My Book List

My summer list is narrowing! Ok, I haven't read much yet, don't judge. When I'm not unpacking and catching up on Doctor Who, I'm reading Easy to Kill by (guess who) Agatha Christie. Starting a familiar book is like slipping into a warm bath. I knew I was home as soon as started reading it. I just reorganized my bookshelf and I'm here to tell you that it's more good looking than ever. And one my dear friends at college gave me an American must-read book list to make me get over my aversion to American Literature. The irony is getting too much for me. Here is her list! :

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Catcher in the Rye
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
4. Fahrenheit 451
5. Invisible Man
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. The House on Mango Street
8. The Sound and the Fury
9. Catch-22
10. Call of the Wild (okay, this is not really in my top 10, but I'm shocked at how many people haven't read it!)

I of course have read Mockingbird, 451, Huck Finn, Mango Street and Call of the Wild, but the rest are yet to be read. And at least 3 or 4 of them are on my big list. Score! So here is my list forming for the summer.

1. Oedipus Rex

2. Cuckoo's Nest

3. Invisible Man

4. Sound and the Fury

5. Catcher in the Rye

6. Catch 22

7. Shakespeare

Not that anyone reading this will really care, but it makes me feel better to make a list now and then. And I've decided to add to my repertoire of memorized Shakespearean monologues/soliloquies. Suggestions welcome. :)

Prosody

For some reason, I feel melancholy this evening. Don't read too much into it, but it's here. So I have some poetry, two of my favorites in fact, to illustrate my mood.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,	5
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,	10
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. John Keats Too bad I fail at formating on blogspot.

Research paper. Minus the Research. On electronic paper.

Hi.

My name is Melora.

I'm an English major.

And I think the Bible is a pretty amazing piece of literature.

Now, this isn't just because I'm a Christian, though this is certainly true. The Bible is objectively an amazing piece of literature. For one, it's the only piece of ancient literature consistently read by people who don't have a doctorate in literature or archaeology. Now, I have no sources to back me up in this..essay..., but most consider, say, The Canterbury Tales or "Caedmon's Hymn", or gasp, Shakespeare to be fairly ancient. Well, those are still centuries into the C.E. Think earlier. The Odessey? Plato? Aristotle? Congratulations! We've reached before Jesus' birth, into the B.C.E. Now think earlier. Wait...weren't there only cave drawings? That's an exaggeration, but the truth is that the general knowledge of Great Works before the Greek/Roman era is sketchy at best. Except, for the most part, the Bible. Regardless of the date the early works were actually written, the Bible traces a history from the beginning of time to roughly 95 A.D. which has been proved fairly accurate from archaeological sites and other ancient civilization's documents. Whether most of Genesis was literal, physical, metaphysical, figurative, allegorical, grammatical, or metaphorical, an Egyptian find dates an "Israelite nation" with in its borders around the time of the supposed Exodus. But we like to argue, so let's say that the Bible is mythology and fiction and simply based very loosely around real world events.Still, the quantity and quality of the Bible far outweighs any other ancient document. Sometime, take a look at the Israelite and monk scribe process. It's quite a painstaking procedure and a rather fascinating process. The accuracy is so complete that the Dead Sea scrolls only differ in a couple words from the copies we have today. The accuracy rate in major Greek/Roman works pales by comparison.

Now, say you aren't very impressed by all that above. You must be a huge Homer fan or someone who reads way too many ancient documents for your own good. (I understand, I have Caedmon's hymn on the background of my computer as well.) Maybe - hopefully - this appreciation of literature in general will compel you to look twice at the content of the Bible. Let's say Genesis and Exodus and even Numbers and Joshua is pure mythology. Wow. Those are some awesome stories. Actually, the creation myth has strong similarities with the Enuma Elish and Greek/Roman myth. Also the "Noah and the Flood" story is similar to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Please, just imagine the 10 plagues for a minute (or ten). A George Lucas movie version might have a larger revenue than 2012. Actually, it would be much better. The stories in the Bible are epic. And I think I'm gonna pick on Leviticus for a second. Yeah, it's not the funnest book to read in the Bible. (Or most fun. Pick your poison.) But the laws actually make sense. The animals the Israelites were restricted from eating are commonly associated with disease that can be combated by measures like fully cooking food - knowledge and practices that wouldn't be fully observed centuries ago. The laws on letting the lands rest every 7 years is pretty smart too. The problem of crops stripping the soil of nutrients wasn't recognized and dealt with by crop rotation until the last several centuries. A field left sallow for a year would help restore the nutrients. All of the laws also focus on the well-being of the community, which practically is a very good thing. The Bible also contains many different literature forms such as poetry, which is quite good. It's overarching and connecting theme from book to book and century to century is staggering. Even Animorphs lost it eventuutally. The Bible, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, depicts the same God over and over. That amount of consistency and dedication should impress anyone at least a little bit.

No, the Bible is not the only ancient religious text in the world. And I'm not trying to prove that other ancient texts aren't awesome or worthy of mention. But the Bible deserves recognition as a piece of literature that has withstood the test of time and has literary merit and, dare I say, beauty in its text. No matter what you think of Christianity, at least consider its text to be one of significant literary merit.