Survey of Literary Criticism

Journal - Ray Peters
Fall 2004

Journal Entry #22 - Literary Criticism and the Well-Lived Life

Literary Criticism and the Well-Lived Life

         “The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”  This line, spoken by Shakespeare’s character, Theseus in Act V Scene I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, encompasses my whole theory on how literary criticism should be applied to enjoying a “well-lived life.”  There is no such thing as a “poor” or “bad” piece of literature, just as no one piece of literature should be universally yielded superior to any other works.  Literature is only as good as one’s imagination allows the work to be. Therefore, if someone believes a particular piece of literature is less than worthwhile, that is truly only a reflection of how boring that individual is. 

The purpose, then, of the literary critic is a tricky business; upon which requires a great deal of light to be shed.  In truth, there are a number of interesting literary features that the critic may approach, and it can never be a negative venture for anyone to expose some of the glaring faults or spectacular ingenuities that are found in any particular work, especially if those discoveries contribute to that individual partaking in a more well-lived life.  Through a close look at the important literary elements that carry textual relevance, along with an overview of the role the critic should play in reflecting those elements for readers, and finally some insight into how the literary canon should be affected by these breakthroughs, I hope to impart onto you a zeal and understanding for how to better assail a “well-lived life.”

The amount of information that lies beneath every piece of literature is astounding.  From the work itself, to the life of the author, historical context, cultural influences, and social misconceptions, there really is no end to the amount that can be said about a work of art.  So, where should one begin to correctly approach literature?  The answer is, wherever you think you should.  Every sparkling nugget of knowledge drawn from literature that contributes to living a more well-lived life is valuable, and no critic retains the capacity to alter those epiphanies. 

However, that is not to say that, in fully appreciating a literary work, there are not particular areas that merit additional observation and comprehension.  As a way to more fully realize why that is, one need look no further than Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, two of the most collectively appreciated and notorious poems of the twentieth century. 

Thomas’s work, upon a close reading, conveys a gentile and honest respect of a son for his father who is on his death bed.  In this case, the poem sieves with a rather lyrical flow, and has particular relevance to the author himself.  The reader, therefore, can expand their appreciation for the work through researching why Thomas chose the rhythmic form that he did, as well as through a deeper understanding of the relationship Thomas had with his father and why his father was dying.  The reader might advance a notch in their journey to a more well-lived life without such knowledge and just a general survey of the poem, but the quest to a well-lived life is, in due course, one in search of truth.  Truth is a divine property, and its relevance to the reader’s voyage may best have been eternalized in John Keats’ lines “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” in Ode on a Grecian Urn.  Without the truth of this poem’s critical features, the explorer is, to use a truly benevolent adage, “up the creek without a paddle.”

In Eliot’s work, which is known as the defining Modernist poem, he constructs a mosaic-like work that unveils the fragmentation that the world around him is suffering from; a universally accepted depiction of what his society (and maybe even today’s) was like.  For the reader to just read this poem, and try to make any sense out of it, without relating it to the world in which Eliot lived, is preposterous.  The reader would get lost in the “channel-surfing” nature of the poem without a proper understanding of where Eliot was coming from.  The poem itself is generally difficult to apply to one’s life, as it is more a depiction of a previous world.  The literary technique, and the didactic lesson it issues, is what the reader may draw on to better their own life, but that message is ill-learned without a cogent knowledge of the poem’s historical and cultural context.

Literature totes at its side a history of being complicated, confusing, and only for those with a natural ability to make sense of its complex nature.  This stigma causes a great deal of the population to steer clear from even approaching such a seemingly mind-bending and daunting task, which is truly a shame.  The reason, however, that this stigma exists is a result of the multifarious approach through which critics have analyzed texts throughout history.  Critics have digressed into the mode of being too critical, and have thus left the rest of humanity on the outside looking in, trying to understand what they are talking about – much like J. Alfred Prufrock on the window-sill of his society in Eliot’s other quintessential work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

