Both these articles make difficult to understand what the author’s points are. This is what I came up with.
Will wrote that he believed that every literature is written using the principles of political ideology. Sometimes writers disguise the interests of the dominant sex, religion, and race. When a person writes they might use the male as the dominant race but, the dominant race would actually be the opposite sex. Female writers write about their ‘oppression of patriarchal literary standards” (111). They are upset of why they have to write about a male either human or non human to the superior gender in their literature. Feminists do not appreciate the position they have in society today being dominated by men.
Greenblatt feels that religion, politics, and colonization will influence the way a writer writes. These ideas need to be the center of the literature because it can help better the understanding of the world. In his essay his he makes reference that The Tempest “is full of conspicuous allusions to contemporary debates over the project of colonization” (114). Greenblatt is probably saying that he got his ideas about colonization from Shakespeare. Colonization was a very high European thought.
In reading both of these articles I do not know which to pick. I will say that I am between both arguments. In Will’s article I thought it was interesting about the feminist opinion about men being superior in everything. I do not believe that men are superior then woman in everything but, I do believe we are superior in some things, so my ideas will just add insult to injury. In Greenblatts, his three theme ideas are very good but, I wouldn’t say every book should have them in there. Depending on each book they might be able to work, but sometimes none of them can.
Chris.
ReplyDeleteI found your post to be quite intriguing and stoked my curiosity even further as to what these writers actually believe. When I read Will's article (more than once), I did not think about the perspective of the opposite sex dominating the other sex, which is very true because there are many books that are in a sense bashing males and their "dominance". I feel you kind of missed a point, however. Will believed that all literature is political and everything has a certain reason to be written, whether to get a point across or not.
I know you tried, but I also think that you missed the point on Greenblatt's article as well. His stance was that literature is pure and free of form, which means that he thinks/thought that politics have nothing to do with literature and it should be analyzed in its purest form.
Just trying to help you strengthen some key points!
Your points were very interesting my friend. I too am split between both of the arguments and can not really choose which side I would be on. I am not going to lie though, when you said "men are superior in some things" I was actually pretty disappointed. That comment to me really sends the wrong message, unless I read it wrong I guess. But if you did mean to put it the other way you should have said something like "men are superior in some things, while women are superior in other things". I am no spazz who worries about crazy details such as that, but that could really cause some controversy. I believe that everyone was created equal with some people being better at certain things than others. But I do believe men and women are equal. Like people think men and the strong ones who do all of the work, but do not forget how they got there on the planet. The women did all of the work having them! Thats it. Not trying to clown on that or anything though,
ReplyDeleteYou showed very good points which i like. I would have to agree with you about the men not being as superior as woman. To me, i believe it is half and half but thats just me. There are many things to argue about on how men are more than women and how women are ore than men. I also like how you included the men being dominant because there are things in life that women are most dominant at than use men. It was a good point i would have to say.
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