used to read Greek mythology a lot when I was younger. I read the story of paris choosing between the Goddesses and how he chose Aphrodite causing the war of troy. I also know some of the other stories about Zeus from Metamorphoses, even though his roman name is Jupiter or Jove. I wonder what was more of the actual history between Greece and Troy. It is hard to believe that only one woman caused an entire war! Both Agamemnon and Achilles are jerks. Agamemnon steals Achilles prize, and Achilles brutally kills Hector and then drags around his body. There was no need for that brutality. I also knew the legend of Achilles, that he was dipped in something magic that made him invincible, but he was held by his ankle, and this was the only part of his body not made invincible, and it is his only weakness. I would be interested in reading the rest of the Iliad.

The Illiad, Book 1

I really enjoyed reading the prose version of Book 1 of the Illiad. It was easy to understand. The most confusing thing was that the author switched between referring to a character by their actual name and saying "son of ..." it was difficult to remember who was son of who. Agamemnon seems like kind of a jerk, holding people's daughters hostage and then stealing Achilles "prize". Obviously in this day and age it is strange to hear about a woman being given as a prize, but no matter what the actual prize was, that is a serious sign of disrespect from Agamemnon to Achilles. I am interested to keep reading and see what happens. I have only read the Oddessy before and it felt like it was a lost harder to get through, but that may have been due to the translation I was reading.

GIlgamesh

Gilgamesh is really confusing to read. It is understandable because it is a translation of an ancient text, but it is hard to relate to. There are a lot of different Gods in this story, unlike in the Bible where there is only one God and it is a sin to worship anything else. All of the different Gods is very confusing, it seems like it isn't exact how many Gods there are and new Gods were being imagined all the time. This is comparable to Greek Mythology where there are hundreds of Gods who overlap in what they have control over. I am also confused as to why there was a flood at all in Gilgamesh, it just says "The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the Flood" but doesn't way why. This could be that the Gods are so great that humans aren't meant to know why. It is interesting why there are different versions of the flood story, is it possible that a flood actually did happen that started all this story telling that branched off into different religions? Or is it merely symbolic and was only used as a scare tactic to keep members of the religion in line? It makes me curious about how much of the bible is actually historically accurate.

Genesis 6-9, Irene Bunnell

I agree that it was really interesting reading the bible from a literature perspective. I noticed how things like time and quantity are irrelevant and exaggerated in the story. Noah is 600 hundred years old, but lifetimes and years don't really matter to this story which happened thousands of years ago. The actual size of the ark is pretty small for the task it is undertaking, apparently the quantity and actual space taken up by two of every single animal isn't important either. Neither of these things matter to the moral and lesson of the story. It also seems like it is grossly over exaggerated that every single person on the earth except Noah was an awful evil person. If we take this story as absolutely true, maybe he decided that only Noah was doing specific things to please God, not that everyone else was actually partaking in evil activities. After the flood God feels remorseful, maybe the moral of this story was meant for God, to be forgiving and benevolent instead of just killing everybody off who displeases him. This is actually a theme the bible teaches throughout, to forgive rather take your anger out on someone who has wronged you.