“Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.”
Few people will deny the magical sway that word can have. In EL 150: Introduction to Literary Study, I have tried to better understand and control this power innate in language. Reading Sharon Hamilton’s Essential Literary Terms has provided me with a better understanding of the tools I have with which to manipulate words, such as alliteration, syntax, and onomatopoeia. Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (besides being a very good book) showed me the writing strategy of a master author to show with words, and not tell. Learning about suffixes, roots, and prefixes gave me a better understanding of the mechanics behind language. Blogging helped me to discover the university mind-set and reflect on my own thoughts and on my classmates'. There is more to literature then just reading a book and saying “what a good book!” Writing blog entries and picking a specific quote showed me that. Thinking about what one has read and the strategies the author used in writing opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Getting blogs in on time was sometimes very difficult and stressful, but getting my ideas out there in a written form where my classmates can review them has really helped me to think critically and see that there is so much more to literature than I previously thought. I don’t think I will ever be able to read a book the same way again. I hope to take what I have learned about words and literature and “transfer knowledge from teacher to student” in the future; however, I will not be the student, but the teacher.
Coverage: These are examples of entries in which I included a quote from the assigned reading and linked my blog back to the course webpage.
· Sometimes We Just Need to Read a Good Children’s Book
· It’s not a matter of unpleasantries, it’s more a matter of false assumptions
· Only the Good Can Be Manipulated
Timeliness: These are examples of blogs which were posted 24 hours before class or reflections which were posted before class.
· Being in charge is risky business
· The Suspense of Science Fiction
· Welcoming in the New—a Good Idea, and Saying Goodbye to the Old—Fluff
Interaction: Some of my entries got the wheels turning in my classmates’ heads, check out our discussion.
· Ok, Ok, I admit it, planning before writing is important!
· Sometimes trying hard just screws you up!
Depth: These entries really demonstrate the magic of words.
· I May Be Weak, But At Least I’m Not Peter
· Shakespeare Should Learn How to Count!
· Alliteration is very valuable, even Valentine uses it!
· A Writer’s Toolbox Is Never Complete Without (syn)Tacks!
Discussion: The first step is reading and considering the text myself, the next is to get some second opinions. Here are some discussions I participated in, which were sparked by a peer’s blog entry.
· Jessie’s Ruthless Tone
· Maddie’s It’s a kid eat kid space station—the worst school ever created
· Angelica’s the end
· Angelica’s Themes
· Kaitlin’s Humor in Tragedy: It Does Exist
· Angela’s In Good Company
· Angela’s Clowns and Literature Don’t Mix
Other Entries and Reflections: This is a mishmash of blogs you don’t want to miss! Check out a couple of my other reflections, learn my created word (which will, no doubt, be popping up in dictionaries soon), watch a video on Yahoo, learn some slang, and read my poetry!
· Just because it’s free (verse), does not mean it’s easy!
· Write in your own style, don’t copy!
· Was Emily Dickinson Hyperdemophobic?
· A Man After Lynne Truss’ Heart
· Searching for new words on urbandictionary.com, an interesting experience
· For Your Reading Pleasure…I Hope
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I. Sonnet I
Upon your face there rests a sort of smile.
A special sparkle lights your dark brown eyes,
Because I have been gone for a long while.
I realize your mouth shall speak no lies.
Your greeting is the best hello of all.
I dream that more behave as kind as you,
Who never lets the shade of sadness fall.
Pollution has not crept in your pure dew.
Thus showing me with pride your brand-new toy,
You wish alone for favor in my praise.
Upon receiving it you prance with joy,
And look at me with your adoring gaze.
You climb upon my lap to lick my face,
With crooked tail which wags about fast pace.
II. Sonnet II
So many years ago you walked the earth.
A pen, you brandished, knife, as you used it—
Designing new, words never at a dearth,
Born under Bess, you were a perfect fit.
Still little children recognize your name,
Mature with age, they stammer out your praise.
