BBC - Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant on Life and Fate

Story of Troy - in a single quote or in four lines.

"Well! I came to Troy not so much for her sake as people think; but I came to meet the man who entered my house as a guest, deceived me, and like a thief went off with my wife" - Euripides - The Women of Troy [Trojan Women]

Menelaus says entering Troy.

Eurocentric Nobel Prize Committee

In 2008, Horace Engdahl, then the permanent secretary of the Academy, declared that "Europe still is the center of the literary world" and that "the US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."^[48] In 2009, Engdahl's replacement, Peter Englund, rejected this sentiment ("In most language areas ... there are authors that really deserve and could get the Nobel Prize and that goes for the United States and the Americas, as well") and acknowledged the Eurocentric nature of the award, saying that, "I think that is a problem. We tend to relate more easily to literature written in Europe and in the European tradition."^[49]

Application of Marxism on The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

Marxist literary critics tend to look for tensions and contradictions within literary works. This is appropriate because Marxism was originally formulated to analyze just such tensions and contradictions within society. Marxist literary critics also see literature as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is linked to larger social questions. Since Marxism is a belief system which can be used to analyze society at the grandest or most detailed level, Marxist literary criticism is ultimately part of a much larger effort to uncover the inner workings of society

1.      Title of the Book – The Great Gatsby:  Gatsby became rich because, most probably Cody – the owner of the yatch, left him money but at the same time he is was committed to earning money at an early stage in his life. And the adjective Great added to the word noun, accounts for Fitzgerald reason why a man could be called a great that is he struggled hard to achieve the love of his life by trying to raise his stature. The word “Great” is added to emphasize the fact that he rose from rags to riches, and this fact should be respected and valued.

Nick: “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that

Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's Business,

the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented  just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”

2.     Inner workings of elite class: Jonathan Wolff says in his article on “Karl Marx" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition) “Capitalism's dirty secret is that it is not a realm of harmony and mutual benefit but a system in which one class systematically extracts profit from another.”

Tom makes Nick see his girl friend Myrtle (Myrtle is married to the man who own the gas station – thus poor as compared to Tom). Tom has an apartment where he sees Myrtle. It the inner workings of society whereby Nick is Daisy’s cousin yet won’t reveal to Daisy that Tom is having an affair. Instead he himself uses Tom’s party to homosexual experience with Mr. McKee, although he had a girl friend in New Jersey and had an affair with Jordan. Thus the morals build around Tom and Nick are build around thin thread broking down by desires.

Gatsby, because he had struggled hard enough, foolishly tries to understand the workings of the rich elite. But it turns out he did not make up, himself with as a master conman’s character for the elite class, as a consequence struggles to come across as an member of an elite class. As Nick had suspicions that whether Gatsby belonged to the rich class or not and at the same time, Gatsby using a term like “old sport” doesn’t fit well with the elite Tom. And finally, Gatsby’s revelation that he only went Oxford for five months and “can't really call myself (himself) an Oxford man." Takes him out of elite class.

3.      Class difference gives power to Tom and takes power away from Myrtle:

Myrtle: "That dog? That dog's a boy."

Tom: "It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten

more dogs with it."

