- Journal: Give an example of the “sublime” in something that you have seen/read after reading Longinus.
- Journal: How does the Wallace Stevens poem relate to “mimesis”?
- “Art is not an act of imitation as much as it an act of creation.”--Wallace Stevens
- The artist is not copying but creating
- In the early 20th century modernism art “mimesis” goes out the window
- Van Gogh’s paintings of a Bed and Sunflowers
- How can you defend Van Gogh’s bed?
- It is his representation
- The painter is not copying the copy:
- He/she is actually embodying the “essence” of the bed
- Important to Wallace Stevens: “the act” of creation
- The sea is not the maker “she” is the maker
- “It was her voice.”
- There is no reality except for the one the artist creates.
- Plato + Aristotle + Wallace Stevens
- “In a sense we get it all from Plato.”
- It’s all in the "making"
- Art is not imitating--it is expressing.
- The question of taste runs through literary criticism.
- Art is something that you eat for breakfast.
- “Plato liked Pop Tarts.”
- What is the difference between taste and Platonic truth?
- Go to Coleridge and see what he says
- good Platonist
- “Aesthetic relativism is wrong; there is only one truth.” --Plato
- “Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is the beholder.”
- Who is right? Plato or Aristotle
- Plato’s ghost Aristotle’s skeleton
- Plato=spiritual “a ghostly solidarity of things”
- Aristotle=material “the hedgehog and the fox”
- ARISTOTLE "Poetics"
- Read intro to Aristotle in anthology
- The answer to Aristotle is within Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- “Too hot! Too cold! JUST RIGHT!”
- Not a moral question, but a question of form
- Dialectic: we all correct each other; through anamnesis we correct ourselves
- Comedy=representation is worse than us
- Tragedy=representation is better than us
- Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is:
- -SERIOUS -COMPLETE -OF A CERRTAIN MAGNITUDE
- “Homer is long-winded.”
- Epics (Homer) is too long
- Lyric poems (Edgar Allen Poe) are too short
- Tragedy (Oedipus Rex) is just right
- Art=tragedy
- Tragedy is the language of art
- Tragedy can have (external):
- -SPECTACLE -DICTION -THE SONNG
- Tragedy must have (internal):
- -PLOT -CHARACTER -THEME
>- Following is a list of their importance:
- #1. PLOT (MYTHOS)
- #2. CHARACTER (ETHOS)
- #3. THEME (DIANOIA)
- #6 on the handout will be on the exam
- Google sublime
- misprision: Making a mistake; getting it wrong.
- not a question of misreading it’s doing it the right or the wrong way
- Define “sublime”
- SUBLIME
- Longinus – Harold Bloom
- "The sublime reaches us through music.”
- see Tristan’s definition of “Sublime”
- give "sublime" a “good Google”
- “There is beauty and then there is the sublime.” --?
- “It was sublime!” a.k.a. “It was awesome!”
- ECSTASY
- “Ec=outside stasis=stand Thus, to stand outside yourself.
- Jamie’s journal in which she used Longinus’s 5 ideas of “sublime”
- noble feeling, lofty mind, figures, diction, word
- “. . . stew in the juices of Sublime.”
- Pathos: “feeling”
- 2 Words that have fallen on hard times: pathetic awful
- Sublime seems to have an element of pain
- “Muses were pretty crazy women!”
- There were 2 Plato’s: the “sneaky” Plato—the one who really did value art; and the one who tried to conceal this love.
- anxiety of influence: the reason why Plato hated Homer so much was because he loved Homer
- ARISTOTLE
- not an imitation of a “thing” but an imitation of an action
- that action is a human action
- of all the plays "Oedipus" is the one that “gets the job done”
- that “job” is tragedy
- It gets to the point!
- no irrelevance
- no loose ends
- Aristotle is a “Formalist”
- Oedipus Rex is universal
- “It is our story the human story.”
- archetype of the hero
- How to tell art from non art?
- gets to the point
- bad artists will not get to the point
- Unity of:
- -ACTION -TIME -EFFECT
- “real” time—the actual amount of time that it would have really happened
- Aristotle would have hated Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” and loved “The Tempest”.
- Start thinking Canon!
- bookmarks
- What would we like to see on the bookmark and why (See Tristan's Journal entry)
- How does Aristotle answer the question of censorship?
- What is Aristotle’s answer to what you take from seeing gruesome/censored acts?
Top
September 28th, 2004:
- "Canon Chat”
- Who made these decisions?
- English 300
- Tristan’s site
- Canons change slowly and not drastically
- How do we solve the problem of not knowing enough?
- Read! --Dustin
- Historical Accuracies/Inaccuracies
- Jamie/Niche (This is a really humorous description of Niche!)
- "Some of the greatest novels meld fact with fiction." --François
- “Do we have a responsibility to educate?” --Becky
- PLATO
- Imitation
- Should we censor?
- Do NOT Google ‘Lolita’!
- Should we take Alice in Wonderland off the list?
- Seen through the filter of art it becomes o.k.
- “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy --Lisa
- Arouse people to come to the defense of poetry
- The reason for the disturbing in literature is because it is a lesson of what we should not do!
- ARISTOTLE
- How does he defend acts of violence in tragedy?
- Oedipus gouges out his eyes
- Should we censor this?
- He did it figuratively so I don’t have to do it literally
- Page 88 sums up everything in Aristotle
- Key word is unity
- One answer to question of mortality: catharsis
- If we don’t see people in literature acting out the bad things we don’t get a cleansing; it affects catharsis
- "Literature really does give us an escape; it shows us an idealistic view." --Philip Sydney
- Troubling things that we don’t want to see
- "Pornography is a kind of art that gets you to do something." --James Joyce
- “We are not moved by someone who only has a few inches to fall.”
- anagnarsis: a realization of what we are; what we have done
- Oedipus is the best example of this
- Is it a question of the work or the artistic quality of the work?
- Awareness- the artist raises awareness
- Banned book list (Brian and Lisa)
- not that important that the artist makes a mistake
- it is not about a mistake. What is important is that the poet is looking at the universal.
