English Literature: novels, plays, essays, and comic books?

Many English professionals have debated for a long time in order to define the subject of literature. Via Dictionary.com the definition of literature is “Writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.” Wikipedia.org has a different answer to the literature question “the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letters), and therefore the academic study of literature is known as Letters (as in the phrase "Arts and Letters"). Dictionary.com says it is writing with meanings and ideas while Wikipedia.org says that it is the “art of letters” or anything that is writing.
As most arguments, the solution of this problem is not resolved by choosing a side but picking a place somewhere in the gray area between the two extremes. Most of us have a different definition for literature but most will agree that it is somewhere in between. This is the easy part, the hard part is placing exact words to the definition in order for it to say what you want it to say and others reading it will understand your stand point on every example they can come up with.
Literature- any media that uses letters to make a point, tell a story, or an idea. Many books that many would not consider literature will become literature upon this definition like: comic books, children books, graphic novels are just a few of the ones that can take either side. Left out would be things like: instruction manuals, ingredient labels, random gibberish, such things would be included when taking the Wikipedia side since it includes anything with letters.
Alan Moore, most currently known for “Watchmen”, “V for Vendetta”, and “the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, published “Light of Thy Countenance” a graphic novel, the book was on the border for whether or not it was literature. “Light of Thy Countenance” is written in a very high level of reading, and has a very profound meaning, but because it is a graphic novel many do not consider it to be literature. But why exclude this from literature? It’s a good read, and the pictures help with the interpretations of the reading. In order to get his exact message across he used drawings that helped create the point he was trying to make.
By my definition it is literature because graphic novels are a form of media that Alan Moore uses to get his message across.

runner of blades (i didn't want to use bladerunner as my title,and was feeling uncreative)

Blade runner was an alright film where the protagonist is a hunter of these human made human-looking machines. They were made for outer space but were found to revolt against the government so they became illegal. They were soon being ‘terminated’ not killed or murdered; but these machines were so human like the only way to get one was to bombard them with questions, not sure how they were able to spot one using this method but it worked.

These machines had super human abilities like super strength, smarts, and agility. But they were not exaggeratedly strong, smart, and fast.

They could endure more pain than a regular human, toward the end of the movie one of them stabs himself with a nail, hit in the head with a pipe, and his ear gets shot off, and during all this he doesn’t show much pain.

These machines also don’t show much emotion. The machine that ends up with the protagonist doesn’t show happiness, sadness, fright, she just keeps the same emotionless face.

And the last argument is being born or created. These machines were created with a four year life span and they were trying to revolt and live longer (they failed and they all died except one).

In the end the protagonist is about to fall but the bad guy saves him and tells him something about living in fear is how it’s like to be a slave and the memories he has but which will disappear in time like tears in rain. The bad guy saves the protagonist because he wanted someone to know he was alive, and for someone to know what it feels to be a slave. So that he doesn’t have to disappear as long as he is in someone’s memory.

The film was odd, not ‘requiem: for a dream’ odd but like early 90’s cheesy affects odd. The ending was a little unexpected I thought there was going to be an awesome shooting and chase scene but it was the protagonist running away from the bad guy. The bad guy could have easily killed him but didn’t he let the protagonist run away. This was a way to emphasize the moral of the story; we are all human because of our emotions.

My conclusion of this movie was that they were human. They acted like humans, they felt like humans, they were smart as humans and they looked like humans, they just weren’t born like humans. Even though they were slightly superhuman, and they weren’t born like humans, they were human beings.

RUR and Franken

In both RUR and Frankenstein:
Creations are made that aren’t born like most people
They are, in a way, human but at the same time not human
Created, not born
Frankenstein didn’t look like a human but had emotions like a human
While rommus robots look like human but have no emotions or feelings
The creations go out of the creator’s control
Science created
Both don’t tell you exactly how these creations were made
In Frankenstein the lighting is not mentioned
And in RUR the material that the robots are made of are also not mentioned
Both raise ethical questions on whether the creator was playing god
And since he was they usually get a horrid punishment

what about brain dead people?? are they human?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721450,00.html

catholic religion says anything with a soul is a human (doesn't include animals)
soul-spiritual energy that can't be seen nor smelled nor tasted or proven

Due Feb. 15 (3 days till my B-Day :)

don't you ever get really tired from sleeping all day
and just wanna nap some more??
anyway

Eng.3 assingment
Since I'm writing on what it means to be human, I was thinking of using several events/ elements of Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein".

