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February 27, 2007
EVERYMAN
Anonymous, ''Everyman'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I was not expecting a musical to come out of this play.
The Seton Hill University performance of Everyman was very good.
I enjoyed it even though it was more of a musical than a play.
I also read this play last year in Dr. Jerz's Drama as Literature class.
Within this play, there is an immense amount of drama and fear.
God sends Death to Everyman, or the group of five humans, to tell them to prepare to meet the Lord. The play still stands today because it shows the audience that we can't let sin or vanity get the best of us and also reminds us that good deeds are the most important.
The dramatic image that Death will come for every one of us and that faith, strength, beauty, fellowship, etc. alone are not sufficient for the Christian to go to heaven. The only figure to accompany Everyman into his grave is Good Deeds.
This play represents the reality of the world today.
Posted by Denamarie at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 26, 2007
short and sweet
"...since it is a poet who is making the observation, he puts in terms of silence and speech, giving sound, the poet's element, a certain preeminence over sight, the painter's sense."
So much information on so few pages in Brann's essay Pictures in Poetry" Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Poetry is like a picture. In Keats's poem, his poem is about a picture on an urn.
The use of descriptive words, their magical capacity for evoking visual images, might well be applied to visions which are themselves artful.
Keats produces an image in his poem. This is an image of an image, though.
The urn is depicted with silently articulating scenes and sharp vividness.
These pictures induce visions of a world behind them. The urn itself has its own voice and responds the the poet's questioning.
The vision and objects held by one's imagination are actual and has a visual character.
Poetry is visualizable. The language in the poetry and visual images received from the language depict something that is based on one's imagination.
Posted by Denamarie at 1:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
we can learn from literature
"Literature on its most profound level is a form of learning. We learn, we grow from the knowledge of life, of psychology, of human behavior and realtionshiops that we discover in worthwhile works of art."
Donovan complained in her essay Beyond the Net: Feminist Criticism as a Moral Criticism, argued the point that women were represented not as free, moral, human beings but as stereotypes of good and evil whose only function was to help or hinder the male. In most worthwhile works, there are negative images of women and the women are used as a vehicle for the male's growth in self-awareness.
Western literature does not provide women with such models of behavior and only provides the moral learning experience. However, as Donovan quotes from Muroch, art and literature in a particular novel are important vehicles for the liberation of people from fantasy mechanisms. These can foster the growth of moral attention to reality of oneself. Great writers help the audience to open their eyes to the reality of life and see all of the diversity and allows the readers to make choices to become responsible and informed.
Not to sound to feminist, but is noticed through some contemporary novels and other pieces of literature taht the image of women has not changed and women are still idenified as something other than themselves.
Posted by Denamarie at 1:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
come together
"A careful examination of the nature of realistic fiction as modern criticism is coming to conceive it will show that in certain cases it is proper to treat literary characters as real people and that only by doing so can we fully appreciate the distinctive achievement of the genre."
My question is what cases are we allowed to view literary characters as real people?
Paris recognized that a psychological approach to the characters and the implied author are not going to be useful in every piece of literature.
However, everytime i read a story i imagine them as if they were real.
In the essay The Uses of Psychology, Paris made it clear that mimetic characterization gives us a full grasp of experience of the fictional character and that this characterization depends on the continual resistance to the patterns by which the atuhor tried to shape. He also believes that the minds of the implied authors and the minds of the leading character that can be studied in realistic novels.
However, Paris is telling us that by getting inside the mind of the character we can learn more rather than just looking at the style and text. He believes that the character should create itself. and with the character's mindset, we will be presented with new idea. Taking the character as a real person will allow the reader to fully appreciate the work.
Posted by Denamarie at 12:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
let me be your mime
"...the prosecution is likely to argue the affective line that the work in question, in its language or the actions it portrays, has a harmful effect on its audience, whle the defense may respond with the mimetic argument that the work gives an accurate picture of reality. After all, people say and do such things, and the author is simply reporting the facts of life."
One side of this quote appeals to wholeness and goodness while the other side appeals to the truth, reality. Truth is a higher good.
