Well, today was quite the wake-up call. The art professors sure can be brutal when they want to be. Granted, I'd rather them be hard now than later on when we're farther in our projects. I noticed the main focus of the professors was the question: "Why?" To be fair, it's quite a good question.
Thus I decided this blog entry would focus on my why so that I will be ready for my own presentation next week (note: because of how today went, I've already started putting my powerpoint together). My why is that there's more to literature than dust and funny words. if I must illustrate Billy Shakespeare in an extremely suggestive pair of jeans, then so be it. Literature to me portrays what makes us human and how throughout history, we're all connected. As an example, I once was in the bookstore with my very scientific boyfriend, who naturally stood staring at the wall of computer programming books. I appeared next to him, my arms piled with literature ranging from Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde, when I noticed The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin and immediately snatched it. He looked at me curiously, wondering how such a scientific book fit in with my collection. "Have you any idea how much of a debate this caused in literature? It's amazing!" I explained as he simply raised an eyebrow. I went on to describe how people in the 19th century suddenly had to decide whether they would follow religion, or learn more about the science that was quickly developing. To me, literature is a true window into the past, but also a way to see that people have always struggled between religion and science, or even homosexuality, feminism, and the structure of power. William Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, and yet we still read his plays today because we can relate, even in this crazy age of speed and technology.
My goal is to have other people see writers as people and think more about how they can relate to them, even if all of the writers I've chosen have been dead for at least a century.
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