Friday, December 12, 2008

Dec. 12th- Last day of class

Final Exam: Thursday 8:00 a.m.

  • New criticism (Formalism) values technique. Stay inside of text. Unity. Structure. 
  • Deconstruction
  •  affirms and deviates from NC.
  •  There is no absolute meaning to a text. No outside a text.  Everything is text. 
  • Counters idea of unity. Well Wrought Urn
  • "Everything is partly rhetorical and hence literary" (Frye)
  • Moves away from the notion of unified whole

  • Feminism
  • Reductive- Looking only at how women are treated.
  • Expansive- Looks at domination.  bell hooks. What kind of literary work is this? Puts into perspective

  • Reader Response
  • You see yourself
  • Different spectacles
  • *You cannot make things mean whatever you want them to mean!!!

  • Psychoanalysts
  • Don't make fun of Freud
  • The truth is unseen-look at a glass darkly

  • Marxism
  • We do not see the world around us-Social truths
  • Hidden social hierarchies in texts
  • Class struggle

Test Questions
  1. What is the difference between a complaint and criticism? 
  2. Bloom compares Edith Grossman the________ of translators (Glen Gould)
  3. What secret enchanted thing does Don Antonio tell DQ about that will tell the truth? (The enchanted head)
  4. What is the English translation of Don Quixote (Of the Stains) (Stain glass windows) (Deconstruction) 
  5. What happened to DQ in the Cave of Montesinos? (A certain genre of literature)
  6. What was the name of the night that defeated DQ (Knight of the White Moon)
  7. Who really was The Knight of the Mirrors, The knight of the Wood, and The Knight of the White Moon? (Bachelor Carrasco)
  8. Pg. 804 "To believe...is to believe_____" (The impossible)
  9. Frye wears spectacles...the end result is to see something that you haven't seen. Pg. 346 "The culture of the past...things that have been buried...recognition...not our past lives but..." 

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Group 5 and 6 -Presentations

Blogs due at 5:00 on Friday!

Group Six: Psychoanalyst
Freudian Phallic Hour

Host: Freud.

Guests: 
Oedipus (Sad because whole life has been a lie)
Maybe you really wanted to kill your dad?

Hamlet (Melancholy because dad died and uncle took dad's place.  Now is just killing.) 
Are you mad because uncle did what you wanted to do?
Dreams are sensitive and coherent but hidden under a cloak of...

Don Quixote  
Could it be that your adventures are reality?
Reality principle

Miguel De Cervantes (Served in Army with Turks and was injured. Five years in captivity)
Story of the Captive
Wrote self into own story. Look at how author's life effects work.

Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale with symbols of sexuality) (Seduction of wolf)
Original version oral.
Color red.
Little girl walking through wood wearing suggestive clothing.

Main Points: Subconscious desires, intertextuality, dreams, sexuality, childhood
Freud just systematized what was already going on with the poets and novelists


Group Five: Marxists
Kill Your TV Film...think for yourself...question authority
Negative Capability
Social class.  Class consciousness. Capitalism 
Activists who believe that revolution will cause social change.
Social Hierarchy.  Life is a series of tests.
Systems of power. Bourgeois and proletarians.
George Lucas (critic who confronts objective reality in the world)
Samuel Coleridge is not a Marxist (critic who believes imagination is central in text)

  • Marxist looks at a text for which class's values should be upheld.
  • Has to do with time periods. What is going on n the world? 
  • Not about artistic quality.
  • DQ becomes more sympathetic to the class while Sancho becomes more sympathetic to the aristocratic elements of Aristocracy.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Group 3 and 4- Presentations

Group Three: Feminist Theory

Hollywood Squares.
Famoust feminist critics: Mary Wollenstonecraft, Rosie The Rivetor, bell hooks, Pat (?)

Four phases of the Feminism Movement:

  • (Phase One) 1880's-1928 Women's suffrage in the UK and the US. 
  • (Phase Two) 1960's-1980's  issues of equality and ending discrimination. (After WWII) Tends to leave out the poor and minorities.
  • (Phase Three) 1990's Response to perceived failures of second wave feminism. (Sexual harassment issues). (After Anita Hill lost the court battle) (inclusion of all women in all countries with all different types of status)
  • (Phase Four) Is currently being constructed.
  • Hello and welcome to English 300 squares-  We have some special quest appearances for you this evening-  Critical as they may seem outside our studio I’d like you to help me inquire about their knowledge with Feminist Literary Criticism- ….I’ll come up with a few more introductory phrases before introductions begin- 

    Pat-  I have on my card here the number four- so I’m going to use this quantity in a question- What are or have been the four phases of feminism?

    Claire- Is the novel Don Quixote a work that is encompassed of fair gender roles?