These dialogues shows the class difference and stature of mistress like Myrtle who get’s no credit for being in a relationship instead becomes an object to be used whenever Tom wishes. Myrtle says that the dog is a boy, because he saw in Tom a man who should follow his command. Myrtle through engaging in a relationship with Tom, sees herself powerful. But she had to come into contact with reality when Tom decisively says, and aggressively persues his point that the dogs’s not a boy, so to suggest that he is in command and not in control. Simply, because he can through away money not only for one dog but ten dogs. Clearly putting forward the point that, money can buy her emotions and she can have “more” only because he controls her, and not she. Myrtle is having a secret affair with Tom, and in class driving society, Myrtle becomes a product to be sold. Myrtle couldn’t bear to live with George, as he had rented the coat and gave it back after their marriage which devastated her. George is as much of an exploiter as Myrtle is because he never tells Myrtle that is poor enough not to buy a new coat even for his marriage. For Myrtle, George is like Clym Yeobright of Hardy’s in Return of the Native; a loving husband yes, but incapable of changing the scene, incapable of causing change. Change in terms of money and place. George couldn’t satisfy Myrtle need for change for the better and likewise for Eustacia, the Wildeve cannot produce change for her and ultimately she plans to flee with Wildeve, her only hope for change and a man wanting to uphold and raise his stature. George says to Myrtle “You may fool me but you can't fool God!” as to suggest that the class he belongs needs to be justified in someone eyes and God is there to catch you. George is helpless like Clym but at the same time blameworthy because when a relationship starts to build one should be able to understand each other needs, and if they cannot comprise even after they are married, as in the case of Myrtle and Eustacia – they must be given a choice to do the necessary bit, that is, raise their stature the way they want.

4.     Application of Marxism in the light of characters of Daisy and Gatsby: Daisy is also an opportunist, seeing Gatsby after a long time, her love did spark but at the same time her emotions boils down to her stragem-of-living, “the best thing a girl can be in this world, [is to be] a beautiful little fool." And that’s what she projects through his image and wants her child to be, because Tom had left after an hour when he heard it was a baby girl. Underlying view Daisy projects through her dialogues is that a female is powerless. And looking back as Daisy’s life.

5.      Exercise of Dominance through intellectual superiority: In Schooling and capitalism: a sociological reader by Madeleine MacDonald

“The intellectuals are the dominant group's 'deputies' exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political ... confidence … and “this consent is “historically” caused by the prestige which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.” Gatsby with his will power turned upside down his economic state, and most important he wanted a change because he knew where he came from, he knew his roots therefore to adjust himself in the world of New York elite was just another business deal, he successfully wanted to pursue – and Tom on the other hand being the former Yale football player cannot believe that how a name like Oxford could be attached with Gatsby. Thus, he constantly tries to project his thought over to Gatsby that he is not from the wealthy class, in a way, trying to exercise his hegemony. Economically powerful class, and in Tom’s case, an age-old aristocrat tries to push Gatsby’s stature down, trying to make a distinction between his higher class and his newly rich behaviour. Conveying the underlying meaning that elite class is jack of all trades, being physically powerful, a noble by birth and having the courage to inquire about Gatsby’s academic background, reveals that he is shallow and behaving in a such a way because he has to maintain his standing in society.

6.     Class conflict invokes Tom’s anger to the extent that he triggers George to kill the owner of the car:

Tom invokes Wilson to kill Gatsby when he tells who the owner of the car is.

In conclusion, Gatsby tried to prove the struggle to prove he belonged to the upper class. And through this stature, he could win Daisy. This notion of American Dream ‘every poor man can become rich or anything he wants, has been rejected in the novel because though he struggled to get his position from a teenage, making his life mechanically scheduled, yet he had to resort to crime in order to achieve his rich stature. And in the pursuit of it all, he was murdered by George.

STRUCTURE OF GREEK PLAYS

Prologue
Parodos
First Episode
First Stasimon
Second Episode
Second Stasimon
Third Episode
Third Stasimon
Fourth Episode
Fourth Stasimon
Exodos

NEW WORDS BY MERRIAM WEBSTER COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 2011

http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0031-newwords.htm

ocw.mit.edu - Open course literature

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/

pantheon.org - Encyclopedia Mythica pronunciation guide

http://www.pantheon.org/miscellaneous/pronunciations.html

Collaboration Theory

i was searching something and got ''Theory of Collaboration''
..i also got its critic's name it was new for me.


Leavis Frank Raymond
http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=CTJCiLG9AeoC&pg=PA401&lpg=PA401&dq=who+is+the+critic+of+theory+of+colaboration&source=bl&ots=3WV5GhnrFn&sig=MgNaihifkXCdcZqzk-nV8quS3jw&hl=en&ei=RUa3TtSHD8-F-wb6472EBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

ZA

Visual Poetry of the Ancient Greece

http://www.theoi.com/Text/PatternPoems.html

CONCRETE POETRY - VISUAL POETRY

Words are as important as the visual aspects of poetry.

