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ContentsMy Name: My Topic, Date |
My Name: My Topic, Date |
Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, Wednesday, 21st November, 2007Somehow in the lecture yesterday there was a deep unrest in the room...It was pretty hard to concentrate on the lecturers words. I tried to be specially attentive because sometimes it happens that I turn my back to the topic 'Novel'. I am an author myself and it's also interesting to see the roots of Novels...at least there is the same mess of names as in Poetry. But frankly my thoughts are still with a totally different word... Already at last weekend, when I had a look at the topic 'The Rise of the Novel' the word 'Rise' made me think. Obviously some students expected to hear about the total beginning of the Novel...(Oh sometimes we wish it would be so simple in history...get an exact day and exact name of the author and exact name of the title...We would keep it all in mind...write it down in the written test and get our perfect mark for it.)Nevertheless we shall be glad that history is not that simple...so we can open a debate about everything. Well, back to the rise...I would like to copy the definition of the word I found in my dictionary: rise,rising,rose,risen :1 to get up from a lying,sitting,or kneeling position; 2 to move from a lower to a higher position or place. That may be enough as a definition of this word.So rising is not the beginning though a lying position' can also be some kind of beginning. So now I suppose the rise is meant to be the beginning of the debate about Novels. So what was before Robinson Crusoe? Novels, romances, dramas!? All together!? Maybe Robinson Crusoe deserves an own category of literature...It's not a typical romance neither a typical novel. Perhaps that was the special trick of DeFoe's writing...it looks as if it is a romance and shocks the readers with its signs of a novel(in my eyes that's what makes a book interesting: special elements of writing which differ from every other book of the past.) We try to force the book into a category...instead of having endless discussions about which category it belongs to ,we can keep it easy and give it an own category. It would demand some more work and confusion to invent some more categories of literature but it may help us in our discussion. Mr. Simons mentioned another point which attached my attention immediately...female authors! I honestly doubt that we shall put Robinson Crusoe into this area ...so called proto novels most prominently by female authors(third version). Female authors deserve a special seperated part of literature. Perhaps a good point to seperate the rise from novels written by men from the rise of novels written by women. The problem we just face here again when we start dividing and dividing...we can also continue cutting the writers into seperations (rich or poor; educated or uneducated (in the time we are talking about there rich and educated was definitely linked)) Before I close this article I may find some more words about the end of the lecture (the questioning time) The audience laughed about Mr.Simons word higher educated readership. What was there to laugh about? At university we are part of a higher educated readership and it's indeed a part of our lecture to differ between fictional and non-fictional writings. Of course,it takes a lot of reading till we really can see what's true and what's fiction but with every book (mostly modern novels-the topic of our following lectures) we get a little closer to this aim. Jessika Thiele 11:50, 21 November 2007 (CET) Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, Wednesday, 14th November, 2007Here we go...at a cold cold Wednesday night...Recovering my impressions from the yesterday's lecture and from a line of a friend of mine: She said that Literature is the most confusing course of the whole English studies. Frankly, I can understand her but only because I know that literature is such a wide field and that's why it seems complex. I also admit that after the lecture of literature I was even more confused about my main question... What is Poetry?... And what's the difference to Poesy? Why do you use two different words? Poesy so soft and Poetry so strong...almost an illusion because Poetry is mostly fragile. I fear I need to find out first 'What WAS Poetry?' Was it Opera? No, not at all... There was more than Opera and more in the Poets heads than a play on a stage. (Sometimes poetry should be hidden in a small chamber and never get out...especially not on a stage...you can compare it to a prisoner whose head will be cut off in front of hundred people) I try to figure out what the Poets of that time thought. Were they happy with the stage? And another question rising in my head: What about Drama? So all Poets in that time got a connection to Drama (or at least to a play on a stage in a theatre)? I suppose I already asked far more questions than one can answer...some surely will be answered by the tutors in the lectures and some will be answered by myself. I dont know...when I think of Drama and a theatre then Shakespeare comes into my mind. Even the hundred years old books of Shakespeare's plays on my bookshelf may not give the answer to my dearly beloved questions. Simply because Shakespeare was not a poet...though...he wrote some poems I dare to say he was definitely not a poet as we know the word 'Poet' today... So was he called a Poet in his time!? So far the tutors in any English course were avoiding Shakespeare...his character...his time and his surroundings. I remember something my English teacher said last year: 'When I was studying I hated Shakespeare and I still hate him.' As an admirer of this great man I was shocked. How can an English teacher ever dare to say she/he doesnt like Shakespeare? Sure, I confess his plays and thoughts are not modern today BUT in his time his plays and thoughts were a revolution! Well, I guess in the end literature is worth a discussion about its own definition...but it's not worth having a debate about the beauty of literature because every piece of Literature is beautiful! Jessika Thiele 20:21, 14 November 2007 (CET) Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, 6th November, 2007I am not sure what this blog is for but somehow I felt a strong urgent to write something in here...about the lecture of this afternoon. The word 'Literature' in the historic background...it deeply fascinated me that we all talked about the same thing hundred years ago...just had another word. Frankly there was one moment when I almost cried during the lecture...not because I was desperate or so sad or fed up with the content. No! I deeply sighed when the tutor asked the rhetorical question: Why do we give our attention to poetry? I am studying English in the first semester and I am a poetess myself.Started writing some years ago.I even dare to say I am a good poetess...modern but good...and my first day in Oldenburg I spent in the library ... stumbling across books which tried to give me an answer on: What is poetry? I found a book about Keats therories of this topic...that he used the word 'Sensitivity' to describe this rhythmic expression of feelings. For so many years I was writing verses...lines...deeply meant to be philosophical...and suddenly at my first day in Oldenburg I was confronted with the question of my entire being. I suppose it's obvious now that I really love poetry and it's not only verses or rhyme or any other well written nonsense to me. I appreciate English language in its deep sense and it strucked me deeply inside when I heard people laughing about this language...making fun of it. Doesnt this language deserve our respect? Pityful I thought about this question for a while and I came to the conclusion that all the people there had a reason why they took those English courses...in a modern way this reason can be defined as respect. I admit my respect towards language is quite different... Anyway, I return to my first lines and to the question why we give so much attention to poetry...I may answer it one day when I found a satisfying answer on 'What is Poetry?' or I will just get an answer from the tutors in further lectures...I hope that the tutors will come to the simple end that they say 'Poetry deserves our attention because it reflects the feelings of individuals towards a hidden topic in a special time of history...in a special period.' Jessika Thiele 20:02, 7 November 2007 (CET) |