- The worst thing is disunity
- Simple plot
- Complex plot
- “I don’t want a book with a guy who pokes his eyes out!”
- “Out vile jelly!” --King Lear
- Aristotle did not approve of episodic stories
- Aristotle likes the sad ending because you learn from it.
- "We leave the theater in cathartic tears."
- Pity and Terror
- Aristotle would not use the word “educate” because there is a taint of morality
- Special effects=NO
- Integrity of plot=YES
- Dues ex machius “the god from the machine”; no miraculous means to resolve the plot
- How long should the time be?
- The closer to real time it take place the better; “real time”
- MYTHOS ETHOS DIANOIA
- The message moral is not as important as the plot
- Mythos: unfolding of what it is to be human; one’s place in the cosmos
- Coffee and Cigarettes
- Aristotle would have loved this film because it is structured and organized
- Tragic flaw
- The flaw of having been born
- DANTE
- "For the first sense is that which is contained in the letter, while there is another which is contained in what is signified by the letter. The first is called literal, while the second is called allegorical, or moral or anagogical"(p. 251).
- Literal “letter”
- 4 levels
- #1. literal
- #2. allegorical
- #3. moral
- #4. anagogical
- Read Dante
- Find text in which you can apply the 4 levels.
Top
September 30th, 2004:
- DANTE
- Levels of interpretation (see above)
- Here is Dante in the middle ages already reading into the text
- the meaning
- Don't read too much into it; "the literal level"
- Robert Frost "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"
- Robert Frost "After Apple Picking"
- William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow"
- Commentary ruins the pristine
- let's not try to make this more than it is
- "a depth that goes beyond the literal" --Dante
- sonnet 73 Shakespeare's "sleep"
- We are entering the zone of metaphor
- How do we talk about these stories? --Literary Criticism--
- Homework: Put "finger quotes" around every 5th word! :-)
- We don't live in the literal. We live in the metaphorical.
- Words are forever suggestive.
- Julia Kristeva
- polysemous: many meanings
- interpretation depends on many things
- person background
- what side of the bed we got up on!
- literally is only a word that can be taken figuratively; "totally" "basically"
- "I literally died laughing." "No you didn't."
- metaphorical: talking about one thing but meaning another; represents one thing in the guise of another; represents ideas
- allegorical: extended metaphor
- parable
- Jesus told parables
- the best text is the one that overturns what you already know
- your world has been turned upside down
- We all want to be told a story; let me tell you a parable/fable
- parable=parabola
- it does not come at you directly straight
- it curves
- Are there ways of talking about the text that can enrich?
- allegory can be madness
- Revelation
- conspiracy theory
- distancing from literal "belief"
- SYDNEY
- poets do not lie because they don't affirm anything
- "I made it up!"
- true on some other kind of level
- Dr Sexson would love a journal entry on allegory in "The Wizard of Oz"
- anagogical: the online dictionary definition and the google
- almost like the sublime level that supersedes all other levels
- mystical
- integration of self with the text itself
- This is what really communicates: STORIES
- Read Sydney this weekend and LIKE IT
- The ultimate assignment is to put a quote around every word you say because all words mean something else.
- This is the title of the book Neo has in the film "The Matrix": Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard.
- "When Morpheus is explaining 'What the Matrix is' to Neo, he uses the phrase, "Welcome, to the desert of the real." This is a paraphrase fromJean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, the hollowed-out book where Neo keeps his illegal software. The quote can be found in Chapter One - The Precession of Simulacra, Page one, Paragraph 2, 'It is the real, and not the map, whosevestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself.'" (credit)
Top
October 5th, 2004:
- SYDNEY
- Pragmatic approach to literature
- "Thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchises. But if (fie of such a but) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry. . . . yet thus much curse I send you in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph"(p. 362).
- He is too flowery, wordy, and doesn’t get to the point
- Is it his problem or your problem?
- The problem is not with Sydney, but with you!
- Why doesn't he use words that we can understand?
- writing in the 16th century?
- Prolixity: uses too many words
- Attack of the poet
- “Why be anti-intellectual?”.
- "Now therefore it shall not be amiss first to weigh this latter sort of poetry by his works, and then by his parts, and if in neither of these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope we shall obtain a more favorable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw us to as a high perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of" (p. 333).
- translation--What is it that the poets do?
- one who improves upon nature?
- “Nature only gives us a brass world it is the poet who makes it golden.”
- "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done, neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden" (p.330).
- it is the poet who idealized the world
- attain a perfection that is within our reach
- extraordinary beautiful writing
- His response to Plato's "School of Abuse"
- “Fiddler on the Roof”
- "If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray.
And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.
And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all."- Often the problem does not lie in the text but in us
- Making a case against the historian
- only tell what happened
- The poet
- tells you what “always” happens
- universal truth
- using the trappings of poetry to show the truth
- Write a “Sydney Sentence” on your site
- Sydney draws his examples from “the mythological feast”
- "How often, think you, do the physicians lie when they ever things good for sickness, which afterwards send Charon a great number of souls drowned in a potion before they come to his ferry? . . . Now for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth. For as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is to be false; so as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirming many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many lies. But the poet (as I said before) never affirmeth. The poet never maketh any circles about your imagination to conjure you to believe for true what he writes. . . . he [poet] calleth the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention; in troth, not laboring to tell you what is or is not, but what should or should not be" (p.348-49).
- “I am in the business of using rhetorical language.”
- “Do you think the snake really talked in the Garden of Eden?”
- He is speaking but we don’t understand him
- The poet is using figurative language
- Don’t apply historical method to poetry!
- Look at what the poet is up to
- not historian
- not philosopher
- The task of the poet is to make us better than we are
- “A self help”
- cautionary tale: a person in a story showing what we should not do
- JOHNSON
- "The business of a poet . . . is to examine, not the individual, but the species: to remark general properties and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features, as recal the original to every mind; and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked, and another have neglected, for those characteristicks which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness" (p. 467). (know)
- defending poetry as a way of learning
- Neoclassicist who was interested in the pragmatic
- What does poetry do for the person?