The above lessons on how Thomas and Eliot can be used are appropriate, and should serve as examples for the technique of an effective critic.  That approach consists of revealing the facts of a given work of literature, and not boggling the minds of society by casting them out on the proverbial window-sill with information that will not lead to any truth or a well-lived life.  The cold hard facts that a critic should discuss include, primarily, only accurate evidence relating to the topic of the work, the author’s intended purpose of the work (only if that is certain), historical context, cultural context, literary techniques used by the author, and an explanation of any allusions used by the author.  The critic, in short, is a taste-tester of literature.  It is the critic’s soul purpose to open up literature to a broader audience by evaluating the significance of works’ facts and explaining those truths in concise brevity.  It is through the reflection of literature that the world can improve itself and mutually strive towards a well-lived life, yet not everyone in the world can be an astute scholar of literature.  That is why the critic must embrace the role of factual conduit, and resist temptations to intervene their opinions.  After that point, it is up to the reader and the critic to incorporate the information in a personal interpretation of the text to inch closer to the goal of truth and an improved life. 

Now, how does all of this information relate to the canon?  Well, following the approach delineated above, the literary canon should be rendered impractical.  Again, the imagination is what makes a given work seem better to one individual than another, because they can imagine works in different ways.  For example, Harold Bloom would like to convince the world that The Collected Works of William Shakespeare should be on top of the canon, as he believes that Shakespeare invented mankind and supports that opinion in his book The Invention of the Human.  However, the truth is that Shakespeare’s works merely reflect the top of Bloom’s canon, where someone else (though it would truly be a shame) might not even consider Shakespeare’s works as containing valid imaginative substance.  Now, such an opinion would constitute a seriously boring person, but many people find it difficult to wade through Shakespeare’s lofty language, which makes them think of his work as unreasonable and wasteful of their precious time.  If that is their mode of thinking, and they somehow take a step closer to a well-lived life as a result, then it is a valid stance.  It might be that the top piece of literature in their canon is the Bernstein Bears.  If they identify with that work as having most profoundly affected their movement towards an enhanced life, and can explain why that is, then their imaginative argument is legitimate and respectable.

Each individual criticism of literature leads to a well-lived life because it unveils the issues that are most applicable to their own life.  Criticism should start with the imagination exploring the topics within a text, and should then pile on outside information that lends to the overall meaning of the piece of literature.  Critics serve little purpose in this process aside from providing the spark of interest relating to the facts within a literary work.  A universal canon that denotes what literature is superior to others is ultimately invalid, since such a list deviates from the imaginative nature of literature.  Ultimately, a thorough knowledge of literature leads to individual truth, and thus a well-lived life, though the outcome of that journey is different for everyone.

Journal Entry #2l Response to Zak’s Journal and Today’s Class

I have a great respect for the maturity that Zak demonstrated in today s class.  Where I empathize with Cindy, I ultimately felt like the time and place where she demonstrated her frustration, along with the manner in which she acted out, were not appropriate. The issue of censorship is, again, at hand. Where does the line for appropriate censorship exist, or does it? In my opinion, Cindy’s reaction was a direct product of her personal hardships, but she seemed to he the only one so vehemently affected by the content of Zak’s website. Her reaction was somewhat understandable, and I would expect a high percentage of the American population to react in the same way as Cindy did, but that is the exact issue that we are trying to confront. In the mutual respect classrooms that we are supposed to he sharing at this University, where we know that questionable material is bound to surface, is it not in those instances when we learn the most?  Zak’s journal has elicited a response that has, undoubtedly, caused each and every one of us to think more critically about both the issue he was presenting, as well as the lines of appropriate censorship that surround such a topic. Abortion is a serious issue, and it will inevitably elicit profound emotional responses, as it should. But as I already stated, isn’t it through those responses that we are most educated’? I cannot express, again, the respect that I have for what it must have taken Zak to get up in front of the class, immediately following such an attack on his person, and support another opinion in his paper that would certainly educe an unfavorable response to at least someone else in the class. Doing so showed that he stood by his beliefs, a lesson that is invaluable as we all approach our departure from the friendly and comfortable confines of a formal education and enter the “real” world that maybe is not so kind. At this point, I am starting to just ramble, but, heck, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion recollected in tranquility” is what we are all about here, isn’t it’? I do have one more important thought to interject, though, on Zak’s stance on his website, and it comes from a quote by Aristotle. it goes as follows “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” In other words, if we are to become well-educated, positive, and influential people in the world, we have to stand by who we are all the time, as Zak has done in his journal.  That means that, at times, we are going to face fierce opposition, but it is in the presence of those opposing parties that we most define ourselves. Again, that’s just my opinion.

