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.

Don Quixote

While reading Don Quixote last night, I stumbled across an epigraph of one of the chapters that seems relavant to the class.

Chapter XXIV, Part II pg. 614

"In which a thousand trifles are recounted, as irrelevant as they are necessary to a true understanding of this great history"

Due to my recent Stanley Fish binge, I thoutht this epigraph fit nicely into his arguement on the humanites. Fish argues, like I have said in previous entries, humanities have no inherrent value and thus are the most valueable. This epigraph from the second part coincides perfectly with this arguement. In one sense, much of Don Quixote is irrelevent and meaningless especially to those who due to ignorance or some other mental block cant look at "poetry with poetry seeing eyes." However the true worth of DQ makes all aspects of the novel "necessary to understanding." The chapter that follows the epigraph seems pointless. It relates Cide Hamete Benengeli's criticism of the Cave of Montesinos. Cide, the original author of the History of Don Quixote, believes The Knight of the Lions lied about some of his adventures in the underworld. However, in the true nature of "art for art's sake" Cide's comments are irrelevant to the narrative however they are necessary to the parody of the Romantic, a theme throughout the novel. Why this tidbit falls into the narrative is not for the reader to argue. Like Fish says, the humanities need no defense, they defend themselves. So we must not argue the irrelaances or necessities of DQ rather enjoy all the aspects of the novel because its worth lies in absence of inherrent value. Some people say reading a 1000 page novel is pointless, when in reality its exactly those people who are pointless.

Stanley Fish

I know I already linked Stanley Fish's blog site to my site but I have slowly been going through more and more of his material and I find everything I read more and more fascinating.  Fish has an incredible power to find the root of issues in his blog and after my own heart he does it while remaining incredibly ambiguous in motivations.  I find his political commentary informative and entertaining without pushing leftist or rightist agenda.  I have no problem with outwardly political viewpoints however I prefer to keep my own political motivations to myself so Fish's political discourse truly strikes a chord with my beliefs.  The best part of Fish's blog however is the broad range of topics he covers.  He seems to have level headed insight to almost every hot topic in current events.  I suggest everyone do a little navigating and reading of Fish's blog because much of his work pertains directly to some of the coming requirements of the class.   I'll start you out with one of his entries directly relating to English 300.  You could consider it Fish's apology.  Check it out.

Will the Humanities Save Us?

A comment on Bloom

Since the beginning of this class I have been a bit skeptical of this Harold Bloom character.  He seems to write an awful lot of introductions proclaiming his brilliance though I am not familiar with any of his own books beyond these intro.  I will admit that my guess is my own ignorance is to blame for this lack of information.  None the less I just get a bit uneasy when he begins spouting off about the incorrect criticisms of So and So and the brilliance of Such and Such.  That being said, even the slipperiest of characters can completely redeem themselves with a few well placed and artfully written sentences.  After all I am a bit shallow.  Low and behold, just when I thought Bloom was irreconcilable, he surprises me with a sentence so incredibly and simply profound in relation to DQ that I wish I could reach through the folds of time and space and pat him on the back while saying "thats gooooood!"  In the very last paragraph of his introduction Bloom states in relation to both Hamlet and Don Quixote:

"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."  (xxxv)

Now I until this passage, Don Quixote has plagued me a bit - good thing I waited till November 12 to read it.  I enjoy the novel.  The story is both charming and cynical, jovial and cruel.  I see instances of absolute relevance to the course and to the study of English.  I even see and enjoy DQ simply for the sake for the piece of art itself.  My only hang up occurs with all this talk about DQ as the greatest novel in existence and the talk of Cervantes and Shakespeare as the only true and ultimate masters since Homer.  Someone with a higher educational degree and a few more laps around the sun can assure me of the truth in these statements all they want and I will not argue.  However, I find such bold statements such as the one above easier to digest through my self realization.  Some synapse lost in my brain must stumble into the older more sagacious synapse with the conceptualized idea of such a profound thought in order for me to pole vault the gap from being told to being discovered.  