"This is amazing! Yes --- That you should speak such words Amazes me"

Hippolytus says to his father Theseus. As he is in mood to talking to his son over the death of Phaedra (who has hanged herself).

I should've been...

   I should have been a pair of ragged claws
                Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Rumi was described... as ... read on... :)

In 2007, he was described as the "most popular poet in America."^[24]

Love Quotes

http://www.notable-quotes.com/s/sex_quotes.html

The way you make love is the way God will be with you.

RUMI, The Book of Love

What is the general theme of Rumi's thought?

"The general theme of Rumi's thought, like that of other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, is essentially that of the concept of tawhīd – union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut off and become aloof – and his longing and desire to restore it"

...

The lover's cause is separate from all other causes

Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.[36]

...

Rumi was an evolutionary thinker in the sense that he believed that the spirit after devolution from the divine Ego undergoes an evolutionary process by which it comes nearer and nearer to the same divine Ego.^[48] All matter in the universe obeys this law and this movement is due to an inbuilt urge (which Rumi calls "love") to evolve and seek enjoinment with the divinity from which it has emerged. Evolution into a human being from an animal is only one stage in this process. The doctrine of the Fall of Adam is reinterpreted as the devolution of the Ego from the universal ground of divinity and is a universal, cosmic phenomenon.^[49] The French philosopher Henri Bergson's idea of life being creative and evolutionary is similar, though unlike Bergson, Rumi believes that there is a specific goal to the process: the attainment of God. For Rumi, God is the ground as well as the goal of all existence.

...
The nation of Love has a different religion of all religions - For lovers, God alone is their nation and religion
...

Universality

It is often said that the teachings of Rumi are ecumenical in nature.^[51] For Rumi, religion was mostly a personal experience and not limited to logical arguments or perceptions of the senses.^[52] Creative love, or the urge to rejoin the spirit to divinity, was the goal towards which every thing moves.^[52] The dignity of life, in particular human life (which is conscious of its divine origin and goal), was important.^[52]

ملت عشق از همه دین هاجداست - عاشقان را مذهب و ملت خداست

The nation of Love has a different religion of all religions - For lovers, God alone is their nation and religion

Islam

However, despite the aforementioned ecumenical attitude, and contrary to his contemporary portrayal in the West as a proponent of non-denominational spirituality, a number of Rumi poems suggest the importance of outward religious observance, the primacy of the Qur'an.^[53]

Flee to God's Qur'an, take refuge in it
there with the spirits of the prophets merge.
The Book conveys the prophets' circumstances

those fish of the pure sea of Majesty.^[54]

Seyyed Hossein Nasr states:

One of the greatest living authorities on Rûmî in Persia today, Hâdî Hâ'irî, has shown in an unpublished work that some 6,000 verses of the Dîwân and the Mathnawî are practically direct translations of Qur'ânic verses into Persian poetry.^[55]

Rumi states in his Dīwān:

The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.^[56]

His Masnavi contains anecdotes and stories derived largely from the Quran and the hadith, as well as everyday tales.

On the first page of the Masnavi, Rumi states:

"Hadha kitâbu 'l- mathnawîy wa huwa uSûlu uSûli uSûli 'd-dîn wa kashshâfu 'l-qur'ân."
This is the book of the Masnavi, and it is the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion and it is the Explainer of the Qur'ân.

The famous (15th century) Sufi poet Jâmî, said of the Masnavi,

"Hast qur'ân dar zabân-é pahlawî"
It is the Qur'ân in Persian.

...

