History through Literature

History through Literature

The following paper will demonstrate that one of the best ways of learning history is through literature. People do not like to memorize and in this case, with literature, learning history can be more meaningful for them. Thus, this issue will be explained in our real contexts.

First of all, it is a fact that lots of people do not like to learn history because of they have to memorize and recall all the times facts, events, process, and dates of the past situations. For instance, my experience at schools where I have been studying and assigned to work in, it is well known that History or Sociedad, as it is called now, is not pleasant to learn; because it is not relevant or it is not useful for them in order to use it according with their context, and so with what they think, need to live, to achieve their goals, and to understand their present.

Referring to this fact, it is important to know what is happening inside schools. There are many problems related with this issue. Some of them are how history is taught at schools, how students are learning history, how literature is understood, and so on. It is essential to clear what meanings these concepts have to develop the thesis set out above.

To begin with, I will give some approaches of Literature. At schools, Literature is perceived just as reading and more reading. Reading that does not have relevance for students’ concerns. This happens because teachers do not teach what literature actually means. Trough my experience at Literature courses, I have learnt that literature is the pure expression of cultures. With this huge tool I am able to know my past, my culture and, most important, who I am. Thanks to literature I am more capable to critic, analyze, develop, reflect, imagine and create my own world.

Although, I have built my own perception of literature, there is not only one answer of it. Other important fact is how people perceive literature to learn from it. To support this statement, Esther Lombardi mentions that “Literature introduces us to new worlds of experience; we learn about books and literature… this decoding of the text is often carried out through the use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach…”

Other problem of why people do not like literature due to they are not accustomed to read or be expressed, and still more to consider actually what they read or what to say. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to understand or create written works, thus, they do not like it. As Robert Louis Stevenson states, “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish." It is really important to analyze and interpret what readers are saying, thus we are able to learn how to express and at the same time to be interpreted.

Nevertheless, people do not learn or comprehend these approaches of literature. Therefore, people do not like literature, not even read and express themselves due to they do not know how to. Meanwhile, if we are learning history, we do have to read. Consequently with it, we should analyze, critic, comprehend, acquire, reflect on, and to question why events happened happened.

In this case, students’ perceptions of history in their learning process are that they do not learn what they have to. This happens as a consequence of what teachers teach. At schools, educators give dates, events and some facts of what happened in the past, but not why they occurred. History is not a bag full of dates and facts. This is more related with human beings and their memory. I refer memory in terms of humans’ experiences, learning and comprehension, not a way of memorization.

There are a lot of definitions and concepts of what history is, and all of them are correct due to there is not only one accurate answer of it. However, according to Malcolm X, “History is a people's memory, and without memory man is demoted to the lower animals.” And Friedrich Nietzsche adheres, “Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence -- not detachment and objectivity.” I agree with these two concepts of history. They state what teachers must know, history is not just objective, it is more subjective because it comes from us.

So, in accordance with these two concepts, History and Literature people can relate our history with some written works such as poems, novels and tales that being fictitious or real are more relevant for them to learn. For instance, if we read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, we realize Oliver’s story is fictitious, but it gives us facts of really occurred at the Victorian Age. Clearly, with this story students can learn about child labor, human rights, social inequities, Industrial Revolution, etc, that belong to our history, as well.

Other examples are the essays. Virginia Woolf wrote her essays and novels according to what she lived and thought, such as A Room of One’s Own. This is a very good example to learn and comprehend the social and cultural inequity and injustice between women and men that have been part of our long history. Poems express what poets saw in the past. It is really important to mention, T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, or W. H. Auden, in his September 1, 1939. This latter poem clearly shows the impact of living the World War II and what some revolutionaries such as M. Luther King, wanted to show to people. Others good examples of stories with history are some children’s literature such as Anna Frank Diary and Flowers on the Wall, by Myriam Nerlove, whom show the Holocaust through real stories during the WWII. All written works like novels, poems, tales, and so forth, want to tell us something. We have to interpret them.

