Birthday Party

I have to say I was very entertained by the performance on December 6th 2011. I was able to watch and listen to fellow classmates and a well loved professor dedicate the evening to the birthday of the King James Bible and Shakespeare's Tempest. I found it specifically entertaining when Dr. Sexson and Joel battled it out about version. Dr. Sexson with the King James version naturally and Joel with a modern nontraditional version. They argued it out and it just shows how little our generation's appreciation for great literature really is. Most times we look at poetry or writing that has "thine" "thou" and "shalt nots" in it and turn it away. This is a fairly common mistake that young people make. They seem to think that if they cannot immediately understand it that it is not worth their time. This was also expressed during our individual presentations on Tuesday when Andrew said that because he was in engineering that he didn't read books "like that". Such is the loss of young minds. If you do not develop your mind to understand the language in the Old English literature how can you appreciate any book of today. In my creative writing class with Ben Leubner we explored differing variations of poetry and some of it is very difficult to write and some of it has no form at all. Just having to have to write like that helps open your mind to the older classical literature. Seeing as writing and reading in the classical style is so "difficult" for this generation it is as if we have to learn a new variation of language. "You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2