Message from skelly

[Anonymous]

Gosh, I wish I could teach a comparative literature class that combines Asian and Anglo (British and American) texts. There are SO many similarities between the Japanese literature we read last night and discussed today. The sonnet sequences written during the Renaissance served much the same purpose and followed the same themes of abstract, perfect love as the poetry written by the Heinan courtiers, and the nature-based poetry of the Kokinshu parallels the lyrical poetry of Romantics such as Wordsworth.

What especially struck me, though, was the desire to suspend passion just before consummation as the Kokinshu express in the motif of Mono no aware – just like Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Even the Japanese poets’ use of autumnal images create a sense of resignation, without regret, catches the main themes of these Anglo writers.

Even the modern American comic books, capturing as they do the concept of idealized, but flawed heroism, parallel the modern Japanese comic books.

The hardest part of the assignment to create a lesson plan will be to pare it down far enough to logically fit into my required curriculum.