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.

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.

Willie Ho

After reading some of Catullus poetry, I feel that his poetry is very clever and somewhat satirical. He likes to poke fun and harass people for their misdoings, whether it be great or small. This is much like the work of talk show hosts, bloggers, and comedians today. It can definitely be comparable to these people because he names out well-known, or rather people who were well-known by his readers at the time he issued his work.

He criticizes, embarrasses, and makes fun of many things concerning these "celebrities" such as their habits or hobbies. Catullus must have had many enemies during his time and many readers/fans as well. If he is supplying people with this sort of amusement to read, then he is likely to have an equal amount of people who hate him as well.

Willie Ho

This being the first time experiencing reading Sappho poetry, I had a mixed number of opinions towards it. It is written in a manner that can be viewed in many ways. It almost seems as if she tried to confuse the readers. Also it does not help that the translations vary in accuracy.

When I read the poems, I did not think of it to be anything perverted. It seems more like a state of admiration. However, upon being notified that the subject of matter was perverse, it seemed to be more convincing than the conclusions that I had previously made. After discovering this, I read each and every other poem with this mindset and made out the "truth" behind the texts. This matter is still subjective though, because we will never truly know if the texts were surely meant to be viewed in this aspect.

All in all, the agenda she took in writing these poems are unknown but I am convinced she is a lesbian and she did not take on any male persona. I think people just make up the ideas of "taking on another persona" dogmatically. They just want to prove others wrong for the sake of doing so.

Willie Ho

As I continued reading Othello, I realized how much hate I had for the character Iago! He is so evil and clever and it is so unfair! All he does is plot and plot about how he will do this and that. He took the simple gesture of Cassio taking Desdemona's hand as a reason to try and rid Cassio of his lieutenant status. As if that were not bad enough, he started the whole commotion with Montano, Roderigo, and Cassio ending with a wound to Montano. Then he ruins Othello's image of Desdemona when he convinced him that Desdemona is in some sort of relationship with Cassio.

Iago is like a snake. He is very stealthy and he knows what he is doing. This makes him very dangerous- much like a snake. He knows how to manipulate people's words and abuse the weaknesses that people have. I would like to see Iago perish sometime in this play.

Willie Ho

When first reading Othello, all I knew was that he was not light skinned. This affected my depiction of the play. The play may be in fact speaking of something more than a story between the love of Othello and Desdemona so far. It could be a reflection of the slavery and the relations between slaves and their masters during Shakespeare's time. When Othello and Desdemona claim to love each other they cannot have a regular marriage. They are summoned by the Duke due to Brabanzio because they suspect Othello of using some magic to woo Desdemona. That isn't the case but the Duke and Brabanzio believe so because they are unwilling to accept the fact that there can be a love between two races. Shakespeare is trying to send out a message to the society in which this play was released to.

Willie Ho

When I first read Medea I thought, why would the Greeks promote an idea such as killing one's own brother to betray her father and help a man she doesn't know? It didn't seem logical at the time. But as the story progressed, the man who Medea helped, Jason, betrays her. Medea takes her own revenge on Jason for causing her to lose everything. She sacrificed everything she had for him and he only betrayed her so she kills his bride.

Then I realized it explained the dangers of a damaged love. If Medea was willing to kill her brother simply for her love for Jason, Jason should have thought twice before crossing lines with Medea. She was very powerful and her rage came rational decisions. She went all out because she had nothing to lose. She had already given everything up for Jason.

Willie Ho

Oedipus Rex is a play that follows the adage "Ignorance is bliss." When Oedipus did know know of his misdoings, he was fine with himself. When he takes the extra step and finds out the truth, he falls into a state of denial. He strongly and continuously hopes that what he hears is not true. During the scene which the facts are brought to light, Oedipus is the first to realize what has happened. It was he who killed Laius. However, the story retold by Queen Jocasta, as told to her by a servant, stated that Laius was killed by a group of men, and he is one man so he cannot be a group. Having heard this, he tries to hold on to the slim chance that it was not him.

Ironically, when Oedipus is ignorant to everything around him, he literally has vision. When he find out the truth and stabs his eyes out, he is no longer ignorant. He knows everything and is no longer in the dark. However, in a literal sense he is in the dark because he stabs out his own eyes due to his denial.

Willie Ho

From what I have read of Oedipus Rex so far, it has proven to be yet another greed tragedy. It stays true to the similar style seen in Agamemnon. The chorus remains a strong part of the play, as a filler for information. So the play is a bit coincidental in its nature. Oedipus Rex kills the king unknowingly and becomes king himself, only to later find that he was the killer and kills himself.

Oedipus doesn't seem like much of a likable character though. During the exchange of words between him and Tiresias, you notice his arrogance in the conversation. Tiresias has been kind enough to give him valuable information, although worded a bit strangely, but Oedipus can only make witty remarks and call flaunt his greatness. He gets rid of the sphinx and gets ahead of himself. Perhaps this is the infamous hubris that is so common among the Greek heroic tragedians?

Willie Ho

I discovered Agamemnon to be an enjoyable play. It is hard to believe we use this as a form of education when it was previously, at the time it was written, wrote for the purpose of entertainment. The play was filled with duplicity and many turns of events. What I like most about the Greek tragedy was the chorus. The chorus never failed to supply me with the information needed to understand the next scene completely. Sometimes the chorus went on for pages and it got rather annoying because I often wondered whether I missed a name somewhere in the middle because maybe someone else could have been saying the lines. While the chorus remained informative, the individual lines of the characters were much more entertaining because it was more like a conversation than the monotone chorus.