Recordings of Rumi poems have made it to the USA's Billboard's Top 20 list. A selection of American author Deepak Chopra's editing of the translations by Fereydoun Kia of Rumi's love poems has been performed by Hollywood personalities such as Madonna, Goldie Hawn, Philip Glass and Demi Moore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY - important lines

"The "rationality" described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and most philosophical uses of the word. For most people, "rationality" means "sane," "in a thoughtful clear-headed manner," or knowing and doing what's healthy in the long term. Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that maximizes personal advantage.^[4] For example, this may involve kissing someone, cheating on a test, buying a new dress, or committing murder. In rational choice theory, all decisions, crazy or sane, are postulated as mimicking such a "rational" [balancing costs against benefits] process.

The practitioners of strict rational choice theory never investigate the origins, nature, or validity of human motivations (why we want what we want) but instead restrict themselves to examining the expression of given and inexplicable wants in specific social or economic environments. That is, they do not examine the biological, psychological, and sociological roots that make people see the benefits encouraging them to kiss another, cheat on a test, use cocaine, or murder someone. Instead, all that is relevant are the costs of doing so—which for crimes, reflects the chance of being caught.

In rational choice theory, these costs are only extrinsic or external to the individual rather than being intrinsic or internal. That is, strict rational choice theory would not see a criminal's self-punishment by inner feelings of remorse, guilt, or shame as relevant to determining the costs of committing a crime. In general, rational choice theory does not address the role of an individual's sense of morals or ethics in decision-making. Thus, economics Nobelist Amartya Sen sees the model of people who follow rational choice model as "rational fools."

Because rational choice theory lacks understanding of consumer motivation, some economists restrict its use to understanding business behavior where goals are usually very clear. As Armen Alchian points out, competition in the market encourages businesses to maximize profits (in order to survive). Because that goal is significantly less vacuous than "maximizing utility" and the like, rational choice theory is apt."

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory

The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection: Top 100 Bestselling Titles

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
2. The Odyssey by Homer
3. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
4. The Illiad by Homer
5. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
6. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
7. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
8. The Illiad by Homer
9. The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
10. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
11. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
12. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous
13. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
14. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
15. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
16. The Odyssey by Homer
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
18. Candide by Francois Voltaire
19. The Last Days of Socrates by Plato
20. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
21. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
22. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
23. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
24. The Prince by Nicoolo Machiavelli
25. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
26. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
27. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
28. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
29. Utopia by Thomas More
30. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
31. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
32. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
33. Dubliners by James Joyce
34. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
35. Don Quixote by Cervantes
36. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
37. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
38. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
39. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
40. The Histories by Herodotus
41. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
42. Paradise Lost by John Milton
43. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
45. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
46. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
47. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
48. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
49. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
50. The Republic by Plato
51. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
52. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
53. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
54. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
55. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
56. Daisy Miller by Henry James
57. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
58. The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck
59. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
60. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
61. Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville
62. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
63. The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
64. Othello by William Shakespeare
65. The Awakening and Selected Stories by Kate Chopin
66. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
67. The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
68. Orient Express by Graham Greene
69. Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
70. The Illiad by Homer
71. Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
72. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
73. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
74. The Aeneid by Virgil
75. The Theban Plays by Sophocles
76. King Lear by William Shakespeare
77. The Symposium by Plato
78. Common Sense by Thomas Paine
79. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
80. All My Sons by Arthur Miller
81. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger
82. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
83. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
84. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
85. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
86. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
87. Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
88. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
89. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
90. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
91. Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
92. Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville
93. The Portable Dante by Dante Alighieri
94. The Ramayana by Anonymous
95. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
96. Sir Gwain and the Green Night by Anonymous
97. The Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche
98. The Taming of the Shew by William Shakespeare
99. Persuasion by Jane Austen
100. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

I had to include this review from amazon's reviewer about Penguin Classic Books Collection

By Kathryn Gursky

This review is from: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection: More than 1000 of the Greatest Classics (Paperback)
Apparently no reviewer so far has actually bought the complete Penguin Classics Collection. So here's a review from someone who has.

