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.

Sappho

The poet Sappho is very interesting person to study. Firstly, the word Lesbian derived from the island that she was born and the word, Sapphic came from herself. Not many people back then were freely talking about the sexuality. Moreover, Sappho was a woman herself. Her poetry talks about love and passion toward both genders to genders. I believe it is very shocking idea while the poem is written. I don’t personally enjoy reading poetry since it is usually harder to understand the hidden symbols or meaning. However, her poem was catchy and impressive to go and find out the meaning of each passages.

Othello

Even if Iago was the Antagonist in the play of Othello, it is very hard to deny that Iago is fascinating character in the play. I did bit of background research about the story.Although Othello was the character who goes through tramendous misery, Aigo could have been the main character since his role is interesting enough to the reader. Apprent from Shakespeare's other writings, none of the evil characters were protagonists. Intriguingly at his era, most of writings were written in perspective of good people.Thus, i reread the story in Aigo's point of view as if he is the main character. The story is much more convincing to read in clever, and evil main character other than Naive, and weak personal character.

Othello act 1 and 2

Among many Shakespearian tragedy, Othello was the only unfamiliar story to me. I only knew the major stream of story and never bother to read this unlike his other writings. Othello was written differently compare to other Shakespearian tragedy that Othello's tragic life has nothing to do with family,nor kingdom. Othello tells story of a man who were happy but yet he has sense of inferiority toward others. He was a black man and married to beautiful white woman named Desdemona. When Aigo was rejected for his promotion from Othello, he seeks for vengeance. Othello was set up by Aigo to mistrust his own wife Desdemona that she was cheating on him with handsome white man named Cassio. Othello ended up killing Desdemona with his own hand. Later he finds out that it was all Aigo's plan. His heartbreak led to his suicide. This is a story of a man who doubt himself and shallow up by his inferiority.

Medea

Intriguingly, as we can tell from the title, the protagonist of this story is female unlike the other readings. Usually, anger of a woman or revenge of woman portrayed as more severe and cruel than man's. Story of Medea develops from her anger and vengeance when Jason abandones Medea,the wife and the two children. Jason was offered remarriage with Glause, the daughter of Creon who is the king of Corinth. Unfortunately, Medea was emotionally broke when Jason left her and curses her and her children's existance. This story tells miserable and brutal fates of characters that clearly shows the tragic deaths. Tragedy has much bigger impact to the readers than other happy ending story. It made me think human nature of anger and rage. Depressing storyline but influential.

Oedipus Rex

I met a girl named Cassandra in my economics class and when she saw the book "Greek Tragedy" on my desk, she got excited and start telling me how much she loves stories in the book. She told me Oedipus Rex was her favorite story. Thus, I wondered what is good about this story? At first, this story reminded me, Shakespear's Hamlet when the father who is king, was destined to be murdered by his own son and therefore abondon his son to far-far away as if Laius sent his son to a shepherd fearing the prophency. Ironically, the child ended up in the hand of king Polybus and Queen Merope who were childless themselves. He was named Oedipus. Oedipus later learns about his orables and avoid himself returning to Corinth. Unfortunately, by his misunderstanding of the oracles, he ventured to Thebes and killed Laius without realizing his as the king of Thebes nor as his birth father. Interestingly, I thought Sphinx is an Egyptian figure but also make its appearance in Greek Tragedy. Later on, Oedipus becomes a king by marrying widowed Queen, Jocasta. Tragedically, Laius' actions tried to avoid the oracles have led to the success of the oracle.

Agamemnon

Agamemnon appears both in Iliad and Agamemnon. The Iliad deals with his quarrel with Achilles during the Trojan War where as Agamemnon tells the tragedy that goes around Agamamnon upon his return from Troy. This poem deals with the tragic backgrounds that was set up by adultry, revenge and death. And these events eventually leads to the pathetic death of Agamemnon. Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in exchange for favourable wids in front of Greek Army. When his wife, Clytemnesrta, knew what Agamemnon had done, she seeks to avenge her daughter's death. Meanwhile, Aegisthus looks for a chance to punish Agamemnon for the crimes of Agamemnon's father Atreus against his own father Thyestes. When Agamemnon was away to the war, he seduced Clytemnestra and planned with her to murder Agamemnon when he returns. While Agamemnon was in Troy, he took a concubine named Cassandra who is the captive daughter of King Priam. Eventually, Clytemnestra ends up killing Cassadra as well as Agamemnon, describing them as lovers. Her murder was justificed as a mother who lost her daughter and seeks for revenge or a wife to punished her husband who took a mistress. She wasn't aware of her own fault of having adulterous relationship with Aegisthus...

agamemnon

After I read Shakespearian Play during my high school year, I never had chance to read any other types of Plays such as Greek Tragedy. As the title suggests, this play is about Agamemnon who is the king of Argos and has a wife named Clytemenestra. From Iliad that I previously read in class, Agamemnon was already known as the commander of the Trojan War which was caused by the abduction of Helen. I could have find some overlapping plots between Iliad and Agamemnon as the chorus talks about abduction of Helen by Paris and the beginning of the ten years of war between Greece and Troy. Although stories are told in similar form as other epical poems, it was easier for me to imagine the scenes and enjoy reading the play more. I haven’t finished the chapter yet but I can’t wait to find out what tragic events that Agamemnon will face.