Which brings me back to Bloom's quote at hand, DQ's greatness derives from this state of knowledge explained by Bloom.  Cervantes writes one of the single greatest pieces of literature in the history of the world simply because DQ always knows.  I fail to understand all the possibilities of DQ's far reaching knowledge however I believe part of idea derives from the notion of DQ the critic.  Don Quixote the novel is the foremost novel in literary criticism due mostly in fact to Don Quixote the character is the worlds foremost critic.  DQ read a bunch of literature in his life time...interesting...so did Frye, and Fish, and Blake, and Coleridge, and any number of other literary critics of the past.  All these men wrote brilliantly on criticism and philosophy and art however, Don Quixote surpasses all of the above simply because he lived the criticism.  Don Quixote read countless novels of Knights errant and rather than writing a hundred volume index of the practical application of myth in novels of knights errant or the recurrent imagery through the texts, DQ saddles Rocinante and sallies fourth to live through his criticisms. DQ takes the next step and experiences Fryes modes first hand from the Mythic comedy to the ironic tragedy.  Frye of course takes much of his theory from Blake so in a sense DQ outdoes the father of the visionary as well.  DQ comes face to face with the Archetypal trickster and pharmakos.  He meditates alone in the Sierra Madre's on the anagogic.  He becomes enchanted in the Romantic and faces brutal, cruel, and painful reality in the descriptive.  All the while, DQ "knows."  We as readers can only wish to know the feeling of living the criticisms we create.  For as pure as true as a person can live, no one can exist in a place so beautiful it exceeds nature itself.  No person can reenact the artful criticisms we dictates because we fail to "know."  Some may say the journey counts more than the knowledge, that we reap the benefits observing from our end.  I disagree.  The journey for DQ lies in the "knowing" and its a journey far greater than our imaginations can fathom.  Our only hope exists in experiencing DQ from the outside.  Like a trickle down effect, The Great Critic's profound experience and his "knowledge" seep through a criss-crossed grate to us and create our own slightly watered down slightly segmented experiences.  Thankfully due to the unimaginably wonderful experiences of the Sorrowful Face, our own are pretty darn good as well.

Well Mr. Bloom, I guess I should say thank you.  For even through all your arrogant rhetoric, whether the above makes sense to anyone else, you certainly proved useful in my own criticism.  I think I came just about as close to living it as possible.

Keystone Passage

One of my personal favorite Keystone passages comes from the Zen Buddhist tradition as a parable.

"Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him.  Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge.  The Tiger sniffed at him from above.  Trembling the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.  Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine.  The man saw a luscious strawberry near him.  Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.  How sweet it tasted!"

Each time I read this story I am reminded why I enjoy pursuing my studies in literature.  Though I have many other distractions besides reading a good book, I do on occasion turn off the TV or my Ipod and enjoy a piece of literature for its own sake.  This parable is why I prefer reading on long airplane rides rather than plugging into the in-flight movie and its why I tend to get incredibly sun burnt lounging on my dock on a hot day in July.  Sometimes I must recall this story when my bank account seems in a bit of recession or the weather wont cooperate and dump foot upon foot of crystalline powder.  It helps me remember to occasionally loosen my death-grip on the world and reach out for a piece of ripe literature for it will surely taste sweet.  Because as Matthew Arnold writes, "The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can."

Quotes from Frye

Just wanted to pull a couple of quotes from the Theory of Myths chapter in the Book

"We may apply this construct to our principle that there are two fundamental movements of narrative: a cyclical movement within the order of nature, and a dialectical movement from that order into the apocalyptic world above. [...] There are thus four main types of mythical movement: within romance, within experience, down, and up.  The downward movement is the tragic movement [...] The  upward movement is the tragic movement [...}" Pg. 161-62

This helps one spacially understand some of Frye's theories, though understanding literature spacially is a trick in itself.

"The complete form of the romance is clearly the successful quest, and such a completed form has three main stages [...] We may call these three stages respectively, using Greek terms, the agon or conflict, the pathos or death-struggle, and the anagnorisis or discovery, the recognition of the hero, who has clearly proved himself to be a hero even if he does not survive the conflict." Pg. 187

Figured these terms might come up on the test so I decided this was important.

"The quest-romance has analogies to both rituals and dreams,  and the rituals examined by Frazer and the dreams examined by Jung show the remarkable similarity in form that we should expect of two symbolic structures analogous to the same thing." pg. 193

Appropriate because of our presentations on our critics

"St. George and Una in Spenser are accompanied by a dwarf who carries a bag of 'needments.'  He is not a traitor, like the other bag-carrier Judas Iscariot, but he is 'fearful,' and urges retreat when the going is difficult. This dwarf with his needments represents, in the dream world of romance, the shrunken and wizened form of practical waking reality: the more the story, the more important such a figure would become, until, when we reach the opposite pole in Don Quixote, he achieves his apotheosis as Sancho Panza.  In other romances we find fools and jesters who are licensed to show fear or make realistic comments, and who provide a localized safety valve for realism without allowing it to disrupt the conventions of romance." pg. 197

Tracing the Theory of Myths through Don Quixote through the very specialized character Sancho.

