When it finally struck me that there wasn't much time left in the semester to get my presentation done I began looking for something that I thought might be interesting. I had heard the word (or phrase - depending on the author of course) poststructuralist in my philosophy class. So I thought to myself that this might be the week for me to present. I'm going to have to apologize in advance because I'm not sure that I understand it myself, but I am going to do my best in the following "continued dream" to explain my meaning and give my readers (and myself) a bit more information about this blog entry than the normal everyday blog. In the following entry you will find websites that I hope will help you to understand the author and some of the people that she is talking about, passages I found important, arguments made by my peers, and some questions that came to mind when I was reading certain passages.
Important People in Wright's Essay
While I know that we all had to read Derrida for tonight's class, I found that I didn't really know a whole lot about Derrida and Lacan. I don't necessarily want to know who these two authors are, but more of what their concepts were. I had a difficult time following parts of this essay in the sense that Wright was mentioning the work of Lacan and I don't know his (or her for all I know) arguments.
Wright uses Lacan's theory of "subject and its attendant myths" to help her find a new psychoanalysis of "Benito Cereno." She claims that according to this theory, Lacan's breakdown of Sartre's argument becomes a part of the story. Delano makes everything and object and therefore does not react to Sartre's Other. This Other is important to the relations on Benito Cereno's ship. Lacan has a website, devoted to him by name, that lists authors that apply his theory to their own works. There is also on this site information about Lacan's life. Check it out if you are interested. (Quick disclaimer: The art work on the main page of the website has a bit of a graphic image on it. So try not to be shocked when you open the page.)
As far as Derrida goes, I'm not sure I saw where he comes into the picture. I think the if anything it comes into play more with her idea of the father figure being found on the ship. The argument, which takes place on page 397, describes for the reader how metaphors are used to give the reader a feeling of the father figure missing. She states, "...and there is a dead father-figure, in both a metaphorical sense and a literal one, since the skeleton of the unfortunate 'leader' is very much present, being tied to the mast of the San Dominick" (397). Later in the essay, Wright does reference a Derridian idea to help her read between the lines so to speak. She states, "For the psychoanalytic critic an approach based on a decentering of language is constructive, for it will seek out those nodal points in a text where a desire for lost meaning manifests itself" (399). She is essentially setting up her argument that we might be reading too much into a work.
Important (to me anyway) passages to discuss and some questions that come with them
The first passage is found on page 393:
Post-structuralist criticism undermines the notion that the text contains a stable meaning. The author's intention is not only recoverable but was never where he might have thought it was in the first place.
This quote brings to mind what we were talking about earlier in the semester with authorial intent. It goes right back to that notion that we as readers can try and figure out authorial intent, but the above quote states that the author may have an idea of why he or she is writing, but that is not necessarily the way that critics and the readers are going to look at the work. Do you think this can relate back to Pale Fire? Why or why not?
The second passage is also on 393:
The term "structuration" suggests that the text can be cauth in the act of porducing itself, whereas the term "structure" suggests a closed, unified, stable artifact.
This idea to me seemed to be a face off. I kept thinking that this is a ring match between what the becomes versus what the text actually is. When looking up the term "Structuration" it isn't even really a word (at least not according to Dictionary.com). When I tried to get a definition other than the one the book provides it bumped me over to Google. I will be interested to hear the classes take on the word.
I also want to discuss the use of plot summary in this essay. It seemed as if every time I turned around Wright was quoting long passages from "Benito Cereno" instead of discussing them.
On page 396, Wright references Freud's "The Uncanny." How else do you think this idea of poststructuralism can be applied to "The Uncanny?"
Thoughts by the class
I found it very interesting that when reading the blogs posted on the class blog for this entry that four of the nine entries centered around the passage on page 399 where Wright questions unstable meanings. (It is almost as if they were trying to get their blog carnival topic done for our second blogging portfolio.)
