(Prose&Poetry) Response Paper to Bible, Holy Books and Myths

Look at Bible, Holy Book and Myths in the Perspective of Literature

Talking about literature is not only found in ordinary books or novels that are sold freely on the market but further, the literature has been integrated in ancient books like Bible, Holy Book and the myth that we may read since a very young age.

There is a statement that said “The Bible does not consist of a single book, but rather a library.” Indeed the Bible was not written by one person alone, but within a period of centuries, each piece was collected into a whole Bible as we know now where sometimes we find a different style of writing. The Bible contains a very high literary elements such as the poetry in the Psalms, Lamentations, and Song of Solomon. Most of the book contains lyrical poetry. Biblical poetry is different because of the elegance, artistic expression, and the concepts of moral and spiritual. I quoted a line from Psalms 22: 14, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint:
my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. I may tell all my bones.” It is a wonderful line of poetry and has a deep meaning inside.

And what about Holybook? What kind of it? As Wikipedia said, Holy books are the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. If Moeslem people have Al Quran, Hinduism with the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita and Buddhism has the sutras. In my opinion, these books consist of many beautiful literatures and precious histories.

Myths is a litle bit different for me because it comes from the traditional story and sometimes not written into a book but spread mouth by mouth. In some myths I have ever heard, gods or super human often become the main characters. Some movies I watched such as Immortals has a plot about a war in Greek mythology between the Gods.

Bible, Holy book and myths records events that can be used as a historical fact if it can be proven and it also becomes the basic foundation of a lot of beliefs in the world. The language and beautiful literature displayed in a very elegance way and the moral value given is very precious to study.

(Prose&Poetry) Response Paper to Biography/Autobiography and Travel Writing

This is my response paper about Biography/Autobiography and Travel Writing and written to fulfill my college assignment. I'm not an expert though so if you found any mistaken please let me know by commenting below. Thank's!

Biography/Autobiography and Travel Writing

Biography, autobiography and travel writing talk about someone’s life journey. After finding out about this, I just realized that we are actually very familiar with this kind of writing and even write it without realizing that it is a biography,autobigraphy or travel writing. For example, when I read a book, I found a page which talk about the writer. It is a short autobiography or when I write in my diary about my journey to my mom’s hometown, for instance, I made a short travel writing..It doesn’t matter you are a famous person or not, you can still write it as long as you have something valuable to share.

The first autobiography I read was "What If I Had Never Tried It" a Valentino Rossi’s Autobiography. By reading an autobiography, I feel like I can jump into his world and understand every action he had done in his life. Everything untold, unseen and hidden in the media were written here. I think that every word he can’t say directly, can be said in his writing. Just like he tried to reveal his mask and tried to give his own reason on doing something like the accident with his rival Max Biagi. Even though people outside think that they were enemies, but deep inside Rossi felt that Biagi is just like his own reflection. He learned many things from him as a rival and as a ‘close friend’.

I also read a travel writing novel. It tells about a travelling to Spain, and around Europe. I can hardly believe that I feel just like I’m the one who do that. I could see how is Barcelona just by reading the book. How beautiful Prague is or even how hard the life there.

My conclusion is through biography/autobiography and travel writing, the writer warns us about the mistakes he made in his life and how to learn from it , encourages us with their spirit, and gives us a free travelling tour through papers.

Response Paper : Haiku By Basho

This is a response paper for my Translation subject assignment. Not an expert opinion though. Just want to share... :)

With a Buddhist background, Basho created a beautiful bouquet of Japanese language and be translated more than 30 translations by several translators. Three of them are Shinkokai NG, Lindley Williams and James Kirkup Hobbell who tried to interpret Basho poem into three English translated versions in very different structure, sense and shape.

First version is written by Shinkokai. In terms of structure, we should note the diction, rhyme, rhythm, tone, and the poet attitude toward the reader and to convey the message. Shinkokai in his translation using no more than 3-4 words in each line that may indicates he is a translator who prefer simple styles. In first line, the diction selected is "old" rather than "ancient" while the last,according to me, may have a deeper meaning. He choose to mention the objects of this poetry that is a frog which is jumping into the water and creates a sound of water. He did not show any rhyme or rhythm excessively. The imagination (he used visual imagination) is presented fairly short so it does not need a hard effort to understand the meaning of the translation.

Second version, in my opinion, is the most beautiful translation among these three versions because Hobbell tried to translate it into a full imagination poetry. Words such as “thou” in first line indicates the old era of the translator and gave deeper meaning for me. As a reader, I could directly imagine the beauty of nature that shows in second and third line. He also played with the rhyme in the end of each line. “Shimmering surface, like tears” gave a visual imagination plus an emphasis of auditory imagination at the last line in the phrase "the while aquatic sounds assails our ears".

The last version is the most simple translation. It consists only of three words, very short but has the most difficult sense to understand because I have to think more about what the poet desired to convey. The less said, the more difficult to understand. Based on the shape, this poetry can be classified into contemporary poetry which indicated by verses that written in indented way.

In conclusion, the poetry will be translated depends on the era of the translator, the meaning to be conveyed and the writing style of the translator. Analyzing the era can be done by noticing the diction that is used, while the shape can classify the type of poetry and depends on the readers ability to understand.