Final Essay.

Criticizing what is wrong: Teaching British Literature in EFL classes.


Since ancient times, Literature has been present to complain about social issues, to show facts that most of the people do not see, and to start opening discussions in order to allow reflection. These aspects encouraged me to write this essay about the importance of using Literature in EFL classes at Chilean schools. For that, it is necessary to start by giving a definition of what Literature is. Then, I will analyse one literary work which presents relevant topics that must be taken into the classroom. It will be a poem titled “September 1, 1939 written by one of the most influent writers in English Literature whose name is W.H. Auden. Then, it is essential to say why Literature is important and this master piece can be aplied in a EFL class, and finally I will conlude by recalling the main ideas of the whole essay.

A general definition of Literature is, “writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays” . Through this definition we can see that Literature is people’s expression, or reflection on important topics that occur in society, and ideas that go around people’s mind. Literature is a helpful tool for seeing what we sometimes do not see, it invite us to reflect on what concerns human being. Our ideas, thoughts and complains can be correctly reflected on a poem, a novel, a short story, even in a biography. That is how Literature works- it is just like a mirror which allows us to see details that maybe we have never seen before, those details that might help to change the world. Literature let us go beyond the words we see on a piece of paper, it opens a road for a non end - reflective journey in which the main participant is the reader because the person who reads is the one in charge of coming up with new ideas and different points of view from what the writer expressed on a book.

To illustrate the idea that I expressed earlier, it is necessary to start analyzing the first literary work I mentioned in the introduction. The poem “September 1, 1939” is a critique how society is build. In this poem, W.H. Auden shows his discontent to the world by criticizing negative aspects of society. First, he states that we are living opressed by the powers of Education and Government. It is expressed in two lines of the second stanza which say.


“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn”

These two lines show how people are being normalized. At schools, kids are not being educated, but they are just schooled. What I mean with this is that teachers do not teach students to be active agents of social change. In this case the result is “uncritical students who readly unknowingly accept policies, attitudes, values, and beliefs as common sense or natural” (Priya Parmar, Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop); that is schooling. On the other hand, educating means that teachers guide their students to find the truth so that they can become critical. Now moving on to the second power, there is a stanza which contains four lines in which the author complains directly against Government by saying:

“Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do”.

Through these lines, the writer let us see how Government hides the truth by blinding us with lies which normalize our lives. Auden expresses this idea in the third stanza, and he mainly refers to the contradiction between the right and wonderful discourse of government, and the way it governs through lies. Throughout the poem we can also find a critique to the individualism of men caused by industrialization. It clarifies that society is living under the rules of an individual world that impedes us to accept others, to respect differences, and to love one another.This is the strongest critique that Audens wants to share with the readers of the poem because of his homosexual condition. Of course that all the ideas from the poem are Auden’s point of view of the world, so it can be argued by anyone who disagrees because we all have different perceptions, and as the author states "We must love one another or die" (88), we should show respect to other’s oppinion.

Now that I already analysed the poem, I will move on to the importance of Literature in our lives. A s I mentioned earlier, W.H. Auden wrote “September1, 1939” in order to open peoples’ eyes so that everyone could see how we are wrongly living. Regarding this idea, I want to say that Literature helps each person to make a positive change in life. It makes us dream and think deeply on what is written. For that reason, it is essential to use Literature At schools, especially in EFL classes where the only method used is the Grammar Translation Approach. In an English class students are taught grammar and structures but they are not encouraged to develop critical thinking. This is a strong reason for changing EFL teaching. English teachers must educate students, and educate them means that they must promote critical thinking so that they turn into active citizens. As Priya Parmar mentions in her book Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop “Teaching a critical Pedagogy…transform the role of students from one of passivity and silence to one that is socially and politically aware and active, inspiring students to question and challenge injustices…” (3). That is Literature, a reflection on what is going on around us. It is what “September 1, 1939” encourages.