In Keesey's introduction to chapter 4, Mimetic Criticism: Reality as Context, is seen that almost any verbal representation, particularly one in narrative or dramatic form, seems to invite comparison with our nonliterary experience. Literature reveals a sort of truth whether it is about reality or not.
Mimetic criticism is a piece of philosophical reality that is seen from the person who wrote the literature that shows the audience either the truth, or the harshness of the reality.
Mimesis separates coherence and congruence. The criticism starts with finding the reality in poems and then tries to make it fit with what we think about in the real world today. Reality and truth is what literature is all about.
Posted by Denamarie at 12:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I am living in a prison
"More obviously, agoraphobis and its complementary opposite, claustrophobia, are by definition associated with the spatial imagery through which these poets and novelists express their feelings of social confinement and their yearning for spiritual escape."
There was an idea of confinement that was mentioned and throughly examined throughout this essay. Works in the nineteenth-century, that mainly dealt with imprisonment and escape of women, generally begin using houses as primary symbols of female imprisonment.
It is noticed throughout the essay "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Gilbert and Gubar, that male writers used imagery of enclosure and escape and is more comfortable with his literary role that he is able to elaborate upon his visionary them more objectively than a woman. Women reflect their reality of their own confinement with recording their own experience. They are secretly working through and within the conventions of literary texts to define their own lives.
Women define themselves as prisoners and create characters who attempt to escape if only into nothingness but towards something to attract attention to them.
In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gillman creates a character, or herself, that attempts to leave the house, the prison, and shows that the only way to leave the confinement is through nothingness and attract attention to how serious her disease has become due to the imprisonment. It is also obvious that the women seems to gain this sense of agorophobia and claustrophobia that allows for her breakdown and yearning for mental and emotional escape.
The images of imprisonment written by men are metaphysical and metaphorical because they do not understand the harmful effects of confinement whereas the women show the confinement as social and actual.
The conflicting pressure society has placed on women are shown through the pervasive scenes of imprisonment.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Icon
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
In Brann's essay on Pictures in Poetry about Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," he uses the word icon and iconic mulitple times.
An icon is a type of sighn that signifies what is represents by its inherent similiarity to that object, person, or place.
In Keats's poem the urn could be iconic of reality or eternity.
However, his poem is placed in the tradition of iconic poetry were poetry is like a picture. The iconic poem refers and represents a prevailing idea.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Blog Carnival
What about the critics we've read so far has been most stimulating?
The most stimulating idea that I have read so far in our Literary Criticism class is the essay "Shakespeare and the Idea of Obedience:Gonzalo in The Tempest" by Paul Yachnin.
As Tiffany said in her blog, "the background information about this time period also helps to make the argument about obedience applicable to the play". The main idea behind Shakespeare's character Gonzalo in "The Tempest" is to emphasize the idea that you must obey those that control the government no matter what your political or religious views are; an order is an order.
Even though I sometimes question whether or not we should focus in on the history of the author and the time, in Shakespeare's work, it seems, as Karissa pointed out, nearly impossible to read much of Shakespeare without looking at the history around it.
The evidence provided in the essay formed a solid argument that was original and intriguing. Yachnin's argument says that even though Gonzalo was committing treason against Prospero he was allowing the city to continue to exist.
Yachnin's essay on obedience and Gonzalo clarified a lot of my questions about the play considering I watched a play version on tape and the argument presented was profound and original and one that I never would have picked up on if I did look at the historical criticism of this time.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Malibu had her snow boots on
STUPID?!
Well, it was this day last week, the 13th, when the snow was coming down in vast amounts.
It was a normal day for me. I woke up at 5:30AM for practice at six and then went lifting. My roommate and I got a little hungry after all that and decided, "Hey, let's go to Starbucks and tanning." Of course, we did. Not even caring that it was snowing outside we jumped into her Chevrolet Malibu and headed to Starbucks. We didn't mind that there was at least six inches of snow on the roads because the Malibu and her snow boots on. (A little inside joke)
We arrived at Starbucks in one piece, sat down drinking our lattes and frappucinos for a while and then headed towards Tan Around the World to catch some rays. (We know they are fake and can cause cancer) Drving again on Route 30, we some how ended up in the left lane that was untouched by both plows and other vehicles. As my friend tried to merge into the right lane, we almost died.
