Aristotle defends poetry, and the art of writing in general, by laying down the laws of imitation. First off, there are three differences that determine exactly what kind of imitation it is. There is the medium "of color, form or again by voice", which is basically the form the imitation is in; a tragedy, prose or verse, even a dance, thus "taken as a whole, the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or harmony, either singly or combined."
Then there is the objects. These are generally men, or types of men "in action". These men are either higher than, the same as, or lower than us. So Aristotle argues here that poetry doesn't lie, but represents and imitates the different levels of people that are actual, that are real and breathing. The purpose is not to give a complete accurate history about a specific person, but to represent the level of a person who exists somewhere and everywhere.
Finally there is the mode or manner in which the objects, or people, are imitated. What is meant by this is how the poem is written/told. Like narration, or how Plato told his stories through Socrates (because there's no proof that Socrates was his own person because Plato was the only one who ever wrote down what he supposedly said). Thus the poet is imitating through narration, first person, or whatever have you.
Aristotle also argues that imitation is natural and rooted in human nature from childhood. In fact all living creatures rely on imitation to learn. Key word here, LEARN. Without an example, irrelevant if it's historically accurate or true, no one would know how to do anything.
So basically, Aristotle argues that poetry is no more a lie than reality is. It is an imitation based on the history of man kind. It may not be historically accurate, matching up perfectly with specific names and dates, but poetry imitates the actual, the possible. It's no more a lie than the imitation of this computer is. There could be the perfect computer out there, ideal in form and process, but I still have this computer here, imitation the perfection of the perfect computer form. And it's no less real.
"If one were to reply that those who compose these books write them as fictions, and therefore are not obliged to consider the fine points of truth, I should respond that the more truthful the fiction, the better it is, and the more probable and possible, the more pleasing. Fictional tales must engage the minds of those who read them, and by restraining exaggeration and moderating impossibility, then enthrall the spirit and thereby astonish, captivate, delight, and entertain, allowing wonder and joy to move together at the same pace; none of these things can be accomplished by fleeing verisimilitude and mimesis." - Senor Canon
First fleeing verisimilitude : fleeing appearance of being true or real.
This brings me to the section I just read in Don Quixote. It starts on page 411 in chapter XLVII and continues into chapter XLIX. I'm referring to the conversation that mainly goes on between the Priest and the Canon that the meet of the road, and to some extent that of the Barber and Don Quixote as well. They are discussing the books of chivalry and the Canon and the Priest pretty much agree that they are "foolish stories meant only to delight and not to teach, unlike moral tales, which delight and teach at the same time."
Basically they argue in this section what Plato and Aristotle argue, the worth of fiction. The Priest /Canon side agree with Plato where the Don Quixote side agrees with Aristotle. Don Quixote believes the fictions are true in that there were actual knights of errant who completed deeds like those in the books. He takes is a step further that Aristotle and instead of believing that the poems/books are imitations of knights and their feats, but that they are actual histories. He knows that there were once knights, and thinks there still is, so why aren't these histories true, and not just imitations.
The Canon and the Priest argue that even though where were knights errant, the books are pointless lies because they only delight and even lead the mind astray in believing their lies are actual histories.
So yeah. I'm up to page 432 in Don Quixote and I found these chapters extremely relevant to what we have been discussing in class.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thinking...and then rethinking
I was checking up on the class notes, cruising Rosanna's blog when I read her entry; "Pregnancy of Poems." My attention was caught by one sentence: "if poems are born, then there must be a universal poetic language. And what is that?"
True all literature shares patterns and rhythms, so in essence they all speak the same speak, but I don't see how the metaphor of a piece of writing being "born" has to do with it.
I think my biggest problem with this simple concept is basically that people are born and we by no means have one universal language, literally or figuratively. We're all people, so we share the various patterns and rhythms of the type, or mode, of person we are. Poems, or pieces of literature also have patterns and rhythms in themselves that make up what they are. They are also are born from the artists womb of a brain in the same sense that when a child is born. And similarly, once the poem/child leaves the womb/hands of the artist it's severed all ties. It's its own person, in a sense. It's one self as a piece of writing, even though it is still so-and-so's piece of writing, just as I am my parents daughter. It doesn't make me them, or even the essence of them. They just typed up up and sewed my pages to my spine.
The only thing that gives insight into who/what the poem/child is, is in itself. To understand the poem, the answers are in the words. In how it's written and what it says about who or what. The same goes for a person; the outside can be altered by the opinions and tastes of others, but that's on the inside, what's in the text itself, is what or who the person is. The patterns of behavior and rhythms in which they live out their lives is in a sense their language of being, of existing as a person...