Mitchell, David, Vanessa, and Karissa all brought together their ideas on Wright's theory that we are reading too much into a story. Mitchell believes that Wright may not be entirely right when she is asking what's the use. His idea is that this idea must be handled carefully so as to not get carried away, but that there is something to it. Vanessa and David seem to be focusing on the author in their entries, emphasizing that we can't know what the author is thinking and anything else is just an interpretation. Vanessa also agrees with Mitchell in the idea that we are oftentimes reading too much into a work. Karissa, on the other hand, takes a different approach to the same quote that the other three use. She focuses on the idea that Wright is giving "authors an 'out' in saying that the meanings they may (or may NOT) have had in mind while producing the text are all valid and should be considered all due to the limitation of one human's mind to extend only within the realm of what was and what is--not into what could or will be."
Another important student to mention here is Erin because she brings up, what I call, the set up to the quote the other four students were talking about. She believes that by psychoanalyzing the texts we are bringing the author to a human level.
There was one other quote that was discussed by Denamarie and Jay. They both talk about the quote on 393 that expresses how reading a text can no longer be a leisure activity. Interestingly enough both of them disagree with Wright and I would have to agree with them. Even though we study literature there will always be some sort of pleasure that can be gained from it, otherwise why are we studying it in the first place?
One final comment before I go. David brought up on Kevin Hinton's blog on the Slave-Master complex discussed here that I think would be fun to discuss more because it goes right along with the authorial intent we were discussing earlier in this section. He asks, "Do you think it is coincidence that every single critique we read about Cereno draws the same conclusions?" I now pose the question to you and hope that an answer can be found.
Wright, ''The New Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
As previously stated, I'm really not so sure that I get this concept. I understand that the whole idea is to take apart an idea and try and find the nitty gritty underneath. What I didn't understand about Derrida was that he seemed to be jumping around like a jumping bean. He seemed to move from one concept to the next so fast I wasn't able to keep up. Even after a second reading I'm still not sure that I get the whole idea. I'm just going to take the following quote because that seemed to be the easiest for me to understand:
Consequently, whether he wants to or not - and this does not depend on a decision on his part - the ethnologist accepts into his discourse the premises of ethnocentrism at the very moment when he is employed in denouncing them.
What I think I am supposed to get from the above quote, as well as the surrounding argument, is that ethnology is comparable to metaphysics simply because they are in the same age? Not only is it supposed to be comparable, but ethnology is supposed to be the key to bringing down metaphysics? Like I said folks. I really don't understand this essay. I get that Derrida is trying to show us how to deconstruct something (he uses structuralism for his example), but I think that might be where I'm getting confused. The article was so full of vocabulary and shifting ideas that it was really hard to follow. I look forward to Valerie's presentation tomorrow on this topic. Maybe it will help me with mine.
Ok. I know that this title is something that really isn't true, but that is how I felt. The reason behind the lateness of this, and the following two blogs, is that I simply didn't understand the introduction to this chapter. I know that this is no excuse, but I was honestly confused. I even reread several times trying to understand. I think that I might have some semblance of a handle on it now, but that only came after many headaches and a lot of Mountain Dew. Oh! And after reading this for the 10,000th time:
Poststructuralism is sometimes simply another name for deconstruction, but even in this restricted sense it is potentially confusing...Authors and readers may be less in control than they imagine, but the system...remains always in place to stabilize meanting. It is exactly this stability that the deconstructive critique of structure destabilizes.
That is when I realized that it was ok to be confused.
Once I realized that I was able to step back and look at things a little bit clearer. I think what threw me off at first was the opening of this introduction. I was so confused as to why he was recapping (still am actually) all of the other techniques that we have looked at so far. I think that it was to show how you can break apart all of their arguments, but I'm not 100% sure. If someone would like to fill me in on that I would be appreciative.
By the time I had reread the above passage about 5 times the end of the intro made a bit more sense to me. I could see why Karissa (I took a quick peek at everyone's quotes before I finally sat down to write this) used the description that comes after the passage that I have quoted. It makes sense to see how postmonderism and deconstruction can fit together. Both are used for looking at something in a different manner and both are applied to different genres as well. It seems as if maybe one spawned the other, it is just that two different people coined a different term. Something to think about for sure.