This is an orgy for a book-lover. I have had a wonderful time from the moment I placed the order. They arrived in 25 boxes shrink-wrapped on a wooden pallet, over 750 lbs. of books. It took about twelve hours to unpack them, check them off the packing list (one for each box), and then check them off the list we downloaded from Amazon.com. They take up about 77 linear feet.

I have always loved Penguin books. They are a special publisher, and I would not have considered this sort of purchase from most other publishers. Since I have already read perhaps a quarter of these titles in my life, you can see that I have an affinity for their selections. Penguin books don't just contain the text of the book. They generally include editorial material with biographical, historical, and bibliographical information that is scholarly, well-written, informative, and very useful in adding to the enjoyment and understanding of the book.

Why buy a collection rather than picking the books I want? This is like having books recommended by a good friend who knows what you like to read. Yes, this collection contains books I wouldn't have necessarily thought about picking up and reading. That is one of the real pleasures.

Why buy paperbacks when hardbounds will last longer? Have you have tried to put together a hardbound collection of over 1000 titles like this? It would cost a lot more, for starters. Not all are in print, even classics. If you don't like good quality paperbacks like these, will you settle for a foxed used hardbound copy? I will concede that the print is small. You can get a pair of magnifying reading glasses at any pharmacy for a minor cost. Surely no one is arguing that a classic can only be read in large print versions? I also like books I can carry with me, like these. Well, except for the complete Shakespeare (hardbound), or the Domesday book, or Clarissa, or a few other pretty big volumes.

Lastly, this collection has a particular appeal to me as a former cataloging librarian, which it undoubtedly will not for many people. I love handling books, reading books, and also organizing books. Just the process of taking these out of boxes and putting them randomly on shelves has given me hours of pleasure. Deciding how to organize them will provide more pleasure. Yes, I'm going to catalog my collection. Being able to pluck a book at random from that collection and know that it is almost certain to be worth my time to read is the best treat of all."

The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection: More than 1000 of the Greatest Classics

TOP 100 CLASSIC BOOKS

http://www.squidoo.com/penguingroup/Top-100-Classics

What is a poem?

writing.upenn.edu ... What_Makes_a_Poem

Analysis of Be The Verse by Larkin

http://phillerisms.weebly.com/1/post/2010/04/this-be-the-verse-an-analysis.html

Shakespeare Quotes

http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/quotes/quotes.htm

PLOT VS. STRUCTURE

Source: http://rickcooks.blogspot.com/2008/07/plot-vs-structure.html

"Basically, plot is what happens, structure is how you tell the reader about it.

Plot is linear. Structure isn't, or doesn't have to be. Structure should be chosen to reinforce plot. In other words you decide how to tell your story (structure) to get maximum impact from the sequence of events (plot).

structure is non linear"

The Architecture of Sophocles Ajax

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4477545

Personification of Cities in Poetry

http://www.eng.umu.se/city/isabelle/poetry/introduction.htm

Poets and movie made on them

http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/discussion/topic.html?topic_id=41107


1. The Basketball Diaries(about Jim Carroll)(This is a personal favorite, pretty close to the book of the same name and even featuring a cameo appearance by Jim Carroll-not only a fine 'street' poet but also put out 3 decent rock albums and spoken word cd's-recommend his book/ poetry collection FEAR OF DREAMING)
2. Barfly (Bukowski)
3. So I Married An Axe Murderer (Mike Myers as a coffeehouse poet-has a couple good(&funny) poetry reading scenes)
4. Total Eclipse(I forget who this is based on-only saw part of it-believe it involves 2 poets-Leonardo Dicaprio stars)
5. I Love Huckabees(again, a comedy with only a couple poetry references/readings by one character)
6.Sylvia(think that's the title-about Sylvia Plath w/Gwenyth Paltrow)
7.The Disappearance Of Garcia Lorca(Andy Garcia as Lorca-an excellent poet movie-unfortunately I only have a poor copy on vhs and for some reason this is only available as a German Region 2 dvd-If anyone has this and can burn a dvd copy(playable on U.S. dvd players), please contact me as this is such a superb movie)