To sum up, what I try to make in this paper is to show the differences of learning History isolated and learning it through Literature. Teachers must be aware of the several possibilities they have teaching a subject. In the case of history, if students learn it through literature, they are going to be capable to understand their context, and so they would try to change it for their better. In this way, students are aware of what Literature and History actually mean. Therefore, they will learn in a meaningful context what happened, and at the same time they will be open minded for their own world. I strongly believe it would be possible to reach the critical literacy at schools, through this path. As teachers we should transform students’ perceptions of the world to change and improve it. Critical Literacy lets us to involve the analysis and critique of the relationships among texts, language, power, social groups and social practices.


Works Cited and References

Crtical Literacy. English Learning Area. Especially for Teachers. Department of Education, Tasmania, School Education Division. 2007

Di Fligio, Gina. Teaching History through Children’s Literature. Elmhurst College Preservice Teacher. 2003.


Lombardi, Esther. Literature. Classic Literature.


Meyer, Jim. What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes. USA. 1997.

Ortega, Eliana. North American Literature Course. English Pedagogy. Alberto Hurtado University. Chile. 2009.

Trajtemberg, Claudia. British Literature II Course. English Pedagogy. Alberto Hurtado University. Chile. 2009.

What is History? <>

Outline - Final Essay

• History through Literature
  
  
• Introduction



• Body:


• Facts, at schools
  
• What is Literature?
  
• What is History?


• Sources & examples



• Conclusion

July 28th

I agree with Fanny's first perceptions from the poem The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, which are insecurity and exposure. Moreover, the line she cited: "APRIL is the cruelest month...” is very relevant to understand the suffering that this poet was feeling in that time, perhaps. As she explaines, this month is in spring in the northern hemisphere, which means flowering, love, happiness, lights, colors, and so forth. However, we can see that Eliot was not feeling the same deduction of the spring's meaning. And this can be explained with psychological terms due to some people suffer in this season because they do not find the flowering, love, lights and colors that most of people are living.
On the other hand, connecting this approach with the quotation, we can see that Eliot suffered with this issue, even though he was smart and had money to have whatever he wanted. Moreover, Eliot was critical to this destroyed world in the way of society and modernism which were in war. How can we make people understand that we have a beautiful world that we are losing because of individuality? How can we change people’s minds? Existentialism and individualism were the based on social issues. People acted without think about the consequences, even to analyze the possibilities to reach what they want without thinking in the other, quietly individual.
Therefore, wars exist. Having power to reach a social position to manage and make people suffer to control the world for what reason; for the reason of being naïve, guides people destruct the world without any sense of rationale.
There are many poets, as Eliot, who are shouting through their ways of expressions why we behave like this! What we gain from this! We do not understand that with that greed and ambition the only thing we will reach are the death, but not only mine.

T. S. Eliot

What a difficult poem to read! It confuses me. Its many voices make me feel to be lost sometimes. It is well-known this poem, The Waste Land, was written in a period among the two worst wars in the world and the changes of world’s economy. Obviously, these facts influenced so much in this Eliot’s work. It is really amazing to see how Eliot portraits these facts in this poem. But it needs lots of analyzing to catch these ideas.

First of all, we know Eliot was a very smart person, who studied many things related to science, history, philosophy, and literature, among others. Therefore, in this poem, Eliot mixed many concepts of these subjects in The Waste Land. However, what meaning did Eliot give to this title?

From my point of view, this title means the land that men waste in terms of men have missed a beautiful nature land to destroy it with wars, industries, pollution, cities, greed, and so on. Where is this land? This land is disappearing every day with humans’ neglects.

Nevertheless, there are some people who want to change and stop this destroying, as Eliot states in his poems, especially this one which war is highlighted. Thinking in changes and try to change this society is very difficult because this world is full of fears and insecurities. This is a constant fight as personal (thoughts) as social. It is really important to see beyond what are in front of us, trying to find the true. We have to analyze and question all things control us. I know what I wrote is very difficult to understand, but now I have more understanding of this poem and Eliot’s position.

