The Battle with Grendel from Bewolf

This small piece of the original text talks about an epic story which is leaded by two main chacters: Beowulf and Grendel. Grendel is a monster who terrifies the reign of King Hrothgar by coming to his kingdom at nights and killing his men. However, the second main character, Beowulf, is introduced to the story when he hears about the incidents this reign has been having and he decides to go with some of his best infantry to battle him. When he and his army arrive to the great hall of King Hrothgar, they celebrate a big feast and then they all go to sleep, except for Beowulf who fools the monster by making him believe that everyone is sleep and that he will be able to get away with it again, but Beowulf is awake all the time waiting for Grendel to come, and when he does, he tricks him and kills him.
I think I could be able to consider this text as an epic poem because of the way it is written. For example, it is anonymous, and there is a hero who has a kind of unnatural or uncommon powers and who selflessly comes to help and save people.

In the shadow of war by Ben Okri

This is a story that talks about the period people were living in Africa while the Nigerian civil war was on. This period was pretty hard for this people, not only by the war situation they were living in, but also because of the daily situation they lived in, like children starving to death.
Something interesting about this lecture is that story is told by an external narrator in third person. This helps us to understand how things are happening from outside the story, but still it leaves us the chance to predict what will happen and also how the characters deep emotions and feelings are.
There is a part in the story when a person announces by radio that there is going to happen an eclipse. Most of the times, when an eclipse occurs everything goes dark, but as soon as it is over, the light comes back and everything returns back to normality. After listening to this new, Omovo's father says that it does not matter because it won't change his actual situation. I compare this fragment with one at the end of the story when Omovo wakes up in the middle of his room in the darkness, and he desesperatly runs to the balcony of his house, but as soon as he reaches the light, he realizes nothing comes back to normality, like in an eclipse should occur, and that his reality is his own nightmare, because normality seems pretty far.

The Victorian Period

This period was characterized by two contrasting elements: the thought people had about they becoming a part of a huge progress and development, and by the other way, famine, poverty and human misery were some elements that were current. Also, gobernment used to have people under their control. They didn't allow people to talk about some "explicit" topics, like sexual themes or topics that could make people feel unconformtable. Women didn't have any rights, except for sue and own a property, and women that never married were the ones that suffered the most, being rejected by their own families and society.

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach is a poem that talks about the point of view of Matthew Arnold, which is the author, about the Victorian Period. This stage of England was characterized by poverty, famine and human misery. There was hard to live in that time, so this author thought is could be a good idea to translate his fellings disguising some concepts in the poem. For example, Dover Beach is actually a natural kind of fortress and has been the witness of many kind of wars and struggles. I consider that maybe the author decided to write about this place because of the meaning it has a fortress. At the end of the poem he declares that almost the only thing it is worth to live is the love he and her beloved have, so maybe in order to protect himself and his love from the world they were living in, he decided to choose Dover Beach as the context of the poem.