Stanley Fish Is a Wicked Smart Dude

Heres a Link to the NY Times sponsered blog written by Stanley Fish.  Intelligent, well written and just darn entertaining.  Check it out.  Its worth it.

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/

Notes on the Fish...Stanley Fish

“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. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said diminishes the object of its supposed praise”

 

PhD. from Yale 1962

 

Faculty at Berkley, John Hopkins, University of Illinois Chicago, Duke, Florida International University teaching English and law.

 

Primary Works: John Skelton's Poetry, Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost, There's No Such Thing As Free Speech, and it's a Good Thing, Too

 

Prominate Milton scholar though I became one by accident at Berkley when asked to teach a course on the Author without any prior study.

 

Reader Response critic developed an offshoot called “Interpretive Communities” which states that meaning in Text derives from a set of cultural assumptions inherent in the text and in our own minds.   They are called communities however due to their nature it is impossible to define boundaries or set limits to the communities. 

 

Sarah Palin might call Fish a bit of a Maverick due to some of my controversial antics including my criticisms of political statements made by Universities and faculty bodies outside of their professional areas of expertise as well as my tenure as the Chair of the Duke University English Department

 

attracts a lot of criticism from other academics partially due to his ambiguous political beliefs, seemingly relativist theories, and public visibility.  Many call him a “Sophist”

Don Quixote and the Anagogic and the WOO WOO

Northrop Frye writes in reference to anagogic criticism "When we pass into anagogy, nature becomes, not the container, but the thing contained, and the archetypal universal symbols, the city, the garden, the quest, the marriage, are no longer the desirable forms that man constructs inside nature, but are themselves the forms of nature" (Pg. 119).

While we find difficulty in arguing Frye's eloquence in conveying the nature of Anagogy, I find the argument for literature brought fourth by Don Quixote to refute the Cannon much more compelling and effective. The cannon believes that the nature of literature should be didactic and the imaginary writings of authors of fiction spread confusion and madness amongst the public. Don Quixote cunningly responds to the cannon by describing a character of one of these "imaginary" works.
-"Here he discovers a brook whose cool waters, like liquid crystal, run over fine sand and white pebbles that seem like sifted gold and perfect pearls; there he sees a fountain artfully composed of varicolored jasper and smooth marble; over there he sees 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." (pg. 429)

Even as I typed Don Quixote's argument above my only reaction can be described by the word "wow" and the ever so slight chill trickling slowly up my spine causing all of the hairs of my body to do the wave like a giant crowd in the ballparks of the World Series cheering on the home team. The subtle implications of Don Quixote's argument precisely convey the idea of the Archetypal and Anagogic shift of his chivalric literature. The scene he paints reflects a valiant knight traveling in A place of unimaginable perfection and beauty, unquestionably a representation of Eden from the original myth of the christian faith. His description of this Eden and its vastly incomparable beauty becomes a realization of the Anagogic as the picturesque of the scene surpasses even its own incomparablity. While this completely tautological statement seems ridiculous, Don Quixote creates the anagogic by describing a natural place so mystifying it its beauty eclipses even that created by its inherent neutrality. Once again a somewhat confusing statement, yet a purposefully discourse in proving the superiority of Don Quixote's argument. Essentially by describing the archetypal and anagogic in relation to the novels of Chivalry he proves the existence of an element in this "imaginary" literature that by far exceeds the capabilities of the Cannon's "didactic" poetry.

I hope this little blurb makes sense. I wrote it more as the ideas zapped into my brain than by consciously arranging my argument. It is safe to say these two quotes thus far exceed any other connection between the texts we studied in creating a creepy understanding to the nature of this class and literature in general.

My Book and Heart Will Never Part

Well first off, I enjoyed myself at the movie and thought the whole production was very charming. It was definitely a great mix of comedy and drama and information. I found the segment on Little goodie two shoes quite interesting. Generally someone calls another a "little goodie two shoes" in a somewhat derogatory and insulting way. At least from my memory as a somewhat rowdy youth, we used the term to make fun of friends who wouldn't join us in creating mayhem around the neighborhood. The movie however illuminated little goodie two-shoes as a much more positive character. She was almost a literary Messiah. She taught literacy to the illiterate youth, taught proper morals, and most importantly preached a love of the natural world. I became instantly curious as to why the connotation of little goodie two shoes became more of an insult when it should be a compliment. I think the answer is a bit more obvious than it should be. The term is only an insult when used by mischievous little kids doing mischievous deeds. When removed from incident an observer actually realizes that the term is a compliment even used in the method described above. Essentially the person called the little goodie two shoes shows poise and maturity in not joining the other grommits in causing havoc so it seems to an outsider that the comment though used negatively by children actually is positive.

