Lyndsey’s Reviews > The Norton Anthology of World Literature (Shorter Fourth Edition) > Status Update

I can't get these lines from Ghalib's first couplet out of my mind this week:

...it's no use
forcing your way with love:
it's a form of fire
that doesn't catch when lit
and doesn't die when doused.

Up to Dickinson this week:

As lightning to the Children eased
with explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

Into the "Age of Revolutions" with a discussion about a short excerpt of Rousseau's "Confessions." The students had an interesting discussion about the tension between his claims of authenticity and self-justification.

Students (and me!) really enjoyed our discussion of Aphra Behn, the first woman who was a professional writer, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a Mexican nun celebrated for "her spirited defense of women's intellectual rights," and who wrote "my desire to learn was stronger than my desire to eat."