- Harold Bloom likes Johnson
- Key word for Johnson is “general”
- General truth that does not change
- Journalist: “Did you have so and so in mind when writing this?”
- Artist: “Nope”
- The artist will always say no
- The artist has remained not the historical people
- Example: Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland characters can be seen as people from the history of England. The people are no longer around, but the artist’s book is.
- “The world has one lover and that is the poet.”--Walt Whitman
- COLERIDGE
- "The IMAGINATION then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM" (p. 676). ()
- The powers of the poet are “god like”
- SYLLABUS CHANGE
- No class on 10/26
- Get together in groups and give a dress rehearsal of your individual critic presentation
- They get to critique you!
- Presentations should be 4-5 minutes long
- Goal of presentation: instruct and entertain
- Tell the class what your critic would say about the issues of this class
- Literally embody your individual
Top
October 7th, 2004:
- Chart helps you locate literary criticism
- How does Longinus not fit into the Neo-Classic?
- He is a romantic
- Interested in the expression
- Pragmatic--What effect on the audience?
- Sydney and Johnson
- JOHNSON
- Pragmatic
- Duty of the poet is to please
- universal and particular
- The poet shows what is most permanent
- Ephemeral
- General nature--found in most people in most ages
- Human nature doesn’t change
- “It’s just human nature.”
- Common permanence of human kind
- Most general is most real
- This work is going to endure
- The only way to know if a text is immortal is to be mortal
- Thomas Love Peacock--Poetry is so over!
- COLERIDGE
- What is it to be a romantic?
- Less the world
- More emphasis on the almost supernatural power of the artist
- Imagination is a “God like” power
- Romantics are using extremely large phrases
- Formalists attack this
- Imagination = creative power
- The ultimate “I AM”
- "What is poetry? is so nearly the same question with, what is a poet? . . . The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity . . . He diffuses a tone, and spirit of unity, that blends and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination . . ." (p. 681).
- The romantic must bring up the poet when asking, “What is poetry?”
- Moved from art as an imitation of nature to a creating of nature
- SHELLEY
- “Rapturous language”
- Poetry/pleasure
- Imagination is the great power of empathy and sympathy
- “To stand in someone else’s shoes.” “To see through their eyes.”
- Artists function to enlarge your sense of empathy
- The MSU Top 100 Bookmark is one big poem of imagination
- "Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed: it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things . . . its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms" (p.714).
- "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World" (p. 717).
- “Beauty is truth and truth beauty.” --John Keats
- The poetry of John Keats
TEST
- Look at introduction for each author
- have a grasp of the conceptual idea of each assigned reading
- You will be rewarded for the memorization of the Stevens poem
- #1. Tevye's greatest pleasure (from “Fiddler on the Roof”)
- #2. Samuel Johnson says: "Examine not the individual but the SPECIES."
- #3. Abrams 4 essential elements:
- #4. Anamnesis: remembrance of things past; the artist will help you remember; we have forgotten everything and now must remember everything.
- #5. Who said: “I am vast. I contain multitudes.”
- Walt Whitman
- #6. Who is most associated with the touchstone?
- Matthew Arnold
- #7. Dante’s 4 levels of interpretation
- 1. Literal
- 2. Allegorical
- 3. Moral
- 4. Anagogical
- #8. The great sin is IGNORANCE. This the GREEK idea of sin.
- #9. Misprision: Making a mistake; getting it wrong Sublime: unutterable ecstasy; out of body experience Phonocentic: holding language above everything
- #10. Tragedy: a mimesis of a praxis; an imitation of an action that is complete, serious, and of a certain magnitude. Catharsis: a cleansing of everything; get it out of your system; “a good cry”
- #11. Plato says that Literature is USELESS, BAD FOR YOU, and UNTRUE.
- #12. Short answer question: How does Sydney feel about poetic truth?
- #13. The poet does not lie because he doesn’t affirm anything
- #14. Sidney’s distinctions between the historian and the poet?
- Historian=facts
- Poet=truth
- #15. En theos = enthusiasm meaning “in God”
- #16. Best tragedy according to Aristotle: Oedipus because it is unified and is performed in “real time”
- #17. Giving every moment its highest quality; only given a certain amount of moments in life. --Walter Pater
- #18. Liminal: “on the edge”
- NOW RELAX AND LOOK AT THIS COMIC!!!
Top
October 14th, 2004:
I apologize for misquoting on my last set of notes!
I just found a few great sites that allow you to find quotes:
(http://www.worldofquotes.com)(http://www.brainyquote.com)
I promise to use these sites to check the accuracy of my notes!
Your faithful note-taker --Nikole
- "DEBATE CHAT"
- Here are links to the debates in case you missed them:
- Highlights from the First Presidential Debate: Thursday, Sep. 30th, 2004
- Full Video of the Second Presidential Debate: Friday, Oct. 8, 2004
- Full Video of the Third Presidential Debate: Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004
- Rhetoric: The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
- categories of evaluation
- questions of information
- Sophist: Any of a group of professional fifth-century B.C. Greek philosophers and teachers who speculated on theology, metaphysics, and the sciences, and who were later characterized by Plato as superficial manipulators of rhetoric and dialectic.
- Plato was disturbed by Sophists because it is hard to tell if they are lying
- MODERN CRITICISM
- Read T.S. Elliot over weekend
- critic of mimetic and pragmatic
- Virginia Wolff "Room of One's Own"
- The dominant approach of the 20th century
- concerned with the work itself
- Archibald Macleish
- "'Ars Poetica' has been called MacLeish's ultimate expression of the art-for-art's-sake tenet. Taken as one statement of his theory, the poem does defy the "hair splitting analysis of modern criticism." Written in three units of double-line stanzas and in rhyme, it makes the point that a poem is an intimation rather than a full statement, that it should "be motionless in time"; that it has no relation to generalities of truth, historical fact, or love-variations, perhaps, of truth, beauty, and goodness." From Archibald MacLeish. New York: Twayne, 1965. Copyright © 1965 by Twayne Publishers, Inc. (citation)
- CURRENT EVENTS
- The canon is changing.
