Victory

It took all semester but I finally finished Don Quixote. I feel that even though we already finished the coursework on Don Quixote, it would be a shame not to finish the novel anyway. Just for good measure I want to make a few notes on Don Quixote.

The ending: Why Don Quixote? To retract your madness and scorn the books of chivalry seems a sacrilege to the good nature of your novel. I understand the nature of the inquisition and the situation in Spain but the rejection of chivalric ideals doesn't do DQ justice. His beauty is his madness and his desire to return man to the golden age and to just revoke that ideal seems a detriment to the character. Even so, I enjoyed this novel among many others I read this semester as well as any other time previous to that.

Don Quixote's name: During my Spanish class today we learned a new verb meaning "to stain" in English...Manchar. The literal English translation of Don Quixote de La Mancha is Don Quixote of the Stain. I understand he derives his name from the part of Spain he hails from but this literal translation actually adds to the mystique of the character. One could argue that Don Quixote of the Stain exemplifies his madness. Because he sallies fourth across the whole of Spain spreading his madness he stains the countryside with his lunacy. In the true spirit of DQ however, Don Quixote of the Stain seems more a reference to stained glass windows like in church. I cant imagine a more romantic depiction of our hero than in a Stained glass window. The major events could be retold in the same fashion as Christ's death with a series of stained glass windows. We can then liken DQ to Christ and both of their romantic journeys as sacrificial lambs to the non-believers. Don Quixote of the Stain seems the most fitting romantic name for the most romantic of characters.

DQ took a while to ingest however I believe all the time spent on DQ was repaid in the enjoyment I received from slowly piecing together the intricacies of the text.

The Dragon Lady

Danielle's (I hope I'm remembering the proper author) paper on the Dragon Lady struck an immediate chord (sorry for the cliche) with my experience with English study.  I have not and will never forget my Dragon Lady.  On my schedule she was Mrs. Soderburg, teacher of 7th grade honors English at Sacajawea Middle School in Spokane, WA, in my mind she was a gnarled old witch bound and determined to make every morning a living hell.  By all standards, Mrs. Soderburg fit the archetype of Old School:  blackboard, angry voice, old gnarled textbooks (the new ones didn't teach anything), and general attitude that terrified incoming 6th graders when they read their middle school schedule for the first time.  To make matters worse, I spent every morning with that witch as she taught my first period class.  For a socially awkward yet upwardly mobile 7th grader, 8:00 AM with Mrs. Soderburg inspired the villains in many a bad dream.  I remember her reign of terror held such a grip over me I decided to try drugs.  Not of the illegal kind but Tylenol PM.  I took 2 Tylenol PMs before class and tried to fight the urge to fall asleep.  This put me in such a trance that much of that semester remains a haze.  (It also might be the cause of my current tendency to fall asleep in class).  Of all her rules, which she imposed many, I remember so vividly the complete rejection of the use of helping "to be" verbs.  A huge poster loomed in the classroom as a method to taunt and heckle the horrible habit out of our writing.  She enforced these rules with an iron fist and a glare that pierced our tiny developing writers souls.  The rule applied to all styles of writing from creative to critical.  At the time, the strict doctrine imposed by Mrs. Soderburg caused many a late nights however I saw the benefit to her style of teaching almost immediately after I passed her class.  From that class on I never worried about my writing skills.  She developed the groundwork from which I expanded my knowledge.  I know not to use "to be" unless absolutely necessary.  I know the tricks to structure that elevate writing to a more mature level.  I know her groundwork played a critical role in my development into an English Major.  I however must maintain, for my own integrity, a love-hate relationship with Mrs. Soderburg because the joy in understanding her critical role in my schooling still becomes shaded with the memories of misery imposed by her wrathful persona and teaching style.  Thank you Mrs. Soderburg for everything but go to hell.  (not really I just added that for emphasis)

New Criticism "The Intentional Fallacy" and Stevens

Throughout the course of the semester, my ever changing concept of "literary criticism" skewed my traditional belief in the boundary between "literature" and "literary criticism."  From the first day of class, I understood the reasons behind the Frye text and the "satellite" apologies we learned yet pieces of "literature" like DQ and "Idea of Order" didn't quite fit with "literary criticism".  The semester progressed and thanks mostly to Frye and his theory of displaced myth, I began to see the ability of works of literature to act as literary criticism.  From this point, the fundamental boundary between the two, ingrained in my noggin since my early scholarly endeavors,  transformed more into a bridge.  It began with Don Quixote.  Thanks to the insights of literary scholars far more intelligent than I, I gained insight into just what Frye keeps yammering about.  