But why then do kids still use this term negatively. Goodie two shoes teaches literacy and therefore steals the Innocent nature of children by teaching them to read. Literate children can learn any number of things from books. Some of this material may not be to pleasant and even children consciously or subconsciously compare the carefree nature of innocent childhood and literate maturity. Even seen in the movie, children's readers had a fascination in death, a topic not to terribly excellent in the mind of a child. I think somewhere along the line, the idea of literate maturity, gained an aura of sadness because of lost innocence. Essentially, Goodie two shoes ruined the fun of innocent youth by bringing literacy and imparting morals to young children. She was like a giant fun sponge sucking up all youthful exuberance of a very young child. Thus the term became an insult among gangs of marauding children. The little goodie two shoes of the group refused to cause mayhem and became the fun sponge to the other children. A horrible name to be called by your friends that spurred itself from a very endearing figure of 18th century children's lit.

Audio of Idea of order in key west

I used this for studying for the test.  Thought it might help plus its pretty interesting.

read by Zachariah Wells

As an added bonus, Wallace Stevens reads Idea of order in Key West himself

Right Here

also has 

"The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain," and "Vacancy in the Park." on the recording

Peanut Butter and Shelley

"But poetry acts in another and diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought" Percy Blythe Shelley

Well after finally getting around to reading some of Shelley, all the previous comments pertaining to the reading certainly hold true. Shelley is rich with knowledge on poetry and I personally find his argument pretty damn compelling. I say this because for the most part, I can't stand poetry. I, for the most part, dislike all poetry units of any english class I ever participated in. I beleive however, my stubborness played more into my dislike of poetry and beacuse most teachers try to force meaning upon me as if its glaringly apparent and I'm some blind and deaf fool. After reading Frye a bit and realizing, "the literal meaning of the poem is the poem," Shelley's comment on the "thousand unapprehended combinations of thought" evoked by poetry acted like a nice dose of oxycotin on the pain created by a majority of my past poetry experience. After reading a bit of Shelley, I've decided to take a bit less of a depressed approach to poetry. It seems that reflecting upon a poem creates the experience rather than dicovering some profound meaning. Reading a poem with the singular purpose of deriving meaning ruins the poem. Reading a poem for the sake of reading. This method almost lends itself to the idea of the return to innoncence yet because we are not innocent some form of understanding will be evoked by the innocent reading. Before, I read poetry with a gigantic knot in my brain which was the cause of infinite frustration. Thanks to the fine Swedish Massage given to me by Shelley, the knot, for the most part, worked itself. Poetry will probably continue to cause problems in my study of Literature but now I can save myself a bit of headache and maybe even grow to appreciate the dreaded poetry unit.

Don Quixote and last class

"'Listen, my dear brother,' the priest said again, ' there never was a Felixmarte of Hyrcania in this world, or a Don Cirongilio of Thrace, or any other knights like them that the books of chivalry tell about, because it is all fiction made up by idle minds, composed to create the effect you mentioned, to while away the time, just as your harvesters amuse themselves by reading them. Really, I swear to you, there never were knights like these in the world, and their great deeds, and all that other nonsense, never happened'

'Throw that bone to another dog!' responded the innkeeper."