Journal #20 – Thoughts on Individual Paper Presentations

I really enjoyed all of the presentations from class today — I get a lot out of listening to the opinions of others and the manner in which they support those opinions. However, there were three particular presentations that I related to the most, and I am going to reflect here on those.

First of all, I shared Amanda’s sentiment that we simply need to take as much experience as we can garner from every situation. This opinion will he reflected in my final paper through the idea that the imagination ultimately makes everything interesting, and if you can’t find something interesting, that is merely a reflection of how boring you are. Experience, like the one we all received from the heated beginning of class today, leads to more wisdom, which leads to more truth, which is the ultimate goal in life, in my opinion.

Secondly, Nikole rather echoed Amanda’s opinion in finding importance in the experiences we gain, but she added the idea of a sort of over-arching richness being an important aspect of the individual, and I just found that expression of richness to be a nice summative term for the objective of the individual.

Thirdly, I related to the idea of a “well informed life” that Lisa referred to, as such an idea ties into the “richness” of experience. Experience is only useful if you allow it to inform you, and that served as a nice touch to Lisa’s presentation.

Journal Entry #19 - Who is Cleanth Brooks?

If poetry is worth teaching at all, it is worth teaching as poetry.  Remember this statement, it tells you everything you need to know about literary criticism.  Who am I?  I’m Cleanth Brooks, born in 1906 in Murray, Kentucky.  Unfortunately, I’ve been dead for 10 years now, so it goes.  You know me, or at least you should know me, for my association with and development of New Criticism.  I, therefore, concern myself only with the one important aspect of a text when criticizing literature, and that is simply the text itself.

    It is truly a shame, in this day and age, to see so many seemingly intelligent individuals working so hard at analyzing authors, readers, or historical contexts of literature, when these inconsequential pieces do not merit such attention.  Such a pity.  You see this (HOLD UP BOOK), this is all that matters when critiquing poetry – not any of you, or me, or the author, or when it was written, just this and what’s in here.  Criticism should be about scrutinizing technical elements, textual patterns, and textual incongruities.  If you have read my most well-known critical analysis, The Well Wrought Urn, you understand the importance of beginning critiques by making a close examination of what the poem says as a poem.  You will also understand that we must persevere to change inadequate and misleading terms that lead to a structure of meanings, evaluations, and interpretations; the worst and most annoying of those being irony.  Such errors contribute to the overpowering temptation to make a substitute for the object of study, and the most common of these mistakes include 

1.      Paraphrasing logical and narrative content

2.      Studying biographical and historical materials

3.      Interpreting for inspirational and didactic purpose 

Of course, paraphrase may be necessary as a preliminary step in the reading of a poem, and a study of the biographical and historical background may do much to clarify interpretation; but these things should considered as means and not as ends.  And though one may consider a poem as an instance of historical or ethical documentation, the poem in itself, if literature is to be studied as literature, remains finally the object for study.  Moreover, even if the interest is in the poem as a historical or ethical document, there is a prior consideration: one must grasp the poem as a literary construct before it can offer any real illumination as a document.
     Unfortunately, critics such as Stanley Fish and Harold Bloom deny the authority of the work and thus invite subjectivism and relativism into their opinions.  These advocates of deconstruction and reader-response play with the text’s language, unmindful of aesthetic relevance and formal design.  Those poor unaware souls.  With that said, if you remember just one thing about what I stand for, remember that it is not the origin, author, or reader that matters in literary criticism, but only the text itself.

