Recently, I finished reading 'Siddharta' by Hermann Hesse and I absolutely fell in love with the book. It was so.....refreshing. I can't describe it, but I can recommend it.
Anyways, when I finished reading the book, I looked up Hesse and saw that he was a German writer. Now, that sparked some curiousity.
What other foreign writers have such powerful text? Siddharta has the most wonderful syntax and irony that the book seems much too short. Plus, it was originally written in German, so who knows what wonderful meanings translators might have lost.
One book I've been dying to read is The Art of War by Sun Tzu. This book was originally written in Chinese in the 6th Century! Yet despite being hundreds of years old, it still has much influence over Eastern and Western military thinking. Why is that? Is it because the book is completely devoted to war? Or because the author (Sun Tzu) is some sort of legendary hero?
Or maybe it's simply because the book is Chinese and people always have a fascination of foreign....everything?!
Did you know that Ghandi was a writer? Me either!
But yeah, he had several published works. He usually wrote in Gujarati, though he revised the Hindi and English translations of his books. His writings were actually quite influential because he wrote about things from non-violence to vegetarinism. During the 50's and 60's, the ideas published in Ghandi's works were embraced by Martin Luther King Jr. There's also a Season of Non-Violence that's being celebrated as a way to embrace the non-violence ideas and works of Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi.
So this goes to show you that a little writing goes a long way, despite the language it was originally written in!
Click below to get just a hint of what wonderful foreign literature is out there. (Yes, William Shakespeare is foreign. He's British. He wrote in English that is so old, it can be considered foreign. So let's call him foreign for now. It's up for debate. But the entire list isn't made up of foreign writers anyways.)
Link: http://www.contentwriter.in/articles/others/famous-books-plays.htm
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Era of Good Writing
Link - http://www.underthesun.cc/
Albert Einstein once wrote, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
Dissecting this quote, I realized that it can relate to writing. If you look at writers and what makes them so great, you need to realize the time of which they wrote during. It was because of the timing and what they wrote relating to the issues affecting that era was what made these authors the kind we look up to.
One example would be Charles Dickens. He was alive during the Industrial Revolution, a great time for the economy and a worst time for middle class workers. He was also known for writing about poverty and disparity, knowledge coming from his own background. The Industrial Revolution was a time during which the lower classes suffered, and Dickens wrote about that. “A Christmas Carol” is bound to be one of his writings (that I know of) that implicitly tells about the readers about the poverty oozing out from the streets.
A more recent example would be Stephen King and his book, “Cell.” This book is about, well, cells and how this technology we all live in may perhaps one day be our downfall. Movies like “The Matrix” and “Pulse” (Japanese version!) have only enforced that belief. It is because of the technological advanced world we live in today is that we are to remember these books and movies because it is something that affects us directly.
There is a saying that goes something like, be the first in your group. I may have it completely wrong, and I know I do, but what I want to draw from that is the meaning of the quote, which is for someone to be the first in their group to do something in order to gain more power as whatever it may be.
Female writers of the 1800’s were just that: the first in their group. Instead of following orders of being the pleasant housewife, they decided to up arms and declare their independence, but with pens instead of guns.
Jane Austen.
The Bronte Sisters.
Louisa May Alcott.
Elizabeth Barren Browning.
Mary Shelley.
Women who defied society’s standards and wrote some of the best literature of any century.
And being the first in a group also applies to men, like Edgar Allan Poe. The reason why I love his work so much and why not just I, but many others consider him to be the greatest was because of the mood of his poetry. In a time when all was happy, Poe wrote about the misery of human nature. Call him ‘emo’ if you will, Poe wrote about the darker side of humanity and that is what makes him all powerful. He wrote about things avoided in a time where lying could and will put you in a mental institution. He was the first ‘gothic’ writer and he continues to be remembered decades later.
Era, timing, period, what ever you may call it. Time has an influence in writing. Today’s writers will not write about life in the 1500’s using Shakespeare’ words because that is not what will appeal to people and draw them attention as mighty writers. They will write about the concerns of this era, like war and economic crisis and whatnot. The writers of the 1800’s are bound to be the best of the best because they were the first in their group, the ones who experimented with literature, and in the end got results that will have them remembered for centuries to come.