Keesey, Ch 6 (Introduction) -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Ok. So I have to say that I still really don't understand this whole idea of postmodernism thus entering the Good Ol' Bedford. I looked up the word and realized that it went on for a page and a half, wondered what I got myself into and then found the following sentence:
Postmodernist literary developments include such genres as the Absurd, the antinovel, concrete poetry, and other forms of avant-garde poetry written inf free vers and challenging the ideological assumptions of contemporary society.
I stumbled when I got to the words concrete poetry. Here I was thinking that this wonderful and fun part of literature was just something that someone created one day. I had no idea that it was part of such a crucial movement in art and literature. This is also the third time this semester that I have come across this phrase. It is like God is trying to tell me something. (Ok maybe not really, but it still is weird that I went a really long time without ever thinking about it (I think the last time was American Lit in Sophomore year) and have now come across it a third time in one semester.) I have to say that I was as surprised to see the others in this category, but, now that I think about it, concrete poetry really does fit here too!
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
First let me state that I have no idea what this book was supposed to be about. I mean I do, but I don't at the same time. I get that the novel is supposed to relate to postmoderism and that Berger is trying to be creative while getting across why so many people are attracted to postmoderism, but at times I was just bored. One such time that I was not bored was following the reading of this sentence:
And what's most interesting is that Americans don't know what they've done, don't realize that, in their invincible ignorance, they have created the quintessential postmodern society.
After reading that sentence my mind automatically went back to camp and the may conversations I had with my co-counselors (one from South Africa and the other from Israel) about how clueless Americans really are.
That being said, this sentence is also very interesting for many other reasons. It points out, from the perspective of a fictional outside character, that America has created something without realizing it. While I don't exactly understand postmoderism, I do know that people from other countries tend to flock to our shores to escape the repression from their own countries. I can understand why these artists and intellectuals would be interested in coming to the US because of our openness (more often than not) to many different ideas that can not be shared in their country.
I remember last spring I attended a poetry reading in the Harlan Gallery for one such author. He was a Chinese poet that was jailed (along with his wife) for criticizing his country. Once he claimed asylum in America he has written several very deep and eye opening poems. His performance of his poetry will remain in my memory always, but it was just something that I think we as Americans can take for granted every now and then. Fess reminds us (maybe not so subtly) that we create a different atmosphere in America that other countries not only criticize, but are interested in as well.
Berger, Postmortem for a Postmodernist -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I have to tell you that when I read the bulk of this article before I went to see that movie I didn't know what to expect. The movie sure did surprise me on many levels, but not in the way that I thought. While reading the article I came across a quote that Freud gives from Jentsch. The bulk of the second section is what Jentsch thinks about the uncanny and how that fits in with literature. He states:
In telling a story, one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton; and to do it in such a way that his attention is not directly focused upon his uncertainty.
In my mind this means that the producers of Blade Runner didn't do such a good job displaying uncanniness because they point out who the Replicants (the automatons of the movie) are at the very beginning of the movie. There are other elements of the movie that I thought might work for the uncanny until I thought about it and realized that this wouldn't work either because they told us about that too, such as the live toys at JF's house.
I understand that it is hard to compare a quote that was made about a book and apply it to a book, but if we are going to go by the idea of how to make the uncanny work for watchers according to Jentsch it just doesn't work. On the other hand, it is possible to analyze the movie according to the definition that Freud gives at the beginning of the article for the uncanny. He states, "the 'uncanny' is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar." If one looks at this definition and then thinks about the movie there are many terrifying ideas that have been long known to us. The first and foremost of which would have to be the idea of cops retiring from the force, but the terrifying aspect of this is that Deckard was retiring from a part of the police force that went out and killed in cold blood to get Replicants off the street.
I think that it will be interesting to read what others have to say on the matter of this article and on the movie. Class on Thursday should be very interesting.
