Literature and peace

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Literature and peace

• A Project

2
Objectives

• Gather and analyse all the materials about peace
  we studied this year
• Find out how if and literary texts may promote
  peace

3
Materials

• W. Shakespeare, Macbeth (Mondadori 1983), English
  and Italian version
• W. Shakespeare, Hamlets monolugue (Act III
  Scene 1), from Hamlet
• S. Sassoon, They
• W. Owen, Futility from The Collected Poems, 1963

4
Procedure

• Textual analysis
• Finding relationships between texts and peace
• Class discussion and sharing ideas

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Macbeth
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• Macbeth is a tragedy.
• The title refers to the main character who is
  also the the tragic hero.
• In Macbeth the natural order (symbol for peace)
  of Duncans Kingdom seems to be perfect but it is
  broken by the Kings murder.
• Such event creates new wars and contributes to
  break Macbeths and his wifes inner peace. The
  loss of inner peace makes Macbeth and his wife
  crazy.
• In this play the obsessive search for power
  persuades Macbeth to change the natural order of
  things (symbol for peace)
• Peace can only return with Macbeths death that
  re-establish the balance in the play.
• The word peace appears very frequently in all
  the play (11 times).
• It is often compared to silence in fact when a
  character says peace! he means to shut up
• The comparison can be drawn because peace is also
  symbol for the quietness Macbeth is unable to
  obtain.

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Hamlets monologue
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• To be or not to be is the most famous line by
  Shakespeare, and also Hamlets monologue is one
  of the most known pieces of the Shakespearian
  play
• The text is a monologue, that is its a piece of
  speech where a character expresses his or he most
  inner feelings.
• The first line expresses the question the
  question in Hamlet's mind is that he has to
  decide whether to be or not to be.
• "To be" means "to live" but its meaning is wider
  because it includes life after death, too."Not
  to be" means "to sleep no more".
• An important question that Shakespeare wants to
  ask is is it nobler in the mind suffer and fight
  against the problems of life?
• Shakespeare speaks about the problems of life
  using hyperboles "a sea of troubles".
• Shakespeare's answer is the human being prefers
  suffering what he knows because he does not know
  what happens after death.
• The metaphor "the undiscovered country" refers to
  what we don't know about life after death.

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Poems from World War I Siegfried Sassoon and
Wilfried Owen
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• S. Sassoon and Owen are war poets
• In their poems they speak about war, changing its
  traditional vision.
• All their poems convey an implicit message of
  peace.

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Sigfried Sassoons They

• Title expectation the poem about people
  different from the speaking voice the word
  they conveys the idea of distance.
• The bishops point-of-view
• ?
• when men come back from a war they are changed
  because they have fought in a just cause.
• had the courage to fight against Anti - Christ.
• The boyspoint-of-view
• ?
• People changed because war has mutilated their
  bodies.
• V ery important line the bishop the decisions
  of God are very strange
• Words belonging to the semantic field of war
  they are fought, attack, comrades
• Two points of view about war

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• Positive consideration of war it can change
  everybody if fought for a just cause (in this
  poem the war is against Anti-Christ).
• The bishop justifies the war using some abstract
  words like Anti-Christ, honour, just cause
  and God.
• The soldiers negative viewpoint about war
• Phrases like lost both his legs, Bills stone
  blind, Berts gone syphilitic underline all
  the negative aspects of war.
• The last line of the poem
• nobody can understand the ways of God which
• seem very strange.

13
Sigfried Sassoons Glory of Women

• Title expectations poem about some happy women?
• 2 words glory women.
• Soldiers criticize womens point of view ?love
  soldiers when they come back from the wars
  disgrace as heroes .
• Women do not know the real face of war they have
  rehtoric beliefs.
• Lots of words from the semantic field of war
  underline different points of view between
  soldiers and women
• Women cannt really understand war ? they are too
  distant and they can only mourn their soldiers
  and pray.

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• They also hope that their men will return as
  heroes so they will carry on loving them.
• The soldiers point of view is very different
  they know what war really is and so they cant
  convey a positive idea of war.
• The poet wants to underline that war is
  unimaginable for those who do not fight.

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Wilfried Owens Futility

• The title consists of an uncountable noun,
  similar to the Italian adjective "futile.
• Maybe the poet wanted to illustrate what is
  useless in men's life?
• Words from the semantic field of nature "sun",
  "field", " morning", "snow", "seeds", "clay",
  "star" and "earth".They represent the
  never-ending cycle of nature
• Repetition of words "move", "awake", "rouse",
  "know", "wakes" and "think" underlining the sense
  of futility of mens life.
• Important metaphor Woke, once, the clays of a
  cold star.
• Comparison star to a dead man a star is cold as
  is a dead man.

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• All the poem tries to ask a question about mens
  futile life.
• Exclamation O what made fatuous sunbeams toil.
• Mens life is very futile for the poet because he
  saw lots of wars atrocities.

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Class discussions about peace

• Peace is very important for everybody because it
  allows to live a very good life and it creates
  the conditions to improve and culture.
• The loss of peace is very frequent in our society
  because war is very important for the economy of
  some countries.
• Today there are a lot of wars all around the
  world Israel and Palestine, the conflicts in
  Africa, the situation in Afghanistan and in Iraq
• But war is not only the lack of peace it is
  mans obsessive search for power that makes him
  crazy.
• Men always want to become rich and commit crimes
  and other delinquencies to reach their intent.
• In peace human rights are respected.
• To safeguard a human balance means to avoid new
  wars.
• The global community has to understand that
  keeping a global balance is an urgent
  responsibility for everybody.