- The National Book Award (Fiction finalists are all women)
- You go girls!
- Nobel Prize in Literature: Elfriede Jelinek "The Piano Teacher"
- On a sad note, Jacques Derrida died October 8th, 2004 at the age of 74.
- Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that originated in France in the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on Anglo-American criticism.
- A wonderful film that gave an autobiographical look into Derrida's life came to Bozeman a few years ago simply titled "Derrida". Here is a link where it is available for purchase.
Top
- No class on 10/26
- Critic presentations begin on 10/28
- Remember: Informative & Entertaining ("not a high school report")
- Demonstrate:
- contributions to Literary Criticism
- relate to topics in this class
- embody these people
- "Canon Chat" continues . . .
- canon: literally a measuring reed; does something measure up?; list of titles that "measure up" to certain standards; (Look! People have been measuring for ages!)
- "This word is derived from a Hebrew and Greek word denoting a reed or cane. Hence it means something straight, or something to keep straight; and hence also a rule, or something ruled or measured. It came to be applied to the Scriptures, to denote that they contained the authoritative rule of faith and practice, the standard of doctrine and duty. A book is said to be of canonical authority when it has a right to take a place with the other books which contain a revelation of the Divine will." (Citation)
- Canon at MSU is the "MSU Top 100" bookmark
- Should we keep Charlotte's Web? (Tristan)
- Who makes these decisions?
- Are they good or bad?
- Does someone need to be dead in order to be canonized?
- T.S. ELIOT
- "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
- "What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality" (1094).
- contradicts the Romantic idea of emotion
- Byronic Hero (Romantic personality)
- "Someone said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know much more than they did'. Precisely, and they are that which we know" (1094).
- The thing that you know is Plato.
- Tvye=tradition
- "Every person knows wo he is and what God wants him to be."
- almost a religious definition
- The canon almost insists that someone is right
- What is the self of the writer?
- "We are influenced to a degree that we are unaware of by culture." *Deconstruction*
- Eliot is all about Tradition
- "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion" (1089).
- If it is not in our heads it is in our bones.
- study the tradition of our culture
- if one is to be a poet, one must read the poets
- "School of Resentment": all people who want to apply standards that come from outside the text instead of inside the text itself.
- Why did we encounter John Donne in British Literature?
- if it weren't for T.S. Eliot we would know nothing of the metaphysical poets
- Eliot admired the metaphysical poets
- "I therefore invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit if finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide" (1094-95).
- analogy to the role of poet
- "The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material" (1095).
- the poet refines himself
- "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape fro emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things" (1097).
- MODERNISM
- Eliot - Woolf - Joyce (get at the heart of the modernist view of art)
- Forget the biography! What is important is that we have the poem!
- Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish; last line will be on exam
"A poem should not mean
But be."- ontology: The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being.
- Coleridge = "organic fusion"
- T.S. Eliot "The Wasteland" is "the Modern poem".
- in order to understand the poem one must know the Tradition
- WOOLF
- modernist in that she considers the work androgynous
- ". . .it is fatal for any one who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly" (p. 1029).
- focus is on the work, not the gender
- the work itself is genderless
October 21st, 2004:
- Journal entry on Derrida
- Journal paragraph on Derrida; by the time of next quiz
- way he was and what he contributed to literary criticism
- Deconstruction: conflicting images within the text
- stability vs. instability
- What is the point of studying the text?
- "all in the language"
- "deconstruction is difficult"
- "It is influential."
- de Man "Semiology and Rhetoric"
- dips into popular culture
- What's the difference?
- "Language is unstable."
- MODERNISM
- all about the "construction"
- 20th century revolt against Romanticism
- T.S. Eliot -- renouncing Romanticism
- "you" is a social construct
- anti-mystical people: Derrida, Foucault, de Man
- NORTHROP FRYE "The Archetypes of Literature"
- structuralist: what are the structural elements
- think deeply on the things that are repeated
- looking at the deep structure of the narrative
- talking about the literature
- engaging in literature
- the miracle is that we understand each other the way we do
- becomes the "boogie man" for deconstruction
- he is very clear; gives a very clear definition of literature
- Jung= archetypes Frye= "The Archetypes of Literature"
- we only see a little piece; we need to pull back to see the thing in the "big picture"
- " . . . Julia Kristeva, for example, described reading Fearful Symmetry in the late 1960's as a 'revelation' in its insertion of the poetic text into the Western literary tradition. Through Anatomy of Criticism, she adds, we can begin to grasp the extraordinary polysemy of literary art and take up the challenge it permanently poses'" (1443).
- one must pull back!
- "In the foreground of the grave-digger scene in Hamlet, for instance, is an intricate verbal texture ranging from the puns of the first clown to the danse macabre of the Yorick soliloquy, which we study in the printed text. One step back, and we are in the Wilson Knight and Spurgeon group of critics, listening to the steady rain of images of corruption and decay" (1450).
- archetype: universal model
- follow the model
- pattern that we follow
- sublime is not only painful but beautiful (Monica Bellucci)
- detective work=literary criticism
- stereotype vs. archetype
- What is the difference between the two?
- archetype=does not come from society
- stereotype=comes from society
- Dr Sexson is a Northrup Frye guy!
- New Criticism: a.k.a. formal/technical
- got away from the old
- not writing about the biography/historical/political context
- the only thing that is important is the text
- the story itself
- Frye would say that Oedipus is the great detective story
- let's find the pattern
- not an elitist
- archetypes are not confined to great literature
- the most obvious of the archetypes are in the crudest tales
- fairy tale
- "Yo Momma!"