Albert Einstein once wrote, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
Dissecting this quote, I realized that it can relate to writing. If you look at writers and what makes them so great, you need to realize the time of which they wrote during. It was because of the timing and what they wrote relating to the issues affecting that era was what made these authors the kind we look up to.
One example would be Charles Dickens. He was alive during the Industrial Revolution, a great time for the economy and a worst time for middle class workers. He was also known for writing about poverty and disparity, knowledge coming from his own background. The Industrial Revolution was a time during which the lower classes suffered, and Dickens wrote about that. “A Christmas Carol” is bound to be one of his writings (that I know of) that implicitly tells about the readers about the poverty oozing out from the streets.
A more recent example would be Stephen King and his book, “Cell.” This book is about, well, cells and how this technology we all live in may perhaps one day be our downfall. Movies like “The Matrix” and “Pulse” (Japanese version!) have only enforced that belief. It is because of the technological advanced world we live in today is that we are to remember these books and movies because it is something that affects us directly.
There is a saying that goes something like, be the first in your group. I may have it completely wrong, and I know I do, but what I want to draw from that is the meaning of the quote, which is for someone to be the first in their group to do something in order to gain more power as whatever it may be.
Female writers of the 1800’s were just that: the first in their group. Instead of following orders of being the pleasant housewife, they decided to up arms and declare their independence, but with pens instead of guns.
Jane Austen.
The Bronte Sisters.
Louisa May Alcott.
Elizabeth Barren Browning.
Mary Shelley.
Women who defied society’s standards and wrote some of the best literature of any century.
And being the first in a group also applies to men, like Edgar Allan Poe. The reason why I love his work so much and why not just I, but many others consider him to be the greatest was because of the mood of his poetry. In a time when all was happy, Poe wrote about the misery of human nature. Call him ‘emo’ if you will, Poe wrote about the darker side of humanity and that is what makes him all powerful. He wrote about things avoided in a time where lying could and will put you in a mental institution. He was the first ‘gothic’ writer and he continues to be remembered decades later.
Era, timing, period, what ever you may call it. Time has an influence in writing. Today’s writers will not write about life in the 1500’s using Shakespeare’ words because that is not what will appeal to people and draw them attention as mighty writers. They will write about the concerns of this era, like war and economic crisis and whatnot. The writers of the 1800’s are bound to be the best of the best because they were the first in their group, the ones who experimented with literature, and in the end got results that will have them remembered for centuries to come.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Longer, The Better?
Looking back at all powerful writers and all the work they've done, I noticed something: they write a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot.
Take a look at classical writers, like Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and Charlotte Bronte. They had books, written documents, and pieces of works with probably more than 200 pages. But does all those words really make a difference in how good the writer is?
Take a look at classical writers, like Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and Charlotte Bronte. They had books, written documents, and pieces of works with probably more than 200 pages. But does all those words really make a difference in how good the writer is?
Possibly
When reading many classic books by classic authors, I also noticed something else: description and details are every where. I've read books and essays and writings in which the writer actually takes up more space than necessary to describe the room or the temperature. It is exactly that, however, that makes the writer so good. He/She is showing up, not telling us about the scene.
In my humanities class, when writing essays, our teacher (Ms. Tran!) is constantly telling us: SHOW, NOT TELL!
These writers are doing exactly that with those long paragraphs, maybe sometimes pages, of description. They are showing us the scene they have in their head so that we can get the same picture. The writing is so long because there are so many descriptions that are to help us envision what we are reading.
When you are able to read a text and understand it completely, getting so many images of what the author has written, that's when you know that the writing truly is powerful.
But maybe the text doesn't have to be so long. Extraordinary details is something that can be applied to books, but not necessarily other kinds of text like poetry or articles.
Emiy Dickinson, Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman are all considered to be great, influential poets. If you have read their work, you will notice that their poems vary in length. Some are long, some are really short, yet they all have the same quality.
Magazine and newspaper articles aren't long either. Elijah Lovejoy, Margeret Fuller, and Samuel L. Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) were all wonderful journalists. And as wonderful as they were, I'm pretty sure they didn't write 15-page reports on women's rights or adventures across the nation. They knew who the audience was and where they were presenting their work.
The Longer the Better?
Eh, maybe. It all really depends on what you are writing. If it's a book, then yes, go for it! The more details you add to your text, the more you will be praised as a powerful writer.
However, when it comes to poetry, articles, etc., it's more about word choices and how writers manipulate words to still evoke the same feelings one gets when reading something like "Native Boy" by Richard Wright or "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.