 
Journal Entry #18 Response to Individual Critic Presentations

It’s interesting to see the many shapes and faces that literary critics across the globe embody. I also think that it is intriguing that all of these critics are considered highly intelligent, yet few of them represent the same opinions. What does that say about society’?   Obviously, we are a diverse world in a number of ways, but how does that contribute to understanding how we define ourselves?  This is what I was thinking about during the presentations, and my answer is not clear cut.  It almost seems as if, in an attempt to define ourselves for others, we end up arbitrarily equating ourselves with a group or set of beliefs that we might not wholly agree with, yet we might come to that agreement over time as a result of our desire to belong to something. As I have already said, all of the critics who were represented, and who will be represented, are highly intelligent people. But I struggle to relate to any of them, even if they did not want to be placed in fixed parameters, because they all have valid points, but they ultimately seem to not accept the opinions of the others. They have constructed a prison for themselves by stating what they believe is right, and many of them seem to have gotten in a particular mode of thinking and are not open to a change. What I want to see is a critic who starts out as defining their self within one set of beliefs, and then changes as a result of some epiphany that allows them to incorporate new ideas. I ultimately admire the critics for their accomplishments, and without the plethora of definitions they provide I would not have inched closer this semester so far to more effectively defining myself, but I just want to hear from a critic who has made drastic changes, something more courageous than just sticking to their original guns, because the original guns don’t always shoot quite right (hmm).

Journal Entry #l 7 Comments on Television Debates - A Comparison of President Bush and Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus and President George W. Bush represent two individuals who survived in very different times yet share similar rhetorical strategies to achieve their goals. Columbus’ achievements relied on convincing Ferdinand and Isabella that his voyage was worth their continued funding. President Bush, similarly, is currently attempting to greater his accomplishments through a process of persuading the American people that the future for everyone is brighter with him in office. Both of these individuals employ the technique of misdirection, or telling their audience only what they want them to hear, in their respective pursuits of historical importance.

            In the case of Columbus, he purposefully neglected to withhold information that he was not really making any great discoveries in the form of natural resources, spices or uninhabited lands. He instead chose to glorify his findings, exaggerating the amounts of riches he was encountering, comparing these new lands to heaven on earth, even suggesting that they were the Biblical Paradise, and overstating the willingness of the Indians to convert religion and describing them as “ a very gentle race, without the knowledge of any iniquities.”

             President Bush relates to Columbus quite directly in his approach to expressing why he should be reelected. It is plain to see that Bush, like every other political candidate, makes a clear point to advertise the accomplishments of his term and steer clear of any failures. If he is unable to defend the failures, such as many see our involvement in Iraq being, he simply glorifies our presence there and urges the importance of our continued involvement, much like Columbus was doing with his relationship with the Indians. Not many Americans actually have any direct contact or relationship with the Iraqi people, and therefore we are at the mercy of accepting and deciphering what we hear through the media, much as Ferdinand and Isabella had to just take Columbus’ word for how people in the New World felt about his presence there.

In the case of Iraq, Bush has the upper hand on controlling our knowledge about what exactly is taking place there, since he is the one in power and with the most information relating to the truth.

            It is intriguing to reflect on the similarities between these two men whose influences are separated by more that 500 years. Despite the lapse in time, their respective masteries of misdirecting their audiences to hear only what they want them to hear has led them to achieve superior societal roles and maintain a greater authority than is typical for the common man or woman. Regardless, time is the true teller of truth; For Columbus, that meant revealing that the Indians were really not so ready to relinquish their lands and convert to Christianity as he had proposed so unmistakably. In Bush’s case, the truth may still be several decades away.

Journal Entry #15 online Definition and google of “anagogical”

3 entries found for anagogical.

