Using the past to teach in the present

We all know how difficult is to be a human being. Feelings, emotions and experiences are present in our daily life. However, our past is also important. Our past experiences and facts are crucial to understand the world we are leaving in now. I chose the poem “September 1, 1939” by W.H Auden, to make a connection between it and EFL. In order to accomplish this, I will explain the context in which the poem was written, I will give my own interpretation to some quotations of the poem and finally, I will explain how useful the poem can be in EFL.

“September 1, 1939” was written at the beginning of World War II. Auden’s idea was to describe the social and personal issues that were taking place during those times. To understand what was happening in 1939 I will name some facts that caused the outbreak of WW2.

- March 15th, Adolph Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
- March 18th, Stalin asked for a coalition against Germany.
- April 3rd, France and Great Britain signed an agreement of cooperation.
- July 4th, Germany: Neuengamme concentration camp was used to lock up Jewish people.
- September 1st, German troops invaded Polonia, beginning with WW2
- September 3rd, Great Britain and France declared war to Germany

This was the atmosphere in which the poem was written. Many people suffering political persecutions, countries invaded and people dying. According to my interpretation, Auden is trying to show what was happening during those days and how all those issue were affecting people’s life.

Now that we know the context in which the poem was written, we can talk about the poem itself. For that, I will choose some stanzas that called my attention and I will explain them following my own interpretation.
This is how Auden started the poem. This stanza really called my attention because when I read it I felt that the writer was trying to express his own feelings towards something.

“I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street

Uncertain and afraid”

The atmosphere during the year 1939 was surrounded by uncertainty and fear. People were aware that something was not good, and that something bad was coming.

Another stanza that appealed to me was when he wrote the following;

“A psychopathic god”

I need to admit that this line is controversial for everyone, no matter what religion you follow or if you believe in “a” God or not. I discussed this stanza with many people, most of them were Catholic. Obviously, they did not like this part of the poem. According to most of them, God is not crazy, on the contrary, he (or she) is the sanest of all. Everyone asked me why I was not in shocked because of that line, if supposedly I believe in a God. My answer was short and simple: God is personal. In my opinion, in who someone believes is not my problem. He or she will have an opinion about “it” regarding his or her own experiences in life. If Auden says that his God is psychopathic, who am I to say that he is wrong?

The last stanza that I will analyze is the following:

“The dense commuters come,Repeating their morning vow;'I will be true to the wife,I'll concentrate more on my work,'”

After reading it I had a feeling of discomfort. I felt that he was making fun of the people who say that everyday. My interpretation is that he is trying to say that people are hypocrites and that they say that they will do something, but they do not do it in the end. We are always complaining about everything, because we are always asking for more. If something is red, we want it to be blue. If we have a house, we want to have a department. If we go on vacations to Brazil, we would like to be in Canada, and so on. This is how people are always discomfort with everything, but do they do something to change what they do not like? Obviously, they do not.

“September 1, 1939” is a very interesting poem, and that is why I will use it in EFL. Regarding it historical background and references, there is something else that called my attention. Leaving a side the stanzas that I have already mentioned, there is one in particular that really appeal to me the most and that I would like to use it in my teaching practice.

“What all schoolchildren learn,Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return”

I think that this stanza does not need an interpretation, because the meaning it has is very clear after you reading it.
My decision to use this stanza in EFL is because I thought that it could be useful to talk about certain topics more easily, for example, bullying. It came into my mind that when a child suffers at home, for example when he or she is abused, he will repeat this behavior with other people. In other words, if his or her parents hit him at home, he will hit his or her classmates at school too. My idea is to avoid this behavior in children; therefore I will use this poem to come up with the topic I want to discuss and then I will work on how to promote tolerance and respect among children. I thought about a specific activity that I would like to do with my students regarding this topic. My idea is that they will have short “meetings” with their classmates, where they will have to talk about their lives and experiences, so as they can know each other better.

I have given my opinion from the beginning of this paper up to the end of it. To conclude I would like to say that I really enjoyed this poem, in fact thanks to this poem I am starting to appreciate poetry. It is impossible to teach something that you do not like; therefore, the fact that this poem has appealed to me help me to include literature in my classes. Literature needs to be promoted in children’s life; hence it is my duty as a teacher to promote it and I need to say that I will be happy to do it.

