Last week was focused on the elaboration of the proposals for the final project. The team was gathered again and we started to elaborate the components of the essay theme and thesis as well as the overall structure of the project. At the end of the class we decided to talk about the relations between the variations   of English in different English speaking countries in relation to the roots that made English be adopted by that specific culture.

Next session we saw the movie "the boy" a New Zealand movie that served as an example of the variations that different regions develop in the English vocabulary that they adopt.

          On week number nine and part of eight the group started working on an essay that was about a crucial moment for the formation of English language as we know. This moment in history was the Battle of Hastings, that it was mainly about the conflict between to William of Normandy and Harold ll of England. At last William emerged victorious   and due to that, the french nature of his army was to provoke the bonding of this two languages by adapting a lot of words and sounds to the English vocabulary, this is a really interesting fact because it explains how French can find itself in English even if the last is a Germanic language.

          This kind of informations turns to be really important to understand the evolution of English as a global language and its also a great fact to bring up at certain conversations.  After that we also made an exercise of lecture identification, by reading an anonymous card written by an assassin which also turned to be based on a true event. This kind of historical approach is great for gaining new perspectives of English and what makes it up.

During the last few weeks the class has leaned to a different path. By this I mean that we have been working on literature culture, specifically with Thomas Hardy´s novel Tess from the U´bervilles. We worked on an activity for recreating certain scenes from the book and then we also develop presentation for the book How English Became English in order to make some studying material for this text. This book was actually really intersting due to the fact that it explained a lot of things about the language and how it has evolved through time.

At last i must say that exploring English through its literature authors its a more complete way of understanding the culture.

Amado Gutiérrez Sánchez

Nico Jan Wiersema K. 

3 de marzo de 2017

Famous Writers Challenge

Oscar Wilde

Born 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was to become one of the greatest exponents of English literature during the Victorian age. He was a poet, novelist and a dramatist and developed a few masterpieces in each of this literature branches, as a matter of fact most of his fame comes form three texts; The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Although he also wrote other plays, poems and even essays, the abrupt falling of his reputation led to most of his work being diminished. 

From his early life it is known that he was born to a well educated family that was also surrounded by literature. His father was a surgeon who had also published some books, while her mother was also a respected literate. From there he attended to Dublin´s Trinity college, where he excelled academically and grew a name for his witty writing and conversation. He made himself a great path through his academics surrounding himself  in high social circles who appreciated  his “flamboyant” way of being. This social climbing led him to be a prominent figure of literature in victorian society form the begging and until his downfall due to accusations made to his homosexuality.

When talking about Wilde´s work his most featured writing was published during his last decade of life. He first published his first and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray which was a book that expressed the internal fight of man, in this case Wilde himself regarding good and evil, and the consequences it has for ones life not to be able to control the impulse of pleasure over values. After that novel he wrote what is allegedly the pinnacle of his success, those were his social comedies Lady Windermere´s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. This last one is a harsh but yet surprisingly well received criticism of the victorian society hypocrisy and values scale.

What is most remarkable of Oscar Wilde´s writing is the fluency and wit with which he expresses his ideas or complains. Even the talking it is said that this writer was able tu find the most creative ways to appeal the humor of the people and at the same time reproaching their actions. That is mainly how he was able to get away with writing plays  that in any other “language” if not his where to outrage all society.

At the end of his career his fall came mainly if not all because of the accusation of homosexuality, that came from his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, it´s important to recall that back then homosexuality was severely criticized and punished. When the court failed to give a verdict in his favor, he was sentenced to two years of hard labour. After this sentence his health was badly damaged and many of his work criticized, a few years later in November 30  1900  at Paris, France he passed away.

Bibliography

"Oscar Wilde." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 9 Sep. 2010. 0-academic.eb.com.millenium.itesm.mx/levels/collegiate/article/Oscar-Wilde/76981. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.

Øyvind Olsholt. (2013). The life and works of Oscar Wilde. 02/03/2017, de skoletorget Sitio web: http://www.skoletorget.no/abb/eng/wilde/pdf/ow2.pdf