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”