References

1.- Auden, W. SEPTEMBER 1, 1939. 1939

2.- “History learning site”. World War II

Outline

A.- Introduction

B.- Context in which the poem was written

1. Some facts that inciated the outbreak of world war II
2. World War II

C.- Quotations and my interpretations

D.- Conecction between the poem and EFL

E.- Conclusion

September 1 1939

I have to admit that I don’t like poetry at all. Every time we read a poem I felt discourage because I knew I would like it. When I starting reading “September 1 1939” the feeling was the same, but while I was reading my feelings started to change. I actually understood the poem and I have an opinion about it. “A psychopathic god” is one of the stanzas that called my attention. We were discussing the poem in groups, and that sentence called the attention of the whole groups, but not mine. They told me that was because I did not believe in god, but they were wrong. I told them that for me religion was a personal issue. If god was psychopathic according to Auden, who am I to judge him? It was incredible the discussion we had. The poem made us talk about feelings in relation to a lot of things. I am kind of understanding poetry, finally.

I checked Mª Antonieta's entry

Money' Importance
Acoording to the narrator, money is of the utmost importance because it keeps women from possessing a room of their own. Due to the fact that women do not have power, their creativity has been suppressed throughout the ages. In other words,as the narrator writes, “Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time . . .” In this case, Virginia is questioning the fact that only a few number of women have been successful in writing poetry. Indeed, the author believes that the writing of novels allows the writer to start and stop easily and frequently, therefore, women are more likely to write novels than poetry. For instance, women must frequently face several interruptions because they are usually deprived of a room of their own in which to write. In short, I believe that what the narrator wants to emphasize is that without money, women will stay in a second place in comparison with their creative male counterparts. She is criticizing the financial discrepancy between men and women present in those times and pointing out how it has perpetuated the myth that women are less successful in writing.


Mª Antonieta Rojas:

After reading your entry I can say that I have a doubt. What do YOU think about what the author says? You write about the author’s point of view, so I could see a little about your own thoughts. Regarding to the topic you choose to write about I can say that I totally disagree with the author’s point of view. I don’t think that woman need money in order to be considering a good writer. Money and creativity have nothing in common. According to your post, the author is trying to say that if you don’t have enough money, you are not capable or writing a good novel. I think that women and men are not different in this sense. Woman can write even better than men, and I think that trough out history they have proved that.
In relation to the other point of your post, when you talk about how women don’t have enough time to write because they have other things to do, I can say that I agree. We suffer from many interruptions, because we have a lot to do in our house and we also have a life. Housewives, sisters, girlfriends, friends, we have a lot of roles in one day, so we need to have time for everything. Being a woman is way harder than being a man.

You chose a good topic to write about, Congratulations.

The waste land

First of all, “the waste land” is a very difficult poem. It is very difficult to understand what Eliot wanted to say. I will try to explain what I understood from the poem.
This poem was written after World War I and during the “preparation” of World War II. I think that through the poem he was trying to say what he was feeling, but in the end he did not care if the reader will understand the poem or not, he just wrote. I think that war was confusing for the entire society, especially for Eliot. Therefore his poem is confusing too. The settings are changing all the time, and also the narrators. It is incredible to see how war can affect people’s life. I think that the poem is a mess because that time was a mess too.
I know that poetry is difficult to understand, and that you need to read a lot in order to get the main ideas of a poem. I haven’t got the time to express how I feel about poetry and I think that this was the time. It has been really difficult to read poetry for two reasons. First, because I don’t like poetry, and second because poetry is difficult to understand. “The waste land” made me reflects a lot about how I felt about poetry and I really appreciate that.

What a mess

I did not like the story “Odour of Chrysanthemums” at all. It was too dark and sad for me. However I did like the story “The rocking horse winner”, even though it was a bit sad too. Why did I like it? because I found a lot of interesting topic to discuss about. The most interesting topic for me is the relation between love and luck. Paul love his mother, so he wanted to make her happy. He realized that they were having money problems because they did not have any luck. He manages to win some money, but neither the house nor his mom was happy, they wanted more. Paul get sick, the gardener bet for him and he won again. He gave the money to his mother. At the end of the story, before he dies, Paul says "I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure – oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!"
I think that Paul was trying to win his mother’s love. His mother was worried about materialistic things rather than her children. For Paul’s mother, luck meant money, and her husband was able to earn enough money for her. Paul feels that is his responsibility to help his mother to be happy, but all that pressure killed him at the end. I think it is not fair that children have those responsibilities. When they are young they are suppose to enjoy their childhood as much as they can. The main issue here was that Paul’s mother was absolutely out of focus. She loved money more than her own children.