Exalting you, the greatest ever came,
Some love to study every single phrase.
But some salute not to your sly morals.
A wife, you had, yet many more in bed—
Rumors abound—you caused Marlowe’s fun’ral.
Do we naively eat all we are fed?
Your history smirks, not answering, lest
We, Shakespeare, name as English’s very best.
III. Librarian
Leaning languidly, loving language liberated luxurious letters
Intermitted interruptions introductorily intrigue
Blessed bliss broken, but benevolence beguiles
Rescuing, respect rendered, received rarely
Accomplishment achieved, aid again and again
Real reading, raw reason, remains remote
Irrational interest in “innovative” ideas instead insist illiteracy
Assaying aimless assaults afflicting adolescents,
Nourishing knowledge, nestled neatly, knowing need never-ends.
IV. Versailles
Walking these halls
Listening to the mutterings of the past
Hearing the music, the steps, the calls
I catch the whisper of a suppressed dream, oh so vast
In this land of mirrors, I cannot help but glance
Wondering who was the greatest and the last
To, in front of this vanity, dance.
I long to glimpse the future, but on it slides
In this chateau of France.
Where was I when I noticed this ebbing tide?
Why will it not pause or wait?
I am not ready to continue on the other side.
But even if unprepared, it will come, my fate
Hoping I shall make a difference as those in this house of state.
V. Language
Pieces of hope,
despair,
communication,
life,
Fill me up
to the brim.
Emotions rage
from the words.
All one can feel
brought through
one thing alone,
language.
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“Vivian: So. The young doctor, like the senior scholar, prefers research to humanity. At the same time the senior scholar, in her pathetic state as a simpering victim, wishes the young doctor would take more interest in personal contact.
Now I suppose we shall see, through a series of flashbacks, how the senior scholar ruthlessly denied her simpering students the touch of human kindness she now seeks” (Edson 47-8).
Facing death makes one contemplate. In this case, Dr. Bearing (Vivian) is regretting her lack of compassion for her former students. She begins to understand how it must have felt for them. She relates to Jason and Dr. Kelekian, they are scholars like her after all. Yet, they, like her, have chosen to distance themselves from humanity—Dr. Bearing by constantly analyzing Donne (or going through one of her old lectures again), the doctors by focusing more on their research than the patients themselves. It is the nurse, Susie, who is portrayed as unintelligent and witless, who comforts Dr. Bearing and respects her wishes. In Wit, it’s almost as if there is a correlation between kindness and less mental capacity. Maybe, Jason is right when he said “…you can’t think about that meaning-of-life garbage all the time or you’d go nuts” (Edson 61); however, Dr. Bearing seems pretty sane to me, right up to the end.
]]>Secondly, I found the quote she chose interesting because in a way it relates back to my blog entry. Once again in this quote, it is showing how Ender could be “easily controlled” if he is convinced he is helping the people he cares about. It is Ender’s compassion that allows him to be used, and why Peter was not the one for the job. Yet, by showing how devious Peter is, Card is not supporting a lack of morals. He seems more to saying that while being kind opens one up for problems, based on the how Ender finds himself in the end, that it is better to be as Ender or Valentine than to be as Peter.
]]>“’…when you never know the Earth itself, when you live with metal walls keeping out the cold of space, it’s easy to forget why Earth is worth saving. Why the world of people might be worth the price you pay.’
“So that’s why you brought me here, thought Ender. With all your hurry, that’s why you took three months, to make me love Earth. Well, it worked. All your tricks worked” (Card 243).
This is such a cynical view. It is not the bad in Ender that the teachers can manipulate, it is the good. As soon as they manage to ground the good out of Ender, when he stops caring about others, their power over him is gone. But when compassion rules Ender they can manipulate him into doing horrible things (such as unknowingly killing a whole race). I’m not sure what the lesson here is supposed to be. I mean yes, in the end, Ender “saved” the world and is a hero. He even finds out that he didn’t exterminate all the buggers (certainly a good thing). However, despite the happy ending, it was Ender’s kindness which allowed others to trick him into doing bad things. It’s almost like Card is saying being good makes one easy to control.