"The Idea of Order in Key West" however, stayed a bit more elusive.  I saw the displaced myth.  I saw the beauty of the poem solely for the sake of its beauty.  I even saw the "order."  I failed to see the criticism.  The poem revealed itself in similar fashion to my discovery of Don Quixote, through the words of someone else.  In the true nature of this class I claim my ideas only as my own insomuch they imitate thoughts of others.

While researching New Criticism for our presentation on Friday, I read an essay by two new critics, W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, entitled "The Intentional Fallacy."  They argue in the nature of New Criticism against finding the "intention of the author."  They believe knowing the intention of the author provides no insight to the poem especially if that intention revolves somewhere around historical setting, gender relations or the society in which the author lives.  Essentially the major "fallacy" surrounding poetry is "intention."   In their essay they write: 

"The poem is not the critic's won and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it).  The poem belongs to the public.  It is embodied in language, the peculiar possession of the public, and it is about the human being, an object of public knowledge."

This quote certainly pertains to the relationship between Stevens and the poem however the true value of this statement pertains more explicitly to the poem itself.  

"The Idea of Order at Key West" portrays a girl singing a ballad along the sea so unbearably beautiful it eclipsed the power of the mighty sea.  Like a great artist, the girl creates something beyond the boundaries of nature (Frye's anagogic) and some lucky speaker receives the great benefit of witnessing the creation.  The true power of the work becomes immediately apparent to the author during its creation however he fails to understand how as scene in lines 28-30  "...But it was more than that/ More even than her voice, and ours, among/ The meaningless plungings of water and wind."  I imagine if I witnessed Dante writing The Divine Comedy or Shakespeare writing Hamlet, I would see the beauty unfolding but comprehension the substance behind the beauty would remain elusive.  As stated by Wimsatt and Beardsley, beauty, purpose, and art emerge from the completed poem, completely detached from the author, dispersing among the people.  The true excellence of what she sang only becomes apparent when she removes herself from the song and the speaker and Ramon Fernandez are left solely with the art and not the artist.  The song "Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,/ Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,/ Arranging, deepening, enchanting night" not the singer.  We may praise the genius of the artist however the art changes the structure of the world.  The speaker feels left in "Ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds" because of the "words of the fragrant portals" and most importantly the words themselves not the intended meaning of the words by the singer.  

One may read "The Idea of Order at Key West" however one sees fit.  The beauty of New Criticism lies in the ability to find meaning solely in the text and that text may illuminate on countless meaning.  Thanks to the words of Wimsatt and Beardsley I believe an argument can be made that "IOKW" is a work of literary criticism not only because of the displaced myths in the poem but the poem itself praises the ideas of Criticism.

Ultimately as we approach the end of semester, every preconceived notion of "Literary Criticism" and this class in general proves false.  Literature is Literary Criticism and Vise Versa.  The boundaries between the two not only seem to be bridges but one continuous plane making the study of the art form all the more profound.

A humorous Side Effect of Don Quixote

With so few of the 900 odd pages of Don Quixote left for me to read, I find that the time I put into this book gave me some curious side effects.  Often I read Don Quixote just before I hit the sack and I have been known to take a nap or two with DQ open to the page I fell asleep on.  All this intermingling of Don Quixote and sleep causes me to occasionally dream in the language of chivalry and even more curiously dream that I am reading the novel itself.  This phenomena proves quite entertaining when you throw in my tendency to have zombie dreams because the blending of the two genres creates a wonderful parody of the nightmare.  I love zombie movies and consequently I tend to occasionally dream I am the Bad Ass protagonist of zombie movies smiting the countless undead hoards with my mighty 12 gauge.  However when they personages I quest to save use the language of Chivalry rather than screams of terror (towards the Zombies) and undying gratitude (towards me), I get a little mixed up and the dream usually takes a right hand turn.  Sometimes it ends with the destruction of my character by the zombies because he rolls on the floor laughing rather than holding the last stronghold with his thunderous shotgun.  Sometimes the dream completely transforms to the era of chivalry with the zombies no where to be found.  More often then not, I realize I fell asleep reading Don Quixote again and something in my subconscious arouses me from my adventure and I find the novel openly resting on my chest.  I know we are done with the actual discussions of the class but I figure if a work of literature takes an entire semester of dedication and distorts my usual dream cycle, it probably deserves a full reading no matter how busy I am during these last few weeks of school.

Term Paper----Done

Kevin Luby

Professor Sexson

English 300

26 November 2008

Channeling the Barman Poet

            Every May, I pack my things here in Bozeman and move to North Idaho to sling drinks for vacationing doctors, stockbrokers, and other practical professional types at Hills Resort on Priest Lake.  A typical conversation with a patron follows this general format: 

Patron: “Where do ya go to school?”