We both simutaneously looked to our left and saw the cement divider, the wall, about one foot away from the Malibu. With a sense of panic and fear, my friend turned the wheel as we started to slip and slide down Route 30 as if we were on a water ride at Kennywood. After about 5 left-to-rights, we ended up in our desired lane. Luckily for us, there were no cars in front of us or behind us.
Luckily for us, we ended up at the tanning salon in one piece all because of Malibu's snow boots.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 18, 2007
Enough with this already
She seems to be using this work to defend women as authors more than discuss reader response. As Erin said in her blog, I wanted Kolodny to write an argument I could use to further myself as a woman, not make me feel like the victim of some frivolous “male oppression.”
The last paragraph in this essay made me furious. Kolodny was trying to make a point that we all need to "recognize the existence of a significant body of writing by women in America and be encouraged to learn how to read it within its own unique and informing contexts of meaning and symbol."
So basically Kolodny was illustrating how the writings of women are so different that we need to focus more on how to read their writing because it was written by a woman.
This makes no sense to me because it did not relate to reader-response at all. All writers have different styles and language and that is what makes literature, literature. It doesn't matter if an alien wrote it, the work still has a main objective that allows for the reader to respond to it whether they relate to it or can empathize with the writer.
Yes, a woman may be able to relate to a woman writer more so than a male writer and vice versa and we may have learned through traditions. It is obvious that males and females interpret a work differently, but that is what is unique about literature. Everyone can respond to the same work differently and share it with others.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 17, 2007
What exactly do you want out of me?
"For in the imagery and characters of great works, in the green gardens and wintery wastelands, in the questing heroes and menacing villains, and in the archetypal patterns of their actions that form analogies to rites of spring and rites of passage, to cycles of death adn rebirth, we recognize, usually at some subconscious level, the images and actions that haunt our dreams and that form substance of our psychic lives."
We are all affected by literature whether it makes us happy, sad, or even depressed. It has been noted that authors can persuade the reader to have a certain response to the work by using specific types of words, phrases, diction, syntax and other literary elements and uses of language.
When I read the above quote, I realized that when I read a detailed scene or emotion, that I become that same exact emotion presented by the author. Whether the intention is consciously or unconsciously, we can be persuaded by the authors writing style.
At the end of the paragraph on page 131, Keesey ends the sentence with "underlying patterns of archetypal symbolism, which I used for my vocabulary word of the week.
It is a universal feeling that the author uses to persuade, again unconsciously or consciously, to get a certain response out of the reader.
Interesting, or am I just really out of it right now??
Posted by Denamarie at 10:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Archetype
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I read this work, acutally another spelling of it, in Keesey's chapter three introduction.
I never heard of this word before, so I became curious.
Archetype is an original model from which something is developed or made. In literary criticism those images, figures, character types, settings, and story patterns that are universally shared by people across cultures.
In Keesey's introduction it said that authors used this type of archetypal symbolism that effects unarmed readers who think they are responding to the surface level, but are really being affected by something universal.
Check out this blog.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What kind of reader are you?
"...the implied reader as a concept has his roots firmly planted in the structure of hte text; he is a construct and in ono way to be identified with any real reader."
I never realized the many different types of readers. I knew that everyone interprets works in different ways, but I thought the different types of critcism was supposed to be the most complex idea.
I guess I could call myself an implied reader only because I love looking into the textual structure within a story as well as diction, symbolism, alliteration and so on.
The concept of the implied reader is to designate a network of response-inviting structures which persuade the reader to grasp the text. Does the implied reader give a role to the structure of the text to help a reader comprehend the work?
At the end of the essay, Iser says, "The concept of the implied reader offers a means of describing the process whereby the textual structures are transmuted through ideational activities into personal experiences."
Did Iser end the essay by stating that reader-response only is correct if it comes from the implied reader?
I didn't quite understand the end.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A very sneaky narrator
"The narrator structures a reading response that likewise seves self-interest and vanity; readers are invited to see Delano's confusions as innocence and to view their own subsequent confusion through the same lense...Readers are not aksed to believe Delano-indeed we are warned taht he is a bit simple-minded-but to believe in him, in his essential good heartedness."
