#englisha

[david-ch]

A forgotten genius: John Donne

When people talk about geniuses, the first images that comes to their mind are about logical-thinking subjects, like science and math. Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking are some of the most remarkable geniuses in this type of knowledge. However, we also know about people that can be considerate geniuses in some other areas: in music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johann Sebastian Bach are some of the greatest exponents; in Literature, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra are some examples of geniuses.

Although we might think that geniuses are usually famous in their subjects, this tends to be far beyond the truth. The reality is that many of the geniuses, no matter which subject they developed, are forgotten as the time passed by. Some of them are later remembered by someone, allowing them another opportunity to be recognized by the society. If this situation does not happen, they remain in the shadows an indefinite amount of time. One example of a genius that was forgotten many years, and was later “rediscovered” is the English poet John Donne.

John Donne is considerate one of the greatest writers of English prose, nevertheless, he was only acknowledged with this title until the 20th century. He was born in 1572 and died in 1631, sharing a historical context with William Shakespeare. As a genius of prose, John Donne was still important for some thirty years after his death, inspiriting other English poets of that time. Notwithstanding, during the 18th century and most part of the 19th century, he was little read for being considered inept and crude.  It was not until the 20th century that Donne’s poetry was rehabilitated. Critics like T. S. Elliot and William Butler Yeats discovered in Donne’s poetry the rare, but beautiful, artistic fusion of intellect and passion.

John Donne wrote poetry that was, and still is, very uncomfortable for some people: eroticism, critics to the religion, and critics about the meaning of human existence, to mention some of them. However, we cannot deny that, despite he is not a poet for everyone, he is a genius of poetry that deserves to be remembered in the collective memory of the society, just as all of the geniuses that still remains in the shadows of the time.

[david-ch]

Through black and white the colors of the humans are revealed: Schindler’s List

Schindler's List is an American historical period drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. In this film, the Holocaust is portrayed as the ultimate expression of the cruelty unleashed during World War II. However, Schindler's List takes another perspective to this historical event: the film presents a German protagonist that saved more than a thousand Polish Jewish lives.

 This humanization of the main character during the most intense part of the conflict enables the film to develop complex characters with a well-developed interactions between them. This allows the plot to reach deeper levels of interpretation, so the complexity of the film is enriched, but also more difficult to understand. So, the use of black and white in the shots can serve as a delimitation for the viewer. This way, the lack of bright, intense colors allows readers to concentrate in the plot, instead of minor details like notorious colors, like reds, that can attract attention due to its nature.

 It is important to mention that the principal photography took place in Kraków, Poland. Spielberg shot the film in black and white and approached it as a documentary. Also, the constant use of black and white shots are used in order to put on the spotlight certain details that would pass unnoticed without this visual resource. The treatment of the film as a documentary also creates an environment of seriousness all around the film: you are not watching an action movie or a fictional story, you are taking a look at one of the most tragic and devastating event in the human history.

[david-ch]

The human nature in its darkest hour.

The human nature is one of the most controversial concepts a person could ask. Philosophers have tried to answer what is the human nature since the creation of philosophy. On simple terms, thinkers have divided the human nature in two opposite concepts: good and evil. Some philosophers think that humans are good by nature, but the society corrupts them. Other state that the human nature is evil, selfish, and destructive, and the society is the entity that guides the people away from that primitive behavior. However, if we search through the history of mankind we notice that there are not isolated behaviors: the human nature works as a day, having its brightest days and its darkest nights. Elie Wiesel portraits an episode of human history that can be considered as the darkest night: The Holocaust.

 Night, the book written by Elie Wiesel, is a work about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Together with his father, Elie impregnates in the pages the horrors that he and his father suffered, as well as the psychological effects that this situation creates in his youthhood. Wiesel also talks about faith and how it is dissolve in the sea of violence and blood in which the Jews were trapped from 1939 to 1945.