Ok. I have to say that I am the type of person that likes to look people in the eyes when they are talking even when I'm watching movies. This turned out to be a problem with Blade Runner because whenever those creepy Replicants were up on the sceen (the bad guys not Rachel) I couldn't get over how creepy their eyes looked half the time. It was like I was staring into darkness. I'm usually the type of person that is going to like this type of movie, but nothing really made sense to me. The whole movie was pretty much summed up in the beginning text scroll. I can see why this movie would work when talking about the uncanny. If I could make a suggestion to anyone that hasn't yet seen the movie - read the article on E-Reserve first! It helps to pick out some of the things that I normally wouldn't have noticed.
Now if I could go back to eyes that would be great! They were creepy! Every time that the scene changed there were creepy eyes. I just couldn't get over it. If you ask Val, Vanessa, Lorin, Dena, and Kevin they will tell you the same thing. Even the cops sometimes had creepy eyes. Like that guy that just kept doing the oragami to announce his presence. He had creepy eyes often. It was like he was trying to hide something. Also, something that Dena pointed out was the fact that the eyes tended to change color. I don't know if this is a result of the lighting or if it was intentional, but this was creepy too.
Another part of the movie that had a lot to do with eyes was the man that made the eyes for the Replicants. This just made me think that there was something about eyes that they were trying to get across. It was almost as if the producers of the movie were trying to hint at the fact that someone might be watching you at all times. I know that that sounds like stretch, but it was something that I found incredibly interesting.
Scott, dir. Blade Runner (Director's Cut) -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Ok. The following poem is extremely rough and in need of work I'm not sure that I want to give it, but the words were on the page before I could stop my hands from writing. I have to tell you that I was not in the best frame of mind when they were written so once again emotion has driven me to write, but what else is new when it comes to me right?
Just a bit of background before you read the poem. Yesterday did not go as I planned and after the week that I had it was just one more thing to make me wonder why life was throwing curve balls at me. I'm better now. I promise. I just thought that I would share since it has been so long since I posted anything other than a homework assignment. Please don't feel obligated to read the extended entry. It just has the poem.
Roller Coaster Emotions
It's funny what life tends to throw at you.
One moment the world is at your fingertips,
And the next it is ripped away leaving you
Empty handed.
It's funny what life tends to throw at you.
One moment you are calm, controlled, collected,
And the next the stability is gone and you are
Drowning.
It's funny what life tends to throw at you.
One moment he is staring at you with new eyes,
And the next a phone call that leaves you
Crying.
I know that this is going to sound a bit strange, but I decided to look up my term this week after a conversation with my dad. My dad reads a lot of historical fiction for his pleasure (quite opposite of me with my fantasy obsession). While both of us tend to swap books every so often he still doesn't understand the difference between the genres. He thinks that books are books and there is nothing else to it. Well to prove to him that he was wrong I opened my Bedford and looked up the definitions of several different genres of literature. What he didn't understand was that there are different characteristics to each of the genres. When I got to the historical novel he was able to pick out the different characteristics to the genre before I read them to him. It was interesting to hear the light bulb come on in my dad's head. Our parents teach us so much that I never thought I would teach my parents anything. Who knew.
An interesting point to note also is that one of the examples listed in Bedford for a historical novel is the James McBride novel that I read in American Lit 1815-Present - Miracle at St. Anna.
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
Since I was having such a hard time figuring out Pale Fire, I decided to look up persona since I felt that the author was using Kinbote as his persona in the novel. I discovered that the definition that I was going by in order to use that word was wrong. The persona is usually "the speaker...in any first-person poem or narrative." I always thought that a persona could be used by anyone and in a way I was right because the definition does go on to say that "the persona often serves as the 'voice' of the author" however the author sees fit. It is also used as a protection barrier by some people and I got to wondering if that was why Nabokov decided to choose two differing personas to present his work. The persona of the dying old man writing his last work or the persona of the hot shot youngster that thought he knew everything. It is def. Something to think about.