- the great mother
- you enjoy the story because you know the story
- (p. 1450)
- the rhythms
- looking for these patterns
- descent and ascent
- death and rebirth
- An important read: The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer
- "Aren't all great stories about adultery?"
- only a handful of archetypal characters
- These stories are in the human head
- Antigone
- Agamemnon
- Greek Myth
- Shakespeare
- one is born with these instinctual patterns
- "Frye likes to draw back from the wacky."
- SEASONS
- "These are the things that matter."
October 26th, 2004:
October 28th, 2004:
Individual Critic Presentations
- BRIAN as RAPLH WALDO EMERSON
- Reference (p. 717)
- the quest for the "great American poet"
- the artist
- genius looks forward
- 2 forces
- soul
- integrity of own mind
- Nature
- constant re-birth
- where we can tune into heavenly poetry
- songs of nations
- express the message
- Man's Painful Secret
- man is only 1/2 himself the other 1/2 is expression
- slaves to old ideas
- poets are liberating gods
- R.W.E. is a transcendentalist: "A literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition" (credit).
- BECKY as PAUL DE MAN
- Reference (p. 1509)
- deconstructionist: the assumption that the language determines the meaning
- text is unstable
- get inside the text and understand it
- semiology: The science that deals with signs or sign language.
- question literature
- historical study of literature
- how are you read the text
- Who is stable?
- draws from Rousseau
- also influenced by Derrida
- "Metaphors are my friend!"
- repetition is the point
- autonomous power of the will of the self
- we add nothing to the text
- History is the text.
- KATIE SPARKS as FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER
- Reference (p. 571)
- "Ode to Joy" is the European anthem based on a poem by Friedrich Von Schiller
- Romantic
- big proponent of freedom
- freedom writing
- brought appreciation for the German language
- music
- "The muses drained me dry."
- "In error only is there truth."
- making mistakes is a good thing
- BEN as TZVETAN TODOROV
- Reference (p. 2097)
- narratology: analysis of relationships within a story and the elements of telling that story
- elements of plot
- simple clauses
- subject
- verb
- adjective
- Clauses
- #1. casual relationships
- cause and effect
- #2. temporal
- successive (before & after)
- #3. Spatial
- importance in relation to each other
- study of syntax
- study of theme
- rhetoric
- FRANCIOUS as MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
- Reference (p. 582)
- feminist
- "angel of the house becomes a devil"
- teaching women
- "Vindication on the Rights of Women"
- "separate sphere" ideology
- no power
- not allowed to be a sexual creature
- women in Victorian society
- remove the yoke from women's neck
- strength of mind and strength of body
- not to be treated like slaves
- cultivate their minds
- not power over men but power over themselves
- women as assets to society
November 2nd, 2004:
No Class
Election Day
Go
Vote!
November 4th, 2004:
Individual Critic Presentations
- NANCY as CARL JUNG
- Reference (p. 987)
- depth psychology
- archetypes: universal ideas from the collective unconscious and are born with knowledge we all share
- mother
- shadow
- persona
- gender
- syzygy: most primal and closest to unconscious
- SARAH as WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
- Reference (p. 645)
- not a critic
- my criticism is accidental
- acknowledge literary history
- not concerned with novels
- I am concerned with the definition of the poet
- man speaking to men
- " Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."
- "Tables Turned"
- light
- " . . . let nature be your teacher."
- disagree with neoclassicist
- bring literature to the level of "common man"
- object of poetry--use common events in common language
- "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"
- AMANDA as EDGAR ALLEN POE
- Reference (p. 739)
- writing backwards--starting with outcome one would like to achieve
- "The Raven"
- outcome
- length
- desired effect
- intense emotion
- desired length
- achieve beauty with a tone of sadness
- melancholy is the most legitimate of tones
- "Nevermore . . "
- non-human speaker--the raven
- topic--death of a beautiful woman
- local small space to intensify feeling
- " . . . in the realm of the real."
- to be successful it must have . . .
- complexity
- suggestiveness
- metaphor/emblem
- last stanza
- never ending remorsefulness
- MANDY as JANE TOMPKINS
- Reference (p.2126)
- women emotion--"spill it"
- write in a way to reach out to people's hearts
- impersonal (academic writing)
- writers should cast the shadow
- "Take off your straight jacket!"
- LISA as LAURA MULVEY
- Reference (p. 2179)
- a film critic and movie producer
- "male gaze"
- sadism in media and popular culture
- passively controlled
- tool to understand representation of women
- "Visual Pleasure . . " (p. 2181)
- Nakedness
- Who do you want to see?
- both sexes want to see woman
- Beauty and Power=female body
- CINDY as JULIA KRISTEVA
- Reference (p.2165)
- psychoanalysis, linguist, feminist, . . .
- semiotic--"science of signs"
- semanalysis--linguistic analysis influenced by Freud and Lacan
- intertextuality--great example is "The Wasteland"
- symbolic--position and judgment
- ZAK as ROWLAND BARTHES
- Reference (p.1457)
- French
- all about language
- words are all there is
- only language acts
- the author is dead
- nerosis--where we get pleasure from the text
- liminal--on the edge
- text borrows from culture
- nothingness is original
- Remove the Author!
- DUSTIN as MIKHAIL M. BAKHTIN
- Reference (p. 1186)
- all about words
- we don't speak in poetic form
- impractical
- written word captures the spoken word
- the written word is dead
- spoken word is captured in the novel
- hard to understand language
- be careful with poetics
- limited vocabulary
- tension between words
- "Beavis and Butthead" example
- difference between language and the written word
- TRISTAN as GIAMBATTISTA VICO
- Reference (p.399)
- "The New Science"
- universality to history
- a defined pattern
- Ages:
- Age of the Gods
- Age of Heroes
- Age of Man
- Age of Chaos
- imagination cause of poetic vision
- "Age of Man" trying to explain "Age of God"
Individual Critic Presentations
- JAMIEas FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
- Reference (p. 870)
- "Truth does not exist."
