“ It is that union of experience, insight and the simple beauty of language that helps us to give our own grief a name, that gives us a kind of company, that extends a wise hand.”
This quote is written by Ben Brantley. I agree that words and language are very powerful when expressing our thoughts and emotions. I think Literature is the type of art that best describes grief. We feel a strong connection with the authors while reading. It’s like we are having a direct conversation with them. We can picture what is going on and what the characters are like. However, if it is being performed, it limits our thoughts and imaginations. And sometimes the performance doesn’t match our interpretation of the literature.
We finished reading Oedipus and then watched the play. While I was reading it, I was really engaged and was eager to find out how it ends. I pictured that Jocasta looked really young and pretty. But when we were watching the play, I focus on how they performed. I found out the characters are not the way I pictured. It was kind of disturbing to see Oedipus and Jocasta being together. They talked very fast, it was hard to catch every single line; therefore, it was easy to miss the important information. I feel that I focused on the plots instead of the emotions and meanings behind the scenes. I enjoyed the story more when I read it.
I agree with you that the literature version of Oedipus was easier to understand and more enjoyable than the film.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I had problems with Oedipus' acting. He was not a dynamic character. His lines were mostly shouted and after a while, none carried any weight because they were all intoned the same way.
For this reason it is better to read tragedies. When we see something, it is impossible to expand on the characters with our imaginations, and therefor, less of ourselves emerges in the characters,and when the character suffers tragedy, we do not feel the impact as strongly.