Murfin and Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
As I began reading the novel by Nabokov I couldn't help but think that he had to have lived a twisted life. For one author to write about two other fake persona to show his work is fascinating to me. As I read the introduction to the novel that was written I couldn't help but feel a tad confused at first until Lorin mentioned to me that it was a fake person writing about a fake person. It seemed to me that if Nabokov wanted to write a poem all he had to do was write it and publish it. Why create two different people to give your poem life? Now, I know that authors use pen names all the time, but the fact that Nabokov is emphasizing the relationship between the two authors more than the poem through the introduction and commentary than he did the actual poem that the whole emphasis of the novel is supposed to be based off of.
The fact that the commentary is (in Kinbote's words) supposed to help one understand the poem at hand also baffles me. It is even stated in the introduction that "the reader is advised to consult them first and study the poem with their help." In my opinion they just made me more confused. Take for instance the very first four lines of the poem and the commentary that goes along with it. I don't see how what the religion that Kinbote practices should have anything to do with the first four lines of the poem or even what it matters that he was playing chess with an exchange student. This book just gives me some creepy feelings and it is comforting to know that many others in the class feel the same way as I do.
Ok no, this entry is not about Sherlock Holmes, but it is about a mystery. When I first read Melville's "Benito Cereno" I never thought to look at the story as a (very dense) mystery. I knew that the novella had some sort of foreshadowing going on, however never once did I think to become a detective and sniff out the clues. Swann quotes Chandler saying:
...the point of the mystery story is that it is two stories in one: The story of what happened and the story of what appeared to have happened.
I completely agree with this statement as referred to "Benito Cereno" because the story of what happened comes at the end of the novella and the story of what appeared to happen comes from our wonderful Captain Delano. This is very interesting to me because I have read many mystery novels in my time as a recreational reader and the characteristics of the genre all show up in this short story. It is just as Dr. Jerz said - Swann was able to see something that no one else probably saw.
Swann goes on to say that:
By using Chandler I am trying to show that serious political meanings are being mediated through the form of the mystery story - and that many of the conventionaly critical problems have to be reformulated when "Benito Cereno" is located within the genre.
In the above quote Swann is showing how the political happenings in "Benito Cereno" that everyone is able to see can be seen in a different light. The intertextuality here appears because we are using a different genre than many others believe is the way to look at the short story. I think it is actually genius that he came up with this idea. He does emphasize throughout his essay that in order to get a full understanding of the short story as a mystery text one must reread the story and look for the clues that are provided as well as to be able to distance one self from the character of Delano who will become the "dectective's assistant" while the reader becomes the detective. Just your regular Sherlock/Watson combination.
Frye's essay is the first of the Application essays that we read for this week. In this essay Frye is using the compare and contrast method to show how The Tempest is a comedy play. He compares the play to many different types of plays as well. Frye states:
The connection between drama and rites of initiation probably goes back to the Old Stone Age. in classical times there were several mystery religions with dramatic forms of initiation, the most celebrated being those of Eleusis, near Athens, which were held in honor of the earth goddess Demeter, the roman Ceres who is the central figure in Prospero's masque.
These connections make it possible for intertextuality to take hold. It is very interesting to see how literature plays off itself from its early beginnings to its developing contemporary. Frye makes other connects to other plays of the same time period that Shakespeare was writing as well as what Shakespeare might have been influenced by as he was writing. The above quote shows how ancient literature can find it's way into classic literature.
I like that this essay builds upon what Culler wrote and shows how Shakespeare used past literature to help create new literature. It is also interesting to see how Frye builds upon what he stated in his earlier essay about comparing and contrasting. Its good that he is practicing what he is preaching because I know quite a few people that do not.
Frye, ''Shakespeare's The Tempest'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I think that Culler's essay is by far the easiest for me to understand. For me that usually means one of two things. I really don't get it at all or I'm really really close. In his essay Culler says some very interesting things to me. He kind of backs up Keseey's argument from the introduction that practice makes perfect. His argument is that structuralism is the only way to go when it comes to literary criticism and he makes such a convincing argument that by the end I thought that this might be the best essay I had read to date.