    Mary Wollstonecraft- In youth we learn how to respond to the world in a male or female way- Hence the certain way we live out daily lives is signified by these responses- One of the American Philosopher Judith Butler’s favorite words is re-signification- a term that challenges these daily rhetorical responses- The question is –what particular daily activity do you believe needs to be re-signified for gender equality? 

    Rosie The Riveter- Are there any strong or “actual” women in Don Quixote?   No- sparks argument between-….

    Pat- we don’t know where you came from or how you are developing in life- but I speak for most with this question-  Are you aware of any proper representative creation stories that promote feminist ideals?-

    Bell Hooks- It seems Don Quixote is a great book for feminist ideals because it largely contributes to the idea of chivalry-  How can or can this not be considered a feminist mode?    

    Bell- since you are basically a third wave feminist, could you still describe for us how to describe the emergent fourth wave?

    “Feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure than women have equal rights with men.  It is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels--sex, race, and class, to name a few---and a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.” 

    Pat- What are you- a boy or girl?  Sparks argument- (sex vs. gender)

    What needs to change, if anything, for Don Quixote to be a gender fair novel?

    Which 1963 author, and founder of NOW or National Organization for Women, wrote The Feminine Mystique, which was the first literary landmark for feminism?
    -Betty Friedan 

    Which 1970 radical feminist organization, influenced by Marxism, held the view that the male had to give up his supremacy instead of the woman changing herselfand also published the journal Feminist Revolution?
    -
    The Redstockings 
    Who was the first American feminist author and what was her work that was published in 1845?
    -Margret Fuller and 
     Woman in the Nineteenth Century which was a novel expanded from an 1843 essay: The Great Lawsuit. Man Verses Man. Woman Verses Woman.

    Group Three: Reader Response Theory 

    Telephone.

    Poem: The Flea (John Donne)

    MARK but this flea, and mark in this,

    How little that which thou deniest me is ;
    It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, 
    And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
    Thou know'st that this cannot be said
    A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
        Yet this enjoys before it woo,
        And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
        And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

    O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
    Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
    This flea is you and I, and this
    Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
    Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
    And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
        Though use make you apt to kill me,
        Let not to that self-murder added be,
        And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

    Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
    Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
    Wherein could this flea guilty be,
    Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
    Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
    Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
    'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
    Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
    Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.


    Difference between New Critics and Deconstrucionists. 

    1. NC: Stay inside the text. 
    2. D: There is no outside the text. 
    3. Reader Response (bigger umbrella)
    4. Feminism and RR reactions to the exclusiveness of former criticism.

    Friday, December 5, 2008

    Groups 1 and 2-Presentations

    Group one: New Criticism
    Dominant mid twentieth century.
    Close reading
    Rejects all elements outside of text

    Key concept: Intentional Fallacy
    History: Strucuralism and deconstruction replaced new criticism
    Cliches: come hell or High Water
    History: Intentional Fallacy Essay- 1954
    Works: Birth of new criticism 1922-1925 The Fugative Essay.
    Works: Foundational work- Tradition and the Individual Talent
    Critics: Allen Tate's work...rejection of abstractionism...
    Cliches: Costs a pretty penny
    Key Concepts- Exclusion of Advertisement and Propaganda
    Cliches: Joe Six Pack
    Key Concepts:Studying a passage of prose or poetry in NC style requires Careful Scrutiny from the reader.
    Works: "The Well-Wrought Urn" written by Cleanth Brooks
    Key Concepts: Rhyme, meter, setting and plot are used to help identify theme.
    History: New criticism 1920's -1960's
    Critics: "Lemin squeezer school of criticism" The Wasteland T.S. Elliot
    History: Godfather of New Criticism- William Blake

    Final Jeopardy: (Everything is on handout)
    Answer:  "The Intentional Fallacy" William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley 

    Potent Potables, Cliche, People, Key Concepts, The Works, History 
    (Keanu Reaves, Burt Renolds, Sarah Palin, Sean Oconnery)

    "Well Wrought Urn"
    Unity in poetry. How do all these things add up to a "Well Wrought Urn"


    Group two: Deconstruction
    The People have accused William Blake of obscenity in this poem.

    The Sick Rose

    Oh Rose Thou Art Sick!
    The invisible worm
    That flies in the night,
    In the howling storm
    Has found out thy bed
    of crimson joy
    And his dark secret love
    Does thy life destroy

    • Authors intent does not apply to deconstruction.

    • Freud/psychoanalyst: sex everywhere. (rose female-reproductive organ, worm-penis) (rape)

    • Derrida: Only text as source of reading (close reading) No fixed meaning. Always rethink your interpretations. Question your beliefs.  To read is to experience...
    Diversity among people: divesity among interpretations.