Wait a minute, that's kinda what Rosanna said. Aha! So maybe now as I'm writing I'm understanding more of what Rosanna was saying. So the patterns and rhythms are the universal language because they can be found in all things written...almost.
What an odd entry. But as it has happened before, as I write about something I supposedly don't understand, I work it out through the thinking process of writing. I was too stuck on that once sentence that I couldn't step back and really see the whole idea of what Rosanna was saying. And as tempting as it is to restart this entry and have a writing topic that is actually coherent, I'm going to keep it as is and hope it wasn't too confusing (or pointless).
True all literature shares patterns and rhythms, so in essence they all speak the same speak, but I don't see how the metaphor of a piece of writing being "born" has to do with it.
I think my biggest problem with this simple concept is basically that people are born and we by no means have one universal language, literally or figuratively. We're all people, so we share the various patterns and rhythms of the type, or mode, of person we are. Poems, or pieces of literature also have patterns and rhythms in themselves that make up what they are. They are also are born from the artists womb of a brain in the same sense that when a child is born. And similarly, once the poem/child leaves the womb/hands of the artist it's severed all ties. It's its own person, in a sense. It's one self as a piece of writing, even though it is still so-and-so's piece of writing, just as I am my parents daughter. It doesn't make me them, or even the essence of them. They just typed up up and sewed my pages to my spine.
The only thing that gives insight into who/what the poem/child is, is in itself. To understand the poem, the answers are in the words. In how it's written and what it says about who or what. The same goes for a person; the outside can be altered by the opinions and tastes of others, but that's on the inside, what's in the text itself, is what or who the person is. The patterns of behavior and rhythms in which they live out their lives is in a sense their language of being, of existing as a person...
Wait a minute, that's kinda what Rosanna said. Aha! So maybe now as I'm writing I'm understanding more of what Rosanna was saying. So the patterns and rhythms are the universal language because they can be found in all things written...almost.
What an odd entry. But as it has happened before, as I write about something I supposedly don't understand, I work it out through the thinking process of writing. I was too stuck on that once sentence that I couldn't step back and really see the whole idea of what Rosanna was saying. And as tempting as it is to restart this entry and have a writing topic that is actually coherent, I'm going to keep it as is and hope it wasn't too confusing (or pointless).
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
I am Carl Gustav Jung
I am a Swiss psychologist and founder of analytical psychology who likes to hang around with Freud and discuss the unconscious. But unlike Freud I believed there was a second and deeper unconscious, the collective unconscious, which is like a holding tank for all of the past experiences of our species.
This ties in with my own theory about archetypes, and guess what their called...the Jungian Archetypes. In this theory, archetypes are inherited psychic dispositions that form the base in which from human life emerges. Evidence of these archetypes can be seen through out history in myths, symbols, rituals, and basic human instincts.
And all of these archetypes are a part of our collect unconscious.
I may have also been responsible for the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous by admitting to an American patient that their case of alcoholism was so bad that only turning to spirituality would save them.
There are also rumors that I am a Nazi or a Nazi supporter, but pay no attention to that. It's all a big misunderstanding.
To learn more!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetype
Anyway, Claire is now on page 410 in "Don Quixote". Poor Don Quixote was once again tricked by the barber and priest and is now riding in a cage on the back of an ox cart believing himself enchanted. From chapter XLIII the story has take up many Ironic Comedy traits. Poor Don Quixote is the butt of everyones jokes and he is even tied by the hand from the tower of a castle by the wicked and bored Maritornes! He is definitely the the center of the innkeepers, and to some extent of Don Fernando, Dorotea, Cardenio and all of his other friends. Except Sancho, who will always be blunt with his master for he knows of his madness but accepts it and even believes it.
These chapters also hold gobs of juicy low mimetic comedy with a little possible tragic romance regarding the forbidden love between Don Clara and Don Luis.
I'm very much enjoying "Don Quixote".
Monday, September 22, 2008
Key West and Abrams
Well, as I see it, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates all four of Abrams' classes of literary theory. First there is the Universe. The relationship between the poem and the theory of the Universe is evident in the poem's own creation myth. This "she" is singing the to the sea which inspires it into a new existence, that is why they see the town differently after she sings. She's not creating the Universe but changing it into her own creation. And that creation is sublty bigger than just the sea:
"But it was more that that, more even than her voice, and ours, among the meaningless plungings of water and the wind., theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped on high horizans, mountainous atmospheres or shy and sea."
