First off, I just want to say that I enjoyed class today. I love this class it's bringing a new light to the English language. Let me tell you, I was kinda intimidated of English before now. Now, I have a whole new light on things. When in your life have you ever been in a class where the teacher tells you to actually express how you feel about what your learning? It's rare and I'm excited. Now I'm in my element.
I had a few thought come up during my reading of pages 1-24 and all the poems. The theme of irony stuck out to me. I thought, what is irony? and looking further into it i found that there is really no easy way to describe it. when I think of something as being ironic I think of learning something valuable after the fact or the event has taken place. on page 6 of out book there's a good example. "Where fighting is called battle-play." Yeah that is kinda funny because when I think of playing I think of having fun. Positive things flow form playing, childhood for example. On the contrary, when I think of fighting I think of negative things like death and divorce. From my own vantage point and passed experience the words mean different things to different people. The whole thing is ironic because the words are almost opposite but they are supposed to mean the same thing. Like Voltaire talking about eating babies to feed the starving people of Ireland during the potato famine. When I fist read that (not in this class) I thought that he was serious but he was seriously rebuking the citizens for their lack of common sense. i mean, come on, is anyone really going to eat their baby? absolutely not. Now that is ironic.
I was really interested in the fact that all of the literature we read for class had the underlining theme of God. It must have been the time period because now a days it's rare to find people writing about him on purpose. I believe that people do end up writing about God with out knowing it. Although, I'm glad that the class discussion went the way it did today.