It is difficult to be a woman

The most important topic in Virginia Woolf’s essay is the genre issue. During those times, woman did not have the same rights than man, but do they have them now? I don’t think so. We have the same problem 70 years later.
In terms of writing, women were not suppose write or read certain topics like philosophy, religion, science fiction, and so on. After a few years, women started writing and reading what they wanted, but they were always critized because of it. Virginia discusses if women are able to write or create pieces of work as good as men do. At that time, women were not allowed to enter to all of the university or even to walk on the grass. Women were left a side, but they started to win their territory step by step.
The most interesting part of this essay, for me, was the fact that the problems those women lived 70 years ago are still an issue. Women are still mistreated, earn less money and men tend to believe that women are less intelligent than men. We need to change that way of thinking. We need to realize that women can do thing sometimes better than men, and the other way around too. Women have their weaknesses, but we have our strengths too

Problems from the past, will be always problems of the future.

Even thought the story “Oliver Twist” was written along time ago, we can see nowadays some of the issues that were happening during those times. Oliver was an orphan who was looking for a better life. We can see this in every corner or in every street of our country. Children are mistreated or fore to work in order to get some money for their parents who are drug addicts or alcoholics. In Oliver’s case, he had to survive on his own. Everywhere he went whether he was mistreated or he was pushed to steal. He had no good examples to follow or someone who could take care of him. He was alone.

Ok, we should not be so dramatic. There are some children who are treated correctly and love by their entire family. There are also children who have everything they want and they also have opportunities to be someone in the future.
The problem I saw in the book was inequality and inequity in the society. Wealthy people and poor people were extremely separated, as they are now, and no way in this world they will be seeing as equals. You were respected if you had money, but if you did not you have to accept to be accused of stealing, pick pocketing, etc.

To conclude, I think that we have a lot to work on. It is not right that we have to face the same problems we had 70 years ago. What we need is to find more “Mr. Brownlow” in order to make this world a better place to live in.

The signal man

After reading the signalman I was so confused that I could not understand a thing. There were so much information that I could not focus on one thing. After reading it twice, my attention was focus on the supernatural things that were in the story. The “ghost” that visited the main character was a warning for him. Every time the ghost appeared, a tragic accident happened. I believe the ghost was trying to warn the signalman about something that will happen to him. The first two accidents were just a warning for the signalman. He did not realize about this, and he died at the end.

It was quite difficult to understand the story. That is why I decided to look for more information about it. I found out that this story was based on a personal experience of Dickens. He was travelling on a train when it crushed and killed 10 passengers. He escaped alive, but with some psychological damage. It really called my attention the fact that most of the time writers write about their personal experiences. They might change them a bit, but are based on what they lived.

Being different

“Frankenstein” has a lot to reflect on. I personally focus my attention on the character Frankenstein junior. He was the creation of Victor Frankenstein, who was obsesses with the creation of life. After the creation of Frankenstein, Victor was afraid and regretted because of what he had done. He left Frankenstein alone, without any family or friends who can take care of him.

Rejection, hate, discrimination, frustration are just some of the words that come into mi mind when I think about Frankenstein Jr. He was so lonely, so scared, so frustrated, but he decided to fight against destiny anyways. He wanted to be part of the society, he wanted to be human, and he did everything he could to achieve that. He learnt how to speak and read, because he needed to communicate his feelings and thoughts. Most of the time Frankenstein was trying to be someone normal. He wanted to be accepted the way he was and the way he looked like.

In my personal opinion Frankenstein can not be treated as an “it”, he was one of us. In every house, in every office and in every classroom we will find a “Frankenstein” and it will be our decision to accept him/her or to leave him/her a side.

Wordsworth "Daffodils"

After reading the poem called “daffodils” by Wordsworth only one thing came into my mind, the importance of nature. I believe that William was trying to show that whenever he felt sad, lonely or afraid he looked for nature in order to get some comfort in his life. Daffodils are associated to spring, spring is associated to love, and love is associated to happiness. In this case, I believe that William was trying to show that nature is his way of escaping of all the bad things that sometimes a human being need to overcome.
I apply this poem in my personal life. We sometimes do not have nature to help us to feel better, but most of the time we have family or friends who are always there for us. I believe that nature and society had a lot in common in this poem. Maybe William sees daffodils as his allied or friends that will help him to overcome bad moments.