Very true.
When I first met Delano in the story, I began to relate to him as well as have empathy for him.
After a while we begin to, as Dr. Jerz put it, call him Captain Happy.
He is trying to help everyone out. Delano makes mistakes; however, the narrator tempts us with an explanation that still allows the reader to respond positively to him.
Even though I am screaming towards Delano during my reading saying "GET OFF THE BOAT!", I still believed in him.
There is a force of the narrator that makes the reader identify with Delano even if we think he is too gullible and stupid. The overall manipulation of the reader is accomplished through Melville's narration. The narrator is a shadow within the story who is enticing the reader to believe that all will work out well and at the same time building up the vague, confusing plot.
O'Connell presented great points and justifications throughout this essay that actually helped me with the overall reading of "Benito Cereno".
Posted by Denamarie at 9:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Words and Clauses
"The word "happy" occurs six times in the first five lines of hte stanza. The phrase "for ever" appears five times in the stanza, with an additional "ever" used in the second line...the fact of repetition may spring from the poet's envy of the happiness the figures on the urn appear to be experiencing, although "envy" is precisely what Keats repudiates as a motive in the similarly empathic experience of the companion "Ode to a Nightingale"."
YES. We are finally looking into the textual structure for once and maybe a little bit of author intent.
When I read this paragraph on page 114, I became suddenly interested in the rest of the essay. Kent examines Keats' grammatical style that allows me to comprehend the poem in depth.
Looking into the text, one can find words, punctuation, metaphors, allusions, etc. to help interpret the poem and/or story.
The word and phrase used in the quote make sense in Kent's idea that maybe Keats was envious of the figures being happier than he was. He went on to say that the urn has a "superior status" maybe higher than Keats's.
Kent also backed up his point by relating another poem written by Keats talking about envy being a motive of "Ode to a Nightingale".
Kent really looked into not only words and phrases but also independent clauses, commas and exclamations to emphasize his main objective.
Personally, I just really enjoyed this essay. It was not dull, obvious or dragging out the main point.
Posted by Denamarie at 9:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Show Or Tell
"...the artist is sufficiently confident of his ability to tell a story and of his audience's capacity to receive it that he is able to signal an action rather than develop it in detail"
We have all read in a previous essay about the obedience that is in "The Tempest". During the time Shakespeare wrote "The Tempest" was during the Reformation as well as the political obedience that was controversial.
When I read this essay, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that McDonald paid attention to the text rather than the history behind the text. This quote stood out to me because of how it related so well to Shakespeare's style throughout the play.
He knew the circumstances going on around this time and wrote to it. He did realize who the audience was going to be so he knew that he did was "able to signal an action rather than develop it in detail" because the audience would be able to relate and comprehend the overall point.
So basically, Shakespeare told instead of showed.
Personally, I like being showed with extreme detail about the occuring action or scene.
But that is just me.
Posted by Denamarie at 9:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 15, 2007
Literary Criticism Portfolio
Here it is again, another blogging portfolio.
As you can see I used the no-nonsense type. I wonder why.
Learning about all the different types of literary criticism is very fascinating.
Literary criticism is an attempt to evaluate and understand the literature of an author. It is a description, analysis, evaluation, or interpretation of a particular literary work or an author's writings as a whole. Literary criticism is a view or opinion on what a particular written work means.
Here are my blogs based on essays from Contexts for Criticism that deal with all different types of literary criticism.
COVERAGE:
Are Poems Historical Acts?
Keesey, Chapter 2 Introduction
Vocabulary Word - Archetype
Vocabulary Word - Closure
DEPTH:
Melville, "Benito Cereno"
What is Literature?
Gillman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Yes, we are looking at the text
BLOG CARNIVAL:
Which essay was the most stimulating?
INTERACTION:
Irony as a Principle of Structure
Keesey's Introduction with Kevin and I
DISCUSSION:
Yachnin and the Idea of Obedience
Keesey, Chapter 1 Introduction
TIMELINESS:
All entries are included in timeliness.