However, when it comes to poetry, articles, etc., it's more about word choices and how writers manipulate words to still evoke the same feelings one gets when reading something like "Native Boy" by Richard Wright or "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Looking at Causes
We've all heard of writers (like Charles Dickens, J.K. Rowling, Truman Capote, and Lois Lowry) through out history who have been praised for their work in literature.
But what makes them so good? Why are they considered great writers? How does their writing stand out from the rest?
Let's look at the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein. This book has been published over and over, been a reference in anything from songs to movies to poems to stage, and has been turned into movies.
But why did this book stand out? Why was Mary W. Shelley such a powerful writer? Does her background affect her writings?
Now, we're going to look at the number of factors that made Shelley's book stand out. For one, she was a woman. That might sound like a really lame factor, but the thing is that she lived back in the 1800's. Women didn't have much of a career choice and were expected to be baby-making machines (who were married of course!). A woman's life was considered to be hard because they basically had no life. But one thing that made Shelley different from your average, typical woman was that she was surrounded by words. Her mother was a celebrated author, her husband was a famous author, and her father was an intellectual rebel. She was among powerful minds and loud voices. It is no wonder that she had such an imagination.
So, perhaps were you grow up, how you lived your life, and what you did in your life has an effect about how your writing turns out to be. It would be pretty ridiculous for someone who lived a wonderful, extravagant, luxurious lifestyle from birth till present to write about living at Skid Row when they don't even know where it is, how it looks like, or how it feels like to live there. Your background can have an impact at how your voice is heard in the words you write because the subject you write about may be about something that you know personally. Using the same wealthy person as before, maybe they could write about what it feels like to have a privileged life or how they wish for a simpler, more meaningful life. The person's text would be more powerful because they know their subject more personally.
There are other factors to consider when asking what makes a piece of literature so memorable. One mean, giant, humongous factor is creativity/originality. Shelley wrote a Gothic, romance novel about a monster brought to life by a scientist (whose name was Victor Frankenstein). This novel can also be considered the first science fiction novel, making it highly original. The name 'Frankenstein' was not made up, but the overall plot of the story is. It practically created the whole 'mad-scientist' genre.
The other factors, well, those are up to you to decide. What do you think makes a powerful writer?
Follow the link to read about the top ten writers through out history and see what makes them so good.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Hola!
And bienvenidos! (a little more original than 'welcome', don't you think?)
Anyways, there is a reason why I'm writing this to you, and it's not to show off my Spanish skills. It is to inform you a little more about powerful writers. But before we dive in fully into that without a helmet on, I'm going to tell you a little more about my AP class and why this blog is important to my class, though many of you readers are part of that class, so I don't think there's a need to go into that.
Instead I will tell you about why I chose 'powerful writers' as the subject for my blog. I chose this subject because I actually want to become a powerful writer, like Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, and other awesome people. I finding writing to be one of life's most artistic and luxurious....I don't want to say hobby because then it sounds like it's pish-posh and doesn't matter, but it does! It truly does! Writing is a form of expression and if you can't express yourself, then it really is horrid. To put it simple: I love writing, I think it's liberating, and I want to pursue it as a career.
So, when I saw that one of the topics for this blog was 'powerful writers', I nearly jumped. This would be a perfect opportunity for me (and you) to learn about what is a powerful writer and what it takes to be one. Here's what I already know, or what I think I know: powerful writers make for powerful speakers. If you can write one invigorating persuasive essay, than you can convince a crowd of people for what ever good! deed you are trying to do to help the world. You don't exactly have to be a people person to be a good writer, but you are able to talk to people. You could be like Abraham Lincoln. He was a powerful speaker, Gettysburg Address, so he was a powerful writer.
What I hope to learn throughout these next few months is how a powerful writer becomes so good at their writing. There was some times when I believe that they (writers) must be taking some sort of medicine or have a secret club or something, but I realize that a writer isn't something that you create. I'm not sure how a writer comes to be, but I want to figure that out. I want to know more about writing and how one could be considered a strong writer. One question I have is if writing is really all about the voice? Does a writer's voice affect how the text is?
I actually found an article which talks about the writer's voice and powerful writers. I would say only the first two or three paragraphs are the most important ones, but still. It's a good article to read.
So, without further ado, may you enjoy reading!
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