January 2009 Archives

“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.”

-T.S. Elliott

And here we are thinking about what T.S. Elliott has written. Even in a straightforward piece of writing he is able to elicit waves of stimulation for your mind. Is the above literature? I think so if you follow Eagleton’s thoughts on putting together abstract words to create stimulation. And Elliott certainly does so in this plea for writers to write with awareness.

“…the pastness of the past” is a string of abstractions that stimulates me. Just thinking about the word “pastness” has me interested in what Elliott is saying. Writers must be aware that the past is in the past, but despite being gone the past maintains its presence in all of our lives. How else do we learn? How else can we create? Every nanosecond that ticks by had left me something to learn from. A writer has to be willing to embrace the long gone ideas of past writers and make new ideas from those. A writer must be able to carry on the feeling of literature being literature, otherwise what he has written is no different than the TV Guide or a label on a Tide bottle.

“There is no literary device- metonymy, synecdoche, litotes, chiasmus…”

“Metonymy- a trope which substitutes the name of an entity with something else that is closely associated with it. For example, “the throne” is a metonymic synonym for “the king.” The word derives from Greek roots that mean “changing a name.’

-defined in Hamilton

“Trope- a broader category of “figures of speech.” Tropes depend on changes not in the order or syntax but in the standard meanings of words. It describes a smaller category of rhetorical figures, including apostrophe, rhetorical question, anaphora, antithesis and chiasmus.”

-defined in Hamilton

I was utterly overjoyed to discover it had a name! I always liked it when authors said things like “the throne” in place of “the king.” It gives a bit of oomph to the writing. However, I did not know what a “trope” was so I had to look that up as well, which I have a feeling that will happen often during this semester.

“At any rate, Keats finds no consolation in earthly love. As unsatisfactory as this attitude is, it is Keats’s attitude. Keats imagines an eternal love of perfect bliss, whose very changelessness appeals to him…”

-Austin on Keats

Reading Austin’s critique further proved my original theory that literary criticism is never right nor wrong. It’s an opinion, most times a very well informed opinion, but opinion nonetheless! How could Austin know for certain that it “is Keats’s attitude” on love? This time I happen to agree with Austin but only because I found myself thinking the same thing as I read the poem. And I think Keats has a great point with the perfectness of an eternal love frozen in time. But I don’t believe Austin is the one to say for certain that Keats means that.

I enjoyed reading this critique because Austin wrote it well and was highly informed. I wish I would’ve had the time to Wikipedia all the texts Austin referenced. He had an excellent critique and it the organization of the writing made you believe that there could be no other opinion but Austin’s. Despite the quality of writing, it was still Austin’s opinion, not John Keats’.

“If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur, ‘Thou still unravished bride of quietness,’ then I am instantly aware I am in the presence of the literary. I know this because the texture, rhythm and resonance of your words are in excess of their abstractive meaning- or, as the linguists might more technically put it, there is a disproportion between the signifiers and the signifieds. Your language draws attention to itself, flaunts its material being, as statements like ‘Don’t you know the drivers are on strike?’ do not. “

-Eagleton

I found an unarguable definition of literature in Eagleton’s idea. You can feel it when you read literature. Your mind is working. Your thoughts are moving through the words as you read them and new ideas occur at an alarming frequency. You find yourself submersed in “Ah-Ha!” moments because your brain is combining the abstract meaning of the words on the page with your past experiences. Reading a piece of literature is stimulating, even if you don’t like the work.

Feeling out literature is as easy as reading Keats’ poem and then reading the TV Guide. What do you feel while reading Keats versus what do you feel while reading what time Nip/Tuck starts? You get information from the TV Guide but no stimulation, no abstract words creating new ideas. I think we live for those moments when our mind makes connections and creates an idea. Humans need stimulation and we get that every time we read a piece of literature.

Wickstrom's firing followed the June 2007 Journal publication of a story concerning a university computer security breach. A file containing the names, Social Security numbers, grade point averages and other sensitive information of former students was discovered by student journalist Blair Loving in a public area of the university computer system. He opened the file thinking it was information about the College of Education.

Wickstrom's contract was not renewed in August 2007 because university officials felt she mishandled a copy of the file.

The letter of censure, sent to WOU President John Minahan, raises concerns about the way the university handled Wickstrom's case. In addition, CMA is concerned that the present academic and student affairs environments are not conducive to healthy journalism and student media programs at WOU.

Specific concerns raised in the letter of censure include the following:

• The search by university officials of the student newspaper newsroom without notifying the students or the adviser.
• The university blaming the newspaper staff and its adviser for exposing the security lapse on its computers.
• The handling by university officials of the security investigation and Wickstrom's case, both of which indicate a lack of understanding of the basic philosophy, principles and ethics that guide CMA advisers.

This past year has been catastrophic for the New York Times. Advertising dropped off a cliff. The stock sank by 60 percent, and by fall, the paper had been rated a junk investment, announced plans to mortgage its new building, slashed dividends, and, as of last week, was printing ads on the front page. So dire had the situation become, observers began to entertain thoughts about whether the enterprise might dissolve entirely--Michael Hirschorn just published a piece in TheAtlantic imagining an end date of (gulp) May. As this bad news crashed down, the jackals of Times hatred--right-wing ideologues and new-media hecklers alike--ate it up, finding confirmation of what they'd said all along: that the paper was a dinosaur, incapable of change, maddeningly assured as it sank beneath the weight of its own false authority.

And yet, even as the financial pages wrote the paper's obit, deep within that fancy Renzo Piano palace across from the Port Authority, something hopeful has been going on: a kind of evolution. Each day, peculiar wings and gills poke up on the Times' website--video, audio, "drillable" graphics. Beneath Nicholas Kristof's op-ed column, there's a link to his blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube videos. Coverage of Gaza features a time line linking to earlier reporting, video coverage, and an encyclopedic entry on Hamas. Throughout the election, glittering interactive maps let readers plumb voting results. There were 360-degree panoramas of the Democratic convention; audio "back story" with reporters like Adam Nagourney; searchable video of the debates. It was a radical reinvention of the Times voice, shattering the omniscient God-tones in which the paper had always grounded its coverage; the new features tugged the reader closer through comments and interactivity, rendering the relationship between reporter and audience more intimate, immediate, exposed.

[...]

Half the battle, in Bilton's experience, is fighting older readers' nostalgia, which to him is a kind of blindness. " 'I like the way paper feels,' " he scoffs. "To the next generation, that doesn't mean anything. You know, if we were all reading Kindles, and someone began raving about this new technology, the 'book'--here's something you can't share, can't search, that only holds 500 pages--no one would be interested.

"Print is just a device. The New York Times is not just a newspaper, it's a news organization." For those who believe these changes are gimmicks, he has no patience: "This isn't a storm! This isn't something that's going to pass! It's the ice age. People aren't going to suddenly open their eyes and we're back in print." -- Emily Nussbaum, New York