"When I have fears that I may Cease to be" by John Keats

I believe that everyone is afraid of death because of different reasons. A mother is afraid of leaving her children alone, a girl is afraid of leaving her boyfriend, a grandfather is afraid of making her children unhappy, a brother is afraid of not seeing her sister getting married, and so on. In my case, I am afraid that if I died my entire family will collapse. I know that my parents love me and my brother as if we were they life, so they are not expecting me to die first.
I believe that John Keats is afraid of missing some important things in his life such as writing, love, recognition, family, etc. He had goal to achieve as anyone else have, so he was afraid of not achieve his objectives in life. Keats used this poem to let us know what his fears were, and how afraid he was of dying.
I believe that regret is not good at all. We should live the way we want to, in order to do what we want to do. We all have dreams and we all have the right to have those dreams come true.

"Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

After reading the poem "Kubla Khan" by Coleridge two things called my attention. The first one was that Coleridge was under the effect of opium when he wrote this poem. It is said, that this poem was a hallucination that he had due to the drug. It is really weird, at least for me that a famous poet writes under the opium effects, but many people celebrate the fact that he was capable of writing such a piece of work under this effect.

The second thing is that the writer really cares about nature. I understand that romanticism was focus on nature, but this poem is only about nature. The poem was really difficult to understand, even though we read it in Spanish too. He talks about rivers, forests, gardens, and so on. I imagine that his hallucination was about a castle which was located in a wonderful forest, full of trees and animals around it. He might want to live in a place like that.
It is said that his poem is not finish because he received a visitor while he was writing. I believe that it is ok the way it is.

Your mother’s love, will be always yours

After reading the poem “The Little black boy” by William Black, something called my attention. He makes a difference between black and white, but at the same time he makes no difference. I believe he is trying to show that no matter who we are or how we are, in the end we are all the same. In other words, no matter who we are or how we are, our mother will always love us, and we can count on her support when ever we need it.
For Black, eternity, heaven and god, are important concepts in his poetry. He is trying to show that no matter who we are while we are on Earth, once in heaven we will be all the same.

From a lovely story, to a complicated topic

In this essay I will develop 2 of the topics I find more interesting in the novel written by Jane Austen, called “Sense and Sensibility”. I will start with a small summary of the novel, then I will talk about the topic I have chosen and finally, I will close it with a conclusion.

After Mr. Dashwood died, his wife and 3 daughters (Elinor, Marianne and Margaret) were supposed to live with Mr. Dashwood’s only son, John. John was the only heir to Mr. Dashwood’s fortune and lands. While Mrs. Dashwood and her 3 daughters were living with John and Fanny, John’s wife, Edward Ferrars, Fanny’s brother, came to visited them. Elinor and Edward feel attracted to each other immediately, and spend most of their time together. Mrs. Dashwood was really happy, because she was thinking her daughter will married with a wealthy known man. One day Mrs. Dashwood and her 3 daughters received a letter from Mrs. Dashwood’s cousin, Sir John Middleton, which said that he invited them to live in a small cottage in Devonshire, Barton Park. Mrs. Dashwood accepted immediately, and in there they met Colonel Brandon, a 35 year old bachelor who felt attracted to Marianne’s personality.
Marianne was a very passionate and extroverted girl, who was really interested in paintings, reading, music, etc. She also fell in love really quickly, that is how she falls in love of Willoughby, the nephew of a wealthy old woman. They had a really good connection almost immediately, because they had a lot of things in common. After a few days of visiting Marianne, Willoughby announced he will leave Barton Park for a couple of months. Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood were devastated because of the terrible news.

Edward went to visit the Dashwood’s girls for a few days. After Edward left, Ann and Lucy Steel came to visit her cousin lady Middleton. During that visit, Elinor was informed by Lucy that she has been secretly engaged to Edward for 4 years. Elinor felt overwhelm, but she tried to justify Edward, because deeply inside she wanted to find a reason to forgive him.
Marianne and Elinor travelled to London to spend the winter at Mrs. Jennings’s home. Willoughby and Marianne met in a party by coincidence, and Willoughby treats Marianne as he did not know her at all. The day after the party Marianne received a letter from Willoughby which says that he was engage to Mrs. Grey, a really wealthy woman who could help him with his debts. Marianne was in shocked; and deeply inside Elinor was suffering too.

