What We Talk About When We Talk About Literature

Group Project Research

2008-12-12T15:18:00.003-08:00

So, we were the Marxists and had a lot of fun with it. My critic, Terry Eagleton who was also so kind as to narrate the movie was a truly fascinating man who had a lot of good things to say. Here is a video of him discussing the meaning of life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t--KMaxdI90 90

Term Paper

2008-12-12T15:18:00.001-08:00

Embracing the Dragon Lady:
My Apology for Being an English Teaching Major

Even though I have been asked the questions “Why English” and “Why teaching” many times, I am happy to say that only a few of them have been in the cynical approach accompanied by comments about being not so well off financially and avoiding the “real world” of science, math and technology. I cannot say that my experience as an English education major is different from everyone but perhaps it differs from most English majors thanks in part to my parents’ opinions about an “appropriate” major. As much as my father would have liked for me to exercise my math skills and follow him in engineering, the most important thing to both him and my mother was that I choose something that I was passionate about and would have fun doing. However, there was one stipulation; I had to be able to defend my decision in more than a tautological “I like it because I like it.” So I responded with “I want to be the dragon lady.”
So many of my friends in other majors do still have to write papers and they struggle because they never had an adequate English teacher in high school that really got down to the nitty-gritty of writing. I had the privilege of being influenced by my own dragon lady who was extremely harsh went it came to her expectations let’s just say that I received my fair share of less than favorable grades from her before I can say I really got the hang of it. Her teaching style of both writing and literature itself was perhaps my second biggest push towards teaching English. Her approach to teaching Shakespeare in more than just read and quiz and instead, read, perform, divulge dirty humor, enticed me into wanting to almost emulate her in my own future teaching. Therefore my desire to be the dragon lady is to say that I want to prepare students for college in terms of writing in any choice of degree and I want to introduce them to a Shakespeare and a Beowulf and a Gatsby that they may not have seen before. I want them to realize that as practical as they may feel their papers are, an element of fantasy still resides in the paper they wanted to turn in to astound their professor. And that fantasy is not a bad thing. I think it is the best thing.
As much as I would like to say that the majority of my defense stems from the ideas and theories of various literary critics, the truth is that some of the most influential literature that led to my decision to embrace my passion was introduced to me well before I would even be able to understand anything any critics had to say. Dr. Seuss and his nonsense talks of green eggs and wockets and whos made me realize even at four years of age the beauty and necessity in fantasy as opposed to the harsh reality that was the “real world.” Why dwell in numbers and dissections when your passion lies with Frodo and Puck and Alice? I have to borrow perhaps some of my favorite lines from Dr. Seuss as he expresses this in a way that I feel almost cannot be surpasses as he says “ I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” My ultimate defense is that reading is a portal into fantasy where you can be, like Don Quixote, anything you want to, be it a knight, a scientist, or a mathematician. So why pick just one? Even Dr. Seuss asserts this in his book I Can Read with my Eyes Shut with
The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you’ll go.
Although literary critics are not my favorite source of inspiration, the passage read from page 350 of Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism on the first day of class definitely left me with some new ammunition for the next time I am asked one of the trivial questions about majors. As the passage states “that all structures in words are partly rhetorical, and hence literary, and that the notion of a scientific or philosophical verbal structure free of rhetorical elements is and illusion”, the laymen’s version asserts that everything is literature therefore every major, even math, uses literature. Once again, why would you want to be the followers when you can be the leaders?
Also, after reading and memorizing “The Idea of Order at Key West” and hearing the notion that life changes after reading something, I decided to embrace this idea that is almost one of the central themes in Steven’s poem. Jast as how reading allows you to see new things in this world, hearing the song in “The Idea of Order at Key West” changes the way the people of the town see the town. Why keep looking through the same eye glasses when you can put on those that let you see the world through poetry seeing eyes?
I am an English Teaching major and I would not change it for the world. I love what I do and I love the idea of what I will be capable to do later on in my life. Therefore, why should I have to be defending doing something that I love? I would say to those who answer the question pertaining to the reasoning behind their choice in major with “because it will make me rich or because it is practical” that they are the ones whose life will be poorer than mine. In my mind, I am far richer than any who drag on day in and day out to make ends meet. I love to be the idealist to their realistic notions of a “successful” life. I, like Alice, love to remain in the dream world.

The Poem Means the Poem

2008-12-12T15:17:00.001-08:00

What does the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost mean if you ask him?

Whose woods these are I think I know,His house is in the village though.He will not see me stopping here,To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer,To stop without a farmhouse near,Between the woods and frozen lake,The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake,To ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweep,Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.

Sir Phillip Sydney

2008-12-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

Neoclassical
Poets present us with golden world; nature can only offer a brass one
Art of memory
poet never affirms anything therefore the poet isn't lying

The Test

2008-12-12T15:12:00.002-08:00

What do you see?

Trust the Tale and not the Teller

2008-12-12T15:12:00.001-08:00

Forget the notion of intentional fallacy and the writer having any say in what the tale actually means. I think it is far more important to trust what you can definitely find in the text and not what the author says is there.

If you put lipstick on a pig it's still a pig

2008-12-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

Don't Ask What Literature Means, Ask What Literature is

2008-12-12T15:09:00.001-08:00

All Literature is Displaced Myth

2008-12-12T15:08:00.001-08:00

Literature is Not Dull and Boring, the Reader is!

