Statistics

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

Getting to Know you, Getting to Know all About You

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

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

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

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