I would also like to note some oddities of the play. For a play titled "Agamemnon," Agamemnon himself does not appear as much as I thought. Rather, Clytemnestra appears the most. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon don't seem to match as husband and wife. They speak to each other so formally. Clytemnestra seems to be more affectionate to Aegisthus.

On a random note, it was kind of funny when Agamemnon was being killed and he says, "Help! I'm struck again!" But then T realized that violence was not shown on stage so he probably had to narrate it and it wasn't funny after that.

Willie Ho

After reading Ramayana and comparing it to the Iliad, I have noticed a few generally similar themes in the two epics. There are general themes of war, ethics, and abduction. In the Iliad, Chryseis was abducted by Agamemnon just as Sita is abducted by Ravan. This is when the theme of ethics are seen. Ravan was willing to let Lanka burn for his one desire for one woman: Sita. Ram and Ravan have a battle/war over Sita. It was more of a "save the damsel" situation. After Lord Ram wins the war, with Sita by his side, he questions Sita of her chastity and loses her willingly for the betterment of his rule. He wasn't willing to take a risk that would affect his rule and for that, Sita rejects him. This makes him the better ruler though because he did not let his love for a woman get in the affairs of his job as a ruler.

Willie Ho

After reading The Iliad books I and XXII, I couldn't help but think about how most of the characters are portrayed to be pompous and overconfident individuals who shouldn't be because they probably are not capable of anything. Agamemnon was arguing with Achilles in Book I about how he deserved whatever amount of profit whenever there was a battle won. Achilles was angered than he and the other troops did all the fighting yet Agamemnon took all the loot/credit. Achilles was ready to kill Agamemnon but then he didn't because Minerva came down and basically told him there is no point in killing Agamemnon because he will perish later. It seems that Achilles is full of rage at all times in The Iliad. In Book XXII, he is on a rampage and just wants to fight everything and everyone. All he cares about is fighting and fighting efficiently. He chases down Hector, who is known to be quite powerful as well. Hectors attempts to flee from Achilles but is tricked by Minerva, who appeared and came to help Achilles again. After defeating Hector, he dishonors Hector's death by allowing the Achaeans to stab and spear at his body. He then ties his body to a horse and drags it to Hector's parents. I did not like the character of Achilles. He is a monstrous powerful and abusive warrior, much like a big bully. On top of that, Minerva keeps assisting him in his rampage of rage.

Willie Ho

I did not enjoy reading the Metamorphoses by Ovid. Not only was its length intimidating, but its text was awfully unusual. Out of the three stories we have covered so far, I am sure to say that this was probably the worst. Our theme between the three stories focuses on flood-myths. However, in the large scale of words in the Metamorphoses, only a small portion of it has anything to do with the flood. It is only a brief mention of why the flood was started (Jupiter) and who (Deucalion) was responsible fore saving life from the flood. Deucalion, like Noah and Utanapishtim from The Genesis and The Epic of Gilgamesh, built an ark to preserve life from being wiped out by the flood. The difference was that only Noah and Deucalion built floods, since Utanapishtim built a boat. Although there existed a few detail differences, the main plot of the story were alike throughout all the myths. Though reading the three texts did spark a few questions left unanswered in my mind. Did all three texts make reference to the same flood? Hypothetically, if these myths were true, were Noah, Utanapishtim, and Deucalion actually the same person? Lastly, what goal did the writer of these myths have in mind? The writers of the Genesis probably had some ambition of promoting a certain morale through the text. But the reason for writing the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Metamorphoses is something I cannot understand or predict.

Willie Ho

After comparing the Genesis story-myth with tablets I and IX of The Epic of Gilgamesh, I noticed a number of similarities and differences in the text.

In the Genesis, Noah was chosen by god as a righteous man who seemed to be the best candidate of the human race to help God fulfill his task. God warned Noah that mankind has grow to be too evil and He did not anticipate this. God needed to cleanse the earth of the evils of mankind so he creates a flood to wipe the earth clean. Hence, he tells Noah to build an ark with a length of "three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."

This flood in the Genesis is also present in the The Epic of Gilgamesh. However, in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the "chosen" craftsman goes by the name of Utanapishtim. In fact, Utanapishtim is not even chosen. The gods in that myth hold a meeting and one god, Ea, is overheard by Utanapishtim when he speaks to a reed house. He speaks of a flood and that the only way to survive it is to build a boat in which "its length must correspond to its width." After the boat is built, its dimensions are told. "Its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height, the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times It cubits each." As seen, the boat in The Epic of Gilgamesh is actually more square than the ark in Genesis.

Everything else in the two stories regarding the mythical flood seem to be the same. However, the gods' ambitions for causing it were quite different. As stated earlier,in the genesis, God causes the flood because mankind has grown to be too evil of a creature and for this they must repent and start anew as a race. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods simply thought mankind was being pesky and decided to kill them off for fun.

There were a few extra, minor differences regarding the aftermath of the flood. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood's aftermath seemed to have lasted seven days while in the Genesis, it lasted about 150 days. Both antagonists of the stories send forth a dove and raven to check if the waters have abated after the flood. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, a swallow is also sent out to check the waters.

Willie Ho

This was the first time I had written an excerpt from the bible and from my reading, I have concluded that it can be viewed from many different perspectives. The story in Genesis is about Noah's Ark. It talks about the evilness of mankind as a race and how God punished mankind for their evil doings. Reading the text, however, had me puzzled in some ways. Noah and his sons lived for inhumane amounts of time. And in Genesis 9 line 19, it spoke of the three sons of Noah and how “of them the whole earth overspread.” I do not know if this is exaggeration of speech but it does not seem normal. It led me to question: Are Noah and his sons a higher caliber of humans? Their capabilities seem as if they were semi-gods or something stronger than man should be.