The sea is everything, the Universe.
Next, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the Artist. This is perhaps the most obvious of Abrams' theories, thanks to a few lines in the poem:
"She was the artificer of the world in which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, whatever self it had, became the self that was her song, for she was the maker."
Nothing could be clearer. She sang thus she created. An artist creates, whether through voice, painting, or writing and She created a Universe in the sea. At least that's how I see it. Without this She, there would be no song, no changing sea, no poem at all. Because of her artristy, and that of the poet Stevens, a Universe was created in and out of the sea.
Thirdly, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the Work, because quite honestly, the poem it's self is the work, according to Abrams' pyramid. Universe, Artist, and Audience all branch off the work, because they couldn't exist without it as their center. One might find it taxing to call a poem a "work", but I guess that's irrelevant. The Idea of Order at Key West is the expression of the artist, of the worker of the Work. Stevens wrote this poem that contains the elements of Universe, Artist, Work, and Audience and analyzing it thusly makes the poem a Work.
Finally, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the audience in two ways. One, right now I'm doing an indepth, intense study of the Work. I'm analyzing it's possible meanings and reading into it's so called hidden or encrypted texts. So I am an audience member who has formed a relationship with the poem.
There is also the second audience in the poem, the We:
"It was the spirit that we sought and knew that we should ask this often as she sang...As we beheld her striding there alone..."
She has an audience in the poem, an unidentified group of ordinary humans who observe her as she sing-creates the new Universe. The author of the poem itself can also be part of the audience, because the poem is written in first person. It seems as if the author himself was walking on the beach, observing as She sings her song that she sang.
On to Don Quixote. I am on page 368. The captive just finished his story of how he escaped prison and the adventure of saving Zoraida. This tale was a tragedy where as the previous reuniting of Cardenio with his Luscinda and Dorotea with her Don Fernando leaned more towards a Romance, maybe even a Romantic Comedy.
I never fail to be amused by how many audiences there are in this book at any given time. There is always me, but at times there is a whole herd of people playing the part of the audience, listening to various stories at various times. I have to giggle at the layer cake of audiences woven through-out the story. I'm the audience observing the audience who is observing the teller, who if he is crazy enough, might even have his own private mid-evil audience inside his own head. And I'm not naming any names.
"But it was more that that, more even than her voice, and ours, among the meaningless plungings of water and the wind., theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped on high horizans, mountainous atmospheres or shy and sea."
The sea is everything, the Universe.
Next, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the Artist. This is perhaps the most obvious of Abrams' theories, thanks to a few lines in the poem:
"She was the artificer of the world in which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, whatever self it had, became the self that was her song, for she was the maker."
Nothing could be clearer. She sang thus she created. An artist creates, whether through voice, painting, or writing and She created a Universe in the sea. At least that's how I see it. Without this She, there would be no song, no changing sea, no poem at all. Because of her artristy, and that of the poet Stevens, a Universe was created in and out of the sea.
Thirdly, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the Work, because quite honestly, the poem it's self is the work, according to Abrams' pyramid. Universe, Artist, and Audience all branch off the work, because they couldn't exist without it as their center. One might find it taxing to call a poem a "work", but I guess that's irrelevant. The Idea of Order at Key West is the expression of the artist, of the worker of the Work. Stevens wrote this poem that contains the elements of Universe, Artist, Work, and Audience and analyzing it thusly makes the poem a Work.
Finally, The Idea of Order at Key West incorporates Abrams' theory of the audience in two ways. One, right now I'm doing an indepth, intense study of the Work. I'm analyzing it's possible meanings and reading into it's so called hidden or encrypted texts. So I am an audience member who has formed a relationship with the poem.
There is also the second audience in the poem, the We:
"It was the spirit that we sought and knew that we should ask this often as she sang...As we beheld her striding there alone..."
She has an audience in the poem, an unidentified group of ordinary humans who observe her as she sing-creates the new Universe. The author of the poem itself can also be part of the audience, because the poem is written in first person. It seems as if the author himself was walking on the beach, observing as She sings her song that she sang.
On to Don Quixote. I am on page 368. The captive just finished his story of how he escaped prison and the adventure of saving Zoraida. This tale was a tragedy where as the previous reuniting of Cardenio with his Luscinda and Dorotea with her Don Fernando leaned more towards a Romance, maybe even a Romantic Comedy.
I never fail to be amused by how many audiences there are in this book at any given time. There is always me, but at times there is a whole herd of people playing the part of the audience, listening to various stories at various times. I have to giggle at the layer cake of audiences woven through-out the story. I'm the audience observing the audience who is observing the teller, who if he is crazy enough, might even have his own private mid-evil audience inside his own head. And I'm not naming any names.