A good method for using Literature when teaching English is to talk about the author in order for them to know who they are reading. Once they know important issues of the author’s life, we can show them some quotes or stanzas. It is possible that sometimes students could not understand but it is important to ask what they get, what they think about the reading because in that way they feel they have the space to present their perception to the rest of the class, which can provoke interesting discussions. Besides, it will make them be respectful one another because not all of them will have the same points of view, so they will learn to respect different opinions, and especially differences because the poem deals with that. And teaxhers should not be afraid of using English Literature in EFL classes because vocabulary and some grammar can also be taught through literary works. As a final result, Literature helps to learn English language and the most important characteristic is that it really encourages critical thinking.


To conclude, it is important to mention once more that it is necessary to know what Literature is firstso that we look for the correct literary works according to what is going on in our country or what is going on in the entire world that is affecting us. And the inclusion of Literature at schools is essential for the development of critical thinking. This is exactly what W.H. Auden shows in this especial poem. He criticizes the aspects of society that he thinks are wrong and highlights what he sees we are lacking of. That is why I propose to form active agents of social change, let’s teach Literature.


Work Cited

http://www.poemdujour.com/Sept1.1939.html (W.H Auden. September 1, 1939).

Parmar, Priya. Knowledge Reigns Supreme: The Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop Artist KRS One. Brooklyn College – City University of New York. June 8th, 2009.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/literature

Outline final essay

Introduction

In this essay I would discuss how Literature exposes relevant topics that should be discussed in EFL classes. Therefore, in order to illustrate my arguments with examples, I will cite some quotations from different poems.

Body

-Definition of Literature.
-mention some important topics that can be found in Enlglish Literature and give examples by using some quotes.
-Analyse and discuss those topics.


Conclusion


By way of conlcusion I must say that….

September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden

After reading this wonderful poem, and after analysing it with my classmates, I realized how powerful it is since the author criticizes many issues trying to show the truth, the hidden truth.

The way Auden wrote this poem called my attention. He makes us look for more information that is implicit in the poem. For example, when he mentions Luther. To understand this part it is necessary to know why he mentions that name but for that it is essential to research about Luther, and then we can see the relation of this person to the poem. Also, this poem was catching because of the way he expressed through it; for example, when he refers to the hidden truth he says, "where blind skyscrapers use their full height to proclaim the strength of Collective Man". I liked this metaphor because it makes me see what he means.

Another aspect that I really liked is the strong critique to society, especially to government and religion. Auden says that those are powers that dominate people, and I totally agree with his ideas.

To conclude, this is the poem I like the best because the author's thoughts are very similar to mine.

post

I totally agree with this post. I liked the way you connected the two short stories and at the end you came up with a conclusion that includes both of them.

I have the same point of view about what really makes people happy, and I am sure that it is not money, but it is your values as you mentioned. However don't you think that more than values, it is love others what makes you appreciate what you have, and also your life?

Good reflection Salo G. keep it up.

The Waste Land: "The Burial of The Death" by Eliot.

The Waste Land is a difficult piece of art to understand. The mixture of ideas is what makes it complex but interesting. That is why in this post I will refer to just one part of it, which is titled "The Burial of the Death".

The speaker starts defining the seasons from what she feels about each one of them. This is her point of view and her feelings through the words because she refers to winter positively by saying: "Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow...". From my understanding of this quotation, I believe that she feels safe when winter comes. Maybe it is the only moment that makes her forget bad memories and feel happy. It is also expressed in another line of the poem, which says, "In the mountains, there you feel free", and it is related to what winter produces on her, because in that season she and her cousin use to go to the mountains.

What I liked from this, how awesome the expression of thoughts can be. It is great the way the author mixes many aspects that makes a short poem very complex. So that is my understanding of "The Burial of the Death", it is my point of view and I still do not get exactly what he means even though I read it many times.

Two stories, one issue. The Rocking-Horse Winner and Odour of Chrysanthemum, by D.H. Lawrence.

Through literature, writers express their ineer personalities and let the readers imagine what is going on in their minds, or think about their lives. This is the case of D.H. Lawrence, in his pieces of art titled “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “Odour of Chrysanthemum”.