Me: “Montana State University in Bozeman”

Patron: “Oh ya, whatchya studying?”

Me: “English Literature”

Patron: While trying to hold back a smirk “what are you going to do with that?”

About this time my brain clicks on searching for some profound and elegant answer to this probing question however the following occurs in reality.

Me: “Graduate”

Upon answering so simplistically, I wish to amend my answer and quote the rhetoric of Shelly or Keats or Pater.  I wish to skillfully argue using the words of Arnold explaining, “more and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry” (Arnold par. 2).  I yearn to scream for the study of poetry as the most crucial and meaningful pursuit in the common age.  A questioning of the study of poetry deserves more than a one-word response because the true motive for my study in English involves much more than a diploma yet my basic response is all I can muster.

I desire nothing more than to explain to my patrons that the study of poetry encompasses a broader range than a simple understanding of the artful utterances of literary masters.  By studying poetry, we English students study the nature of language.  We learn from Northrop Frye that “all structures in words are partly rhetorical, and hence literary […]” thus students of English learn the methodology to comprehend literature from every field of study offered by modern universities (Frye 350).  The primary goal of language involves the conveyance of knowledge and a student of poetry expertly works to unearth that knowledge.  English students conceptualize the literature of business, politics and science just as we do poetry because the skills ingrained in us from the study of language transcends all language, poetic or otherwise.  With this understanding of language and literature, an English student becomes much more adaptable to the problems of today’s professional world because we specialize in the extraction of knowledge from language. 

More importantly, to study poetry is to study the nature of Nature.  Northrop Frye argues poetry imitates myth and myth imitates ritual, therefore a liberal English education also teaches us something of anthropology and history and any number of other topics expressed in the infinite canon of myth.  Furthermore, in poetry’s ultimate state, “literature imitates the total dream of man, and so imitates the thought of human mind which is at the circumference and not at the center of its reality” (Frye 119).  Poetry grants the English student the ability to reach beyond the limits of the human mind.  “[…] Nature becomes, not the container, but the thing contained […]” for a student of English (Frye 119).  Though the study of poetry we see nature from an unorthodox view with unorthodox possibilities. One may create worlds or reorder existing ones as in “The Idea of Order at Key West” by Wallace Stevens. The woman’s song eclipses the power and beauty of the ocean in Stevens’ poem and thus poetry becomes the ideal. The English student knows no limitations unlike students of the more didactic studies.  Through poetry, one may exist in multiple realities, across the plane of linear time, and even achieve immortality.  This broad reaching belief structure of possibility seems much more useful in today’s society than the narrowed, realistic, and “practical” fields of study.

If I truly desired to explain my motives behind studying English to a patron of my bar, I would look no further than Don Quixote.  Harold Bloom makes a keen insight into the characters of Hamlet and Don Quixote saying, “Here are two characters, beyond all others, who seem always to know what they are doing, though they baffle us when ever we try to share their knowledge" (Bloom xxxv).  Like Don Quixote, English students “know” the benefits of studying poetry while outsiders remain ignorant to the knowledge an English student may impart.  We English students need no explanation of the inherent worth of the study of poetry because we already “know.”  We see value in every passage written in Don Quixote just as Don Quixote sees a daring adventure around every corner.  An English student pursues knowledge just as Don Quixote pursues knight errantry.  Others may see our path as slightly mad yet like Don Quixote, we “know,” and continually battle wicked enchanters through the cyclical development of literature from the anagogic to the ironic and back again.  All the while through this discovery, we maintain the ability to stop and appreciate “[…] a brook whose cool waters, like liquid crystal, run over fine sand and white pebbles that seem like sifted gold and perfect pearls […], a fountain artfully composed of varicolored jasper and smooth marble […], another fountain fashioned as a grotto where tiny clamshells and the coiled white-and-yellow houses of the snail are arranged with the conscious disorder and mixed with the bits of shining glass and counterfeit emeralds, forming so varied a pattern that art, imitating nature, here seems to surpass it” (Cervantes 429).   Like an English student attempting to truely understand Don Quixote, those outside the realm of English studies, no mater how hard they try, will never fully share our indescribable state of “knowledge.”  Literary study like Don Quixote is the greater good, beyond the greater good, and most simply, good for its own sake.

