QuinnKerno

Marjorie Garson on "Ode"

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:19:56 -0500

I managed to seperate Marjorie Garson's essay Bodily Harm: Keats's Figures in the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" into four categories.

The Urn: "...an art object that, liberated from the exigencies of history, at once embodies and laments the permanent paradoxes of the human condition..."(453)
"The urn's seamless surface tends to conceal that it is constructed of historical materials--made up of fragments of an appropriated culture..."(454)
The question: From your reading of "Ode" do you suppose Keats used one urn or a collection of several to compose his poem?
(Sue Myers's blog contains links to the actual vases mentioned in Garson's essay)

The Politics: "The history of their acquisition is not irrelevant to a reading of his ode. From the middle of the 17th century, the stones of Greece had become increasingly vulnerable to souvenir-hunters."(454)
"The English appropriated Greek culture and the ideal of Greekness in a highly selective and oppertunistic way, making it serve social and cultural ends that were in the widest sense thoroughly political."(458)
"He envisaged the exhibition doing for him what it was widely believed to do for English art and architecture as a whole--stimulating a new age of creativity."(455)
The question: Do you think it appropriate that nations removed pieces of antiquity?

The Poet: "Ian Jack concluded that Keats probably drew on a number of museum-pieces that he had seen, or seen drawings of, and constructed a composite ideal urn from their details."(454)
"The painter Benjamin Hayden, who introduced Keats to the exhibition--where he was more than once seen..."(455)
The question: Do you feel that Keats had any objection to the removal of antiquities from their place of origin?

The Poem: "The poem, then, is written not in a historical vacuum, but in the face of a national act of appropriation that seemed to promise England benefits not only spiritual but also material, nd in the context of a political debate of which Keats was fully aware."(455)
"The poem does not really want to know what men or gods these are, for any archaeological answer would defeat the claim to universality upon which it bases its own appropriation of Greekness. It poses its questions so that they are not really questions, to make sure that they are not really answered."(455)
The question: Do you think, as Garson suggests, that the poem, like the urn, is best interpreted by the unanswerability of the questions posed therein?

What others have to say on this essay...

Comments on Barbara Jones Guetti's Essay

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:39:50 -0500

"And I would argue that what gives the urn its special status for Keats is precisely this problem: that the urn "matters" to Keats because of his ignorance about it."(386)

Guetti's essay "Resisiting the Aesthetic" suggests that the true importance of Keat's message in "Ode" is not so much linked to the known, but more the unknown. Keat's poem emits his many questions as to what he sees upon the urn, yet he is unable to understand what the urn meant to the Greeks who created it so long ago. Where one might fault Keats for his inability to relate the true significance of the urn, is in reality the one thing that makes it such a unique work. By relating what he sees and what he is incapable of knowing, Keats manages to relate the very same feeling to the reader that he had when viewing the ancient and ambiguous artifact.

Semiology and Rhetoric

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:15:13 -0500

"The grammatical model of the question becomes rhetorical not when we have, on the one hand, a literal meaning and on the other hand a figurative meaning, but when it is impossible to decide by grammatical or other linguistic devices which of the two meanings (that can be entirely contradictory) prevails.(de Man 368)

Paul de Man provides an interesting analysis of the continuity between grammar and rhetoric--two literary constructs which by common definition could be considered intermittent. I felt that de Man's essay really took form when he made reference to Jaques Derrida's statement: "Confronted with the question of the difference between grammar and rhetoric, grammar allows us to ask the question, but the sentence by means of which we ask it may deny the very possibility of asking."(368) Angela Palumbo effectively approaches this portion of de Man's essay in her blog.

From de Man's essay I felt that the main issue he proposed and acknowledged was that due to the reductive nature of literary formalism and the deconstructive possibilities of any given sentence based primarily upon grammar and/or rhetoric it would seem that the delusivness found between these particular literary constructs do more to add to the exclusive potential for its success, rather than its possibility of failure.

Sylvia Plath: Daddy

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:07:16 -0500

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do. ---from Daddy by Sylvia Plath

This poem seemed to show conflicting feelings toward what I assume is a father. From the quote I included it would seem that the father or father figure died relatively early during the author's life and so she feels as though she knows little of him as a person apart from the words of others. The poem suggests that while she misses her father she also despises him, which I took as meaning that maybe she resents him for not being there for her--father dies so child wants to die as well? The Nazi/German references made in regard to the father are quite disturbing almost to the point of being comical, although I'm not sure if the author is saying that her father was a Nazi or perhaps this is a metaphor for how she felt about him? I'm unsure about this poem. I feel that I would need to do an authorial inerpretation of it since it seems so personal to the author yet unrelatable to my own life. Simply said, this poem did nothing for me.

other reactions

Roethke: In A Dark Time

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:45:15 -0500

From what I took from this poem, Roethke is writing about the uncertainty of ones own life and the depression or angst that goes hand in hand with contemplating too deeply into the reason for ones existence. What I liked about this poem though is the fact that Roethke doesn't just write a sad or dark or utterly hopeless poem, by the third stanza one feels that there is hope amid all of the unanswerable questions in life. Surrendering to these questions is how to overcome or prevent them from disrupting the beautiful fact that we can even ask them.
"My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear."(Roethke)

Other reactions to Roethke...