[Download or Buy Now]

anagogical

Anagogic \An`a*gog"ic\, Anagogical \An`a*gog"ic*al\, a. Mystical; having a secondary spiritual meaning; as, the rest of the Sabbath, in an anagogical sense, signifies the repose of the saints in heaven; an anagogical explication. -- An`a*gog\"ic*al*ly, adv.

anagogical

adj : based on or exemplifying anagoge [syn: anagogic]

 Journal Entry #14 Allegory in the Wizard of Oz

I have loved the Wizard of Oz since I was 5 years old – it’s always been amongst my favorite all time movies.  I don’t know, I guess I just like it.  As I started thinking about how it relates to allegory, I had to do some research, though.  Some of the interesting and applicable comments that I found are as follows (concentrate on what I have bolded – those are the key points):

Salmon Rushdie-and the Heart comic strip-point out what seems to be a flaw in the story of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy has been leading a rather bleak existence in Kansas when she is transported to a lovely paradise in Oz. Once there, her only wish is to return to Kansas, and this wish motivates her journey to see the Wizard. Other than her attachment to her aunt and uncle, why should she wish to leave this ideal fairyland and go back to her humdrum life on the gray Kansas prairie? The moral seems indeed to be that “there’s no place like home.” A deprived existence in a miserable shack is preferable to the Garden of Eden because it’s home. The truth concealed behind this platitude is that the ultimate spiritual reality lies within each individual person-in their “own backyard”-and not off somewhere over the rainbow. “The kingdom of Oz is within you.” 

Political Interpretation
It was suggested some years ago that The Wizard of Oz is an allegory of Populism, a grass-roots political movement of the late 19th century involving the free coinage of silver. It was the doctrine of the People’s Party. In this schemata, which was widely accepted in academic circles for a number of years, the yellow brick road represents the gold standard, the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan, the Wizard William McKinley, and so on. In more recent times, this interpretation has been given a socialist cast, with the Scarecrow representing farmers and the Tin Woodman industrial workers. However, the Populist theory was well refuted in 1994 by David Parker in the Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians, the strongest argument being that Baum is known to have been a Republican. Parker later substituted his own interpretation, which is that The Wizard of Oz is an allegory for a Theosophical utopia. Baum was a card-carrying Theosophist for a while (as verified by John Algeo), and Theosophy influenced some of his editorials when he was editor of a newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Darren John Main elaborates on the Theosophical connection in his recent book, Spiritual Journeys Down the Yellow Brick Road, from Findhorn Press. Main details the central tenets of Theosophy and relates them to The Wizard. Thinkers of a mystical or magical bent have lent their own interpretations to The Wizard. In one such theory, Dorothy is the real “Wizard of Oz” because she’s the only one who ever really accomplishes anything. In another, Toto is an allegory of Anubis, the dog-headed Egyptian guide of the dead. It is because of Toto’s antics that Dorothy fails to get into the storm cellar and is taken to Oz in the first place. Once there, it is Toto who exposes the Wizard as a humbug by knocking over a screen (in the movie, he draws aside a curtain). When the Wizard is about to take Dorothy home in his hot-air balloon, Toto chases a cat, forces Dorothy to miss the ride, and throws her back on her own inner resources, symbolized by the ruby slippers (which, by the way, are silver shoes in the book).

Journal Entry #13 Aristotle “suffering is good” response

I fully concur with the sentiment that suffering is good, and believe that those who suffer the most have the greatest opportunity to succeed the most. In general, without suffering, the idea of happiness really loses all of its allure, as it really has no meaning. Also, if a person is suffering, they know that, first of all, they are alive, and secondly, they have been through better times and more than likely have better times to look forward to again. To go back to the idea that suffering in turn perpetuates success, just look at the idols of the world.  Those who were assassinated, like J.I .K. and Lincoln, stand at the forefront of my mind, but the suffering they incurred was really embodied by their families, so they are not ideal representations. I do not know how my opinion sounds to others, but I almost enjoy the times that I have to suffer, especially when I reflect on such hardships. I gain much more knowledge of myself and the world around me after I have gone through a time of despair.  So, I almost approach such circumstances with open arms. My background is not exactly one which others would point to and say, “1 want to he him”, because I, like the majority, have been through a number of grievous experiences. Would

I want any of that changed? No, certainly not.  Without them, there is no way that I would have the enthusiasm for life that I have. At this point in my life, I try not to attach myself to materialistic goods, and every lucky break I get I try to appreciate it in the fullest, because, since I have been through quite a few hard times, I don’t want to gloss over the good times with an ungrateful attitude. An excellent example of why suffering is good that sticks in my mind is represented in the Modem period, by poets like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.  During this time, as I stated above, suffering was at least feeling something, which let you know that you were alive. If there is no suffering, then there is no joy, and you are stuck somewhere in the middle feeling nothing and belonging to nothing.  The fact that Aristotle made this statement so long ago, and we are still mulling over it today, demonstrates that it is not an opinion shared by everyone. I urge those who don’t see suffering as a positive aspect of life to take a more historically objective glance at why they disapprove of this opinion, and hopefully you/they will come to a more well-rounded conclusion.

