Rabu, 10 Juni 2015

What I have learned in English Department of UNPAD: Survey of English Literature: Elizabethan to Victorian Ages

I remembered the first time when I was enrolling the lectures of Survey of English Literature: Elizabethan to Victorian. When I was choosing this lecture in online KRS (Study Plan Card), I was so excited because, first, the classroom is located in a classroom which located in Japanese Language Study Centre (or PSBJ, Pusat Studi Bahasa Jepang), and the second, the lecturer is Mr. Rasus, whom I know as a friendly lecturer as I frequently see him in many seminars that are held in the Faculty of Arts of UNPAD.

Though at first, I didn’t really have any interest in any kind of literature (I entered this program because I wanted to be a teacher, but not literature teacher), but everything had changed since this semester. This semester, there are many lectures of literature. There are Survey of American Literature, Survey of English Literature, and Further Studies in Prose.

I remembered the first time when I was reading the name of the lecture: Survey of English Literature: Elizabethan to Victorian Ages. At that time, what I imagined for what we were going to learn was the gorgeous dresses of the royal society of England.  The image of Shakespeare, the queens and the kings, dramas and plays, were not being imagined by me in the first place. Although I am Catholic, the image that we will learn about the development of the Christians in England was not being imagined as well. In conclusion, I was the white paper that later will be scribbled by the lecture.

In the first meeting, Mr. Rasus taught us about the background and the target for learning for this lecture. At that time, the image that I had imagined for what we were going to learn had destroyed. We were not going to learn for the culture and the dresses that the people were wearing.
The second meeting was about when the re-birth of the culture and the Christian religion. Since I am the only Christian (but Catholic), Mr. Rasus asked me, why do people nowadays had different perspective between the Christians (the Protestants)  and the Catholics. He said, since he was little, the Protestants and the Catholics are the same; they are still considered as the Christians. But I had no idea at that time; I was raised in Catholic school since I was kindergarten and what I knew that Protestants and the Catholics are different. Later I asked my father why, and, since my father is the alumna of Mertoyudan High School (A school intended for those who wanted to be the fathers or priests in Catholic, located in Magelang), he told me it was because the Catholics had a kind of revenge towards the Protestants, who claimed that they were the purified Christians.

However, what is interesting from this lecture where Mr. Rasus is not talking about the land of England, but also he commented about the other things. The colonization, for example. First, we talked about on how the Europeans colonized the other countries. But then, he talked about the impact the colonization in Indonesia. Where the cultures of Indonesia had been manipulated because of the colonization by the Europeans.
But that’s what I like from this lecture. Mr. Rasus surely had enlighten me (and the other students) through this lecture, although sometimes his enlightenments didn’t have any connections with the study.

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get his lectures at all. I got more informations about the Christians, like there are many churches of the Christians more than Protestants, Catholics, and Anglican; there are also Presbyterians, Dutch-Reformists, Lutherans, and Calvins. It made me interest more since the Church also affected the development of the literatures such as plays and poets. I also figured the reason why most of the saints in the Catholic religion had bald head, but they keep some hair around their ears; and so is why they are called ‘The Roundheads’. It was also fun since Mr. Rasus always mentioned some movies which had connection with the lectures, such as Macbeth and A Midsummer’s Night Dream. I enjoyed the watches a lot.

The biggest differences in my life also happened because of this lecture. When he taught us about the sonnet, the Shakespeare’s sonnet which titled Shall I Compare Thee to the Summer’s Day, my friend and I was obsessed because it made us ‘klepek-klepek’; it touched us a lot. And soon, I told my friend from the Medical Faculty about this Shakespeare’s sonnet. And because of this sonnet, he confessed at me by writing a sonnet for me

 I still could not believe that Mr. Rasus ‘s lecture could made such big differences in my life. Not only he changed the way I think, like in filtering the media and news that I read or hear, but I got a boyfriend because of the sonnet since he taught us about it.

I thanked Mr. Rasus a lot because of his lecture, Survey of English Literature: Elizabethan to Victorian Ages. He was the reason that I tried to consider whether I wanted to continue my study to Literature or not (At first I wanted to go to Linguistics since I wanted to be a teacher). Now, I am wondering; what if I also choose his another lecture, Survey of English Literature: Up to 17th century? I regretted that I didn't take that lecture, sigh...

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