Culler states:
Imagine someone who knows English but has no knowledge of literature and indeed no acquaintance with the concept of literature. If presented with a poem he would be quite baffled...What he lacks is a complex system of knowledge that experienced readiers have acquired, a system of conventions and norms which we might call "literary competence."
Here is where I believe that he is backing up the practice makes perfect idea. The quote pretty much says that without the knowledge that is gathered by practice anyone can read a poem , but he or she will not be able to fully understand the poem until he or she has the proper training. When reflecting on this it makes me wonder what Culler would have thought of college students trying to learn to interpret poetry. Even after having practiced the art of reading and interpreting poety, as well as trying my hand at some, I'm not sure that I even understand what poetry is all about.
Culler also stated that:
Structuralism leads us to think of the poem not as a self-contained organism but as a sequence which has meaning only in relation to a literary system, or rather, to the "institution: of literature which guides the reader.
This spoke to me because it screamed intertextuality. It is almost as if everything that we read (essays, poems, novels) and comment on are a part of the whole picture. It also seems as if literature builds upon itself from one age to the next. I really liked the idea that the poem isn't completely self-contained. That there are things that have influenced the poem and that is all taken into consideration when coming at the poem froma structual approach.
All in all this essay on the theory behind intertextuality helped me to understand this approach better than any other approach that we have studied thus far.
Culler, ''Structuralism and Literature'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
I have to admit that when I first started reading this essay I wasn't sure exactly what it was trying to say. Was he arguing for intertextuality (if that is even what he means because there is nothing that says that right out) or was he saying that a mix of all the different types of criticism is that best way. In about the middle of the essay Frye states:
It seemd to me obvious that, after accepting the poetic form of a poem as its primary basis of meaning, the next step was to look for its context within literature itself. And of course the most obvious literary context for a poem is the entire output of its author.
Now in this passage I can see a bit of formalism, some argument for style, and finally a bit of support for authorial intent or maybe cannon. I think that this last is what we are meant to focus on because it has a sentence all to its own, however I'm not so sure what to make of it.
The essay seemed very vague to me and it jumped around a lot in my opinion and because of that I decided to read a few of my classmates blogs to see if I could make some sense of the essay.
Karissa saw that Frye was arguing that although poems are similar it is the differences that bring out the individuality. I can see that this is true because of what I learned from the introduction. It seemed to me that the whole point of intertextuality was to compare and contrast works and not just to other works done by the author of that piece. Karissa said that "It seems that even though we compare texts to one another for what they are it's what they aren't, in comparison, that makes them what they truly are in literature as individual works." I think that this is true because we are always looking for similarities in people, but it is the differences that make us who we are. Why shouldn't the same be true for poetry?
Frye, ''The Critical Path'' -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)
It is a given fact that for anyone to become good at anything practice needs to be of the utmost importance. Take my brother for instance. He plays baseball for his high school team and has dreams of playing in college and some day the pros, but in order for him to get there he knows that baseball needs to be the number two priority in his life (homework being number one). He practices 6 days a week with his team and on Sundays he and my dad go to the batting cages because the team doesn't have practice on the Lord's Day. The same is true for anyone trying to understand poetry. One must practice at it until they can understand what it means. Keesey states, "People who have read a lot of peotry can generall interpret a given poem better than people who have not."
Ok I know that this is pretty self explanitory, but really it is true. Those that read many different types of poetry are able to interpret a poem easier than those that only read poetry here or there. As I was reading this section of the introduction I couldn't help but think that my Major British Writers classes made sense now. The reason that there was so much poetry was so that we could understand it. Looking back on the class now I can't help but remember how as the year went on reading and interpreting the poems became easier and easier.
Another thing that I got from the introduction and then later from the other essays was that intertextuality is about comparing and contrasting. That's when a light bulb came on. (Hopefully the right lightbulb.) We have been comparing and contrasting all of our lives. It is something even kindergarten kids are taught. It is a skill that can help any one person get through life. So, for me intertextuality is turning out to be something that has a lot to do with practicing and practicing compare and contrast.
Keesey, Ch 5 (Introduction) -- Jerz EL312 (Literary Criticism)