Life Lessons in Literature Class

The School of Athens 1509 Raphael 

      One of my favorite lectures was learning about poetry. Professor began with this quote from the movie “Dead Poets Society,” “We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” This quote gives me reason to get as much poetry, beauty, romance and love into my life. This is the goal for human happiness. I always loved reading poetry, but mostly the poems that rhymed. Not anymore. I actually think I like the poems more now that do not rhyme. We learned to read slowly, because poetry involves all the senses. You want to hear, taste, and feel the words. Poetry speaks to human emotion. Poetry recited in “Brave New Voices,” brought me to tears. This made me look at rap in a whole new way. I am so thankful for this experience. I look forward to trying to write poetry, and I will definitely be reading it more often. I also have a poetry slam in the Bowery on my list of things to do, as soon as possible.

Plato and Aristotle

       


       The quote, “Literature is a product of its time period” by J. Mignano Brady, helped me to understand literature in a completely different way. I look at the pieces now as they relate to a part of history, along with the culture they were written in. You know exactly what people were dealing with during incredible periods of time. After studying, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper” from the Victorian era, Kate Chopin’s, “The Storm,” written during the Realism period, and “A&P by, John Updike, in the Post Modern era, etc., I feel close to the authors as if I have read their journals. Going forward, whenever I read anything, the first thing I will be doing is to take note as to when the piece was written, and what was going on socially during that time period.

Pithagoras, Ptolomeus, Zoroaster and Raphael

       During the studying of “Streetcar Named Desire” the theme of illusion versus reality was analyzed. Ideas such as social acceptance and how others see us was discussed. The lecture turned to how each one of us creates an illusion in life. I realized how in my own personal life,with my mother being ill, I needed to believe in a fantasy, and not confront reality at this time. We discussed how we create the world we live in. Another profound idea. Life lessons in literature class.