Journal #12 -  Why do people not want to be educated?

Education can be a terrifying reality.  The reason people say that “ignorance is bliss” is because it serves as a comforting excuse for distancing themselves from society, education, and truth. If a person does not have to think about these aspects of life, then they ultimately alleviate worry and stress, which probably convinces them that they are living a better life than those around them who they perceive toiling over how they will define themselves in each of those settings.  The choice to be ignorant, in their opinion, is a liberation from the unnecessary trials of the educated individual. They can do what they want, when they want, where they want, and they don’t care what effect they have on those around them.  They also don’t let those around them have an affect on them. In response to this idea, I am drawn to William Butler Yeats defense of the artist in his poem Lapis Lazuli, where he explains why those who do not find va1ue in art are ignorant to discovering any real truth in the world. 

Now, here is the poem:

Lapis Lazuli

(For Harry Clifton)

I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

Journal Entry #11 - Aristotle responds to Plato’s view on violence in theatrical productions

Plato was of the opinion that, if you went to a movie and viewed violent acts, you would go home and recreate that violence. Aristotle, however, opposed that opinion, retorting

that watching a violent scene in a movie would actually provide a cleansing, or a Catharsis, of the system that would in turn prevent someone from leaving the theater and recreating the acts the saw. People want to be original, and if they know that someone has already performed the act that they were thinking about, they are less likely to find it invigorating to execute the same performance.

I don’t know if I agree with Aristotle or Plato. I have never been tempted to perform any severe acts of violence, and I am usually horrified and saddened by scenes of death.  Look at the painting Guernica by Picasso, and give me your opinion...

Does this make you want to go start a war?  Or, are you more horrified by its gruesome representation of a dire tragedy?

Journal Entry #10 - Google the word ‘Sublime”

Here are just a few examples of the far-reaching touches of the word “sublime”, from a band with Explicit Lyrics, to a church in youth culture page, stitching, and sublime philosophy – you can’t miss with “sublime!”

Sublime Spot

Sublime! :: Well qualified to represent the LBC :: Skunk Records

© 2004 Skunk Records, Inc.

The Sublime Homepage

Amazon.com: Music: Sublime [EXPLICIT LYRICS]

SUBLIME STITCHING by Jenny Hart

Sublime [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

www.hallucinet.com/sublime/

Sublime Frequencies produces music from Java Bali Sumatra Burma ...

Main Entry: ¹sub·lime
Pronunciation: s&-'blIm
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sub·limed; sub·lim·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French sublimer, from Medieval Latin sublimare to refine, sublime, from Latin, to elevate, from sublimis
transitive senses
1 : to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form
2 [French sublimer, from Latin sublimare] a (1) : to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2) : to render finer (as in purity or excellence) b : to convert (something inferior) into something of higher worth
intransitive senses : to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state
- sub·lim·able /-'blI-m&-b&l/ adjective
- sub·lim·er nouun

Journal lntr #9 - How does Stevens’ poem relate to mimesis?

Stevens’ poem doesn’t relate to mimesis. His poem is a representation of the exact opposite of mimesis, as it is a song that celebrates the ability to create a unique and personal world unlike any other that has ever existed. The only mimesis that exists is that of the sea, a body that is overshadowed and out-performed by the original song of the woman who stands beside it as she creates her own world. The woman in the poem is the “single artificer of the world’, a reality that can possess no mimetic traces. Again, the only relation to mimesis is that which the sea provides, an obviously incomparable inferior world to that of which the woman has created and lives in.