 Night reflects this loss of faith in one simple sentence: The Death of God. This murder of the concept “God” is born of the disgust Wiesel had towards humanity: who can be so indifferent to know innocent people is being massacred and does not try anything to stop it? However, this blame to God also creates a contradiction: in order to blame God, you have to believe that he exists. With this, Night is not about the end of faith, but the beginning of it.  

[david-ch]

Night and Fog: a scar that not everyone wants to see.

Night and Fog is a 1955 documentary short film directed by the French film director Alain Resnais. It was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Something important to mention is that the title is taken as a translate from the Nacht und Nebel, a program of abductions and disappearances decreed by the Nazis in 1941. The documentary uses shots of abandoned concentration camps, as well as real footage of Nazi soldiers and Jewish prisoners during the time the camps were “operating”.

The question here is: why did the Nazis film the deportation and extermination of the Jews? And what consequences did the Nazis expect from filming these events? I cannot answer these questions objectively, but it is probably that the Nazis filmed that events because they thought they were making history (and in a twisted way they did) so they had to recorded to be available for the future generations. The answer of the second question can be that Nazis expected that the films were used as propaganda and as an example of their military power. Whatever the reasons they may had to film the horrors of the Holocaust there is something true: it is an important piece in the history of humankind.

Being said that, Night and Fog works as a social and historical scar: the wound may be healed, but the scar is a reminder that a harm was suffered. Despite the film having a graphic nature this type of footage have an intrinsic importance, so it needs to be preserved and not forgotten; not because it is positive or an example to follow, but because it is a reminder of the harm that humans can do to each other, so we do not commit such horrible mistakes again. Also, by forgetting this historical moments we are not only erasing a part of our history as a specie, but also the memories of the victims that suffered this acts.

[david-ch]

Academic integrity: is it really important?

Academic integrity is a moral code that reflects the set of values that an academic institution tries to teach to its students, workers and, in a more general point of view, the way the institution wants to be seen and acknowledge by the society. It states the way anyone should use information in a fair, ethical way: this includes the prohibition and sanction of cheating and plagiarism. Academic integrity includes values like commitment, honesty, justice, respect, responsibility, and liberty. They are the base of the behavior that the academic integrity enhances.

But that is the boring, standard, old-fashioned way of explaining a concept: defining it. Let’s talk about something that really matters in a practical sense: it is important to us? Why should we care about academic integrity? The first question has a short answer with a long explaining: academic integrity is really important to us because it is based on the principle of justice. Some people might not understand that, and they think it’s just a work, either way, they (the authors) are not going to get paid if I cite it (the work) or not.

Well, if you are one of them, imagine the next situation: you spend your last three years of your life studying an ant colony for a class project: you did not go out on holidays because you had to observe the ants. At the end of the class period you must deliver your investigation, however, a classmate used your work without your permission in order to deliver his/her project, and he/she did not even mention you in the work. Your classmate and you get the same grade, but he/she did not have to do anything and your effort and time used is not appreciated. How would you feel about it?

Just as the example shows, Academic integrity is about giving credit to the authors of the works you are using as a respect of their effort and time employed, just as you want to be recognized by a work of your authorship.

[david-ch]

Lady Windermere’s Fan: the other side of the Victorian English society

Lady Windermere’s Fan is a comedy written by Oscar Wilde, an Irish-born writer. The story is about Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is cheating on her with with another woman. She confronts him with it, not only denying it, but inviting the other woman, Mrs. Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Confused and furious by her husband's supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for another suitor, her friend Lord Darlington. After discovering what has happened, Mrs. Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband but, in the course of this, Mrs. Erlynne is discovered in a compromising position. This is when it is revealed Mrs. Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, who abandoned her family twenty years before the time the play is set. Mrs. Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation to save her daughter's marriage.

This play is a critic to the Victorian English society in which Oscar Wilde lived. Victorian Era was a period in which ethics and moral values were strict to follow in public, however, it is also known to be a time in which society broke that moral values in secret, and not so secret, ways. For example, sex before marriage was considered illegal, nonetheless, prostitution was common at that time. This hypocrisy is shown in Wilde’s play through several themes. One of the first themes that appeared is gossip. The play’s problems starts with a gossip. Although gossips were seen as a despicable action, it was frequent that rumors spread easily through that society, causing people to lose their reputation and/or their lovers.

