Touchstone and Frye

Well, I think it's impossible to pick out merely one or two so called "touchstones". And I don't think I've read enough of the literature that is (supposedly) produces a moment of sublime...ness. I read as a writer, not a literature major. When I come across a passage that is cleverly worded and beautifully elegant, I feel this "sublime" moment of inspiration and pleasure. But here are a few of the touchstones that I remember most and never get tired of rereading.

From one of all time FAVORITE books Bored of the Rings (which is, if you don't know or couldn't guess it, a parody of The Lord of the Rings):

The company stood rooted to the ground in terror. The creature was about fifty feet tall, with wide lapels, long dangling participles, and a pronounced gazetteer.
"Aiyee!" shouted Legolam. "A Thesaurus!"
"Maim!" roared the monster. "Mutilate, mangle, crush. See HARM."

and

...At last the fighting was over and the long-parted friends ran to each other with joyful greetings.
"Joyful greetings!" cried Moxie and Pepsi.
"The same and more to you, I'm sure," said Goodgulf, stifling a yawn of recognition.
"Hail fellow well met," bowed Legolam, "May your dandruff worries be over forever."
Gimlet limped over to the two boggies and forced a smile.
"Pox vobiscum. May you eat three balanced meals a day and have healthful, regular bowel movements."
"How comes it," said Arrowroot, "that we meet in this strange land?"
"It is a tale long in the telling," said Pepsi, pulling out a sheaf of notes.
"Then save it," said Goodgulf..

If you haven't read this book, you should. Even if you don't like Lord of the Rings...actually, especially if you don't like Lord of the Rings. Me, I love it, it's one of my all time favorites and this small crazy book makes it all the better. The entire book is a touchstone...for me.
I love the madness of the language and the ridiculous use of the Thesaurus, which I adore and probably use everyday.

Next, is my favorite thus far, of Shakespeare's plays, Titus Andronicus. I've never figured out why this is my favorite. It's the first film version of a Shakespeare play I've ever seen and I think the powerful performances make it stick out in my mind. I love the gothic and morbid tone of the entire play. There are lines that strike me as ingenious or moving, but my favorite send the string of shivers down my spine, arms, and legs.


TITUS ANDRONICUS
Who doth molest my contemplation?
Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
That so my sad decrees may fly away,
And all my study be to no effect?
You are deceived: for what I mean to do
See here in bloody lines I have set down;
And what is written shall be executed.

This is from the last act in the play, when Titus has descended fully into madness. Tamora has come to his house, disguised as Revenge and her sons as Rape and Murder. And even though Titus is mad, he knows it Tamora and her rapist sons, so he tricks her into leaving her sons with Titus and consequently leaves them to their death to be baked in a pie.
I think the fact that this is one of Shakespeare's darkest and most morbid plays, makes me like it even more. It's so different from my other favorites; Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like it, Othello, and Henry V.

TITUS ANDRONICUS
I am not mad; I know thee well enough:
Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;
Witness these trenches made by grief and care,
Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
Witness all sorrow, that I know thee well
For our proud empress, mighty Tamora:
Is not thy coming for my other hand?

I couldn't think of any touchstones from poetry that didn't come from songs. But hey, I'm not a literature major so I don't think like one. I'm a film major who loves to read and write.

Now moving on to my "Woo woo" moments from Frye's Mythos of the Seasons.
From the Mythos of Summer: Romance, I found this light bulb line:

"The central form of romance is dialectical: everything is focused on a conflict between he hero and his emeny, and all the reader's values are bound up with the hero...hence the opposite poles of the cycles of nature are assimilated to the opposition of the hero and his enemy."
-187

Since the conflict of the hero takes place in our world, the world of cycles and seasons, the arch or shape of the story and the characters follows the same patterns as nature does with the seasons. The villain is the cold and darkness of winter and the hero embodies the youth, strength, and light of spring.
Then: The Mythos of Autum: Tragedy

"In it's most elementary form, the vision of law (dike) operates as lex talionis or revenge. The hero provokes enmity, or inherits a situation of enmity, and the return of the avenger constitutes the catastrophe."
-209

When read this, I sat and tried to think of all of the tragic stories I know and how many revolved around or even merely involved the theme or aspect of revenge. And let me tell you, there are more than a fair few. Now, that doesn't mean that any story in which there is revenge is automatically a tragedy, it depends on the fate of the hero and the other characters as a result of the revenge or the quest for revenge. And another woo woo from this section:

"Tragedy, in short, seems to elude the antithesis of moral responsibility and arbitrary fate, just as it eludes the antithesis of good and evil"
-211

Finally, the Mythos of Winter: Irony and Satire.

"The chief distinction between irony and satire is that satire is militant irony: it's moral norms are relatively clear and it assumes standards against which the grotesque and the absurd are measured."
"...whenever a reader is not sure what the author's attitude is or what his own is supposed to be, we have irony with relatively little satire."
-223

"Hence satire is irony which is structurally close to the comic: the comic struggle of two societies, one normal and the other absurd, is reflected in it's double focus of morality and fantasy. Irony with little satire is the non-heroic residue of tragedy, centering on a theme of puzzled defeat."
-224

Before this, I was actually a little unsure what the real difference between irony and satire were. But now, thanks yet again to Frye, I understand that they can work together but are different types of stories and hold different themes.