Because of the historical context, which was during the War World I, the author shows us money and death as the main issues in both short stories. In “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, death is caused because of desires of money. This is a story in which interpersonal relationships within the family are not more important than money, let’s say that money makes people forget love and it changes people’s mind to the point of getting mad, just as the child did. In the other story, “Odour of Chrysanthemum”, we can see that the relationship between the main character who is a woman, and her husband was broken. She even did not show some respect to him when he was taken dead to the house, she asked to the other man not to put her husband over the carpet. In this point we can see how materialism is over love.

After reading both stories, I could realized how D.H.Lawrence expressed what he was living. I think that through writing he released all his feelings that disturbed his mind.

A room of one's own

A room of one’s own by Virginia Wolf is an interesting essay in the sense that different social issues are developed in this piece of art. One of those important issues is the diferences of gender.

As it is known, since ancient times until now, society has made differences between women and men, where women are underestimated. In “A room of one’s own” which takes place in 1929, Virginia Woolf used to write her books by using another name. She invented the name Judith Shakespeare so that people think that it was Shakespeare’s sister who wrote, and in this way, she could see if society would value her works just because of the name. However, in such a chauvinist society from that time, her works did not have the same impact as Shakespeare’s.

It is hard to me to understand how an entire society can be so narrow-minded that a book written by a woman was not important as the ones written by a man, even though they had the same level of reflection. Fortunately, it has been changing over time, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Oliver Twist

The film Oliver Twist is one of the saddest movies I have ever seen in my life. In fact, I would dare to say that it is almost imposible that someone could hav such a miserable life.

In this movie, romanticism is demonstrated by features such as the setting where the story takes place and the emotions it transmits us. What is strongly shown, it is the assumptions that existed in that time when population began to expand throught the construction of cities. People used to be judged by others just for the appearance or for the place they lived in. That is why Oliver was arrested. He did never robbed however he was blamed for that because of the way he was dressed.

It is a film which clearly demonstrates how society imposes ideals and how those impositions become a part of us that is hard to control. It is a pity that something as prejudices will always be in the inner of men, because to judge others does not let this world progress.

The Signal Man

When I read the Signal Man, I felt kind of identified with his life. As he saw progress in society, he felt as he was in a box which did not allow him to do something. The setting of the story also has influence on what it wants to transmit to the readers. It occurs in a foggy atmosphere.

The box, the fog, progress shown in the trains that pass through the city; everything made me reflect on what is going on in my mind. I feel as if I were locked in a box where everything is dark and is difficult to make changes. I know that most of the people do not realize that what we are living as progress is a destruciton for our relationships as human beings. As a result of all the technology, people is forgettig the meaning of society, and it takes us to a darker atmosphere where no exit will be found.

Frankestain, love and revenge

The sad story of Frankestain is a story that involves a mixture of feelings such as curiosity, acceptance, love, anger, anxiety and revenge. That is what called my attention, because the author put an amount of different feelings in two characters.

When I read the book, I noticed that Victor was moved by his curiosity and anxiety. Those sensations made him experiment with something that men can not have control on, it is to give life to something dead which is totally against the natural process.What is shown here, it is men’s desire of controling nature, and also how our anxiety and curiosity sometimes make us do the wrong thing. In the case of Victor, his excesive anxiety to create life, caused the death of his family. Another point that was interesting for me, it is how Frankestain who is supposed to be a monster, has a strong need of spreading love and receiving it back. Unfortunately he was rejected by people because of his apparience and although he has so much love to give, the only way he found to response to that rejection, it was through killing.

I liked the story very much, and I got really interested in reading it because as I mentined in the introduction, the amount of feelings in it called my attention. But it is a pity that Frankestain did not have the opportunity to have someone who loved him as he could love so that he could stop acting by revenge against people’s rejection.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

Regarding the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, I think that the daffodils he mentiones, represent the beauty of nature. That is why the author refers to them by using beautiful and precise words such as golden and wealth.