Friday, September 19, 2008
chart post
You are all better off NOT trying to struggle with the Html way of posting your chart. It's ridiculously complex and time consuming. Sorry and good luck!
"Going to town"
I chose the High Mimetic Thematic mode to "go to town on" as they say.
This mode focuses on epic events that center around nationalism, or pride of one's nation. The society of people in this type of literature usually revolve around a capital city. The perfect example of a high mimetic thematic mode is the tale of Odysseus in The Odyssey. Odysseus fights numerous battles to return to his city while his wife battles with intruders to protect her home and city. Both are heroes who fight and live their lives centered around their city, their home which holds all their joys. It is what they fight for, making them patriotic.
Another characteristic of the high mimetic thematic mode is what Frye calls the centripetal gaze, which is like when the audience watches the actors or when a court gazes upon it's king. And this is usually addressed by the hero to a friend, god, or some other sort to mentor of confidant.
In an odd off beat kind of way, I can see a little bit of Don Quixote being high mimetic thematic in that Don Quixote insists on being called "Don Quixote of La Mancha" and likewise calling his lady "Dulcinea of Toboso". These attributes don't make the book a complete work of the high mimetic thematic mode but it reflects a little bit of the nationalism. It matters very much to Don Quixote that the name of their hoe city be included in their title because it not only verifies their good lineage but lets everyone know what great and grand city he and his lady are from. So in Don Quixote himself I can see a little of the high mimetic thematic mode, but there is a decent amount of romance and irony as well.
Another little thing I can somewhat clumsily tack on to Don Quixote is the centripetal gaze. If I understand it correctly this theme is very much like the many little mini stories that are told within the novel. At different times in the story there are different audiences gazing upon a sort of a performer as they tell their story. And as they gaze upon their performer of stories we gaze upon them as they tell their story of being told or telling a story. Lots of stories.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Chart of Modes
| Tragic | Comic | Thematic | |
| Myth | Dionysiac. Pertaining to the Greek god of wine, madness and ecstasy. | Apollonian. Pertaining to classic beauty. Joyous artful, and musical. | Religious. |
| Romance | Elegiac. Lyric poem of mourning. | Pastoral. Pertaining to rustic life - shepherds and their sheep. | Order of factual events. Purpose of recording. |
| High Mimetic | Classic Tragedy. Art of human suffering for an audience. | Comic Drama. Strong central hero who fights and wins. | Pride of and pertaining to the nation. |
| Low Mimetic | Pathos. Appeals to emotions of the audience. | New Comedy. Principle love plot. Stock characters - bragging solider/ angry old man.Rising through the ranks. | Moral stance of individuality. Opposition of the norm. |
| Ironic | Hero as a victim. Takes the blame for others. | Helpless victim. Mockery of society, satirical, and ostracized protagonist. | A break in the continuity of characters, plot, and events. |
“The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself.”
- Giambattista Vico
Aha. I do believe this sounds familiar. What I think Vico is saying here echoes in the ideas of Frye. Criticism is true in it's self even if it isn't precisely accurate to the piece of literature and the authors so-called intentions. What I'm getting from Frye is that there is no right or wrong way to go about criticism, there's just more to it than a simple matter of taste and opinion. There is a formula, a pattern of truths that form a piece of literature into what it is and more importantly, how it is; mythic, packed with pathos, or hurling stones of irony at our tragic hero. The truth is in the words; the sentences and phrases that make up the literature, not in the manner it is scrutinized.
So back to Vico, we can't understand a piece of literature by knowing it's criticism , or the resulting reactions to it. The only way to know the literature is to read it and see the truth in the words themselves.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Fryeing
"Hence every work of literature has both fictional and a thematic aspect, and the question of which is more important is often simply a matter of opinion or emphasis in interpretation...[ The History of Tom Jones, a Founding and Sense and Sensibility] are strongly fictional in emphasis compared to Uncle Tom's Cabin or Grapes of Wrath....They in turn are fictional in emphasis compared to The Pilgrim's Progress..." - Frye 53
I think I grasp an idea that I believe was professed in this small section of Frye's Theory of Modes. What I think this basically means is that any piece of literature can be fictional in emphasis when compared to another piece of writing. For instance, the Bible is a piece of fiction when compared to a math textbook or a scientific article of the mating habits of the hairy-nosed wombat.