    • Hans George Gatamer. Deconstruction: Continual exploration. One can make a word anything he wants it to mean.
    Words are ambiguous.

    Deconstruction: school of wide range thinking.  No authorial intent. Many meanings/levels.  Metaphorical.  

    Follows New Criticism, but deconstruction believes that there is no outside the text, because all things are text. (Pandora's Box)  Meaning is subjective.

    Lines up with existentialism.  We are always in the process

    NO WRONG WAY TO EAT A REESES


    Monday, December 1, 2008

    Dec. 1st class- Threnody

    Judson's Threnody: A song of lamentation.  Romantics...true definition.  You are the cultural council. Mortification phase. Lamentation for dying gods.

    Joan's book: Good Omen. Apocalyptic.

    Andrew Arvelle: To His Coy Mistress

    Catcher in the Rye: Descent narrative.  Archetypal elements.

    Apology: A defense. A proud explanation.

    Tuesday, November 25, 2008

    The Defense of Little Hood Goody

    The Defense of Little Hood Goody

    By Rosanna Mecklenburg

     

    Until the dawn of words mirror howling

    Illuminations of enmeshed melodies and blessed bays

    Rhapsodic urges,

    Psalms of life.

     Laconic, righteous singsong.

    The notes of tragic sacrifice renewing,

    Accepting, and allowing sweet delights of poetry

    Of marriage and triumph.

    Stories of birth, mockingbird tales

    Of isolation and lust, chaotic and sinful

    Of mankind, flawed and godlike

    Of godkind nearly.

     

    Until notes and golden voice

    Glisten bare in the virgin pool,

    And mother, maiden and maker,

    Siren, father and bride,

    Child and savior

     Emerge as ghostly demarcations of the soul

    But of one body, wholly body,

    Mythical and rhythmic,

    Alive.

     Until then, her hymn will decompose.

     

    Pungent and festered, arisen,

    She spoke.

    Disconsolate over what was once

    Commanded

    To be seen and not heard

    A mound in the dirt.

     

    Pregnant with fruit seed

    Little Hood Goody read to Riding Shoes.

    She sang to the

    Children, the mask, the man behind the curtain,

     The melody that made their hearts soar because she loved

    Them for they were simple.

    She praised the sunlight that warmed

    The cherished brown soil and the soft and

    Gentle touch of rebirth.

     

    Little hood goody looked and knew

    That the darkness had accrued her bounty

    In the magic breeze

    Her invigorating joy was the only need

    Eternity caught in a minute

    As they listened to the sweet honey sound

    Of a daughter’s innocent grace

    In an abundant heaven

    Displaced.

     

     

    The song transformed enchantment

    Romantically

    And with speed

    Young boys danced around their

    Handsome steeds.

    One hundred fair Dulcineas

    Cried gleefully

    As the shepherds kept watch over

     Triumphal ceremony and

      Tears of Frye ecstasy showered on donkeys.

     

    Rejoice, lift your hands into the air and sing

    The sweet melody song

    Of salvation and chastity, hand-shaking

    Celebration’s illuminating,

    Jubilation,

    Deviation from the beginning

    Of wanting to get a head, not an apple

    Sang the Ideal matchmaker’s protégée,

    Little Hood goody.

     

    And in an exacting melodic moment

    A strange new key betrayed

    A faint relief

    To the madness.

    Soundly in the fiddling tune

    A note of terror

    Resumed and mimed to overtake the

    Festive mood. 

     

    The arrangement between

    Father and groom not wholly completed

    Doth made her song the Blues.

    Hood Goody turned to the crowd,

    Her Siren head hung,

    Aged beauty to all good

    Wilting in puddles of ice.

    Sharp came the insightful notes

    From the mournful Lady of flight.

    The children, the mask, the man behind the curtain

    Took heed to Riding Shoes plight

    Asking, dissecting, demanding to

    Right

    Little Hood Goody.

     

    For they had heard her sing.

    Or was it more than that?

    Had she sung of them

    Late at night, did she cry tears,

    Alphabetical smeared elegies,

     Goddess-less dirges of iniquitous play?

    Violent death and sacrificial bays?

    They questioned the traitorous hymns and tragic games.

    They shattered her mirror

    And the sound went away.

     

    Under white floods

    Little Hood Goody turned from the fall

    Of the life she loved most and

    She laughed with them in the retelling of

    The passion and the betrayal.

     Corpus Christi she could have named herself while

    Forever intertwining

     The flesh of fishnet stockings in an erotic embrace

    In Sisyphus-like glee turned tragedy, now irony.

     

    It was a dance of unspoken communication

    It was a wordless,

    Sorrowful sound echoing

    Down

    In cold darkness, hood goody returned.