The beauty of nature, especially the daffodils come to Wordworth’s mind when he feels alone in the world or feelings of sadness come to his heart, so then is when those memories of the lake besides of all that beauty, make him feel better and accompanied. In a way those golden daffodils were like a drug for the author to overcome his sad states. In other words, to think of that just brings him joy, and that is the reason to say “ A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company”.

The comparison I would make between this poem and the previous ones I have read, it is the way the poets relate feelings to nature, and also how they personify and compare nature to what they feel while they write a poem.

When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be, by John Keats.

It was not easy to get the purpose of the poem at the first time I read it. But, once I went into it and I tried to feel every single word, I came up with an idea that is represents a strong and hard part of his life.

As he was raised in a humble family, I think that through this poem, he wants to share his feelings of being alone and unnoticed by the rest of people because of his social conditions. That is why he mentiones the phrase, “And think that I may never live to trace”. With this, the author also expresses that he will not be remembered after his death.

Finaly, relating the poem to romanticism, I think it is present in the passion that John Keats uses to write, and how he gives life to objects through his writing. I like the way he uses the words and how everything become alive.

Kubla Khan

After reading the poem “Kubla Khan” I related the message to what men are doing now to nature. First, the poem mentions a saint river which flows through obscures caverns unknown by men. Then it refers to a woman which certainly represents the walls and towers interrupting and surrounding the river, that river that later returns and detroyes the city in order to keep flowing just as it was at the beginning.

From my point of view, the poet is just trying to express what he feels and how he sees all the changes that are caused by men’s work. That is why I chose the first quotation which says; “Poetry is an art…of representing, in words, external nature and human thoughts and affections, both relatively to human affections, by the production of as much immediate pleasure in parts, as is compatible with the largest sum of pleasure in the whole”. To me, this quotation deals with the idea of expressing the deepest feelings of human nature on a paper and no matter how you show them through a poem but the more pleasure you put into it the more art you are doing. The author got that pleasure from drugs, that is how he got motivated to write and that was the way to relate external nature to human thoughts.

"Discrimination, a view of Idealism and Materialism"

Outline.



Introduction:


This essay will relate the play “The Tempest” written by William Shakespear between 1610-1611 with an issue we have dealing over years which is discrimination and also to make the relation with how discrimination is developing in society. But the main purpose of this paper is to see how this issue has kept at schools from many years, and give some suggestions so that teachers can be aware of it and make a change.


Body:

I. 1) Definition of discrimination.
2) History from colonialism until now (21st century).
3) How it is represented in “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare.

II. 1) What is going on at schools.
2) How teachers can deal with discrimination.



Conclusion:


To conclude, it is clear that there are diffent types of discrimination and it is divided into categories, such as direct or indirect discrimination. And it is not something that we can step forward and forget it because it is occurring nowadays, and they way teachers do their work is crucial to have a change. Thus, teachers must be aware of this in order to know how to teach what they have to.



"Discrimination, a view of Idealism and Materialism"



This essay will relate the play “The Tempest” written by William Shakespear between 1610-1611 with an issue we have dealing over years which is discrimination. To start this essay it is necessary to define in general terms what discrimination is, it is also important to write some history about this from colonialism until 21st century in which we are living. After these definitions it is possible to show how it is represented in the play, and from that to make the relation with how discrimination is developing in society. But the main purpose of this paper is to see how this issue has kept at schools from many years, and give some suggestions so that teachers can be aware of it and make a change.