When a person reads a something, whether a novel or a scrap of a note they found on the sidewalk, they are mentally comparing it to all of the other things they have read, to be able to categorize what they are reading. Does it resemble Poe more than Dickens, or maybe even King? (A perfect example is when I am reading Don Quixote, I am often reminded of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with all of his nonsensical witticisms and odd jargon.) It's impossible to read something and not allude it's texts or ideas to those that you have already read. Or at least it is impossible for me.
A piece is always read in some form of someone's opinion and how they read or interpret the text can even change depending on their mood. Maybe it reminds them of a novel they disliked to automatically they dismiss it as being "bad" or at least not in their tastes.
So in closing how a work is perceived changes drastically from person to person and can even shift one way or the other when compared to other different works.
-Claire
I think I grasp an idea that I believe was professed in this small section of Frye's Theory of Modes. What I think this basically means is that any piece of literature can be fictional in emphasis when compared to another piece of writing. For instance, the Bible is a piece of fiction when compared to a math textbook or a scientific article of the mating habits of the hairy-nosed wombat.
When a person reads a something, whether a novel or a scrap of a note they found on the sidewalk, they are mentally comparing it to all of the other things they have read, to be able to categorize what they are reading. Does it resemble Poe more than Dickens, or maybe even King? (A perfect example is when I am reading Don Quixote, I am often reminded of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with all of his nonsensical witticisms and odd jargon.) It's impossible to read something and not allude it's texts or ideas to those that you have already read. Or at least it is impossible for me.
A piece is always read in some form of someone's opinion and how they read or interpret the text can even change depending on their mood. Maybe it reminds them of a novel they disliked to automatically they dismiss it as being "bad" or at least not in their tastes.
So in closing how a work is perceived changes drastically from person to person and can even shift one way or the other when compared to other different works.
-Claire
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
I found this image pertinent to English 300 ever since Sexson uttered the word "Netiquette", for it was this image that popped into my Monday brain.
The youth of today is practically born and bred not only on the internet but by it as well. In their (and their parents) rushed and time intensive lives, the internet is an essential source of "now". Get your research homework now, get your directions now, get your music and movies now, get everything you'll ever need NOW! They may not be able to tell you which side the fork goes on or whether it's "will" or "shall", but by god they know their netiquette.
"What it means it what it is."
What a comforting thought. In my reading of Frye, I've started to understand the sort of scientific order there is in literature. You can actually figure out whether a piece is a high mimetic tragedy or a low mimetic tragedy by deciphering if there's any pathos in the equation or not. Though it may take a little longer to fully grasp what any of that actually means, it's fascinating that you can trick a mathematician into loving literature by just simply showing them the equation.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Frye
In reading "Archetypes in Literature" I got my first taste of Frye, and was honestly not as overwhelmed as Sexson frightened me into expecting I would be. True it was dense and very intellectual, but I feel that I was able to grasp what Frye was trying to communicate.
I've always had a problem with criticism when we attempted it in my high school classes, but now I understand were weren't practicing actually criticism, just trying to guess what the author meant (or what the teacher thought the author meant) in their writing. In Frye's comparison of literature to music and painting I grasped what I think to be a key factor in critically looking at a work; patterns and rhythms. Frye points that a large part of criticism is finding the corresponding patterns between one piece of work and others to uncover exactly category and genre a particular piece of writing falls into.
I was also pleastly surprised when Frye wrote about the myth and the archetypes that were interpreted into each season. I recognized many of the representations (Summer as comedy and romance, fall and sunset as tragedy and death) from my previous high school AP English class.
I've always had a problem with criticism when we attempted it in my high school classes, but now I understand were weren't practicing actually criticism, just trying to guess what the author meant (or what the teacher thought the author meant) in their writing. In Frye's comparison of literature to music and painting I grasped what I think to be a key factor in critically looking at a work; patterns and rhythms. Frye points that a large part of criticism is finding the corresponding patterns between one piece of work and others to uncover exactly category and genre a particular piece of writing falls into.
I was also pleastly surprised when Frye wrote about the myth and the archetypes that were interpreted into each season. I recognized many of the representations (Summer as comedy and romance, fall and sunset as tragedy and death) from my previous high school AP English class.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Frye
Could anyone tell me where I could find Frye's Archetypes of Literature. I can only find an article written about Frye's article by Richard Clarke. Thanks!
Blogging
Well, this is my first time ever using this whole Blog thing. I never saw the appeal in posting a national journal of thoughts, but now I guess I see the classroom advantages. Unfortunately, I know nothing about using a blog and can't figure out how to bookmark (or whatever) all of my fellow 300 English student's blogs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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