Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Week 3

After reading William Shakespeare’s My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun, I hope that the woman he is writing about never had to read that sonnet. He is extremely critical of her physical attributes. The beginning of the poem is almost like a roast. You have crappy skin, bad breath, boring eyes, and a pale face, but I love you? That doesn’t cut it in my book. Someone will be sleeping on the couch. Ever since being forced to perform Macbeth in eighth grade, it is safe to say that I despise Shakespeare. However, I have to give him points for the brutal honesty in this one. Not what I would expect from the guy who wrote Romeo and Juliet.

John Milton’s poem was easily my favorite reading of the week. When I Consider How My Light is Spent made me think about real life issues more than either of the other two readings. When an opportunity is taken away from you, it is human nature to think of all the ways that you could have done better. At first I was deeply sympathetic towards Milton, but after reading a short bio, my sympathies were washed away. Milton worked for Oliver Cromwell, who was pretty much the English Genghis Khan. Cromwell is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Irish men, women, and children. Maybe Milton’s blindness was a punishment from God for working for the Devil.

Nothing can be described in one word, much less a city. It would take at least paragraph for me to describe the chair I am sitting in right now. Elizabeth Gilbert’s segment “One Word,” claims that each city has a word to describe it. She then goes on to say that every person has “a word.” Again, I am very skeptical to the idea that the complicated nature of human beings can be condensed to a single word.

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