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Aida Burzic 12 - 10 - 05 Eng 105 - 033 Opinion Essay I would like to dedicate the following writing to my mother, who inspired me to love reading and writing in every form. To me, quality literature can take many forms. It can be in the form of a poetic play, like in the works of Shakespeare, with long flowing sentences building a specific mood or message. It can also be sharp, witty, and short like the works of Twain.
It can also span across poetic forms. No matter the form, the vital part of literature is its ability to stir the reader; this is truly what I believe is the basis for its quality. No other artistic medium has the same ability to illustrate ideas within the heads of the audience in the same way that literature does. One aspect of literature that contributes to its quality is its ability to highlight larger issues, either blatantly or with hidden messages.
Quality literature can bring to light ironies and inconsistencies in society without directly pointing fingers, but at the same time its comments can be more lasting. True quality literature can act as a historical record of the sense of the times, whether it is class inequality in a work such as A Tale of Two Cities, or racial stress in a work such as To Kill a Mockingbird. The greatest test of whether literature is quality or not is whether it lasts, and whether it continues to ring true. The works of Shakespeare have obviously lasted, but more importantly they deal with issues that still affect people today. His plays deal with love, hatred, jealously, greed, and power, all of which still affect the daily lives of people in the present as much as they were a part of the audience's lives in Elizabethan times.
The great works show their quality because despite their age, they still stir the feelings and inspire the thoughts of the audience. The true quality of modern literature can only be guessed, but it will appear with time as people and situations change. If they still have the same ability to make the audience laugh and cry, or think about their own lives and moral beliefs, then they will have proven their status as quality literature. The first writing that I will discuss is My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke. The following is a short excerpt from that work: The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; but I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance could not unknown itself.
The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle... This poem is written from the point of view of a young boy. He recalls waltzing with his drunken father. His father's breath smelled of the whiskey he'd been drinking, his moves were clumsy and abusive, and the son clung to his father "like death out of both love and fear.
In all, the poem discusses a young boy dealing with an alcoholic father. It expresses the pain and fear that the boy feels, as well as touches on the difficulty that his mother has with the situation. I believe that this poem would be an excellent choice as a reading for next semester's class. First of all, as a poem it could be used as a wonderful example of different concepts in poetry.
It has a kept, set form that is easily recognized. The poem consists of four quatrains, with each line being an iambic trimeter. Its pattern of rhyme is between the first / third lines and second / fourth lines in the quatrain and this is maintained. There are stresses on words such as dizzy and easy, and on buckle and the word knuckle gives the poem an almost playful feel. Far more importantly than learning about the technical aspects of poetry, this particular poem can serve to address other issues. As I mentioned in the previous essay, quality literature has the ability to touch on important issues.
This poem covers the issues of alcoholism and abuse, and their place within families. This topic, unfortunately, is one that is somewhat timeless in that it will continue to be an issue into the future. It will continue to speak to readers no matter when they are reading it, whether that is in the present or 100 years from now. This particular poem covers this subject well in that it works through a large metaphor. It never addresses the problems that it is describing directly; Roethke never directly says that the father is alcoholic or abusive, but instead describes it through his clumsiness in the waltz. I also believe that addressing this particular subject would be a good idea for the class, as alcohol abuse continues to be a major social issue.
Alcoholism can be harder to break and significantly more damaging to the health of the individual than dependence on most other addictive substances and drugs. The physical symptoms of withdrawals from alcohol can be quite severe and dangerous, with extreme cases resulting in death, and this speaks nothing to the damage that is done to the family and friends around the alcoholic. Alcohol abuse is a growing social issue, with greater rates of teenage and college binge drinking being reported. Even talking about the issue of alcohol abuse in a small way such as using a poem like this is a positive thing; any bit of awareness that can be raised is part of solving this problem and helping to avoid problems when the opportunity to abuse alcohol appears. This pm was written by Theodore Roethke was a American poet that was born in 1908, and died in 1963.
During his lifetime, he published several volumes of poetry, which was well known for its rhythm and his use of natural imagery. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his book The Walking in 1954, which was similar in theme to his work from the late 1940 's, but signaled his return to formalist verse because it was composed in the complex villanelle pattern. The Walking included some of his major works, including Elegy for Jane and Four for Sir John Davies, which he modeled after the poet Davies's poem Orchestra. Roethke continues to be an influence for many poets, particularly those from the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
His work would be an excellent choice for future classes, because it shows very high quality American poetry from the first half of the last century. It also shows the different influences on American poetry from specific regions of the country. The second writing that I will discuss is Two Kinds by Amy Tan. The following is a short excerpt from that work: My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America.
You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous. "Of course, you can be a prodigy, too, " my mother told me when I was nine. "You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know?
Her daughter, she is only best tricky. " America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. Things could get better in so many ways. The story of Two Kinds is set in San Francisco, and it is about a young girl coming of age in a family that has just recently immigrated from China. It is told from the point of view of a grown adult woman looking back on her own experiences from childhood.
It gives a very good double perspective, which both allows the hindsight and judgement of the mature, grown woman, and also throughout most of the story it gives the perspective of the child, which has the innocence and freshness of a youth working to discover and create her own identity. The child's perspective comes through strongest in this story during the dialogue, and in the other places the woman's perspective comes through, describing the past and how she felt, as well as the other facts that made up the situations. This is one such instance: The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a pointed foot, sweep to the side, bend left leg, look up, and smile. My parents invited all the couples from their social club to witness my debut.
Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. I believe that this story would be a good addition to the readings in this class for the future, because it is something that everyone can relate to. Most everyone has a parent or relative that has expectations that are hard to live up to. This is especially true for people when they are children, because there are so many different things that need to be learned an mastered, and if a child cannot keep up with the expectations that they are dealt, it can be really devastating and that person holds onto the memory until long after he or she has grown up.
This story is also an example of quality literature in the form of a short story. It demands an emotional response from its reader by bringing him or her along through the hope and disappointment of the young girl, and explaining these emotions thoroughly by showing their effects throughout the rest of the girl's relationship with her mother, even after her death. This story also explores cultural values. High expectations for children occur in families from every cultural background, but this is pointedly an issue within Chinese families. Finally, this particular story is an excellent example because it gives a very clear order to the life experience of the main character within the time and word restraints of a short story. This makes it a very interesting specimen to study its literary elements.
The author, Amy Tan, is a Chinese American writer who was born in 1952. She credits her mother as the inspiration for her work, because she often uses the clash of traditional Chinese customs and values with American customs and values as a foundation for her writing, as was seen in this particular short story. She was born in Oakland, California as the daughter of two Chinese immigrants, like the main character of her story. Another personal fact that often plays a part in her work is her battle with depression; it was actually the reason she began writing fiction, because her therapist fell asleep in a session in 1985, so she quit therapy and replaced it with fiction writing. She is best know for The Joy Luck Club, which was made into a movie, and she is now a member of the garage band Rock Bottom Remainders, along with writers Stephen King and Dave Barry.
Free research essays on topics related to: works of shakespeare, alcohol abuse, theodore roethke, amy tan, point of view
Research essay sample on Works Of Shakespeare Point Of View
