First half of my course

Hello. I’m halfway in my course of Modern Masterpieces of World Literature and still enjoying it. I have completed 4 section quizzes and read four books.

Goethe and the birth of world literature. World literature is about actual and imaginary travels. It was born out of Goethe’s conversations with Eckermann, by his readings of Chinese, Persian, Arabic and Sanskirt literature, his travel to Italy and his view that poetry was for all of humanity.

The 1001 Nights was oral literature and was subject to transformations as it travelled to India, Persia, Egypt, etc. Scheherazade functions as a therapist to the king, using storytelling to restore the world to its stature. Her sister functions as an ideal listener and keeps the narrative moving. The “1001” in the title suggests an infinite number of stories. Translators from different  places complied different sets of stories, so we have different canons of the 1001 Nights.

Voltaire was a writer most of his life. He wrote philosophical, historical, fictional and scientific literature. He published Candide in 1759 simultaneously in different countries in order to prevent publishing houses from quickly reproducing his work without paying his royalties. Candide is a satire and features a number of characters with different perspectives.

The Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun was presented not as one of the great literary masterpieces but a psychiatric case of paranoia. Lu Xun generally wrote against the system of Chinese Confucian traditions but still retained some uncertainty and ambivalence regarding Confucianism’s cultural norms. While studying in Japan, he began to absorb modernizing literature influences of the West.

So that’s my smile this week, I’m halfway in my course and still enjoying it. Have a great week everyone.

For: https://trentsworld.blog/2022/12/26/the-weekly-smile-for-the-26th-of-december-2022-weeklysmile/