At the end of the story, everything went well for Elinor and Marianne. Edward decided not to get marriage Lucy because he loved Elinor. After a few months, they got married even though Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny did not accept Elinor in their family. Lucy and Robert, Edward’s brother, got married after all. Everyone realized that Lucy wanted to get married not for love, but for money. On the other hand, Marianne realized that she deserved something better than Willoughby and that her excess of sensibly almost killed her. At the age of 19, Marianne got married with Colonel Brandon, and all the Dashwood’s lived happily ever after.

From this novel I can rescue a lot of things; values, love, carrying, etc. unfortunately I have to choose only one topic. The topic that called my attention the most was whether to married for love or for money.

Is it correct to get married for money? We can see in the story that Lucy was only concerned about money; love was not something important for her. Fanny and Mrs. Ferras were an example too; they did not wanted Elinor in their family because she did not have money. They did not care about Edward’s feeling, they were only concern about they fortune.
Since I was very little I have heard that getting married for money is bad. You are supposed to love your future husband, and if he has money it is even better. That is what I used to believe. In a perfect world, everyone would get married for love, and will live happy with that, but are we in a perfect world? Absolutely not. People need money to survive. People need to pay bills, schools, vacations, and so on. so you can not leave with only love. In today’s world people are getting married for money, not for love. A new survey about this topic was made and the results were absolutely amazing. “Fully two-thirds of women and half of the men said they were "very" or "extremely" willing to marry for money.” these quote is a conclusion of the survey mentioned before. This survey agreed on what I think about this topic. People now are more willing to get married for money, than they were 50 years ago. This is saying that the world is changing.

More and more people are realizing how difficult is to have a family, and how difficult is to have a good marriage. Many couples get divorced because money problems, in those cases we can see that love was not enough. A divorce specialist said that “every one of them has "messy marriages" because of a romanticized view of love carried over from childhood.” He is referring to the different couples who decided to get married for love, and failed. If people get married for love, is because they think is what they have to do and not what they what they want to do. We are living in a materialistic world, and in people’s priorities, money is in the top of the list.

To conclude this essay, I can say that the novel “Sense and Sensibility” has a lot of topics we can focus on. In my opinion, getting married for love or for money was the one I chose. It is amazing to see how young couples are not concerns about love anymore. Money is the main priority for both man and woman. In today’s world, people are more focus on having a new mobile phone than family issues. Children are rising by themselves, because their parents are working from Monday to Monday. Even though I think is not “terrible” to get married for money, we should pay attention to this issue, because it could become a huge problem in the near future.

Bibliography

Bibliography


Austen, Jane. “Sense and Sensibility”. London: Waverley 1892. 3rd July 2009.

Frank, Robert. “Marrying for Love… for Money” The Wall Street Journal. 14th December 2007. 3rd July 2009.



Small, Benjamin. “Don’t get married for love, says divorced expert” Canadian Broadcasting corporation. 13th February 2007. 3rd July 2009.

A good movie, but a much better book

The merchant of Venice is a book written by Shakespeare which was adapted as a movie in 2004.
The story is about a man, whose name is Bassanio, who needed money in order to go to meet Portia, a wealthy girl who was waiting for a man that could win her love. Bassanio asked for Antonio’s help. Antonio didn’t have any money so he decided to go to a money lender who turned to be Shylock, a man who days before was offended by Antonio because he was Jewish. At the end of the story Bassanio won Portia’s love and nor Bassanio or Antonio paid the debt they had with Shylock. Antonio went to court and Shylock claimed his pound of flesh. Portia dressed up as a man, defended Antonio and she won the case. She said Shylock could take his pound of flesh, but without make Antonio bleed. Shylock was only supposed to take Antonio’s flesh, but not his blood.

This entire story started because of an Anti-Semitism differences that was taking place during 1600. Antonio spat in Shylock’s face as a reaction against Jewish people. All the prejudice against the Jewish was bringing a lot of problems to the Jewish. They were not allowed to have the same jobs the rest had, so they were force to work as money-lenders. Antonio never believed he would need Shylock’s help. On the other hand Shylock was furious and he was going to took advantage of the first opportunity to take revenge on him. Antonio learnt his lesson earlier than Shylock. Antonio learnt his lesson and that is why he did not ended as bad as Shylock did. Shylock ended with nothing. He was punished for his need of revenge, and he not only lost the case against Antonio, but he also lost a big part of his goods.

