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”