]]>“Editors also indent blank verse lines that are shared between two or more speakers and number them as one line, to show that the dialogue reflects a close meeting of the characters’ minds” (Hamilton 238).
Almost every time I have read a Shakespeare play in school and then been required to quote things from the text, I invariably am confused by the line numbers. I’d count out the lines and do my best to figure out the line number of what I wanted to quote and then there would be more lines then possible numbers. In the end, I would be so frustrated trying to uncover the answer to this mystery that I would just use a different quote. But no more, Hamilton has explained the cause of my predicament. Some lines share line numbers if they are related. For example, one set of shared lines in Romeo and Juliet “show how closely attuned Romeo and Juliet are to one another’s thoughts and rhythms, almost as if their hearts are synchronized” (Hamilton 238). It is comforting to know that Shakespeare (and the modern editors of his work) actually do know how to count, and in fact, that they are purposefully choosing to share the lines for very good reasons.
]]>“Peter took careful note of all their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. ‘We’re being read,’ Peter said. ‘The ideas are seeping out’” (Card 135).
I doubt blogs were popularized in 1985, if they even existed at all. But that is exactly what Valentine and Peter are doing—they are blogging. And not only are they blogging, they are being read and influencing the world. The question it brings to my mind is this: we are blogging; can someone through blogging alone go from an insignificant nobody to someone read and respected? The answer is yes, and it is kind of a scary thought. As evinced in this case, these “well-respected bloggers” are only children! Grant it, they are genius children, but it still can serve as a lesson for us, what do we really know about the things that are posted on the internet? Very little.
This quote is a lesson to us about what we are blogging, as we discussed earlier in the semester, anyone could be reading our blogs. We could be influencing people, we have no idea. But nonetheless, we need to reflect on what we are posting, before we post it. Whether we are intentionally trying to change the world like Valentine and Peter or not, our blogs could still affect someone out there—our ideas could be “seeping out.”
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This is probably the best definition of onomatopoeia I have ever been acquainted with. Frequently, when one learns onomatopoeia it is excessively simplified. One is taught that onomatopoeia are the words that imitate a sound (which is true and an important thing to know), but Hamilton gets more to the heart of the matter and complicates the term a bit more. It isn’t just words like “woof, bang, zoom,” Hamilton explains that it is not limited to these words, but can be any as long as “they denote” in some way their meaning by how they sound. I think the most important part of her definition is that it doesn’t focus just on examples of what onomatopoeia is, it explains their purpose: “a word or phrase that seems to imitate the sound it denotes” (Hamilton 221).
]]>Also, Kaitlin’s explanation for why Card chose to write his book like this makes a lot of sense too. Ender is confused and disoriented, and by purposely leaving out the details till later we do feel some of the same feelings Ender is. It was a very clever move on Card’s part to write the book how he did and I can’t wait to read more!
]]>“’The final step in your testing was to see what would happen when the monitor came off. We don’t always do it that way, but in your case—‘
“’And he passed?’ Mother was incredulous. ‘Putting the Stilson boy in the hospital? What would you have done if Andrew had killed him, given him a medal?’
“’It isn’t what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It’s why’” (Card 19).
I have not read many science fiction books, so I was approached Ender’s Game with caution. I was unsure whether I would like it, but I must say that so far I am thoroughly enjoying it. I also really hope that we do not end up like the people in this book in the future. They are brutal and cruel, and live by Darwin’s mantra of survival of the fittest. But it is not survival of the fittest based on size, it’s all about intelligence. The adults applaud cruelty as long as the children are clever about it. The quote above is an example of that mentality. Ender (Andrew) beat up another six year old, but as long as his reasoning was good, the government finds his actions laudable. It’s all about logic and rationale.
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