The first event is being born, in Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein”, the creature/monster/what we in modern times call Frankenstein, was created or was brought to life by Victor Frankenstein but is this evidence of him being human or not human? Most would think that it is evidence of him being non human but Adam was created by God and wasn’t born, and he is human. (ch. 4)

The next thing is Frankenstein Monster’s super human qualities. People are human because of our limits that are rarely broken by a person. Having amazing strength, agility, and intelligence is proof of him not being human; like Superman looks like a human but is not human because of his superiority. (ch. 3)

The last thing is that the Frankenstein monster is a social being with emotions, senses, with the ability of communicating and has the knowledge to learn, think rationally and strategize. All these things are in our selves but in the truth animals have most of these qualities. Animals such as gorillas are able to learn a new language to communicate. Animals can feel hostile, fear, pain, and happiness. Dolphins are really smart and are capable of rational thinking. Mouse’s are able to learn how to go through a maze, and which door has an electric current.

These three things are about being born, human limits, and social/ mental capabilities; these are the main arguments that prove if Frankenstein is human or not. They are different aspects of the argument but together with enough evidence to back them up they will be able to pronounce a convincing argument towards Frankenstein’s humanity.

for Feb.2

In the beginning of the story “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, we are thrown into the story in an objective third person point of view. We can identify this because of the way no one is referred to as “I” and the fact that we don’t hear anyone’s thoughts. But shifts to a 3rd person limited/subjective mode around the end of the fourth paragraph by telling us how Peyton saw the stream as “sluggish”. This method of introducing the story is odd, but effective at catching the reader’s attention. By telling us what is going on around the protagonist but without his personal thoughts. By doing this the reader wants to know; why this is happening, what did he do, and who is he?
In part two, our protagonist is given a name Peyton Farquhar, and we are given the reason why he is being hung. In a sudden shift in time and place we are told that he was not able to join the confederate army, and being faithful to the south he wants to do what ever possible to help out. He is told that he is able to help by burning a bridge that is used by the north’s trains; but if caught by the north he will be hung.
In part three we are returned to the bridge. Peyton is suddenly dropped, and the rope snaps, he swims away, and runs until the next morning to get to his wife and kids. When he is about to hold his wife, he feels a “blow upon the back of the neck” and we find out that besides the first sentence part three was all in Peyton’s head; he died being hung. How anti-climactic…

Due: 1/26

Having the Halo scenery and the song “Mad World” adds something to the poem’s meaning. It gives visuals to words; the Poem is very short so there isn’t much to work with to know what the author was thinking when he wrote this poem, but adding the visuals it gives you one of the many possible meanings. Personally I enjoyed it, maybe because yesterday I saw the movie “Donnie Darko” and at the end when Donnie goes back in time to kill himself they play the “Mad World” song. So it reminded me of the movie “Donnie Darko”.

Having the Halo scenery and the “Mad World” song caused me to think the meaning of the poem is about war. The pointless repetition of war caused the halo guy to commit suicide. The song “Mad World” says “worn out places, worn out faces…going nowhere…drown my sorrow, no tomorrow…the dreams where I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had” to me this shows repetitive and boring routine and dying is his escape from it. While the Halo scenery portrays war and the ability to just restart the game again showing the repetitive. But when I read just the poem itself with out the halo or song, it caused me to think that he was committing suicide not for his selfish needs but because the river wanted a kiss from him, showing that he had others in mind when he committed suicide.

Poetry in pop culture: click to see the video
THE SIMPSONS - The Raven (Treehouse of Horror I) - 4 Translation(s) | dotSUB
In one of the Simpson’s Halloween specials they read “The Raven” but reenacted with Simpson’s characters. This makes the poem a little easier to interpret, there are some things that you are supposed to get out of reading it, but are given to you if you see it. This includes tone; tone is a very important thing in a poem so having it given to you makes it easier to interpret.

Hw for Thrusday Jan. 14

The poem “All Watched Over in Loving Grace” by Richard Brautigan can be easily interpreted in two different ways. The poem basically says that he is wishing of a time in the near future, where we build computers smart enough to take over our jobs. These computers will take care of us so that we can return to nature and they will also be part of nature. The discrepancy is whether this is an argument towards technology or against it.
I can imagine a world where we are all lazing around doing nothing because technology is doing everything. Maybe as Brautigan says we might go back to nature, we might get so bored of doing nothing that education becomes nothing and we all live happily back in nature.
Or maybe Brautigan is making an argument towards anti-technology. Maybe he thinks that technology is going to get out of hand and spin out of control that we are going to make ourselves obsolete that computers will kick us out of society and have to go back to nature. Or maybe computers are just going to control us subliminally.
I think it is more of an anti-technology type of poem. To me the tone sounds sort of sarcastic; he sees this world that does not look appealing to him, and there is nothing he can do to stop us from going there. There are these phrases that are in parenthesis that sound like if he is being brainwashed or it could be the voice of someone eager to see the next advancement in technology.
Upon some more thinking maybe he imagines a world like the matrix; where we are hooked up to a computer our brains live in a cybernetic world. Then the computer just takes care of us there. This might make more sense seeing the word choice; “cybernetic meadow, cybernetic forest, cybernetic ecology, programming harmony, where we are all free of our labors, watched over by machines of loving grace”.