2008-12-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

There is something to be taken away from nearly every piece of work one comes across. To say that something is boring or dull is to say that the one that is dull or boring is you. Even in the presumably most boring of books, something can be found to illuminate or enlighten.

I am interested in something because it interests me

2008-12-12T15:04:00.001-08:00

Tautology: round about way of answering questions often employed by Sarah Palin

Circular language peculiar to an oral tradition. Difference between literal culture and oral culture.

Reasoning behind Palin's use:

Nobody can argue with her

Invulnerable to criticism

Perfect understanding but no communication

It doesn't matter what you read; just don't read trash

2008-12-12T15:03:00.001-08:00

Even though that some of the most obvious examples of the archetypes of literature appear in the trash that absorbs a good portion of our population, I still don't think that that is necessarily the best place to find the archetypes. Often the most rewarding of items are the hardest to be found.

Hold the Mirror of Art up to Nature

2008-12-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

Movies to Watch That Definitely All Pertain to Literary Criticism

2008-12-12T15:01:00.002-08:00

Dumb and Dumber
The Wizard of Oz
Some Like it Hot
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Groundhog Day
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dead Man
It Happened One Night

Moral of Wizard of Oz

2008-12-12T15:01:00.001-08:00

After reading or watching anything, most people ask themselves "What have I learned?" Well at the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy replies with "There's No Place Like Home." If this moral were true; the Wizard of Oz would be about a girl who stayed home. Therefore literature is often simply literature of enjoyment, not necessarily constant didacticism.

Pieces of Advice and Items to Ponder in our Class

2008-12-12T14:58:00.001-08:00

Amaze you friends, confound your enemies
Who the hell is we?
What is the tallest building on campus?
How dumb can you go?

Four Elements in Artistic Situation

2008-12-12T14:57:00.001-08:00

M. H. Abrams came up with these four Elements in the artistic situation and we have applied Wallace Steven's "The Idea of Order at Key West" to each level.

World (universe) - mimetic - ancient - SEA

Audience (reader) - pragmatic - neoclassical, renaissance - LISTENERS TO THE SONG

Work (text) - objective - modern - SONG

Artist (Creator) - expressive - romantic - SINGER

Statistics

2008-12-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

Here are some statistics I have been collecting

1 in 3 chance at anything
only 90 % of us read
3 out of 40 went to highschool

Seeing Things That Aren't There

2008-12-12T14:54:00.002-08:00

Getting to Know you, Getting to Know all About You

2008-12-12T14:54:00.001-08:00

I am Eric Auerbach and I wrote the book that almost became our required text for this class Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in the Western World. I was a jewish, german philologist who was forced to leave Germany after WWII.

The Word is not the Thing, the Word Points at the Thing

2008-12-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more key elements of the class that I think everyone should take to heart.

Think of literature as music. Hear something you didn't hear before.
In descriptive writing, final direction is outward!
The truth in a work of fiction is different than the truth in a work of philosophy.
"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

Aristotle = Goldilocks

2008-12-12T14:51:00.000-08:00

Does it Work or Does it Not Work, That is the Question

2008-12-12T14:50:00.000-08:00

In Frye's chart of the Theory of Modes, we can fit Shakespeare into all of the boxes in two different categories.

Comic: Myth - Oberon and Titania
Romance & High Mimetic - King and Queen
Low Mimetic - Lovers
Ironic - Bottom Weaver and Rude Mechanics.

There is Something to Think and That is the Thing That Needs to be Thunk

2008-12-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

What it Means is What it is and What it is is a Structure of Words!

2008-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Displacement of Myth:

"In short, we can get a whole liberal education simply by picking up one conventional poem and following its archetypes as they stretch out into the rest of literature." Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye represents the ecstatic critic who looks outside himself when regarding literature as a hulicinagen. Basically that means that he sees the words and the work for what they are and not what the author intended them to be. (Intentional Fallacy) The meaning of a work is not detachable from the work of literature. As an ecstatic critic, the work becomes more than just something to analyse and criticize, it becomes something to enjoy that brings excitement to discovering what myth or fairytale or cliche is hidden within the pages of a novel or the lines of a poem. One of the best examples of displaced myth can be found in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce wherein nearly every fairytale or nursery rhyme can be found.

How do I Know What I Think til I See What I Say?

2008-09-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Everything is Literature:

"...all structures in words are partly rhetorical, and hence literary, and that the notion of a scientific or philosophical verbal structure free of rhetorical elements is an illusion." Northrop Frye

Sexson started the first day of class unlike any other I have had to date. There was no syllabus to ponder over, no foresight into the exams and tests to come, not boring droning over expectations for the semester. With this quote found on page 340 of Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism, the class was forced to jump start their lax summer minds and immerse themselves into the world of literary criticism. I personally sat stumped by the language of this ecstatic critic, unable to see the words having postponed bringing my text with me to class until I knew whether it would be necessary. At first, after Sexson explained the passage, it didn't seem plausible that anything can be literature from lab reports to classified ads to the Bozeman telephone book. However, after spending a few days really thinking about what Frye is saying, it makes sense for he says that the words themselves are the literature therefore any word found anywhere is indeed literature. I am definitely looking forward to the weeks to come in this class not only because of the free-wheeling structure inspired by the class, but also because of the insight afforded by Sexson and others in the class into the minds of critics like Northrop Frye.