'Tis The Season
As with my entry on The Grapes of Wrath, I do not have a specific quote or line that really struck me this week, but more of a whole chapter or topic. While reading chapter 20, about seasons, I came across a lot to think about.
Seasons. Wow. I never really thought about the impact that a season can have on a story. Sure specific weather conditions bring a certain mood to a piece of literature, or can be interpreted to mean something more (I was able to learn from the earlier chapters of How to Read Literature Like a Professor how important weather can be), but I never made a connection between weather and the season it is associated with. I like how Foster was once again able to make a point that I should have, but never really did pick up on. Snow usually falls in the winter, right? Hot beating sun in the summer, too. In order for weather to have an impact on a story, the season must also be apart of that!
I also began to think about season, not just in a weather sense, but as sort of the "holiday" season. At this time usually people are happy and looking forward to the holiday to come, but also stressed and busy with shopping, baking, and decorating! So there are many types of different seasons that can have an impact on the plot, or deeper meaning of a piece of literature.
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Nathan Hart on 'Tis The Season: I love the thought of seasons
Rosalind Blair on 'Tis The Season: Carlos, very good point. That
Carlos Peredo on 'Tis The Season: It's also important to keep in
Alyssa Sanow on 'Tis The Season: The ideas expressed in your bl
The ideas expressed in your blog are very similar to those in mine for this week (http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AlyssaSanow/2009/02/why_leave_geography_in_the_his.html). Foster through his writing style, word choice, or some other means is able to communicate ideas about literature that seem obvious - like common sense. As I discussed in my blog, he makes the same ideas about geography and submersion in water seem obvious. As I read, I was surprised that I had not heard these "rules" before or recognized them on my own.
It's also important to keep in mind the time period. For us today, the winter season is one of stress and joy and family and such. Two hundred years ago the winter season could have been one of death, famine, and a struggle to survive. Edgar Allan Po's wife for example, spent six years with tuberculosis. She would get better every summer and regress again to near death again in the winter. Thus, when reading Po, the colder months are depressing and revolving around death (more than usual that is).
Carlos, very good point. That is something I had never thought about before - how seasons were different before (when things like indoor heating and the like did not exist!). I did not know that about Po and his wife. That makes a lot of sense about some of his works. Thanks for the information.
I love the thought of seasons in different works. At the begininning of this semester, we look at Robert Frost and his poetry and I can remember in many of his works he had a season. In poetry, you often see a bigger use of the interpretation of seasons, such as winter meaning death, and spring meaning birth. So in any work of art, I believe that season have a very important underlying meaning which people should look into when reading a work. Many of the times in larger novels, I often bypass the season and look at whats going on to the characters
Nathan, I agree. Poetry seems to be filled with different uses of seasons, and what they can be interpreted to be. I myself also seem to bypass seasons in novels and pieces of literature like that, but after reading Foster, I really need to pay more attention to small details like that. They can add a lot to a story.