Tuesday, September 23, 2008

9/24 Reading Analysis

Themes of new discoveries and realizations seem to be common throughout the three works, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, “When I consider how my light is spent”, and “Know it All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise”. In each there is a common and influential meaning to the reader. In the poems they are more hidden than in the article but each talk of new discoveries and changes that have happened to them. Each author writes about the way these changes transformed them as individuals as well as prove what the meaning of each is to their lives.

John Milton seemed to be the most obvious in a brief but powerful reflection of his life and blindness. As he looked back on his life I don’t think he found many events to me proud of and thought that because of his blindness he did not serve his purpose as a writer. But, just like Milton thought he didn’t, on the contrary the inventors of Wikipedia are trying to achieve a lifetime goal by producing the largest encyclopedia to almost the entire world. This way if given the opportunity to evaluate their lives unlike Milton they feel successful. Throughout the article the ups and downs of this process are discussed, Jimmy Wales reflects on the effect the site can have. Also the ways that he feels the site has not only achieved his own goals but helped a lot of the world. Even though one of the major issues with the site at the moment seems to be its constant imperfections, Wales and the rest of the organization are constantly working on bettering and expanding this internet phenomenon.

But the final and most powerful realization to me came through the William Shakespeare poem. This poem also seemed to be written about imperfections, but in a woman as well as in love. He found that the love he had for his mistress was powerful and “rare”, the way he speaks seems as if he had some sort of an epiphany about this and now understands love. Shakespeare knows that love is not a fairytale and through this piece I believe he is trying to say that true love is loving one another’s imperfections. Even through all the insults of the piece the love for his mistress wins in the end and only makes his love stronger. Just like the other two pieces, a realization was made and ultimately the writers learned lessons and made decisions based on each to change their lives.

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