This week in AP Lit we read, explicated and wrote an essay about a Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman. I feel my essay was mediocre at best, but I did really enjoy thinking about and discussing this poem without the confines of the prompt. The small group discussions are usually fun and interesting, although we often agree about the poem and what it means. I find it captivating when another person in the room brings up a perspective I hadn't considered. The questions that we are assigned often do this and force me to dig deeper and see why the poet chose the exact words the exact place to position them that he or she did. This class already has made me look at poetry in a different way. Even though I'm still not confidant about the essays I have realized how much meaning can be packed into a few short lines. I now know that even a seemingly straight forward poem contains much more than could be realized in the first reading.
The other main portion of this week was the reading of the tragic play Oedipus. If I was to look at the play in a completely consumer fashion I would say I didn't like it. I'm not exactly sure why, Oedipus did spend a lot of time complaining, I mean he is still is a murder. Would it really have been okay for him to kill a stranger or a poor man? This mindset contradicts with his "tragic flaw," his drive to find out the truth and bring to justice the murderer of Laius. While, I feel this way about the entertainment and enjoyment aspect of the play I do understand its relevance to tragedy and why it is important to read. I wish we could have had access to a more authentic translation, it was hard to visualize a Greek tragedy when things like "trying my patience" were said. I think another one of my issues with the play was the "tragic flaw" of Oedipus, I know he was a fictional character but no human is that noble. And is it really noble to leave his children in light of what they just discovered? He is punishing himself for what he did, but also punishing his children. They won't know how to process that their mother who just killed herself was also their grandmother, they still need their dad. Life is more complicate than clear cut right and wrong.
The other main portion of this week was the reading of the tragic play Oedipus. If I was to look at the play in a completely consumer fashion I would say I didn't like it. I'm not exactly sure why, Oedipus did spend a lot of time complaining, I mean he is still is a murder. Would it really have been okay for him to kill a stranger or a poor man? This mindset contradicts with his "tragic flaw," his drive to find out the truth and bring to justice the murderer of Laius. While, I feel this way about the entertainment and enjoyment aspect of the play I do understand its relevance to tragedy and why it is important to read. I wish we could have had access to a more authentic translation, it was hard to visualize a Greek tragedy when things like "trying my patience" were said. I think another one of my issues with the play was the "tragic flaw" of Oedipus, I know he was a fictional character but no human is that noble. And is it really noble to leave his children in light of what they just discovered? He is punishing himself for what he did, but also punishing his children. They won't know how to process that their mother who just killed herself was also their grandmother, they still need their dad. Life is more complicate than clear cut right and wrong.