- truth is dependent on language and society
- representation of the tree
- language cannot explain
- sparachkris: german word meaning; language is inadequate
- stoic: immune to suffering or pleasure
- NIKOLE as TERRY EAGLETON
- Reference (p. 2240)
- JR as HORACE
- Reference (p. 121)
- 1st century B.C.
- "Ars Poetica"
- Poetry must:
- be practiced
- instruct/entertain
- decorum: unity, completeness of poetry
- can't add a beautiful line that doesn't fit, simply to make the poem beautiful
- advice of poet:
- no fear of criticism
- must start with Grecian wisdom
- craft and innate talent
- exercise your work!
- until it is fit, lean, and strong
- power and finiteness of poetry
- "purple patch": "We still use some of his proverbs and catch phrases in English, such as "purple patches" in prose, or "the mountains labor, giving birth to a ridiculous mouse" to suggest any pretentious action" (citation).
- JENNIFER as SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
- Reference (p. 1403)
- "I am the queen bee of feminism."
- "Second Sex"
- ". . .one is not born but merely becomes a woman."
- MEGAN as WILLIAM WILMSATT
- Reference (p. 1371)
- formalist/new criticism
- focus on the text
- organic structure
- autotelic: independent of outside sources
- biography = bad!
- can't use authorial intent to find meaning of text
- meaning will be in the text itself
- can't use reader response to find meaning of text
- the text itself will supply the reader's response
- intentional fallacy: "The judging of the meaning or value of a literary work against the external context of the author's stated intentions, deduced purpose, or presumed attitudes" (citation).
- affective fallacy: "The errant assessment of a literary work in terms of the response (especially the emotional response) of the reader" (citation).
- do not trust the teller of the tale--trust the tale!
- YOSHIE as GILBERT AND GUBAR
- Reference (p. 2021)
- feminists
- "Mad Woman in the Attic"
- anxiety of authorship in female writers; anxiety of women is over the ability to create within the patriarchy
- anxiety of influence: male artists are always in competition with predecessors
- literary world is patriarchal
- no room for women
- OPAI as HENRY LOUIS GATES
- Reference (p. 2421)
- race is a text itself
- race can be read and interpreted
- canon of African American literature
- preserve/reserrect texts
- ANDREA as MICHEL FOUCAULT
- Reference (p. 1615)
- discourse: textual material; "What is an author?"
- ecriture = French for writing
- signified = object
- signifier = word
- talking about talking/writing about writing
- move from writing about things to writing about writing
- decenter the author
- the author is no longer the center of the literary world
- the author is a function
- KELLY as WALTER BENJAMIN
- Reference (p.1163)
- cultural critic / huge Marxist fan
- wrote on the concept of "aura of art"
- changes capitalist production
- art loses its uniqueness
- as society changes art changes
- reproduction is good although it is a forgery
- study history so that it is not repeated
- "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
- ED as THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
- Reference (p. 682)
- modern poetry seems to be useless
- what influences people?
- Wasted energy on poetry
- " . . . don't content yourself with the toys and trifles of childhood."
- in history poets had purpose:
- Golden Age of Poetry
- Silver Age of Poetry
- Iron Age of Poetry
- Bronze Age of Poetry
- all of these ages repeat themselves
- poetry deserves to be used for enjoyment
- contemporary poetry is crap!
- LINDSEE as FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER
- Reference (p. 610)
- romantic
- hermeneutics: analyzing text through systematic procedure
- get under the text
- Principles for artful expression
- grammatical principal
- psychological principle
- multiple readings
- understanding the historical context
- " . . no way of knowing creator's purpose."
- MATT as HUGH OF ST. VICTOR
- Reference (p.201)
- didascialicon: idea of new learning
- out of darkness comes light
- "teacher for teachers"
- "reader for readers"
- "nothing that is more important than reading"
- What should we read?
- anyone can find knowledge in literature
- no matter where you are from or who you are
- Wisdom from literature is taken and put in the hiding places in your heart
- wisdom = radiance
- ". . . reader who plucks the berries from the line of the page and eats them!"
- " . . . logic is what we get from these pages."
- BIBLE = ultimate text
- goal is to understand/read the Bible figuratively
- " everything that you read is one step closer to God!"
- In the Vineyard of the Text
- KATE as HOMI BHABHA
- Reference (p. 2377)
- post-colonial theory
- study of hybrid culture
- hybrid = new
- "Location of Culture"
- national narrative
- the critic makes up the canon
- problems with the canon
- ethnocentric
- does not take into account the people on the liminal "fault lines"
- is it dominated by western culture?
- what can we do to change
No Class
Veterans Day
Individual Critic Presentations
- DEBBIE as JUDITH BUTLER
- Reference (p. 2485)
- Formalist/New Critic
- do not label me a feminist if it means restricting gender
- "Gender Trouble"
- redefine feminism, gender, homosexuality and heterosexuality
- femininity as "other" of masculinity
- I am borderline between literary theory and cultural studies
- ". . . through language we break down that which oppresses us!"
- gender is a social construct
- break down the idea of male and female roles
- RAY as CLEANTH BROOKS
- Reference (p.1350)
- new critic
- focus on the text itself
- the following should be considered as a means not an end
- author
- reader
- historical context
- "The Well Wrought Urn"
- poem as a literary construct
- I don't like deconstruction
- BRIAN D. as STANLEY FISH
- Reference (p. 2067)
- interpretation if the above was a poem
- What is poetry?
- language tips us off
- act of recognition
- reader response
- SUSAN as STEPHEN GREENBLATT
- Reference (p. 2250)
- new historicism
- I prefer "poetics of culture"
- literary version of cultural anthropology
- the text is history and history is textual
- history cannot be seen as fact because it is linked to the transient idea of language
- both history contributing to art and art contributing to history
- "Learning to Curse"
- DANIEL as JOHN DRYDEN
- Reference (p. 379)
- time travel
- Restoration Dramatist
- paved the way for Samuel Johnson
- feels the canon should only include
- The Bible
- The Complete Works of John Dryden
- "One Happy Moment"
- Rewrote Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and called it "All for Love"
- LECTURE NOTES CONTINUED . . .