Some examples:
Words and Clauses
Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"
XENOBLOGGING:
Uniquely yours, Shakespeare
Chic-Lit - Vanessa opening my eyes and seeing the other side
In between the Lines with Kevin
Short agreement with Tiffany
Val, it really isn't that bad. Gonzalo and "The Tempest"
WILDCARD:
Thank you for wearing your snow boots
Posted by Denamarie at 9:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 12, 2007
Brooks & Irony 101
"The tail of the kite, it is true, seems to negate the kite's function: it weights down something made to rise; and in the same way, the concrete particulars with which the poet loads himself seem to deny the universal to which he aspires...Through his metaphors, he risks saying it partially and obscurely, and risks not saying it at allx. But the risk must be taken, for direct statement leads to abstraction and threatens to take us out of poetry altogether" (85).
Brooks, you are killing me.
The tail makes the kite fly, just like the metaphors and irony make the writing poetry.
I guess that Brooks was saying that metaphors in poems almost allows for the reader to miss the main idea in a piece of writing?
Brooks thinks that instead of using metaphors to write directly what you want said because this leads the reader to abstraction, general ideas or themes.
I understand that Brooks is arguing that irony can be found in most works but we tend to overlook it because we are looking for a deeper meaning. I just don't see how this ties into his argument. I guess I am just overlooking it and looking for a deeper meaning.
Posted by Denamarie at 2:55 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Pay attention to the actual text and not author intent.
"For when we consider the formalists' quarrel with the historical and reader-response approaches, their conception of the objective status of the poem, and their insistence tha thte context formed by the poem itslef is the ultimate determiner of meaning, we see that their main concern is always with the unique verbal construct before them, with these particular words in this particular order. To put is another way, formalists refuse to separate form from context" (77).
So basically, Formalists focus on the words and their meaning in the context of the text.
Formalists concentrate solely on textual meaning.
Rhythm, syntax, rhyme, metaphor, similie and well as narrative techniques are special usages of language that also help define the form of the literary text.
I love reading poems or other forms of literature and looking at specific words as well as the different usages of language within the work to get a better understanding of what is meant in the line.
"Poetry is verbal art, which means we must apprehend it first as a process while our eyes move down the page or the syllables fall on the ear" (77).
Poetry is written down and contains words. These words should be the first thing readers should look at when trying to interpret a meaning of the work because they make up the story or poem, not the history of the author.
Authorial intent and history could help strengthen a specific interpretation only if needed, but it should not be a main component in determing the meaning of the poem.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:38 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 11, 2007
Great job, Gonzalo
"From Prospero's viewpoint, Gonzalo's obedience to his master (even though it has entailed Prospero's suffering and near-death) is praiseworthy because political obedience guarantees the stability of government. Prospero's own experience with disobeident and treacherous subjects (Antonio and Caliban) underlies his praise of Gonzalo, whom he finds "good" both because Gonzalo tempered his immortal act by charitably providing food and other necessities and because Gonzalo did not allow for his charity to violate the terms of the assignment..."
I agree with Yachnin that Prospero is aware of hte guilt of theman he chooses to praise and this suggests the fullness of Prospero's acknowledgement of the moral cost of preserving political hierarchy. Especially during the time this story was written, obedience of politics was a priority and failure to do so could mean death.
Later in the essay it is said that Gonzalo's charity was conducive to Prospero's survival as well as preserved political hierarchy and "suggests that although Gonzalo's act was tragically culpable, it has nevertheless been redeemed by the providential ordering of history."
Since I only watched "The Tempest" in video form, it was hard to comprend what exactly Gonzalo did to Prospero and why Prospero valued Gonzalo so much.
Yachnin's essay on obedience and Gonzalo clarified a lot of my questions and brought to my attention an idea as profound as this one.
So Shakespeare was endorsing political obedience, thanks Yachnin.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:09 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
The Tempest
Shakespeare, The Tempest -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I did not read this story; however Lorin, Kevin and myself watched in on 5th floor Maura.
It was quite an experience watching a Shakespeare play on televison. It seemed almost a little wrong.
I did not detest against "The Tempest", I just think I would have got a lot more out of the story if I read it. Due to the massive amounts of readings I already had, I thought that I would take the short cut and watch it.
