For Friday: Islamic Poetry, Part II: Tukaram

For Friday: Islamic Poets, Part II: Tukaram (pp.1601-1605)

Note: This is your last set of reading questions!  Enjoy!

Answer TWO of the following one last time…

1. Whereas the earlier poems seem to speak of faith from the perspective of an all-knowing sage, Tukaram’s poems are from the perspective of a simple man who doesn’t completely “get it.”  What questions and doubts does he raise that many normal people can relate to in the face of the divine?  What are his concerns, fears, and hopes? 

2. As a peasant and farmer, Tukaram naturally drew his ideas and metaphors from the natural world around him.  Where do we see this in a specific poem or two?  How does he find the ‘divine’ in the mundane?   Or, how does he transform something a farmer would see day in and day out into a spiritual lesson? 

3. Similar to Kabir, Tukaram has little tolerance for religious hypocrisy and self-serving morality.  In the poem “The Rich Farmer,” why are the rich man’s actions acceptable in society and yet so evil in practice?  What can the poet see that perhaps his society cannot (or simply ignores)?

4. Many of these poems seem full of despair, as he asks God to “run me over,” or simply to “put an end to it.”  How does he explain this attitude, and why might it be a deeply religious one (in a certain sense)? 

For Monday: Islamic Poetry, Part I

For Monday: Indian Islamic Poets, Part I: Kabir, Poems (pp.1587-1594)

Answer TWO of the following…

1. How does Kabir’s poetry and ideas contrast with the other Indian work we’ve read in class, The Bhagavad Gita?  Though he is a Muslim, does his philosophy complement the teachings of Krishna in that work?  How might his poems express a truly Indian or “Eastern” view of spirituality? 

2. Through these poems, Kabir chides holy men for worshipping rocks or “[teaching] many students/their business tricks” (1592).  What does he feel is wrong with much of the organized religion of his day?  Why does he feel it is more of a “business” than a path to heaven? 

3. Kabir’s poetry is rich in metaphors, as it advises us to be an ant, rather than an elephant, or a “mosque with ten doors.”  Discuss one of the metaphors in a specific poem that helps us see the truth, rather than the illusion of the senses. 

4. In a passage that sounds a lot like the Daodejing, Kabir writes, “Accomplish one thing and you accomplish all./Seek to do all and you lose the one vital thing” (1594).  How might this share an essential philosophy with the Daodejing, and what do you feel he means by this statement—or others like it? 

Remember: No Class on Wednesday

Sadly, I cannot join you tomorrow since I'll be in Tulsa giving a lecture on science fiction.  However, we'll pick up where we left off on the Daodejing on Friday: be sure to finish reading all of the poems in our selection and bring the questions for Monday on Friday if you didn't turn them in already.

Take care!

For Monday: Laozi, The Daodejing

For Monday: Laozi, the Daodejing (pp.780-790)

Answer TWO of the following…

1. What metaphors do the poems employ to explain “the Way”?  How do these metaphors help us see or understand what it might be?  Are they all consistent, or do some of them contradict each other?  Discuss at least one poem in your response. 

2. Though the poems seem to be vaguely spiritual in nature, many of them are explicitly about running an empire, such as XVII (pg.785).  What, according to these poems, makes a good ruler?  What do people need to be ruled?  Does this accord with Western ideas of justice and democracy?  Consider lines such as “Exterminate the sage, discard the wise” in poem XIX (pg.786). 

3. Which poem(s) makes absolutely no sense to you?  Explain why it doesn’t make sense: what metaphors, words, ideas, or references seem to block your understanding?  Briefly consider what they might be (or be pointing to) in your response.  In other words, try to think aloud on paper as you consider why it doesn’t make sense and what it might mean if you had to come up with an answer. 

4. A constant idea that we find in these poems is “a thing is sometimes added to by being diminished and diminished by being added to” (XLII, pg.789).  What do you think this means, and why is it so essential for the philosophy of the Tao te Ching? 

5. Is the Tao te Ching against learning—or teaching?  We see over and over again the idea that “to know is not to know,” so what is the point of knowing?  If good words are not good, and bad words are not bad, what should one learn and teaching according to the work?  Or is there another way to understand this? 

Short Paper #3: The Nature of Faith

Short Paper #3: The Nature of Faith

For your third short paper, I want you to have a conversation with at least three of the works in this section on ONE of the following general ideas:

Q1: What is right and wrong, and how do we know it?  What ‘proof’ do we have?  Where do different works and cultures agree and disagree on this fundamental question?  Are they all saying more or less the same thing…or can truth vary quite widely?

Q2: Why are we here? What is the point of life?  Is it a game, a punishment, a test, or an illusion?  What should human beings strive for?  What should life/experience teach us?  While alive, what is our ‘duty’? 

Q3: What is the Divine?  What do we call it?  How do we recognize it?  What is our relationship with it?  Is it truly another being/force, or are we actually part of it—the same as it?  How does it speak to us? 

Some General Tips for this paper:

• Don’t just summarize what each work or poem says.  The point is to analyze specific ideas or words, and to explain how they relate to the ‘big issues’ of faith and belief. 
• Don’t use one faith to beat up another.  For example, it’s easy to say “these people are so silly to believe this,” or “they totally miss the truth when they say…”  Try to analyze and discuss how each work/culture answers these eternal questions, regardless of what you might personally think is right or wrong.
• Make it a CONVERSATION: imagine if the works were at a table, discussing one of the questions above.  What would they say?  How might they argue—or even agree—with each other?  What would you add to the conversation? 
• QUOTE: be sure to quote specific passages and examples from the book, and cite properly, according to MLA format.  For example…In the Bhagavad Gita, it writes that “Knowledge is constantly obscured/by this enemy of the wise,/by this insatiable fire/whose form, Arjuna, is desire” (739). 

