Final Exam Essay

Throughout my Fall 2013 semester I have experienced and learned numerous ideas and information. All of my classes each taught me vital information to succeed and pursue my careers and goals in life. One of those classes was English 314 Honors. This class has truly broadened my horizon towards the numerous collections of literature in our world. I have learned the literary works of Egyptian’s, Mesopotamian’s, Indian’s (South India), Chinese’s, and African’s and how they each impacted their culture. In addition, I learned many philosophical beliefs from wisdom literature and the genre, geographic background, and time period of which each works were made (some dates were roughly estimated). However, the main takeaway from English 314 Honors is the style of how all the different literary works incorporate nature and its meaning it gives to each society. Throughout all the literary works I have learned nature is portrayed as a primitive, creative, beautiful, and tragic conception, which has a major influence on each culture.

In the Hymn to the Aten (written around 1450 B.C.) the Egyptians compared their God to the sun, while also describing the beauty of nature. The Egyptians had called their God “Ra/Re, or Kheper,” which meant Sun God. Additionally, the word Aten itself meant sun disk in the sky. The idea of Hymn to the Aten is that it was full of praise and uplifting spirit towards their God. Throughout the text you can see how closely nature is correlated towards the theme. For instance, the sun itself gives life to all on earth. It is also how we distinguish night and day. In the Hymn to the Aten the author uses the beauty and idea of how the sun gives/creates life and relates it to their God and how He is the creator of life. Fina...

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...s endless and pointless. In addition, the Preacher believes that all the cycles of nature are the same and that there is nothing truly new on earth. The book of Ecclesiastes uses nature as evidence and as examples to get its theme across very well. Truly, the depiction of nature and its usage has a huge impact on certain cultures regarding religion. As we can see how the author used nature to deduct his reasoning’s and views on life.

And so, English 314 Honors class has taught me so much in the literature world. However, the main idea that I will always keep is that nature is use in many literary text to convey multiple meanings whether they are using animals or environmental scenery, nature has an important symbol when using it as a tool. In all honesty, this class has taught me a lot and has help laid a firmer foundation on how to approach literature in our world.