- "Set a place at the dinner table for your critic!"
- "Truth is a mobile army of metaphors." -- Nietzsche (this quote was repeated 3X today so it may be of importance!)
- For Thursday:
- one or two word description of who your critic is/was
- Make a question that is not too hard or too easy about your literary critic
- Test is on 11/23
- text associated with the modern movement
- new criticism: stay inside the text
- hegemony: dominance of new criticism; "The concept of hegemony, developed by the British Marxist Raymond Williams and by those he has influenced has become fundamental to cultural studies. Critics use it in studying classic texts, popular culture, the media, education, and publishing--all outlets for ideology (p. 762)."
- don't go to the author--the author does not know more than the reader
- aesthetic effect
- JACQUES DERRIDA
- Reference (p. 1815)
- discover the text
- Derrida would say that there is no outside the text
- close reading of the text
- radical new definition of what the text is
- every person is a text, therefore we are able to read people
- movies can be texts
- series of signs and signifiers
- cultural phenomenon can be read too
- Deconstruction: a movement about language
- existentialism is behind deconstruction
- all we have is language
- God is dead
- Derrida influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure
- arbitrary signifier and signified
- debate between:
- Realist: absolute link between word and meaning
- Nominalist: arbitrary meaning between word and meaning; "just words"; "words don't mean nothin'"
- Barthes, Derrida, Foucault . . . makes you less likely to go off and kill people over truth
- James Joyce "Finnegan's Wake" (Thank you Tristan!)
Please also see Katie's notes, as they are very good!
- DERRIDA continued . . .
- " . . . Derrida makes the claim that 'il n'y a pas de hors-texte,' a phrase that is sometimes translated, not incorrectly, as 'there is nothing outside the text. But this translation maintains the inside/outside opposition that the statement in fact aims to overturn. The text is already an attempt to include its own outside. There is no outside of that" (p. 1817).
- See Zak's journal
- everything is the text
- the interpretation of the text is part of the text
- writing is more important than speech
- Derrida is against:
- logocentrism: logos (truth, reality, fact, reason) is the privileged aspect of the western world
- phonocentrism: speech is superior to the written word
- transcendental signified: some absolute that we must get to; something bigger than ourselves
- Reference (p. 1818)
- writing is fundamental
- we are writers far over speakers
- criticism of poetry/writing begins with Plato! irony in the fact that he had to write it down!
- ". . . pharmakon (drug), means 'remedy' as well as 'poison'" (p. 1819).
- all words act as a "poison" or a "remedy"
- great novel of deconstruction is Finnegan's Wake because it has so many meanings
- New Criticism
- everything is inside the text
- cannot look to historical context, author, or reader
- only the structure and words inside the text
- MICHEL FOUCAULT
- Post Structuralist
- history is discourse
- influenced by Nietzsche = POWER
- PAUL DE MAN
- Deconstruction
- rhetorical interpretation-play of words
- all truth is rhetorical
- WILLIAM WIMSATT
- Formalist/New Critic
- intentional fallacy: can't look at authors intent
- affective fallacy: can't look at readers intent
- EDGAR ALLEN POE
- Classicist (New Critic Classicist)
- a work of literature should have one single effect
- good poetry about death of a beautiful woman
- STANLEY FISH
- Reader Response
- meaning of text is what the reader brings to it
- interpretive community
- MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
- First Feminist
- educate women
- handout from presentation
- CARL JUNG
- depth psychology
- archetypes of the collective unconscious
- THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
- Romantic Satirist
- attack of poetry
- poetry is . . .
- childish
- 4 Ages of Poetry
- RALPH WALDO EMERSON
- Transcendentalist = poet is inspired by God
- opposite of deconstruction/Derrida
- JANE TOMPKINS
- Feminist
- get away from impersonal (objective)
- personal is important
- lost those straight jackets!
- GIAMBATTISTA VICO
- "Original"
- System of Ages
- Gods
- Heroes
- Men
- Chaos
- HUGH OF ST. VICTOR
- 1st Theologian
- function of literature is didactic (to teach)
- "The Vineyard of the Text"
- ". . . reader who plucks the berries from the line of the page and eats them!"
- HOMI BHABHA
- Post Colonialist
- influenced by Derrida/Deconstruction
- Binary Oppositions
- have and have not
- FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
- Existentialist
- existence is more important than essence
- God is dead
- "Truth is a mobile army of metaphors."
- MIKHAIL M. BAKHTIN
- Structuralist
- monologic: single speech
- dialogic: dynamic speech
- free exchange of information
- ROWLAND BARTHES
- French Structuralist
- the author is dead
- SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
- Canonical feminist
- "The Second Sex"
- JULIA KRISTEVA
- Feminist
- semanalysis: linguistic dissolve the sign
- intertextuality
- LAURA MULVEY
- feminist
- film critic
- "male gaze"
- HENRY LOUIS GATES
- Deconstructionist
- Race is a text
- GILBERT AND GUBAR
- feminists
- "Mad Woman in the Attic"
- male=anxiety of influence
- female=anxiety of authorship
- TZVETAN TODOROV
- structural analyst
- the most important part of the text is the structure of the clauses to form the plot
- FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER
- Romantic
- hermeneutics (p. 610)
- science of interpretation in relation to the Bible
- hermeneutic circle
- FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER
- Romantic
- "In error only is there truth."
- STEPHEN GREENBLATT
- New Historicist
- text is history/history is text
- poetry is at work in history
- TERRY EAGLETON
- Marxist Critic
- Literature plays a social and political role in the public sphere
- Reference (p. 2240)
- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
- Romantic
- "Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."
- WALTER BENJAMIN
- Social Historian
- JUDITH BUTLER
- Feminist and Queer Theory
- "Gender Trouble"
- gender as a social construct
No Class
Thanksgiving Day
Group Presentations
- GROUP #1:
- "Coffee Talk"
- Andrea as the host
- Guests:
- Judith Butler
- Hugh of St. Victor
- Roland Barthes
- Homi Bhabha
- Thomas Love Peacock
- analyzing Shakespeare
- " . . . looking at the canon in a different way."