The "Moneydernism"-Horse Winner

Money, money... This word has been the word that I have heard almost all the time in my entire life. People are so blind because of greed and ambition to have and have material things which at the end kill them. In The Rocking-Horse Winner, Lawrence states the story of a family who loses everything, even love because of money. My mother is always mentioning, “You don’t understand that without money we can’t eat, have what we want, things for the house, and so on.” Unfortunately, she is right. However, this is true due to this material world. Industrialism has made worse people rather than improving it. This is a very difficult issue. D.H Lawrence knew this so well. He lived it. He hated it.
Nowadays, love is in this system of ‘Moneydernism’ (I gave this name to this situation) . For example, you have to be in love of someone who has a good standard and high socio-economic condition, etc. why? Where are the others? This provokes me to fall in the deepest hopeless, and makes me more difficult the possibility to change this world.
Lawrence suffered because of materialism, modernism, individualism, and industrialism; so he wanted to show this problem in his works to try making changes in people’s minds.

VI WO: Gender Issues

I was always thinking about equality between men and women. Since I have memory, I have had problems with men and women’s differences. Machismo has been the main problem in my life. Therefore, after discussions I have always ended in my own room crying alone, thinking in the possibility of having more equality and fairness in my family. Possibility which hopelessly I have not found, yet. However, I do not think in equality where men would be mistreating for women to have more respect and make justice. My idea is having freedom, without discrimination and differences. Women and men have the same treatment; they must be equal from thoughts to action. But this is very, very difficult to achieve, due to there is a strong though and even feeling of machismo and conservadurismo.

The interesting thing is, since I read Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, I could find the words that I lost to explain what I feel and think most of the times about this gender issue. She portrays differences and possibilities of changes among us through this essay. For example, she creates a sister of Shakespeare, called Judith, who was a great artist and writer. But she was not so respected non famous by the audience because of her … as I have felt and seen in this life and its around.

The Great Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist at the beginning of the Victorian Age and in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, inside the construction of Railways. This novel is a great example of the consequences of the urbanization of central cities: poverty, discrimination, child labor, orphans, rejection and class discomfort in society.
Oliver’s story portraits the child work in terms of he and other peers should work and the most of the time steal for other older people who did not have job, thus, they did not have food to eat. Therefore, this story shows a huge scarcity rate that is a strong characteristic from the Victorian Era. Progress is very ambiguous word that strongly belongs to this story about Modernity. I this time, progress or modernity had not occurred without child work hard and their role of the adults’ survival.
Other aspect that appears in this novel is about the good and the evil; Oliver as the good living in the evil world as Fagin committed criminal acts stealing to the people. In those times, people were losing their religion or their faith because of the scientifical discoveries and what they had been living, their bad experiences in life, in their society that mean disappointment and hopeless. So, Oliver experienced the life inside the evil, although he was there and it was so hard to escape from, he finally finished in a well way, I mean, in a better way of living than in the beginning.
Realizing what I wrote and what the story is about, I see our society nowadays as same as what Charles Dickens portraits in his novel. For this reason, are we more modern than Victorian Age society? Have we progressed in our social life? Perhaps, this time is more comfortable in terms of technology, but we still live what Dickens wrote 172 years ago…

"The Signal Man"

...

Frankenstein Jr.

Mary Shelley raised a very important topic to people, “accept or be accepted in the society.” While I was reading this story I realized that the world of who is not accepted is very dark, and it happens everyday in every place nowadays. The creature is a clear example of living a nostalgic life being not accepted by the society, therefore this story is so dark and gloomy.
This is what I learned when i read this story, we should learn to live with others in society as social beings we are. At the same time, I realized that I am not a close minded person who tends to separate someone because of his/her differences. I am an open minded person and I am able to tolerate “different people.” This is not about someone strange that does not belong to a social group, this means to find new worlds with this peoplo who is different to our customs and around, especially people who is abandoned by his/her family because of hi/her differences. These differences provoke Franky to live a social-rejection and, thus, a self-rejection which left Frankenstein grow up and understand his own world.
Although, he found a family which one he felt they were his real family, he was rejected by them, and fro the people who appear later. Franky lived a hell on his abandonment and rejection from the people and society. I think this is what Mary Shelley tries to emphasise in her story, about social issues, rejection, abandonment, and so on. And, nowadays, if we discussed this story’s issues it would be very interesting in terms of realizing what kind of people we are and if we like that, especially, if we, as teachers, could discuss these kind of topics with children, and it would be very helpful for their feelings and thoughts about themselves and for and with the world.