Discrimination is a term that we all think we know, but if someone asks you to give a definition of discrimination, would you know how to answer that with a clear definition? Maybe yes or maybe not because all depends on your point of view of discrimination. Therefore, some definitions has to be given to have it clear in your mind. According to what the dictionary says, “discrimination is the act of separate, dstinguish, differentiate one thing from another, or to tret others differently because of racial, religious, political or aconomical reasons”. Now, if this definition is analysed, it is possible to see that to discriminate can be used in a positive way in the case that we have to distinguish, however most of its use is close to the negative side, so another definition according to the book “The Social Meaning of Discrimination”, Aaron Antonovsky says that “discrimination may be defined as the effective injurious treatmentof persons on grounds rationaly irrelevant to the situation. Individuals are denied desired and expected rewards or opportunities for reasons related not to their capacities, merits or behavior, but solely because of membership in an identifiable out-group”(86). This last side of discrimination may be expressed in two ways, it may be directly or indirectly. (1) Direct discrimination is when a person is treated less favourably due to his/her characteristics, such as sex, parental status, race, age or disability. (2) Indirect discrimination is when a policy or procedure has a positive result for one person or a group of people and negative effects on another person or group of people.

Since many years, in fact many centuries, discrimination has been present in actions done by the man or woman. It comes from the very beginning, when Europians started to colonize other continents. When the conquerors arrived America, they saw indigenous people living in the continent with a very a different life style that was simpler (not saying that it was easier) because of its naturality. It was totally opposite to the way Europian conquerors lived. They had different principles, habits, customs and beliefs which made them think that they were civilized, superior than the indigenous because they had the money, and they also think they were more intelligent because they received formal education. They were also different phisicaly, terefore, in this period, indigenous people became Europians’ slaves, so they were treated as inferiors and conquerors took control by imposing their culture (let’s understand culture as ideals, religion, habits, etc) as the right one. This way of “educating people” caused resistance in the people who belonged to those colonized lands and it also caused the death of many who fought hard against this imposition. It happened to indigenous people in America, colonized by the Spanish crown, and it happened to African people colonized by Great Britain as well. Thanks to these examples, it’s easy to make a relation with the definition of direct and indirect discrimination explained in the second paragraph. During colonization, direct discrimination was obviously represented in the feelings of superiority that conquerors had because of the differences in the way they both lived, so they didn’t understand nor accept other way of living, and of course the color of the skin was determiner. Not just direct discrimination occurred but indirect discrimination was also present and important in their process of cultural imposition. Conquerors imposed their ideals by lieing to indigenous, especially in terms of religion. Indigenous couldn’t keep their faith and their beliefs because Europians brought Catholic religion argumenting that it was the right one. This is the religion imposed by imperialism and colonialism that is strongly alive and extended all over the world as the main religion. That is indirect discrimination which also can be seen as the idealism of conquerors over the materialism of colonized people. English has also been extended all over the world as the important language, and even as a second language in many countries. In the case of South America, many foreign companies are setting up and are even more powerful than the companies that belong to this part of the Continent. For example, nowadays there are many Mc Donalds that don’t leave space for South American restaurants. All this is happening because we are living in the age of a new imperialism in which direct and indirect discrimination is a day by day issue.

In “The Tempest” is a story based in times when colonialism was taking part in History. In this play, the idealism that prospero has over the materialism in the Caliban is discrimination. The Caliban is Prospero’s slave because he is different, everybody see the Caliban as the monster who only acts by instinct and has no moral, thus Prospero impose him ideals and treat him badly. Prospero doesn’t let him be by trying to take away all the materialism or naturality that is the inner part of the Caliban. It is the same to what happened to indigenous and African people when imperialism was taking over of the world. Even though it was not the main topic of the play, Shakespeare in a way showed us how discrimination occured. It is still happening nowadays, especially at schools where students represent the Caliban, someone with no habits and no moral at all that has to be educated by teachers who represent Prospero. Regarding this, the educational reality at schools is like that, but in many cases it is not the school’s fault but it is the teachers viewpoint. Most of the teachers see students as people who have to be hardly educated, so they usually impose their ideals, to what students put up resistance because they are forced to change just as Prospero did to the Caliban. Instead of forcing students to learn, teachers must invite them to do it and in that way there would be less resistance from students to learn because they feel discriminated when the teacher doesn’t share the same ideals with them or they are not understood by the teacher. As discrimination is everywhere it is extremely important that teachers know how to deal with it and to be caruful on what they teach and how they teach it. If students have to learn vocabulary, the teacher has to be explicit and say what words can be offensive and in what context they can be used. For example, the word black may be offensive if a white person calls an Afro American black.