I thought the storyline was interesting being that there was magic and spirits and an island as well as the protagionist trying to make things right with Alsono and his brother, Antonio, once and for all.
I am going to steal a little bit of Karissa's thunder with the idea that this whole story took place in one day. It was a relief to know that there weren't any confusing time details to worry about, even though it seemed like a lifetime watching this 1980's produced play.
Another thing that was interesting was the idea that Prospero creates the tempest, causing his enemies’ ship to wreck and its passengers to be dispersed about the island. I thought that this was odd being that Alonso is an enemy of his as well as Prospero looks to his magic to make both Alonso and his brother to have remorse from banishing him from Italy with his daughter.
Almost like a blackmail, wouldn't you say.
Posted by Denamarie at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Perfection
"Similar to teh diea that the Ode portrays a dream world is the idea that it is Platonic; the world set apart from the real world is representative of absolute reality: "Beauty is eternal; in its concrete reality it is a symbol, a 'shadow' of the absolute; its tangible, visible being merely a mode of revealing divine, ideal immutable turth." In the world of the Absolute, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." That is all that Man knows or needs to know on earth."
WOW. That is a lot.
I became very intrigued when I read this one interpretation. Keats' idea of ideal beauty in his poem is represented in the line "Beauty is eternal; in its concrete reality it is a symbol, a 'shadow' of the absolute", explaining that not only is beauty on the outside, but it is an intimation that the only thing Man knows is beauty and that is what is absolute.
From this interpretation about the Absolute, the perfect, it seems that there is almost an underlying message that the truth or even the reality of the world is that beauty is what makes and breaks you and that Man is the only one who understands that and confers with it.
Or even that a dream world of perfection is all about beauty because that is an indisputable fact of the world..
If I am missing something, just let me know. This is just what I got from it.
Posted by Denamarie at 9:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
SATIRE
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Satire is a literary genre that uses irony, wit and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanity's vices and foibles.
(Foibles- a minor weakness or failing of character.)
Not only is satire used in literature but in the real world.
As humans, we sometimes use satire when making fun of a friend for saying or doing something either out of stupidity or, well just out of stupidity.
For example: As I read, "a poet is a man speaking to men", she looked at me as if I was lying and reading the context correctly. "Oh well that is profound," Lorin said with a satric tone.
As a scholar writing this essay, you would think that they would have either stated that line in a more "profound" manner or have just let that be obvious to the reader.
Posted by Denamarie at 9:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wordsworth, you are the man.
"As Wordsworth put it, a poet is a man speaking to men. On the whole, we listen to those who address us in order to discover what they mean. It is also true that, in rare and memorable instances, people say remarkable things without meaning them" (31).
To start off, I read this aloud to Lorin. As I read, "a poet is a man speaking to men", she looked at me as if I was lying and reading the context correctly. "Oh, well that is profound," Lorin said with a satric tone. HAHA.
Another thing, umm, Wordsworth is sexist. Does he only think that men read poetry? I think more women do because of the sappy, romantic view of most poems.
I was just kidding about the sexist comment; I am not a feminist.
Okay, back to my quote. As I read this line, I thought to myself that Wordsworth was pointing out a great argument. I do think that poets write lines down without ever realizing what remarkable poetry they are creating. When Wordsworth pointed out we as humans listen to those who address us without knowing what words will come out of their mouth, that we take in what they said to discover what exactly they are trying to point out.
Along with the mistake of remarkable poetry written, according to Wordsworth, another line that is along the lines of the previous one is:
"What is involved here, at its widest extent, is the momentous issue whether literature is primarily to be studied as a purposive activity or not. It was among the greatest achievements of nineteenth-century historiography to emphasize, perhaps even exaggerate, the sense of purpose out of which a great poem is born" (30).
With this purposive activity, we then begin to look deeper into the author's intention. But what if the poet was just writing words down and then eventually became popular, we would then have to begin with the possible, then the probable and finally the likely which then makes the reader look into the history of the time period and/or the author.
Round and round we go; where this author intention stuff stops, we will never know!!!