"The Daffodils" by Wordsworth

The golden leaves falling in a heavy fall after an intense summer are what daffodils mean to me. As the poet claims, “Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze,” this portrays the leaves of the trees which show the process of nature in its purest form, becoming the treasure of the ground that waits passively to get rich with the golden leaves after their dancing in the hostile breeze.

And the relationship between nature and the poet is the breeze that connects the top of the imagination with eager people waiting for the wealth of imagination and the poet's expression reflected on sheets of papers. But, at the same time, nature and the poet are related with the lonely cloud. The poet is in the earth as lonely as the cloud in the sky, as the cloud which is observing and expressing the beauty of the nature down in the ground; and as the poet who is observing and expressing in a beauty manner what he feels from the natural relationship aming people in society.

Finally, what I inerpreted in “A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company,” is the poet falling in love of his similar, the poet being the man looks at nature as his similar... there is not an opposite, being the poet similar to nature as the company in its way of working in the world.

"When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be" by Keats

Reading the first verse of the Keans’ poetry I thought it opens our eyes in terms of any moment we will cease to be for and with the world. The biggest fear we have as human beings is the death and the way we will disappear from our world, though we are surely going to live the death process.

According to my interpretation about what Keans tries to express, the following verses are the attempt to describe the feelings and the despair to think in the death, but not only in the death itself, thinking in the minutes before the death's appearance. Imaging and feeling the fears and the despair that you can not be with your love ones anymore, because death comes without desiring it. Without knowing that your time and your life in the world is completed, everything that you had to live it is already done, however you feel it is not like this, you still need life to live; as a result of our feelings to the others and to some moments that make us to feel alive, thus we are trapped in this world hindering death’s way and work.

I think that feelings are what make us to feel alive, but we have to leave this world physically ti is the process of the life. Even though, we can still be alive in the people's minds, our acts in the world are what people is going to remember of us.

Kubla Khan

How to understand a poem is something too difficult to do, even more if people are every day reading less. Furthermore, poetry needs a lot of interpretation, imagination and history, and with all technology we have makes more difficult to understand it, because everything people need is on internet and so people make less effort according to what they want to do. Therefore, it's more difficult to comprehend what Samuel T. Coleridge wants to say in his poems, such as "Kubla Khan".
This poem is a huge representation among divinity, paradise, superiority, and the terrenal world. Although, this poem was written many years ago, these simbols or representations are still in our minds. Meanwhile, you are reading this poem you are realizing that all of us need our oun paradise but according to our perspective and what we want for us that could bring us calm and peace. However, this paradise is not so far away, we can make it real; but we have to be opened to our world and see what the Earth can give us, and it can make possible to give our paradises if we can and want to see it. Nevertheless, living in this terrenal world, especially in cities like Santiago, makes us to live blind of the beauty we have.
In sum, people are facing two important elements that do not leave them to live in their paradise, such as this terrenal world/terrenal life and the technology nowadays. However, Coleridge is showing us that we can se our paradise and we can live our divinity with the superiority but if we are stipulated to see it. We ca live our calm and peace, peradise, and divinity if we want to see it, because it is in front of us.

"The Little Black Boy" Poem

This poem written by William Blake is a clear example of christianity and faith of God's love. Moreover, this author talks a lot about nature and all things that belong to it. For instance, in nature we have all living things evolve in our world and every peer has family in some sense, thus in terms of mather and children there is a big love. God, as our father, loves us blindly; so William portrayts this enormous value in this poem with the story of this boy.
On the other hand, William shows a chain of conections among the superiority, nature and humans, for example humans receive God's love with nature elements such as air, flowers, lights, sunshine, and so on. Through nature God gives his big love to humans, and that same love, mothers give their children.
Having this perspective from this poem, there is other author that reminds me about this chain or connection, his name is Salvador Dali and his incredible painting called " La Madonna de Port Lligat". This painting showed me the same feelings of what I read. The images of divinity and supremacy between God, Nature and "mothers" who give love to the world, to humans beings. Each element is esential to have peace, beauty and love.