Paulos's World Lit Blog

One of the research excursions I read was on Andrew’s about Prophecy in Ancient Greece. I liked the structure that he used starting with showing how the research he did relates to the book before diving into the research. Something that always confused me was how people believed seers could exist, but what I learned is that seers were simply just believed in. No explanation was really necessary, they existed because they existed. I learned that they were believed in so much that even when they were wrong, they were not blamed, but were given excuses by the people. They did not even have to make their own excuses. Andrew’s research excursion provided me with context about Tiresias and why Creon, who did not listen to anyone, eventually decided to change his mind, even though it was too late, because of Tiresias’ prophecy. In John’s research excursion on the Chorus in Ancient Greece, I mainly learned about what the chorus is and how it was used. I learned that a chorus is a group of resp...

  From my visit to archives and special collections, I learned about how books all over the world were made. We took a tour through books that were formed around the different cultures around the world, starting from Europe to Asia to Africa to North America. I saw the difference and similarities in how the books were made and written. For instance, in the second Asia table, I saw a story on contemporary life in Japan during the 1800s. Each page was attached by pieces of string and the paper felt rough like wood. There was another book in the Asia section, however, from China, that felt and looked extremely similar. It was interesting to compare and contrast how these cultures created their books. In the North America section, I saw a newspaper that was made in the 1900s in Mexico. There was an English translation copy of the newspaper as well. The paper felt the same, but one easy way to tell whether one was the original, and the other was not outside of the English translation, w...

One thing I learned from watching the lecture about the book history of Antigone is how long it took and what it went through to become the written version it is today. Neatline really helped me put it into perspective. The play went from being performed in Greece to being seen in ancient Egypt 500 years later to Florence, Italy in manuscript form, to finally being printed in Venice Italy in the 1500s. With this new perspective, I can understand why there are so many translations of the play because it is impossible for anyone to 100% knows the words said in the original play.  What this changed for me inside the play itself is it made me think of the differences between translations and how these different translations could have changed my thoughts on scenes and characters. A great example would be the highly debated line of whether Ismene or Antigone told Creon that he is dishonoring his son. If Ismene said this line, then it would bring up a whole new aspect of her character su...

The topic that I am thinking about doing right now is tragedies between lovers caused by their uncontrollable circumstances. This topic may be a bit too broad because I was able to think of some plays/books off the top of my head such as the famous Romeo and Juliet. Also, this topic is very famous because of the ancient greek plays such as my home text Antigone or because of all the variations of Romeo and Juliet that were created because of Shakespeare’s inspiration. If I have to cut it down some more, I would probably add that the piece of literature also has to have religious elements within its plots and/or themes such as greek mythology in Antigone and Islam in Home Fire. The format I am thinking of using is Neatline. Even though I do not feel that comfortable with Neatline yet, trial and error and asking Colin for help will probably resolve all my problems. I cannot really think of another efficient way to do this project better than if I used Neatline. Another method I thought o...

  One character that is extremely similar in Home Fire and Antigone is Antigone who is almost identical to Aneeka, based on what I know about the play so far. Both Antigone and Aneeka are somewhat dramatic characters, especially Antigone. They also blamed specific parts of their identity on their misgivings which are mostly valid. Antigone blamed her bloodline of Oedipus for the pain she felt which is mostly true because Oedipus being expelled from Thebes is what eventually causes her brother to die and Oedipus even cursed her brother to die by the blade of her other brother. Aneeka blames her religion for the misgivings which are also true, keep in mind I am not saying she does not like her religion even though it was the main cause of her pain. Aneeka was not able to live a happy relationship with Eamonn primarily because she is Muslim. She was spat on because she was Muslim. She was bullied and lost her dad because he was a jihad, which would not have happened if he was not Musl...

  One thing that was interesting to me that I learned from the lecture is Sophecles’ choice of picking Thebes as the setting of the play. I learned that Sophocles made this choice so he could provide more criticism against a king and the political landscape of a city. This criticism could apply to Greece as well, but by making Thebes the setting, Sophocles was able to criticize the political system in Greece, while not risking angering the king of Greece, who helps make the play happen. This leads me to the next point that the king of Greece and a rich person in Greece are the ones who make the play happen by paying for everything and if the play is successful, they will get a monument of themselves and be praised by the general public. This would also play into the playwright’s choice to write the setting as Thebes. I also learned about the previous plays in the trilogy of Sophocles through the lecture. I was pretty confused reading the first part of Antigone, but after learning t...

  Shamsie used Layla and Majnun in her story as the love relationship between Eamonn and Aneeka. Manjun loves Layla, but after being deemed crazy by society, Layla’s parents rejected the marriage proposal. Manjun and Layla continue to love each other through and even when Manjun was forced by his parents to go to the Kaaba, a holy Islam site, to lose his obsession with Layla, Manjun prays to be 100x more obsessed. Eventually, after Layla dies, Manjun kills himself when he finds her grave. This story relates to Eamonn and Aneeka but in a kind of gender role flip. Aneeka is deemed crazy by society because she is Muslim and her brother and father are both jihadis. Eamonn’s father is the one who rejects their marriage even though Eamonn loves Aneeka because of the fact that Aneeka’s brother and father are both jihadis. Then Eamonn’s father sends Eamonn on vacation to hopefully lose his love for Aneeka, but it ends up causing Eamonn to still love her even more and eventually go to find ...

  One of the most prominent themes in the story that I'm really interested in is islamophobia in the story—the difference in the characters’ reactions to islamophobia precisely. Karamat Lone, who used to be Muslim, reacted to Islamaphobia in Britain to assimilate into the country and “betray” other Muslims. He became a strict enforcer of security issues when he became home secretary and wholly abandoned his cultural identity as a Pakastani as well as being a Muslim. He becomes so against the religion that he even cracks jokes about the religion in an offensive manner about the chastity of Muslims. This even translates to the rest of his family as Eamonn, who also acknowledges that he used to act the same way as his father and crack jokes about Muslims. Another person in his family calls Aneeka a “hojabi”, which is incredibly Islamaphobic. On the other hand, Isma’s family reacted to Islamaphobia by protecting their values and fighting against it. Isma continued to wear her hijab, an...