Posted by Denamarie at 9:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 4, 2007
american classic by accident?
"In seeking the "meaning" of Benito Cereno, Sidney Kaplan agrees with Hirsch, Watson, and other traditional literary historians that we need to place the work in its original setting and to reconstruct the author's probably intentions" (58).
Okay, I'll agree with this statement only because it seems that the story was dealing with current issues during the time Melville wrote this story. "'Benito Cereno' was written at the mid-point of the hottest decade of the anti-slavery struggle prior to the Civil War, when to many the conflict seemed both irrepressible and impending" (59).
It seems that what Kaplan explained throughout this reading was very basic and observable to the normal reader. However, I didn't realize one thing that the author did mention. On page 62, Kaplan explains that "Melville chose Babo- the baboon, ring-leader of the Negroes who are primitives, beasts. The imagery connected with Babo and the other Negroes throughout the tale is strictly from the bestiary."
A bestiary is a collection of moralized fables. So from this information I can figure out why Melville named the servant's character Babo.
Posted by Denamarie at 9:43 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
words = a sentence that represents a thought
Hirsch, ''Objective Interpretation'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
"...that the text automatically has a meaning simply because it represents an unalteralbe sequence of words" (19).
Thank you.
I think that critics have to stop looking at an author's background to figure out what their work meant. Because there are paragraphs on a page that contain sentences that include words and punctuation, that leads one to think that there was some sort of thought process that was needed to get this point across.
In Vanessa's blog she couldn't have explained this any better.
"It is not what the author ate for breakfast when they wrote it, but what words they used to get their meaning across. Without analyzing this important factor, we can understand nothing."
Posted by Denamarie at 9:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
What are your intentions?
Keesey, Ch 1 (Introduction) -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
"Not only are writers notoriously inclined to be reticent, evasive, or even deceptive when discussing the "meaning" of their works, but they are seldom in a position to know what they may have unconsciously intended, and in any case they must always talk about what they may have meant at some point in the past- last week, last year, three decades ago" (10).
So basically what this meant is that the author never knows why he wrote something besides the fact that they thought it would be an interesting read. I think that authors rarely pay attention to style and word choice. The authors do not know how a reader is going to perceive their writing rather than if they liked it or not. Later in the reading there was another line that I thought related well to the previous one.
"Every utterance is an attempt to express something- an idea, a feeling, a set of facts- and is successful to the extent that it effectively communicates what it set out to communicate. A poem, then, would be good if it achieved what its author intended" (14).
Every piece of literature that we criticize and try to find the intentions of the author will never be known because we don't really know what the author was thinking as well as the author probably didn't know what they were writing. They were influenced by their surrounding enviroment and current ideas in the world.
Posted by Denamarie at 8:46 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 1, 2007
Closure
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Closure is the process by which a literary work is either brought to a logical conclusion or structured in such a way that the reader feels it is complete and coherent.
One could also look at this normally easy word as drawing together of edges, parts or ideas to form a united whole.
An example of bad closure could be "The Yellow Wallpaper". The ending lead me very confused on what happened to the narrator.
It also ended with a line that keeps you on the edge waiting for more information to help close the story. "Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"
One just has to guess that she stayed in the house permanently or what not? I am not entirely sure which proves that this short story did not have closure.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mentally unstable? You could say so.
Gilman, ''The Yellow Wallpaper'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
"You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples on you. It is like a bad dream."
It is also a lot like the narrator's illness which could be determined as a slight hysterical tendency (nervous depression). She is belittled by her husband on both her illness and her general concerns and thoughts. The narrator believes that she has overcomed or mastered her illness, but then the wall-paper disturbs her and then she is back at the beginning.
I think it is remarkable how wall-paper that is bright and lively could possibly bother her. Maybe because it is soo bright and alive, it reminds her that she is not allowed to be 'alive'. The wall-paper allows for her to try to figure out the pattern (her illness).
The narrator states earlier when she was little she had hallucinations in her bedroom of the knobs, bureau and the plain furniture. The yellow wall-paper is also in a way plain and could possibly bring back memories of her sporadic thoughts and illusions as a child.
Posted by Denamarie at 11:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack