Notes from a Lıterature Student

       There are two concepts that can be confused with each other which are modernity and modernism. The first one is a historical process that starts with the Renaissance but the second is a movement that is a criticism of the first one. Modernism is a re-examination of every aspect of modernity. Modernism creates a dialogue with tradition through recapitulation.     In Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen , we read a prose poem titled Loss of a Halo . This poem tells the story of a poet who has a halo on his head and walks towards a brothel and when he drops his halo, he does not even turn his head to look at it. This poem clearly shows how poets lose their angelic qualities in the modern world. This particular change in the role of the artist is handled in the poems of one of the most distinct modernist poets, who is William Butler Yeats. We see modernist elements in most of his poetry.            Yeats believed that human history moved like gyres (cycles). When an era is ruled by Primary

         The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is a movie written and directed by Woody Allen and it's about a woman in the Great Depression in New Jersey who lives a pretty poor and difficult life. The movie is a bittersweet comedy that reflects on issues like life in the Great Depression and metafiction. The movie’s magical realism makes the viewer question the understanding of reality and fantasy. The plot and the scenes in the movie make the viewer question why we watch films and read books and study them. The movie is great in terms of allowing us to analyze the time of the Great Depression and understand the American Dream a little better. The witty dialogues of the movie ease the problems of the harsh reality.      Woody Allen uses technic called mis en abyme, thus the viewer watches a movie within a movie and it is important in terms of layering because the viewer has one layer of reality in the movie-within-movie, the reality of illusions and shadows where Tom lives and life is

       The study of multiculturalism helps to create awareness without using demagogy or hate speech. A verse-novel Lara by Bernardine Evaristo and prose-novel Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy have many common points that could be paralleled in terms of creating an understanding of sympathy through humor satire. These two novels have subtle comedy hiding important problems like racism and prejudice. These two authors follow the footsteps of the founding fathers of English literature like William Shakespeare and Johathan Swift who used irony and comedy to convey their messages.      After World War Second, psychologists accepted that even societies could get sick. The whole world killed each other because of national and racial labels, and England was not the exception. England was the most powerful empire before the war and even after she lost her colonized lands she continued to rule them through imperialism and associations like Commonwealth. Englishness was seen as a one-dimensio

     Tuncay Birkan, who is a translator and an editor, says in his article that even though there are many reasons to translate, like to know about your neighbor or transport a good piece of work and knowledge to the next generations; however, in the end, the translation is another way for humanity to dominate each other. He claims that dual translations were done because the vassal state had to keep up with the powerful state, and he is not wrong thinking that the first known written translation in history was the peace treaty between the Hittite Empire and the Egyptian Kingdom.      Concerning the politics of translation, translators are seen as cold and judgy. The Italian expression becomes a cherry on top: ‘’traduttore traditore (translator, traitor)’’. Translators are seen as the subcontractors of the imperial powers. While powerful stranger conquers the lands, translators are seen as the conqueror of the minds through narratives. The powerful usually tries to conquer the languag

  Ever since people discovered that they would not fall when they came to the end of the world, the infinity of the faraway lands and seas became much smaller while the infinity of the lands and the seas inside of the human soul became wider. The novel is the first genre that dealt with the different dimensions of the human soul and its characteristics.     The birth of the novel is usually associated with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the middle class which paved the way for women to have more free time in the house to read. In the preface of his novel, Cervantes talks about this idle reader, the reader who has the time to read for fun. Although the novel is associated with the middle class, the middle class do not want to read themselves and Terry Eagleton explains this irony in his book The English Novel as ‘’The common people do not wish to see their own faces in the mirror of art. They have quite enough ordinary life in their working hours without wanting

            Ecocriticism is a field of literary study that considers the relationship between humans and the environment. Ecocriticism is a literary response to environmental concerns. It addresses the issues of human responsibility for animals, along with debates over the ethics of their captivity. Therefore, these three poems can be taken as ecocritical studies.        Over the years scientists tried to create awareness about climate change and the human effect on it with documentaries and graphics. However, graphics only stimulates the human brain but it takes more than wit to take action for humans. It has to affect the heart, so to say, the conscience. These poems do not try to give a lesson. They try to make their audience feel guilty, for not taking any action.         For example, The Panther and Caged Bird address the issues of zoos. Zoos are the extent of human desire to hold control over nature. Human desire is to control nature and be superior to it. Zoos are the cen

    Referencing Ovid’s  Metamorphosis, the novel portrays Stephen Dedalus’ metamorphosis from a frightened confused child into a young man who is strong enough to face the unknown. There are five chapters in the novel and each chapter represents different stages of transformation in Stephen’s life. Every chapter includes the development of his body, mind, and his soul as an artist.     In Part I, as he is a growing child, his body changes besides his thoughts. We read how his mind is filled with ‘grown-up’ thoughts. He makes a list of his place in the universe.                                           Stephen Dedalus                                         Class of Elements                                 Clongowes Wood College                                                 Sallins                                       County Kildare                                               Ireland                                             Europe