To conclude, it is clear that there are diffent types of discrimination and it is divided into categories, such as direct or indirect discrimination. Besides, both types of discrimination were part of the colonialization process and of course they are represented in Shakespeare play “The Tempest” which took place in an island that had not been colonized. And unfortunately, it is not something that we can step forward and forget it because it is occurring nowadays, and they way teachers do their work is crucial to have a change. Thus, teachers must be aware of this in order to know how to teach what they have to.










Bibliography.





Antonovsky Aaron. “The Social Meaning of Discrimination”. Clark Atlanta University, 1960.


Shakespear William. “The Tempest”. Classic Books Company, 2001.


Carol A. Wong, Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Arnold Sameroff. “The Influence of Ethnic Discrimination and Ethnic Identification on African American Adolescents’ School and Socioemotional Adjustment”. Journal of Personality, 2003.



Wikimedia Foundation. “Caliban”. June 13th. 2009.

struggles and desires of revenge

The merchant of Venice, a movie in which the main characters are Shylock, a jewish; Antonio, a rich merchant, and Basanio, Antonio’s best friend who asks Antonio for a loan in order to get merry to the heir of Belmont throne, Porcia. Nevertheless, as Antonio had invested all his money on merchant navy expeditions, he doesn’t have money and he has to ask Shylock for it in order to help Basanio. Now the worst comes. Shylock accepts to lend the money to Antonio but with a condition because he had been humiliated by Antonio due to being jewish, therefore it is his chance to take revenge on him. The contract they both agreed is that if Antonio doesn’t give the money back on time, he will have to pay with a pound of meat from his body.

Days before Antonio went to Shylock’s house, he had spat on Shylock’s face by saying that jewish people had to be treated as dogs because they did not deserve to be treated as christians were treated. Therefore, Shylock decided to lend the money not as a favor to help Antonio but to take revenge on him for what he had done. Whether Antonio did not have the money on time to pay the loan, then it was Shylock’s chance to return all the pain and humiliation he had lived because of belonging to a different religion.

The struggle between religions is what called my attention , especially when jewish were humiliated by christians. It happened because christians wanted to persuade all the people to follow their beliefs and it didn’t matter if it was violently, what they really cared about was to get more people into their religion. But jews kept their faith strong even though they were embarrased in front of everybody. All this invited Shylock to have the desire of revenge, but it got stronger when he knew that his only daughter left him by running away with a man in Basanio’s navy. Thus, now Shylock’s desire of revenge changed into desire of justice because they had taken his daughter, Jessica away from him. Money was not so important now but he only wanted his daughter back and hurt Antonio. It is really reasonable that Shylock wanted Antonio to pay for all the humiliation and also because Jessica had escaped with a Basanio’s man in order to have justice, because he loved his daughter and he had the need to have someone to pay for that.

When the deadline for Antonio to give the money back came, he felt desperate because his business didn’t go well, so he didn’t have money to pay and he probably would die. Antonio is takenb to court by Shylock, where he has to be judged according to what was stipulated in the contract. Here is when Basanio arrives and with the money to the court, and he even brings twice the money that Antonio has to pay. Minutes later, Porcia, Basanio’s wife, arrives but dressed as a man and takes over of the judgement. She tries to persuade Shylock to not take the pound of meat he wants from Antonio, but Shylock just wants to take the piece of meat. Finally, the judgement resul is that first, he can not take any piece of meat from Antonio; second, half of the money is for Antonio and the other half for the State; and third which is more painful for Shylock, he has to give up his jew faith and become a christian. I think what happened in the judgement is the worst side of the movie because Shylock lost everything.

Shylock is a good character and the one I was more focused on while I was watching the movie and what I liked from him is the courage, his attitude and behavior towards christians, because he could not be nice to them after all what they did to jews.Unfortunately, he lost what he loved the most, which was his daughter and his religion. From my point of view, this movie shows how Christian religion has been taking over through time. It is totally unacceptable that some people force other to give up something really important as is religion. When Antonio said to Shylock that he had to become a christian I felt anger because I put myself in Shylock’s shoes and I thought that I could never change my Rasta faith for any religion, even though I could be killed if I deny.

Outline Film Review

I will talk abot the opposition between Shylock and Antonio.

Possible title: Desire of revenge.

- Introduction ( summary of the story).

- The contract between Shylock and Antonio.

- The struggle between two religions.

- Shylock's desire of revenge.

- How Shylock fails in his attempt of revenge.

- Conclusion.

The Fairy Queene

This letter was a difficult text to understand, at least for me. The way it was written is what makes it hard to get the meaning at the first I read it.

Now that I know what an allegory is, I think this letter was an interesting way to critique the King. This letter takes place in the Fairy land of a Fairy Queen, which makes it something unreal, helping Spencer's purpose. Spencer wrote this letter to say what he disliked from the Kingdom such as social, political and religious issues by giving a hidden message in order to not be punished. He talked about King Arthur because he was virtuous. The witer wanted protection and that’s why he decided to say everything he thought was wrong by giving a message that could just be understood between the lines and not explicitly.

Afer reading the letter and writing this post, I must say that I liked this way of writing because it makes people thought beyond of what is in the paper.

What's women desire?

Although we can not expect the same from every women because not all of them have the same point of view of what role they want in the world or have different desires, I might say that the woman from the tail was not so different from the kind of woman we see now. However she was totally different from the stereotype of women at those times. Her rebel thoughts and her desires of independence were as what many women at these times want. She wanted to feel free by showing that she had the power of decision in her relationships, be respected for what she did more than for what she was, a woman. This woman’s desire was to be understood in a narrow minded society, just as the women’s desire from the 21st century. Maybe a difference could be that many women now, look for someone who can protect them and make a life in order to feel safe, which is the contrast of what the woman from the tail did. She was so self confident that she did not have the need of a man to do something. That’s why this woman went against the world and society’s rules, shouting for her real needs as a woman.

"Truth" by Chaucer.

I think that Chacer called this poem "Truth" because the message he wants to give is that most of the people don't say the truth about their lives and if they change that characteristic, and say the truth, then they will find the way to freedom. That's why he mentions the frase "for greed entails hate and social climbing uncertainty" refering to those who show others a reality which has nothing to do with what they live. Trying to be what they are not, having many things which they even can not afford. All this just to climb in society by living a false life.

This poem is related to religious beliefs. We can find this relation when he thanks God and also asks us to let our spirit be led because the truth shall deliver us. It means that if we say the truth, as God willing, we will be free.

All what he says is related to reality, adn that's what I thought afetr reading this beautiful poem. Many people don't cherish what they have or don't feel proud of the simple things that life gives. They give importance to material things just to live like others and to fit in higher status. It is a real issue in society, people living in lies losing themselves and selling their souls.

My definition of an epic poem

I would define an epic poem as something that tells ancient stories of Kings and Wars. It is the kind of poetry that use old fashioned language in order to Express the history in a beautiful way. Maybe epic poems don`t tell real stories and go into the fiction to show the beautiful side of those ancient wars.

What Literature is for me

When I was asked to define Literature, what first came to my mind was the word “expression”. I think of Literature as a way to show different worlds in order to express what we feel, and at the same time give others the chance to understand an amount of realities. Literature also permits people to dream and be immersed in those dreams through the books’ letters. Therefore, it can not exist if there are not people who read, because a reader is who gives life to a story by living it as if it was real at the moment of being reading. As Art needs of its creator to be expressed and someone else to be interpreted, Literature needs to be interpreted by someone who is not the writer, and that interpretation is very subjective because it depends on the person’s culture.

Summarising the main idea on this reflection, Literature exists thanks to the reader, because literature is directed to someone, and the interpretation of this, varies according to each person's experiences, knowledge or culture.

Reflection made on quotations from slides 7 and 8.