REQUIREMENTS

• 3-4 pages, double spaced
• Answer one of the questions above in a thoughtful conversation
• Quote and use MLA citation
• Due in 2 weeks: Friday, November 22 by 5pm

For Wednesday: from The Bhagavad Gita (pp.726-745)

NOTE: Read the Introduction to the work so you understand the back story.  This version is only a small sampling from the larger work, and the Gita itself is a small part of a much longer work, the Mahabharata. 

Answer TWO of the following…

1. In Chapter One, what moral dilemma does Arjuna have?  What does he not understand about the laws of the Earth and how does he come to a very modern definition of what seems ‘evil’ to him about war and death?

2. Chapter Two consists of Krishna’s response to Arjuna, which lays out some of the basic tenets of Hindu philosophy.  Why does Krishna tell him that “If you turn from righteous warfare,/your behavior will be evil,/for you will have abandoned both/your duty and your honored name”? 

3. How does this work distinguish between the earthly and the spiritual natures of man?  If the world is full of “sense-objects,” then how is man to rise above them and still do his duty?  How does Krishna explain this to Arjuna—and to us?  Hint: what does the concept of “yoga” have to do with this? 

4. The Bhagavad Gita is poetry, and like poetry, uses the language of metaphor to explain the natural and supernatural world.  REMEMBER: a metaphor compares one idea to another idea, and often a very different idea (for example, time is money; love is a battlefield).  Find a metaphor that Krishna uses to explain something divine and explain how this works…what does this image show us about an abstract idea we might not otherwise understand?  

Final Exam Paper: A Literary Time Capsule (due Wed. Dec. 11th)

Our main textbook, The Norton Anthology of World Literature is like a time capsule from another world—the world of our collective past.  Once opened (and I assume you opened it at least a few times this semester!) it revealed the hopes, fears, beliefs, values, and emotions of past civilizations, most of which have vanished into the mists of time.  I designed our course to cover three main themes in the ‘capsule’—love, heroism, and faith, themes I feel we still relate to and write stories, songs, and movies about today. 

For this assignment, I want you to create your own time capsule to another world—the world of our future.  You will compile your own anthology of the present world, the world of your generation.  I want you to pick at 5-6 works that you feel (a) represent the best, or most influential, or most representative aspects of your culture, and (b) relate to the themes of the class: love, heroism, and faith.  These works can be in any medium, from novels (or other books), poems, films, songs, works of pictorial art, comics, video games, or even web sites.  These are not works from the book, but works that you live with and have at home, on your ipod, phone, Kindle, computer, dorm walls, shelves, etc. 

Your paper will be a “Table of Contents” to the works included in the capsule for future generations to read.  Remember, these people will know very little about your world and may find it as remote and baffling as you find the ancient Maya or Shakespeare’s English.  Your goal in the paper is to introduce each work, explain its story, themes and ideas, and analyze some important aspect of the work.  By analyze, I mean quote its language, or closely examine some scene or passage in the work itself.  Help future generations ‘see’ its importance to your culture and how it embodies one of the chief themes of literature—love, heroism, or faith.   You should also relate the modern works, at times, to work of the past to make comparisons and illustrations.  For example, if you feel a modern work mirrors some of Shakespeare’s ideas, show us where and how.  After all, future generations might know Shakespeare much better than anything we have today (just as we read Shakespeare more than any other poet/playwright from the 17^th century!). 

REQUIREMENTS

• At least 5-6 pages, double spaced
• 5-6 specific works from any medium or genre
• A careful analysis/discussion of each work, explaining its importance to your culture and to the themes of the course (love, heroism, faith)
• Some reference to other works in class by way of comparing or illustrating your own

 DUE BY OUR FINAL EXAM DAY: Wednesday, December 11^th by 5pm 

For Monday: The Popul Vuh (pp.1905-1920)

Answer TWO of the following…

1. The Popul Vuh is the transcribed beliefs of the Mayan civilization which represents their ideas of the divine, morality, and the beginning of all things.  Though written down in the 16^th century (when the Spanish invaded Mexico) it represents much older traditions.  In general, what are some of the significant similarities and/or differences between Part I of the Popul Vuh and the story of creation in Genesis?  What ideas does each culture share—or where do they most significantly differ on the beginning of all things? 

2. Unlike The Old Testament, the Popul Vuh is more about the interaction of heroes and numerous gods, resembling Greek literature and The Iliad.  How do their gods/spirits represent their culture’s ideals and values?  What relationships do humans have with the divine, and how ‘human’ are these gods?  Are they as manipulative and ‘childish’ as the Greek gods, or are they more remote and mysterious? 

3. What troubles do the gods have in creating the human race?  Once they exist, what further adjustments do they make?  Compare this to God’s prohibition against tasting the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis.  What anxieties/values does the creation of human beings express about Mayan culture?

4. How might the Popul Vuh relate to less religious literature—perhaps fairy tales and the folklore of other cultures?  What elements of these stories have you heard before (and where)?  How might they express ideas that have been used—and transformed—in other cultures (even our own)?