Reflection Post

I believe that I made the most progress on the following course goal:

Demonstrate knowledge regarding the interplay of comedies and the historical, political, literary, and cultural contexts in which they were written and performed.

The blog posts were really helpful to read and see what other people in the class thought about the texts.  The most beneficial blogs to me were the ones that incorporated history and what was going on in the world when the plays were published.  I am not a big history buff and have only taken two history courses while in college, so some of this information was new to me.  By reading what other people had to say, I was able to form a more well-rounded view of the text. 

Another aspect of the course that I found helpful was the ‘What-If’ discussion questions.  What if all the genders in The Broken Jug were reversed?  Would that have made a difference in our attitudes towards the characters?  What if Alceste and Celimene from The Misanthrope used social media?  I found it helpful to discuss these questions in our small groups, because everyone had different opinions.  These conversations led me to think deeper about the texts we read and make connections to previous texts. 

Overall, I feel like I was successful in this course.  Even though I sometimes struggled to write the blog posts, I think that I gained a lot of factual knowledge about comedies and how they are used to make statements about society.  Before this class, I thought that the purpose of a comedy was strictly to entertain and evoke laughter, but now I see that comedies are effective ways to convey ideas about social order and make an audience think about the world around them.  This class was a good change from my usual STEM-related coursework.