    It was the dance of war and heartache,

    Of weapon dissipation

    And human elevation into the spirit

    She heard the song of her epic beginning

    When she first heard the beat that stole her being

    And the purgation of her soul.

    Finalizing the final phase of her ritual. 

    Where meaning is slaughtered

    And remains the empty possibility

    Of hope.

    Friday, November 21, 2008

    Nov. 21st class- Hazelnuts and mustard seeds

    Blooms introduction:  
    1. DQ is at war with Freud's reality principle
    2. DQ has double vision. neither fool nor madman
    3. Sees something else also. (Baffle us when we try to share their knowledge)

    Pg. 725 Magical horse sequence: read out loud. What is there to say?!
    (The Game genre)
    hazelnuts and mustard seeds
    If they cannot be knights, then shepherds.
    How PS got away without lashes on the buttocks.

    Metafiction chapter:
    DQ repents for reading storybooks. But now he would read the BIBLE! 
    "When I was mad, I would have given him the governorship of an...but now a kingdom!"
    In will: Fake copy of Don Quixote...
    "For he alone was DQ born, And I of him..." I can write and he can act...
    Cervantes wrote to execrate and vilify books of chivalry...Is that the only reading?


    Wednesday, November 19, 2008

    Nov 19th class-Enchanted Dulcinea

    *Apology Presentations (be quixotic
    )
    Monday Nov. 24th:
    Sarah
    Kelsy
    Jessica
    Gabby
    Heather
    Carly
    Jon
    Kyle 2
    (Claire)

    Nov. 26th
    Ben 
    Lisa
    Rosanna
    Kevin
    Jiwon
    Kyle 1
    Jake
    Kayla
    (Erica)

    Dec. 1st (After Thanksgiving Vacation)
    Danielle 
    Judson 
    Victoria
    Derek
    Joan
    Doug 
    Alex

    Last session
    Everyone else


    Metafiction- writing about writing.
    Tangents-frame stories-Where did we start from? Tangents just as important as central theme...circumference...


    Mr. Miogi. Business of learning karate...
    Ten years later, we should evaluate class.
    Ramon says what? Not content, but form. Lights, zones, poles..schematic. Having an order that wasn't seen before.

    DQ Pg. 518
    Representation of Reality in Western Literature
    Enchanted Dulcinea
    Three homely peasants...Sancho uses DQ rhetoric of chivalry...
    Imitation of the way people speak
    DQ and SP use no irony in their speeches.
    Low-born and ugly and garlicky Dulcinea mounted the donkey as only Sarah Palin would have dreamed of.
    DQ blames everything on the enchanters.

    DQ and SP change by talking to eachother
    We change by reading IOKW

    *Extra credit: Impersonate DQ and SP in bOZman!


     

    Monday, November 17, 2008

    Nov 17th class- Cave of Montesinos















    Cave of Montesinos (Pg 604) 
    • DQ tells grisly story to old knight. 
    • Sancho questions DQ's "Theme of descent" 
    • Woman carrying human heart
    • Sees Dulcinea El Toboso who asks for money!!!
    • Pg 610 central literary apology metaphor..."The hour that seems like an eternity"
    • DQ believed he was in the underworld for three days (Christ archetype)
    • The two (illusionist and realist) trade places

    Life Imitates art

    I googled DQ illusion and reality, not knowing what I was supposed to do, when I found the following written by Dale Wasserman:


    In self-defense I should like it noted that I am not, nor ever have been, an Hispanic scholar. I am a playwright, one of whose works,Man of La Mancha, is enjoying performances in some forty languages, and which seems to have gone into theatrical history as the first truly successful adaptation of the novel Don Quixote. I consider this an unfortunate impression. Man of La Mancha, strictly speaking, is not an adaptation of Don Quixote at all. It is a play about Miguel de Cervantes. I do claim to know a little about Cervantes. That's a fairly safe claim, as there is no one who knows a great deal about him.
         For those interested in beginnings, Man of La Mancha was born not by design but by accident. The year was 1959. I was in Spain writing a movie when I read in a newspaper that my purpose there was research for a dramatization of Don Quixote. That was nonsense, of course, for like the great majority of people who claim to know Don Quixote, I had never read it. Spain was a logical place to repair that omission, so I waded in, emerging on the other side of its half-million words convinced that there was no way to dramatize this amazing compendium of the good, the bad, and the brilliant.
         I was aware that there had been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of such attempts —plays, opera, ballet, puppet shows, movies— every dramatic form possible. I was also aware that they had one thing in common: they failed. Having now read the book, I wasn't at a loss.

    Wow! Look what I found...a true case of life (or nature) imitating art.  Cool!