Journal #8 - Censorsip

Censorship is a topic which seems to never carry any resolution with it. No one is ever happy with the level of censorship that exists, and not everyone ever will be. With that said, my opinion is that the United States needs to lighten up on the censorship regulations that are in place. We are not exposed to the same realities that much of the rest of the world is privy to, and we do not get the full picture of what goes on in the world as a result. For example, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to study in Spain for a year, from 2002-2003.  During this time, the United States declared that we were going to war with Iraq, and a great deal of the footage could be seen on the news 24 hours a day.  The footage there, however, showed the actually dead bodies and provided a close-up view of exactly what was taking place, something that would have been censored out of American media.  There, however, people were accustomed to having such horrendous calamities and death prevalent in the media, and there was not near the shock value that would have occurred in the U.S.  People were not cold or detached to the fact that people were dying, they were just more aware of what was going on, and could thus form a more cohesive opinion on whether or not they supported the action that the I U.S. was taking. In short, censorship results in a withholding of information from the society in which it exists. Personally, I like to be as educated and informed as possible when I need to formulate a cogent opinion on different issues, such as involvement in a war.  I do not feel that having the strict censorship laws that subsist in the United States allows me to accurately do so.

Journal Entry  #7 - How does Wallace Stevens Protect his Verse From Criticism?

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

                   It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Steven’s protects this poem from criticism primarily from the lines which I have bolded and italicized. The fact that this woman was the “single artificer of the world” imbues that the world was her own, and is thus a world in which no one else can permeate, because “That was her song, for she was the maker.”  The woman reflects Stevens’ poetry because he, like the woman singing here, is the artificer of the world in which he lives, and his poetry is his song of that world. No one can criticize his work, because it is irrelevant and contradictory of the very stance that he establishes.  The only practical use for criticism would be to in turn use it to be the “maker” of one’s own world, which is exactly the point that Steven’s is trying to make.  If you try to criticize his work, you just spin yourself in circles, because you cannot deny the fact this poem is equal in sentiment to the famous Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself outlook. Only the artificer and how he/she views himself/herself is important, because their world is just that, their world, and they should he able to celebrate that fact through whatever artistic mode they can develop, like Whitman accomplished in his Song and Stevens’ has set himself up to do here in The Idea of Order at Key West.

Journal Entry #6 -  Painful Experience that I am Better of For Now

A painful experience that I saw that I am better of for now occurred when I was eleven years old, living in Kalkaska, Michigan.  My family and I had just spent a day together in

a town nearby,  Traverse City.  We returned to Kalkaska that evening, and went to our favorite pizzeria for dinner. As we were eating dinner, a long line of fire trucks and police cars started zooming by on the street outside of the pizzeria. We commented on how many emergency vehicles were passing by, but really thought nothing more of it.  Well, then we started the drive home, we lived about 12 miles out of town.  As we got closer and closer to our house, though, we also saw more and more emergency vehicles. Comments flew back and forth about how we hoped our neighbors were ok.  However, we soon discovered that it was, in fact, our house that was ablaze, and I just remember standing there in shock, not knowing what this meant for my future.  The flames that were being emitted from the top and sides of the falling structure were enormous, and even to this day, when I smell a large fire or see a cloud of smoke, that vision of my house burning down reemerges to the forefront of my thoughts.

However, I have always felt like my life benefited from that experience. As a result, I have always looked tragedy in the eyes with a more objective look, wondering what will come of new hardships. After my house burnt down, my family moved to Montana 2 years later, and I have come to absolutely love this place, regardless of the circumstances for my being here.  I feell like it was the luckiest turn my life ever took, as life was really not looking so good during the couple of years in Kalkaska that followed the fire.  Moving to Montana provided me with a new opportunity to identify who I was and what I wanted out of life at a lime in my life when I was very confused.  I will always be thankful for the opportunity that this tragic event opened up for me, and have since always looked at such catastrophes in a whole new light.

