Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood.

After reading some of Margaret Atwood's texts, I realized that she always includes Canada in them, either she describes some of the culture or important aspects (just like in "Tour-de-farce") or she just mentions the name and relates it with the rest of the text (just like in "Happy Endings"). Somehow I've learned how she admires the country she was born in and how she compares Canada with other countries such as England. I bet she is proud to be Canadian and that is one of the things I appreciate about her because instead of talking how wonderful are other countries, she talks about her natal country and makes me want to go to Canada, on the other hand, it can also be boring because everything she's relating everything with some Canadian aspects, excluding the rest of the world. But in "Tour-de-farce", even though its pretty obvious that she misses Canada, when she moves to England she realizes how much she loves her natal country but has to accept a different culture and needs to get used to it. 

Post-modernism.

What I've learned about post-modernism is a way to explain reality. It looks for a way to explain that reality and is not only how humans see or understand about it. In Post-modernism, the mind tries to understand its own reality, this is why is skeptical of explanations or arguments that claim to be valid for all groups because is focused in each person and how they consider something to be valid or true. 
The interpretations is essential in Post-modernism because as I mentioned before, it depends on each person how they consider something to be valid, so the interpretation is the most important thing because through them we can see what the world means to us and, therefore we can see how reality is constructed, individually. 

"Post-modernism cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself." 

-Richard Tarnas (philosopher) 

Atwood and post-modernism?

 Relating post- modernism with Margaret Atwood, we can see that some of her texts contain a lot of post-modernism aspects in them, for example, in "Happy Endings" is not necessary to analyze if the text is valid or not because we can get a personal interpretation of that and give it our own validity. Another example is "Tour-de-farce", because in this text we can see that there are some important aspects of post-modernism such as self-awareness, intertextuality, deconstruction and pastiche. 

John Donne's poetry.

"The Sun Rising" and 

"The Canonization".

During this last period, in my Literature class, we've been analyzing John Donne's poetry, and two of the poems that we analyzed are "The Sun Rising" and "The Canonization". After reading them, my impressions about Donne's work didn't change at all, because the first Donne's poem that I read was "The Flea", so I realized that he has the same "essence" in all his poems (at least in the ones that I've read). He uses a lot of rhetorical figures, and of course, his famous "wit" is always present.  

Somehow, Donne uses words that seem to be simple, but when you read it again and again you realized that they can have more than one meaning. I believe that decided to use a lot of literary devices to have an unique impact in each reader, because even though he transmits a message in each of his poems, at the end, everyone can have a different interpretation because of the words he uses. There is one out of two possibilities, either you totally understood what he's saying or you didn't understand anything, and again, it is all because of the meaning of the words that he uses. 

Also, Donne is recognized due to his majestically wit, included in all his poems. He had a genius way to transmit his thoughts, feelings and beliefs. 

For example, in "The Sun Rising", he uses a lot of hyperbole and metaphors, and the poem is about two lovers being bothered by the Sun, in comparison with "The Canonization" that also has implied the theme of "love" and/or "couples" and it's mainly focused on that, in contrast with "The Sun Rising" that it's mainly focused on the Sun. "The Canonization" is about two individuals that are in love and they tell others to not criticize them for their love. They state that their love is indestructible and everyone can feel however they feel about it, because their love is going to be an example for future generations to follow.  

Now, every time I read a Donne's poem, just by reading the title I know that is going to be about religion, death, love, women or sexuality.