Post1: In the Beginning
Beginnings are important. You might say they are critical, so our study of literature begins with beginnings: creation stories. Beginnings help set the parameters of the conversation, telling us who is talking to whom about what. These are critical questions to answer if we are to understand the story being told. Who's telling the story and why? Can we trust this story-teller, this narrator ? And is the narrator the same person as the author ? And who is this we ? Are we — twenty-first century American you and I — the audience for this narrator? How about this author? Or are we overhearing the story long after the intended audience is gone? What do we have to know about the original narrator and audience to understand the story as they understood it? Is it valid — fair to the story — to understand, or interpret, the story from our own, rather distant point of view? These are important questions. And of course, there are lots more questions about beginnings. Beginnings often set the