Don Quixote pg. 270

Interestingly enough, during class on 9/29/08 we somehow ended up in the realm of reality verses fiction or the High Mimetic vs. Low thanks to our little discussion of Batman.  Now I'm more of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles person myself but the discussion was quite coincidental for me because only the night before I stumbled onto the above passage while reading.  It raised the question of reality vs. fantasy and the role played by the two states of mind in the life of literature and the life of "real."  I pondered this for a bit with no concrete success more just a internal struggle with tangent thoughts of true "reality."  Enter Northrop Frye into my internal dialogue.  The more I read Frye's theories of Archetypes the more literature seems to make sense.  If all literature is displaced myth or ritual then it seems that literature acts as the replacement for ceremonies our species developed over the course of evolution.  In the broad spectrum of time, humans evolved at an incredibly rapid pace especially from the cave dwelling era to now.  Like all species, humans have instincts and it seems hard to believe that instincts developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution completely disappeared over the last 15,000 years. The thought of humans dancing around fires chanting strange incantations towards the moon seems a bit outlandish during this day and age so maybe rather than continuing such ancient traditions, we developed a defence mechanism to satisfy these primal urges without actually performing them and therefore maintaining the instincts built into our DNA over the generations before recorded history.  It seems then that fiction may not be so fictitious after all.  Rather its a "real" extension of instincts from ancient history.  That being said, it becomes a bit harder to differentiate reality from fiction and completely defends both Don Quixote and the innkeeper's belief in the reality of the chivalric fiction.  Although I will note that Don Quixote takes the grey area between the two and crosses into another plane of lunacy altogether by acting out the fictions.  The innkeeper actually seems quite intelligent in challenging the priest to the true real nature of the books on Chivalry.  Because after all as the innkeeper points out a bit before the above quote how his harvesters sit around and "[. . .] listen to him read with so much pleasure that it save [them] a thousand grey hairs [. . .]"  They save the grey hairs not by listening to fiction but by actually acting upon a real instinct.  So where is the line between the two.  'Spose its hard to say really... or is it fictionally.

Who is Ramon Fernandez

Who is Ramon Fernandez? Some random guy? A friend of Wallace Stevens.
Actually he is the Phillipine Basketball Association's all-time leading scorer and is widely considered the greatest PBA player of all time. Like "His Airness" Michael Jordan, fans affectionately referred to Fernandez as "Don Ramon" or "El Presidente."



"El Presidente"


Well actually, Ramon Fernandez was a French literary critic during the early to mid 20th century. He was a popular critic during his time but has become all but unknown since. Wallace Stevens was quoted as saying "Ramon Fernandez was not intended to be anyone at all. I chose two everyday Spanish names. I knew of Ramon Fernandez, the critic, and had read some of his criticisms but did not have him in mind."

check more of this out at
"The history of Modern Criticism"
By Rene Wellek

Who is the real Ramon Fernandez? Hard to say but if you see Wallace Stevens you should ask him because I'd love to know.

The singer and the lamp

The basic principle discussed by M. H. Abrams in his book "The Mirror and the Lamp" explains the shift in literary theories from mirror literature that reflects the real world and lamp literature that spills the soul from its creator.

The singing girl in "the Idea of Order at Key West" exemplifies the Abrams lamp theory. While the lamp generally applies to the actual artist of the work (i.e. Wallace Stevens) I believe a good argument can be made that the true artist of the poem is the girl whom both the direct audience (Ramon Fernandez and the narrator) and the reader fall captivated by the song she sings. The singers ability to evoke indescribable emotion from her audience through song coincides with the idea that the artist spills fourth his or her soul to shed meaning on the world. "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." This quote illustrates how the song evokes a feeling of nostalgia so indescribable it must be compared with the songs ability to belittle the mighty sea. "She was the maker" that re-ordered the world both reader and the narrator lived in due to the sheer power of her song. The powerful ability to shape the audience's world perfectly exemplifies Romantics critics focus on the artist and meaning.

Allow me to introduce Stanley Fish

Here he is ladies and gentalmen.  Stanley Fish.  Those piercing eyes, those rugged good looks, that black turtleneck.  He certainly has the look of an intellectual.

More Frye and a shameless plug

"Thus we speak of the rhythm of music and the pattern of painting; but later, to show off our sophistication, we may begin to speak of the rhythm of painting and the pattern of music."

Northrop Frye

Archetypes of Literature

And now a shameless plug of one of my favorite bands, Sound Tribe Sector 9.  I lose myself in the rhythm and patterns every time and my guess is you will too.  Great tunes for skiing powder.  What's the connection to Frye and Literary criticism?  I'll let everyone decide for themselves.

The file is the song Hidden Hands, Hidden Fist off the "Peaceblaster" CD.  It just plays over a black background.

 

Seamless Frye and Cervantes

"In fiction, we discovered two main tendencies, a 'comic' tendency to integrate the hero with his society, and a 'tragic' tendency to isolate him."

-Northrop Frye

Anatomy of Criticism

pg. 54

Frye always delights when he graces his dense writing with little tidbits such as the quote from above, compact, easy to digest and above all quite insightful into his world of criticism.  Using the above quote I can begin the process of categorizing literature as I read.  Rather than jumping straight into the realms of mimetic, myth, and romance, I can begin with the tragic and the comic. From there, the super-highway of literature narrows down to a two lane state highway which although a little slower, is much more scenic.  Once I separate between the comic and the tragic the specific modes become much more apparent.