- GROUP #2:
- analysis of a play
- Feminism
- Medieval
- Dramatist and Author
- "anxiety of authorship"--the artist in the skit has "aoa" because she is dealing with others who don't understand the play!
- illusive reference to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
- over-determine: Freudian term
- GROUP #3:
- writer from the New Yorker is trying to write a review of "Deja vu in the Matrix Glitch"
- trying to use a critical approach but unsure of which one to use
- visited by
- Plotinus (classical/world)
- P.B. Shelley (Romantic/Artist)
- next door neighbor (Reader Response/audience)
- Neo (modern/the text)
Group Presentations
- Group #5
- "Judge Jenny"
- The canon is on trial
- Henry Gates
- Cleanth Brooks
- Paul deMan
- William Wordsworth
- Julia Kristeva
- Group #4
- Video
- "Survivor"
- "Dating Game"
- "Battle of the Sexes"
- Group #6
- JR
- Why is something (literature) good?
- Reader response
- author is not dead
- J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye"
- Jaimie
- Reader Response
- "Crime and Punishment"
- symbolism
- JR
- "Rolling Stone" Top 500 Songs
- other canons
- Jaimie
- Drayton Poem
- Final:
- Group presentations (10 minutes)
- also, everything since the last exam
- Individual Presentations:
- (click on the name of the presenter to view their paper)
- Zak: "The only truth is that there is no truth."
- believes this is false
- statement is self contradictory
- Andrea: there is no outside of the text, everything is a text
- "The public educational system has failed them. There are twenty to thirty million people who cannot interpret the world in which they live."
- reform of the educational system
- write to make change
- Matt: how literature makes us better people
- Wordsworth as inspiration
- "Consumption of knowledge"
- Think of Hugh of St. Victor's quote: . . . reader who plucks the berries from the line of the page and eats them!"
- Debbie: solace in poetry
- see the world differently
- use rhetoric to respond to ideas
- Katie W: expression of passion
- no right way
- Walter Pater: "For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake" (p. 841).
- Ed: expression is important
- disagree with deconstruction
- pursuit of energy and text
- Kelly: reader response is the ultimate criticism
- angel vs. star tree toppers
- should not be afraid to write
- Tristan: definition/utilize Literary Criticism
- people see what they want to see
- what is worthwhile to the well-lived life?
- Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"
- Literary Criticism shows us the bigger picture.
- Nancy: What is the well-lived life?
- it is more
- modern slavery
- actions, not intentions change the world
- literature is life
- inspiration=literature
- Lindsee: "how reading & gaining knowledge leads to a better & well-lived life"
- 1. Solve problem
- 2. Choose between conflicting interpretations
- 3. Enables you to form a judgment
- do not focus on one criticism but on all
- Amanda: billions of different well lived lives and criticism
- carpe diem without the stress
- Brian: What if the people who make our decisions were influenced by literature
- What are we doing here?
- Hitler Play
- Dan: understanding in literature
- "Prill Theory"--using all theories
- Dante's 4 levels of interpretation
- What does it mean?
- thinking, understanding, close reading, formalism
- Nikole: Words have power
- The English Patient Quotes
- We are texts
- Katie S: "objectivity and immersement"
- hang man
- classicism and romanticism
- Lisa: well informed life
- reading contributes
- all readers are critics
- Lisa's own criticism
- "Lord of the Flies" By William Golding
- Individual Presentations:
- (click on the name of the presenter to view their paper)
- Ray: I'm sorry, I was late for these presentations . . .
- Becky:
- Jennie: "So you're and English major?"
- Why study literature?
- "text brightness and sparkle"
- Opai: "Wake up Neo . . . to the well-lived life!"
- "race as a text"
- racial other
- censorship/canon
- literary criticism like the matrix
- Francious: Change the canon!
- (Please check out Francious new site at: http://www.115wstory.com/frenchyfall2005/index.htm )
- need for more multicultural literature
- women and minorities
- "Beloved"
- "The Color Purple"
- "Borderlands"
- created a 3rd world consciousness
- Megan: literary criticism is applicable to life
- strong emotion
- beauty
- growth to see new things
- Ben: how does criticism enhance our own experience
- informed opinion
- informed about historical/social issues
- appreciate others perspectives
- Brian D: how to view things differently
- "poetry is a recipe"
- when you see things differently
- see things in poetry and music
- a reader, a community of readers
- "poetry is what we see with poetry seeing eyes"
- Susan: no longer able to look at a text the same
- innocence and experience=William Blake
- we are able to pick out a good text
- we pick the berries from the text -- make wine
- become connoisseurs of wine
- Yoshie: feminism and the well-lived life
- Gilbert/Gubar
- "I am not going to be an angel of the house!"
- feminism as a human right in the U.S.
- Mandy: asked critics to stand up
- Wimsatt, Emerson, Wollstonecraft, Poe, Barthes, Nietzsche, Hugh of St. Victor, Simone de Beauvoir
- How to be a good/bad literature critic--no right or wrong way
- JR: why are we studying English?
- some say it is impractical
- JR--it has power
- Philosophers are pretentious!
- not only that literature makes one wise but it also makes you look smart and cool!
- "it makes me interesting at parties!"
- Jaimie: "God of your own life"
- Dante's 4 levels of interpretation
- after you get out of yourself the closer you get to meaning
- Dustin: literary theory, the Bible and . . . . the bar?
- Baktin and language in the Bible
- intense struggle in language
- dialogism
- time as a genre
- change in the structure of language
- moves through old and new testament
- Additional notes:
- "
PoetryGod is what we see withpoetryGod seeing eyes."- "the madman and the poet"
It's been a great semester!
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PS--If you are bored over Christmas break, take a look at my website titled "Land of the Pharaohs"!