Standing behind my bar every summer I wish nothing more than to dictate this entire apology to patrons who ask me why I study English, however I stick to my one word answer to avoid headache both on my part and the part of the inquisitor.  I prefer to differ to Stanley Fish to justify the study of English and the Humanities.  He states: “To the question “of what use are the humanities?”. the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good” (Fish par. 13).  Though I apologize to my patrons for holding back my apology, I realize this answer would fall on deaf ears.  If at some point the world returns to Vico’s golden age, I will happily relate this apology to the patrons of my bar to the joyous sounds of saluting trumpets, rather than the bank stares I receive today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Arnold, Matthew. “The Study of Poetry.” The Harvard Classics Vol. XXVIII. Ed. Charles W. Elliot. New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1909-14. Bartleby.com, 2001. 23 Nov. 2008

Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco-HarperCollins, 2003.

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco-HarperCollins, 2003.

Fish, Stanley. “Will the Humanities Save Us?” Weblog entry. Think Again. 6 Jan 2008. 23 Nov. 2008

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. 15^th ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Best part of my paper

Thought I would make a separate entry for this part of my paper because it is by far the most insightful.  The rest is good but this is the best hands down.  I haven't edited it completely yet but it should be close to done.

If I truly desired to explain my motives behind studying English to a patron of my bar, I would look no further than Don Quixote.  Harold Bloom makes a keen insight into the character of Hamlet and Don Quixote saying, “Here are two characters, beyond all others, who seem always to know what they are doing, though they baffle us when ever we try to share their knowledge" (Bloom xxxv).  Like Don Quixote, English students “know” the benefits of studying poetry while outsiders remain ignorant to the knowledge an English student may impart.  We English students need no explanation of the inherent worth of the study of poetry because we already “know.”  We see value in every passage written in Don Quixote just as Don Quixote sees a daring adventure around every corner.  We pursue knowledge just as Don Quixote pursues knight errantry.  Others may see our path as slightly mad yet like Don Quixote, we “know,” and continually chase enchanters through the cyclical development of literature from the anagogic to the ironic and back again.  All the while we maintain the ability to stop and appreciate “[…] a brook whose cool waters, like liquid crystal, run over fine sand and white pebbles that seem like sifted gold and perfect pearls […], a fountain artfully composed of varicolored jasper and smooth marble […], another fountain fashioned as a grotto where tiny clamshells and the coiled white-and-yellow houses of the snail are arranged with the conscious disorder and mixed with the bits of shining glass and counterfeit emeralds, forming so varied a pattern that art, imitating nature, here seems to surpass it” (Cervantes 429).   Like an English student attempting to understand Don Quixote, those outside the realm of English studies no mater how hard they try will never fully understand this indescribable state of “knowledge.”

A comment on Douglas' Paper

I thought Douglas' idea as literature and language as the common integrator of people into society was quite insightful. I began to think about the barriers created by the lack of proper literary knowledge and I believe they encompass more than just simply language barriers created by different languages. I experienced the same utterly helpless feeling as Doug while I traveled overseas to the German and French speaking regions of the alps. However that feeling strikes much more closely to home unless we constantly work to study the most important subject matter of any society...English. Try doing your taxes without first understanding the literature of the tax code. Try building a bridge without knowing the literature of Engineering. Literature even in our own language presents barriers to understanding. Being an English major gives one the natural leg up in the world. By studying the nature of literature we English majors dedicate ourselves to the complexities and nuances of everything we come across and read. We comprehend the nature of literature seamlessly as we spend our entire course of studies practicing the art of language. Our studies create a person infinitely versatile and adaptable to anything the world presents. I don't believe another major or field of study can make that claim. People ask "why are you an English major?" I used to respond "to graduate." Now I realize it's because I'm just plain smarter than students in other majors. Lets pretend a CEO of a huge business asks me the ever probing question above. My new response sounds something like this "How did you become the CEO of your company and learn the finer points of business management, finance, and marketing?" He may know that question or he may not but I would argue that deep seeded reason he earned his position was his finer understanding of the literature and the language in business. Now I would argue that by being an English major, I come to this realization in the importance of literature before any business major. I already have the foundational knowledge and insight into the more subtle reasons in business success (language) and therefore I am much more a asset to a company than a Business major could ever hope to be.

In relation to this class, how could someone read Don Quixote without first knowing the language and literature of the Romantic. That person would obviously laugh at the novel as a fantastic piece of jibberish. Even with my studies of literature, Northrop Frye remains an enigma because I fail to keep up with his constant barrage of references to literature I am unfamiliar with. His understanding reaches even deeper than mine because his internal catalogue of literature seems endless. However, I've spent a better part of my life trying to understand that which confuses me and thanks to that practice and practice in the study of literature I can extract the critical information from even the most elusive of authors.

If the entire purpose of language is to communicate information effectively in all aspects of life, why do people continue to question those who chose to study the very nature of communication. It seems to me the real question to ask is why doesn't someone study English.