Ramayana

This was very first time I ever read or heard about the Ramayana which is one of the two epic Hundu poems. It was really hard to understand because of the way it was written and how it was translated (hardest of all the literatures we read in class). The Ramayana is a poem that tells about the life of Rama who is the main hero in the story and his great characteristics as a leader. Intriguingly, in both the Iliad and the Ramayana contains the story of abductions and both resulted in major wars. In the Iliad, Agamemnon abducts Chryseis and it led to a war just as Raven kidnaps Sita, Rama’s lover, and ended up in a war between two characters. It made me wonder, what important role does abduction plays in ancient epics that both of the famous literature contains the stories about it? Sita, in other hand, is very virtuous character who exemplifies how woman should behave as a wife. And also Rama does not let his love affair interfere with his responsibility as a ruler although he loves Sita. There are some similarities between the Iliad and the Ramayana but their details were developed very differently.

Iliad and its heroes

Iliad by Homer is very well known epic that we may hear at least once in our lives. As I read this epic, it was more like reading mythological stories unlike the first three literatures I read in class. It is interesting that the Gods and Goddesses play great roles in human society and have characteristics like human beings. By reading Iliad, we can find out how the war of Troy has developed and the conflict between the heroes although I was unclear that who is the main hero of the story, Achilles or Agamenmnon? Who is the good and bad? Iliad focuses on the war that lasted for 10 years. And it shows that how mistakes in the past can have great impact on future. It is a tragic story but tells interesting interpretation of human natures.

Metamorphoses

Unlike the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh, I have had hard time reading Metamorphoses. It was very different in a way that it was written as a poem making hard for me to understand the flow of its story. Interestingly, in Metamorphoses, Gods like Jupiter, have human-like characteristics who feel anger, envy, greed, lust, etc. Since it was written under polytheistic culture, the gods have families and god society. The god in the bible had ultimate power to himself. However, Jupiter and other gods in Metamorphoses shares power with given title such as “god of seas, god of sky and etc” This balance of Power led to have caste system within gods, one with stronger or more effective power plays bigger roles in the society. Many intriguing differences can be found in Metamorphoses compare to the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh.

The Bible, Gilgamesh and the Flood

The story of the Great Flood can be found in many ancient texts such as the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh. However, the stories in different texts have similarities and differences as we can see in the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh. The major similarities that I found in the two texts were that the dimension of the Arks are very specifically defined in measurements and described in details. Because of these specific descriptions, readers can imagine what it was like and shows some kind of evidence of this event. Nevertheless, we can easily notice the big difference of these two stories which are not about the characters of the story or the places, but the purpose of these two events. The Mighty God in the Bible decided to bring a flood on Earth to cleanse the sin of mankind such as, violence and crime, and gave men a second chance to be prosperous on Earth. In the epic of Gilgamesh, the god Enlil wipe down the Earth with flood to keep mankind and other living creatures from overpopulating. I think that the God’s purpose was more philosophical and idealistic than Enlil’s purpose which is more realistic to understand. These differences exist because of the stories were originated from different cultures with different philosophical backgrounds.

What i think about the Bible and its story.

The story of Noah's ark and the flood is widespread that even if you are not a Christian, you probable have heard about it at least once. The book of Genesis tells stories of God and his unbelievable miracles such as the Creation, and the story Noah and the flood is one of them. Since other religious text contains similar story, and many scientists have found evidences of the existence of the flood, it is current trend to accept that there was a great flood in the history of Earth.
Regardless of the truthfulness of the flood, I think Noah and the Flood serves more than just a story but has greater purpose. As a little child when I first heard this story from a Church, the only impression was simple and obvious, “wow! How great God is and how much he loves us!” Now I grew older and read this, I tend to think more philosophically. If the Great Flood really happened and it was intended, we as human beings, have to accept the fact that greater or ultimate being really exists, we call him God. As we read from the story, God has power to punish humans for our own sins and because we know that God is watching our behaviors, this story sets pressures to have some kind of codes of conducts for us to follow. To prevent any other disasters like the Flood, the Bible is suggesting certain commandments for us to obey.
However, many questions arose in my head. Why am I getting a feeling that the Bible is using human’s fear of miracles and disasters to make us obey God? As God’s point of views, we might be very naive and insignificant which Bible denied to agree on. But he created human beings and made us obey him by performing remarkable miracles and disasters. Why doesn't he just program us to obey him automatically? According to Bible, God respects our free will. Then what other greater purposes can he possibly have for creating us when we don’t believe in him, then we are considered exempt from Jesus’ salvation or abandoned from heaven? I once asked a pastor what are God's purposes of creation and he answered, "We won't ever know his purpose like when you are talking to a newborn baby, he won't understand what you are telling him." What a great excuse!

PS. no offense for all the Christians who will be reading this note. This is just what I think.