  For example, after about 225 pages of Don Quixote,  I found a nice little mix of comic modes because the Don attempts to integrate his ideal chivalric lifestyle into an unreceptive world.  The Don himself lives in the Comic high mimetic and romantic because of his crazy pipe dreams and hallucinations of his chivalric quest.  After reading "light literature" of the High mimetic and Romantic mode, Don Quixote believes the real world exists in these same modes-- enter the low mimetic mode.  The true world in which Don Quixote lives more closely resembles the low mimetic mode where chivalric knights do not exist.  A comic high mimetic character mixed with a comic low mimetic setting results in comic irony and the creation of the pharmakos in Sancho Panza who inevitably receives the brunt of the Don's imagined quests.  The blend of the comic modes creates great depth in the novel and makes for a wildly entertaining read.

Class 9/15/08

While I can't necessarily catagorize all aspects of class as interesting (My appology for the slight offence). Two words defined by Dr. Sexon stood out as critical terms in relation to lit crit and especially our study of Northrop Frye.

Mimesis- meaning mimiced
Poiesis- meaning created

These definitions led me to question wether Frye believed in Poesis because as he contends "we may think of our romantic, high mimetic and low mimetic modes as series of displaced myths, mythoi or plot-formulas progressivly moving over towards the opposite pole of verisimilitude, and then, with irony, begining to move back" (pg. 52, Anatomy of Criticism) If all literature is displaced myth how can any new meaning in literature be created. Has the human race already created all meaning possible in literature? This sits a bit uneasy however I don't believe Frye to be so regimented in his doctrine. While I agree that most if not all literature stems from ancient ritual or myth or instinct as Frye believes, new created meaning can be interpreted due to each reader's ability to interpret texts personally. Poiesis then is not a dead term. For some reason while reading Frye I got this impression initally however my cloudy brain cleared itself with a bit of windy blogging. After all "how can I know what I think until I see what I say" (E.M. Forster)

The literary boys of summer

 “There is certainly no evidence that baseball has descended from a ritual of human sacrifice, but the umpire is quite as much of a pharmakos as if it had: he is an abandoned scoundrel, a greater robber than Barabbas; he has the evil eye; the supporters of the losing team scream for his death. At play, mob emotions are boiled in an open pot, so to speak; in the lynching mob they are in a sealed furnace of what Blake would call moral virtue.”

(pg. 46, Anatomy of Criticism)

Between reading the “Archetypes of Literature” and Anatomy of Criticism, it seems safe to presume Northrop Frye’s main contention states that all literature and as a result all modern human activities stem from a primeval instincts played out through ritual and the Myths created by ritual. As I read Frye and his contentions, I tend to agree simply based on the massive amount of obscure and not so obscure literary references he uses to back his arguments. While I am sure “the clearest example of high mimetic comedy is the Old Comedy of Aristophanes;” arguments such as these tend to drowned the average reader of literary criticism in terminology and more importantly an unfamiliar reference. I can look up “high mimetic” and “Old Comedy” however I fail to truly understand Frye’s meaning until I read and comprehend Aristophanes. When reading Frye, countless examples like the above create a fissure between simply reading words and true understanding of said words. Thankfully, Frye occasionally inserts a gem amongst all the mush that allows a layperson such as myself to feel a bit more like a well read literary scholar. Enter the quote from above taken from page 46 of Anatomy of Criticism. I come from an athletic background and while I am capable of understanding dense literary metaphor, the occasional sports reference eases the transition a bit. This quote perfectly exemplifies Frye’s contention concerning ritual and myth in literature. No better modern pharmakos or scapegoat emerges from modern culture than an Umpire. This most hated species of Zebra comes under constant scrutiny from players and armchair quarterbacks alike. While I previously believed very little correlation between Baseball and Ancient religious beliefs, the umpire as a scapegoat metaphor becomes perfectly logical. Although baseball may not exactly be literature, it helps one such as myself better understand theory of literature according to Frye. Wait…Hold on a minute…Didn’t one of Frye’s contentions state that “the structures in words are partly rhetorical, and hence literary” There are plenty of words in and around baseball, perhaps it’s a bit more literary than first expected.  I'll bet thats what Lou Piniella thinks.

Test

Just a test more to come soon