Comments on David Cassuto's Essay

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:31:25 -0500

"The flooding that climaxes the novel is thematically situated to provide maximum counterpoint to the drought which originally forced the Joads to migrate west. Disenfranchised and dehumanized, the Joads can only curse the rising floodwaters even as they once prayed for a deluge to feed their parched crops. The cycle of alienation appears complete; people whose humanity was once integrally tied to the land and the weather now care nothing for the growing season or the health of the earth. Their survival has come to depend on shelter from the elements rather than the elements themselves."(Cassuto)
I think Cassuto makes a valid argument in this essay, claiming that: " The Grapes of Wrath represents an indictment of the American myth of the garden and its accompanying myth of the frontier."
He offers an exstensive explanation to his thesis and backs it up with Biblical references as well as quotes taken from witnesses of the plight of American agriculture during the era of The Great Depression. The quote I used from his essay stuck out to me because of the irony we see. When I came to this part in the novel I felt very much like what Cassuto explains. I do however feel that this essay could have been based around a more non-obvious claim, since the lack of water or hydration is such a big aspect of the novel that it is difficult to argue against Cassuto's claim. The length and depth of his research in this essay is probably a tactic used by Cassuto in order to overwhelm the reader with valid fctual evidence in support of his thesis so that they aren't really thinking about how obvious his claim is. The quotation I borrowed from his essay is a section that I felt wasn't so obvious and the close reading that he did was accurate and interesting to think about.

The Moral Order

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:05:08 -0500

"The events of the work take their place within an order that satisfies one's sene of justice or one's sense of irony, which itself requires a belief in an order beyond the events of the work."(Donovan/Keesey 227)
This, quoted from Josephine Donovan's essay Beyond the Net: Feminist Criticism as a Moral Criticism, is the only worthwhile statement in the piece. Or perhaps it is simply the only sentence that really struck me as true and not attached to an agenda. Donovan's argument that women have been unjustly represented or criticised within literature has been heard many times over. The mis-representation of the "moral reality" of feminine characters has been confirmed, addressed and remedied quite some time ago. Donovan praises her sources that show strong feminine characters in their works and verbally attacks her sources who do not. "Any text which does not recognize the fundamental moral reality of women is sexist."(Donovan/Keesey 226)
"Their works are morally insufficient, for they do not attend to the independent reality of women."(Donovan/Keesey 233)
For Donovan to suggest that American literature today is written and criticised in a primarily sexist way is absurd. Male characters tend to be more masculine and less feminine than women in life, which is why it is represented as such in literature. Many women writers of our time create strong male and female characters in their work. Is Donovan saying that these writers are not attending to the independent reality of women?

Psychology and Fiction

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:33:38 -0500

The theory involving the use of psychology within literary criticism is made clear within Bernard Paris's essay The Uses of Psychology. He points out that the best way to use this type of criticism is to investigate the minds of both the author and the main character. I agree with Paris's notion that regardless of the plot of a novel, through psychology we are awarded a definitive view of the world or of an experience simply by the interpretation of what the author does within the text. Paris suggest that authors and psychologists are often educated in many of the same fields and thus, have a profound connection within each others works. My feelng is that a work may not necessarily represent an author's precise feelings, ecspecially in terms of a piece of fiction, however, through psychological criticism we can understand more fully certain aspects of an author and can therefore better grasp the work itself. As Paris concludes: "Fiction lets us know what it is like to be a certain kind of person with a certain kind of destiny."

Freedom & Fate

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:07:14 -0500

Theresa Sears's essay Freedom Isn't Free: Free Will in La vida es sueno delves into the central theme of Free Will encompassing Calderon's play. This essay questions the difference between Free Will and Freedom, stating that judgement is the deciding factor. Free Will is a concept as old as the bible and is thus represented in many works coming from Christian based nations. Judgement is also an age-old phenomenon and as Sears states:
"Judgment implies knowledge, especially knowledge of right and wrong, which in turns implies a hierarchy of values and powers within which the determination of right and wrong is made."
If this is true then it would seem that human invention of right and wrong is the foundation for judgement since it is people who define law and order. Judgement it seems, for Segismundo as for all humanity, is a necessary, yet altogether dangerous practice which can never really be justified by all succinctly--in that respect, perhaps it is of divine origin.

Thoughts on "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:33:17 -0500

Gilbert and Gubar's essay on The Yellow Wallpaper goes on in great detail about the status of female authors prior to the 20th century. The essay mentions many works from these bygone eras, however, from a contemporary or post-modern perspective, it is all really been heard before...many times over. The plight of pre-20th century women in terms of familial heirarchy and whatever other power structure has been well documented, not to mention, remedied. The redundancy of this topic made it all the more difficult to get anything overtly interesting from this essay, however I felt that Gilbert and Gubar's mention of symbolic confinement was something worth studying further--albeit without drifting too far into a feminist diatribe.