Journal Entry #5 - Something that has made me cry, but that I want to go back to

Something that made me cry, but that I desperately want to go back to, came when I was leaving Spain after having been fortunate enough to go there and study for about a year. It made me cry because I had learned so much about myself and what I wanted to do with my life, and I had made so many new friends, that I didn’t want to leave that experience behind and suffer the possible fate of not remembering everything that I had learned.  I didn’t want to leave, but at the same time, I dearly missed home.  I was torn between two worlds, and I would love to go back to see how much my perspective has changed after having been a way for a while.

Journal Entry #4 Canon and T radition

The literary Canon is a nice way of identifying pieces of literature that have had a profound impact on the world from which they derive. The problem with canonicity is that it undermines peoples’ abilities to be creative by basically telling them what they should and shouldn’t like. It seems as if you have not read oh so many works from the literary Canon, then you are not a true literary scholar.  That just isn’t true. I mean, think of the Sentimentalist novels from the 191h century that had a profound impact on the world, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the superfluity of slave narratives that emerged.  These works have no place in the literary Canon, yet they are essential to know and understand if one is to he considered a true literary scholar. Is canonicity important, then?  Ultimately, I do not believe so.  However, in our day and age, it at least gives credit to and acknowledges a great deal of authors who the world might not know about otherwise. Truthfully there are a number of books that I am excited about reading that appear on the MSU Top 100 booklist, and I would probably not even now about them if it were not for the existence of the Canon.  So, yeah, I guess I am somewhat thankful for the Canon, but I also think that it needs to be phased out at some point in the future.

Journal Entry #3 – Write a passage drawn from a work of lit.

“We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind”

This excerpt, from William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality, really hits the nail on the head when thinking about the importance of progression and the approach to grief that satisfies a positive outlook on life.  What more is there to do in the face of tragedy than to find strength in it and build upon that new found force?  If you can’t benefit from tragedies, like death, then those tragedies have served no purpose aside from the suffering they caused.  The fact is, there is always something positive to be drawn from every seemingly negative situation, an outlook which happens to be immortalized in this particular quote by Wordsworth.

Journal Entry #2 – Desert Island Topic

If I were trapped on a desert island, the one book that I would want with me would be a book about how to survive on a desert island.  At this point, my world would be much different than any author would ever have been able accurately convey, so I would not want to be deceptively mislead into believing I could live in a world that other artists have described in a manner that they have explained – that would probably only lead to my demise.  No, I would need to be the “artificer of my own world”, and everything I created would be original and unlike anything that I believe that I am familiar with now.  This selection seems like an overly practical one, but it is really not.  I love life, and would want to know how to best accommodate and survive in my unique environment.  Besides, I wouldn’t want to squander such a spectacular opportunity to create something truly original.  The important literature that I would have would be in my head already, and from that I could create something exceptional, as my book on survival would teach me the best way to record information and document my experiences, among other things.  I believe that this choice of companionship places me on the more practical end of the spectrum, but would like to add that, over time, it would allow me to accomplish a great deal of wonderfully impractical goals.

Journal Entry #1 – A Literary Work that has Changed My Perceptions

The most influential literary work that I have come across has been William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The reason that this work has affected me so much is that it embodies a sentiment, through the character Theseus, that has made me look at the world and formulate opinions of my observations in a whole new way.  The instance to which I find this inspiration comes when Theseus and Hippolyta are watching a play that the critics’ who are observing have identified as being rather “silly”, although the actors believe that they are doing something rather spectacular.  Hippolyta leans to Theseus and makes the comment the “This is the silliest stuff that I ever heard”, but Theseus’s superbly wise response is “The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”  In this one simple line, Theseus sums up an essential truth that I hold close when thinking about the world around me – that it is my imagination that makes everything interesting, and if I cannot do so, I am a boring person.  With this perspective, everything takes on a new light.  Before I had the wisdom of this line instilled in me, I would go to movies and scoff at the ridiculousness of some of the scenes.  Now, I see those same scenes more clearly for what the actors are actually trying to do, and realize that I was the one to which the scoffing should have been directed.  I would have glossed over those seemingly asinine sections of a work of art before, but now, everything has additional meaning and purpose.  If I don’t see that right away, I need to shed my lackluster cloak of shameful dullness.