A completely different relationship was the one between Antonio and Bassanio. It was absolutely amazing to see how the loyalty was presented here. I am not sure if Bassanio felt the same to Antonio, but it was pretty clear that for Antonio, Bassanio was like a son. Antonio was capable of giving his life in order to help Bassanio. The values that join Bassanio and Antonio were many, as an example we have; Solidarity, love, loyalty, honesty, etc. I believe Shakespeare was trying to reflect a lot of important values by using this relationship as an example of them.

It was shocking to see the character of Portia. During those days it was common to see that men were more important than women. In fact friendship among men was sometimes more important than their own wife. The personality Shakespeare gave to Portia was not common those days. Even though Portia was from the royalty it was clear that she not even control her own life. His father stipulated (before he died) that Portia will married with the man who choose the correct chest. Here we have an example of how Portia was not allowed to choose on her own. If Portia didn’t love the man who choose the correct was not important, she was supposed to obey his father’s will. At he end Portia was able to prove her intelligence and safe Antonio from a terrible death.

To finish I would say that the movie is good, but the book is much better. It is really interesting for me the character of Shylock. How greedy he was and how blinded he was because of the necessity of revenge. I learnt a lesson; I learnt to forgive my enemies and to help when I can. Shylock should have accepted the arrangement they had offered to him and everything would have ended in a completely different way. Selfishness would not lead us for a good road; on the contrary, it would make us be a bad person day after day.

Outline

I) Introduction

II) Relationship between Shylock and Antonio
- Prejudice
- Revenge

III) Relationship between Antonio and Bassanio
-Values


IV) Portia’s intelligence


V) Conclusion
-Personal opinion

Trying to understand...

I have to say that it was not an easy task. I had to read the letter almost 10 times in order to understand it, but I think that finally I did.
If I’m not wrong, Spencer chose King Arthur as his main character because he was a very well-known character, he was seeing as a hero, and he was a person who reflects a lot of different values. I also believe that this is called an allegory because in some way he was making fun of the king by using this story. He chose the Knight of the red Crosse, who represents Holiness, Sir Guyon, who represents Temperance and a Lady Knight, who represents Chastitie. He chose this characters in orden to represents something that was happening in real life but in a sutil way.
He obviously wrote the letter because he wanted to clarify that he was not making was of anyone, but he was only trying to tell an innocent story. He did not wanted to be misunderstood, but I believe that his intention was to play a little bit with this story.

What woman love most

After reading the poem and the discussion I realized that people often believe that women are weak, in other words, that what they are looking for is someone who can look after them, in this case, a man. If you ask me I believe that the ones who believe this are completely wrong.

I think that what the woman in the poem was looking for was to have men under her control. She has her own life as an example, she married five times, and I believe that with this she wanted to have power over them. In the class discussion I realized that my classmates think that we are looking for someone who will treat us as a princess, but I think they are completely lost.

Even if men like it or not they depend on us, they are worried about us, and they need us. I am sure that we are not naïve, on the contrary, we are really intelligent and at the end we know what to say or what to do in order to have what we want.

"Truth"

I believed Chaucer called this poem “truth” because he thought he had the truth in his hands, in other words, he thought that he had the recipe to be a good human being. In the poem Chaucer wrote “For greed entails hate and social climbing uncertainty” in my opinion, he wrote this because he wanted to show that people is worried about trivial things. Money is the only concern they have and they are capable of doing horrible things in order to have it. Also religion has an important part in this poem, I believe that he expected people to change their way of living and to ask for forgiveness in order to take the “good” road.

I think this poem not only reflects how people lived in the past, it also reflect how people live in the present. We are always worried about what our neighbour is doing and what new unnecessary thing is on the market for buying it. We live in a materialistic society and we need to change that.

Epic Poem

According to my experience with books, poems, pieces of writting, etc. epic poems are poem in which a writter narates a fiction story or a myth. In those poems is very commmon to see a heroe and an antagonist. As far as I know all epic poem refers to heroic actions that someone did in the past and that someone decided to tell.

Knowing myself.

First quotation (slide 11)

After reading this quotation the first thing that came into mi mind was how difficult is to express how reading makes me feel.

Literature is every single piece of writing that is able to make me feel something, a letter of a friend, a novel of a famous writer, an article of a well known magazine, etc are literature .
I believe that there is a “book” for each person, those who say “I don’t like reading” is because they still do not know what they like or what they enjoy.

Reading is not only a way to interact with the rest of the world, is also a way to escape from it when you need to be alone for a while. For me, literature is the most effective way of knowing who I am, how I feel and what I think.