Another theme that appeared quite smoothly, but not less important because of that, is the divorce. In Victorian society, women were not allowed to divorce. So, instead of that, they usually had to run away with their lovers to another place where their actions were untraceable. This was done so their reputation in that place wouldn’t be threaten. In other words, Oscar Wilde was inspired not by the fanciness of the English society, but for the enormous hypocrisy that existed in every part of the society of that time.

[david-ch]

A Midsummer Night's Dream: the  Shakespeare’s play in which everyone stays alive

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play written by the English playwright William Shakespeare. Unlike many of his best known plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a tragedy, such as The Jew of Malta, Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet. Instead, Shakespeare write a comedy in which three different stories converge at one point: the love conflict between two couples in Athens, the representation of a play by craftsmen, and the conflict between the King and the Queen of Fairies. It is important to mention that this play uses the magic as the engine that will resolve all the conflicts presented. Despite being an old play, A Midsummer Night's Dream is not as hard to read as other Shakespeare’s plays. This is probably due to the constant use of humor to make the story more pleasant.

The vocabulary used in this play is pretty similar to the tragedies William Shakespeare wrote. However, the language is less “poetic”, instead, he (Shakespeare) gives the characters a different way of talking depending on which story the character belongs more. This gives a break to the reader (yes, the reader, because we are talking about this play as a Literary text, not as a play per se) from the poem-like language we are accustomed to read in almost every popular Shakespeare’s plays. Nonetheless,   the use of the theme of love as the engine of a play remains in both this case and in some of his tragedies, such as the well-known Romeo and Juliet.

In conclusion, besides having the “Shakespearian” essence, if we can call it like that, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a unique play among its author texts. This is not only because it is a comedy, which is pretty weird since we have not a single joke in Shakespeare’s tragedies, but because of the use of some rhetorical devices that are not found in other plays of its author.

 SPOILER:

Shakespeare did not kill his characters at the end of the play. And I do not know if I am the only one who thinks this, but that was pretty weird to me.

[david-ch]

Can you understand the machine without seeing its gears? Character analysis.

One cannot fully understand how a system works, like a machine, if you do not analyze the several compounds that it has. For example, a steam machine that does not have water in its boiler is totally useless because an important part of the mechanism is missing. This analysis of the parts of an object or system allows us to comprehend how the things works and the importance that it has within the functioning. Although many examples of the performance of machines can be describe to ensure the mentioned sentence, this type of analysis can also be applied, and it is applied, in many fields others than physics or engineer.

In the specific case of Literature, this analysis has its own name: character analysis. Character analysis allows us to comprehend better the literary work by inspecting the physical and psychological characteristics a fictional character has, as well as its role and its importance for the work. By using character analysis, it becomes possible to figure out why an author decides to make character with specific features, enabling the readers to know the reasons why he/she wrote that written work.

In the case of “The Jew of Malta” by Christopher Marlowe, character analysis helps us to understand in an efficient way the play. At first sight, this play does not have much to tell that has not been seen before in other works: a story about a Jew that loose his money unfairly and wants revenge for it. However, if you look at it (”The Jew of Malta”) closely, you can notice two significant characteristics that are not common in other kind-of-similar texts: the first, and the easiest to notice, is that no character gets what they desire. The second characteristic, whose analysis belongs to character analysis, is that there are no heroes nor villains in the play: there are just people who fights for what they want/need.

In conclusion, character analysis can be described as a tool used to make a deeper analysis of a text or, in this case, a play. Like the gears in a machine, character analysis allows us to examine methodically one of the most important parts of the play: the characters (Really? If the name of this analysis is “character analysis” is obviously going to talk about the characters). But more important, it allows us to know how the play is structured and what is the importance of some characters for the plot and the development of the themes.