Month: October 2018

20:03 – 20:54

This was my favorite interpretation I have seen of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” for two reasons.  I think it depicts the scenes with amazing imagery that really shows what Whitman was trying to say.  This particular section of the video is of Section number 12 which is also my favorite part in this piece of literature. This is particularly my favorite because this summer my boss was giving a speech to us and one of the things he said was how there are three things in the world that you can watch forever.  Water, Fire, and someone else working, and this clearly represents that, where Whitman is displaying how he was transfixed by the butcher and the blacksmith’s working and that reminded me of that speech that my boss had given me and my peers.  And this video shows that in an amazing way, the hammer forging something on the anvil.  All of the sparks flying from the blow of the hammer, the man holding the hammer in front of the flames, you can clearly see how anyone could become easily transfixed by that work, and it really brought that speech that I experienced to life.

All of the words really flowed exceptionally from the woman’s voice, into your ears and were truly being enhanced by the imagery.  As she reads the line, “there is a great heat in the fire” you are stuck transfixed on a picture of a red hot glowing piece of steel which really brings that to life, you can see the heat that is coming off of that piece of steel, and you can see exactly what Whitman must have been seeing at the time and everything is brought to life.

Don Quixote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9IhfIVPtWw

 

:25 – 1:07

 

Here in this video these scholars try to explain a little bit into the themes of Don Quixote.  And these themes that they gave are really relatable and made the Great work of Don Quixote much more applicable to my life.  First Antonio Rivas talks about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’s relationship and he describes it as “the first bromance ever told”.  That in it of itself is a funny way to explain such a revered book, but also is able to relate the character to myself. While reading about him, I just imagined him as a crazy man, but when he explains it this way he is a lot more similar to me, he also had his best friend that he did everything with.  Mark Aldrich the next scholar also did a very similar thing as Rivas.  Aldrich talked about how Quixote was obsessed with literature, which makes him seem a little bit crazy but in reality, he just wanted to go and live some of those adventures.  As we see in the famous windmill scene, he just wanted to destroy some giants.  When his reasoning is put this way, it is much more relatable.  Having read books, such as Harry Potter and the lord of the rings, I always wanted to go on those crazy adventures and live in worlds of magic like those characters did, and I can understand why Quixote tried to put himself in that Mindspace where he was living out his favorite books. “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” The way that Aldrich explains this is a much more relatable way where he didn’t really lose his mind, but he was inspired by this adventure that could be had and he wanted it in his life, so he went out and found it.  He found his adventures.