Tom Bolshevisky

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:06:47 -0500

From the earliest chapters of The Grapes of Wrath I saw the socialist ideology emerging from the words of Steinbeck. Steinbeck writes: "If this tractor were ours it would be good--not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours"(151). Shortly thereafter: "Here is the node, you who hate and fear revolution"(151). Tom Joad's transformation from a law breaking convict into agragarian revolutionary willing to risk all for the good of all seemed rather shallow to me. The era of the great depression and those who struggled through the sad experience of the dust bowl affected not only those who made their living in the American Mid-West, but all over the country. It is of no suprise that Steinbeck used this communist ideology within his novel. During his lifetime he saw Socialist/Marxist regimes spreading all over Europe and Asia spreading the idea of agricultural reform--among others. Tom Joad is presented as something of a hero to the poor, however he has achieved this status by breaking parole and committing murder...again. At the end of the novel we see that the Joad family has fallen apart. To offset the failed ideology of the Joads, of Communists, Steinbeck offers a plethora of biblical symbolism to give some semblence of hope to an utterly hopeless and mis-directed group of people.

Reader-Response Criticism

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:14:42 -0500

The intorduction to chpt.3 of Keesey's Contexts for Criticism goes into great detail as to the implication of psychology upon literary criticism. The introduction states that: "Most reader-response critics have little interest in authors or intended meanings. The poem exists now. It affects us now. These, they claim, are the crucial facts, and any relevant criticism must be built on them."(129)
This is a very interesting concept and goes right along with the belief that there is no "right" or "wrong" answer when interpreting literature. Keesey makes reference to several proponents of this literary school of thought and I thought that their argument was very sound and practical. The theory that a poem or piece of literature doesn't really exist until a reader experiences it is very intriguing. "This is why human beings need poetry. It is indispensable to our psychic health."(132)

Rose of Sharon

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:14:59 -0500

My portion of a close reading exercise involving Jennifer Prex and Georgia Speer:

Steinbeck’s aforementioned use of symbolism and ambiguous dialogue with the character of Rose of Sharon leaves much for readers to question. Her introduction in chapter ten provides the ground work for potentially a very poignant character. The very fact that she is pregnant offers many possibilities as to what she represents, not necessarily to readers, but more directly to the other characters within the book. Steinbeck frequently makes reference to the lack of, or at least waning of faith within his characters amidst the turmoil of their financial and familial situations. With a character like Rose, Steinbeck is able to further portray the uncertainty of the future. To the Joad Family, Rose represents the probability of renewed faith in the future. The ambiguity however remains, for the birth of Rose’s child is still many months away and the family’s exodus to California must first be realized, along with the dealings of any unforeseeable circumstances that may befall them in the interim. Steinbeck’s development of Rose is not limited to mere third person description but overflows into her cryptic dialogue and carefully included mention of her behavior in relation to other characters. All indications are that Rose represents something very important, delicate and necessary to the other characters, yet the unknowns involved in her situation, dialogue and behavior is a vital tool Steinbeck establishes for later chapters.

The Concrete Highway

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:42:10 -0500

Chapter 3, The Grapes of Wrath:
This chapter is wrought with Steinbeck's use of symbolism. Readers get a very poignant description of the terrain from the unique perspective of a turtle. The turtle itself is representative of people, for both species must survive the environment and, as we make the connection later in the book, both species are on the move to somewhere else--somewhere concievably better, albeit unknown and foreign. A turtle is equipped with a shell for protection, and for Steinbeck's turtle: thank God for that! An ant--a nusance--finds its way into the shell of the turtle. The turtle deals with the ant by squezzing back into its shell and crushing the ant. An ant--a minor nusance--represents a problem which is considerably easy to deal with for the turtle. The ant is, I think, symbolic to a small problem which might befall a human, or a family, and one which can be taken care of with considerably little effort or outside assistance. However, within chapter 3, Steinbeck's turtle attempts to cross the concrete highway--a far more dangerous and foreign environment than what it is used to--which is also of significance to many humans within the book since both must traverse the road to get to their destination. The connection between turtle and human becomes all the more apparent as two vehicles come down the road as it attempts to cross. One of the vehicles swerves to avoid crushing the creature, while the other swerves to destroy it. This is very symbolic of human nature, and how people react differently to one another.

Structuralism and Semiotics

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:08:32 -0500

"When we analyse literature we are speaking of literature; when we evaluate it we are speaking of ourselves...literary works are made out of other literary works, not out of any material external to the literary system itself." (Eagleton 80)

Eagleton's statement seems to be the consensus feeling about literature among many of the literary critics we are becming familiar with in class. Donald Keesey promotes a similar attitude in his work Contexts for Criticism : "Poems do not imitate life; they imitate other poems" (265).
Eagleton's elaborate assult on formalism suggests that formalism, in many ways, deters critics from the essential meanings of a work, as intended by an author, by over-analyzation of the conventions within the work.
Eagleton finds that literature is, although a derivative of other works of literature, a limitless art in its capability to conjoin two or more words in order to create a meaning which would otherwise be absent if only one word were present. Eaglton clarifies, "The Literary work continually enriches and transforms mere dictionary meaning, generatin new significances by the clash and condensation of its various levels".(89)