Week 11

And so we've come to week 11, to the fall season, and to your final day in the literature course.  I hope you have enjoyed the readings.  There were many we did not get time to address, but they remain for your leisure.  You can access the links here indefinitely, that is until such time as I take the site down.  

     Some themes to think about as you write the in-class essay (posted last week):  

Authority/Society and the Individual:  how authority is defined, how founded and invested, its impacts and relations to those figures and institutions that commonly wield it and/or are affected by it,  parents, teachers, police, the citizen, the child or youth, what have you–all the institutions and people and cultural activities in our society that claim and command our attention by weight of authority ( as distinguished from mere power or physical force).  In literature, the author creates or writes and the story that is told may be in fiction or non-fiction form, in poetry or prose, but its truths such as they are tell us something,  shape our understanding of what it means to be human and to exist in a world that is palpable and real, but ever-changing and always beyond us in so many ways. 

The Natural World:  the womb of all life, Nature is the alpha and omega, and whatever face Nature wears, for good or ill, our fates are linked inextricably.  Whether the world ( and we ourselves) appears as it does in accordance with some divine plan or design or Fate, whether what science calls natural selection and chance events are an aspect of that, whether the mythic stories of creation, lost paradises and first peoples are "true", certainly the world is unfolding and we along with it, witness to, and participant in the show.

Art:  the made world, constructed from the material elements of the world and human imagination and ingenuity and energy and will and the desire to control and shape the experience we are thrown into at birth, and from which only death will deliver us, ultimately.  What does it all mean?  What pleasures, what pains, what needs? To these art address itself.

Love:  What connects us to this world, to this life we are given, however briefly, and what does it ask of us along the way? What is the power and authority that love exerts? What will we do, for good or ill, for its sake or at its promptings?

Year’s End                                        by Richard Wilbur (b.1921)

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a    atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell   

And held in ice as dancers in a spell   

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;   

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,   

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns   

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone   

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown   

Composedly have made their long sojourns,   

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise   

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze   

The random hands, the loose unready eyes   

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.   

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause   

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

The poet Richard Wilbur, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one time Poet Laureate, said the following:  “What poetry does with ideas is to redeem them from abstraction and submerge them in sensibility.”  Poetry makes us feel, brings our senses into the moment or view described (as does prose, I might add) Moreover he wants his students to memorize poetry: 

“The kind of poetry I like best, and try to write, uses the whole instrument,” he says. “Meter, rhyme, musical expression—and everything is done for the sake of what’s being said, not for the sake of prettiness.” At the same time, he believes that “For anyone who knows how to use these forms powerfully, they make for a stronger kind of poetry than free verse can ever be.”

“All these traditional means are ways of being rhythmically clear,” he explains: “making the emphases strong, making it clear what words are important. Rhyme is not just making a jingling noise, but telling what words deserve emphasis. Meter, too, tells what the rhythm of thought is. It doesn’t necessarily sound like music, but it has the strength of sound underlying everything being said. I encourage my students to memorize poems. If a poem is good, it is well to say it again and again in your mind until you’ve found all the intended tones and emphases.” He adds, “One of the great fascinations of poetry is that you’re going almost naked: the equipment is so small, just language.”

Good luck on your recitations and paperwork.  It was a pleasure having you all in class!

Week 10

Sometimes with One I Love   Walt whitman  (1819-1892)

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love,

But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another

(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d, Yet out of that I have written these songs).

Among the Multitude 

Among the men and women, the multitude,   
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,   
Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
     any nearer than I am;   
Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.   
   
Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;   
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.

I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, 

All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, 

Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, 

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, 

But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, 

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, 

And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, 

It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, 

(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,) 

Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love; 

For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, 

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, 

I know very well I could not.

     I Sing the Body Electric

  A man's body at auction,
  (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
  I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

  Gentlemen look on this wonder,
  Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
  For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one
      animal or plant,
  For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.

  In this head the all-baffling brain,
  In it and below it the makings of heroes.

  Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in
      tendon and nerve,
  They shall be stript that you may see them.

  Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
  Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
      good-sized arms and legs,
  And wonders within there yet.

  Within there runs blood,
  The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
  There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,
      reachings, aspirations,
  (Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
      parlors and lecture-rooms?)

  This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be
      fathers in their turns,
  In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
  Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

  How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
      through the centuries?
  (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
      back through the centuries?)

Gannets Mate for Life

Good afternoon!  Today we will look at few final pieces and poetry selections and review the works covered over the quarter and how they might be used for the in-class short essay final and the final project, if you choose.

You will help decide what we look at from among the various selections already provided, including Howl and, perhaps, "Puppy," a short story by George Saunders, considered one of today's very best writers in the short story genre.   In fact at the following link you can read the convocation speech he delivered in 2013 and which bears the thematic marks of many his stories, namely, the difficulty and utmost desirability of human kindness and love:  http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

At the following link is a short article that discusses the difficulty of understanding precisely 19th century literary expressions of love between men and of love between women.  They lived in such a different time that what many assume today regarding their respective relations, may miss at the mark. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/but-were-they-gay-the-mystery-of-same-sex-love-in-the-19th-century/262117/

For Next week:  Bring recitation notes, if needed or in case of a memory lapse, on a verse piece of 14 lines or more.  Select a piece or portion of a longer piece that you understand reasonably well and that offers some dramatic appeal.  Bring, also, the final project and, if you wish, draft material for the in-class essay.

Response #4 (300-350 words) may be composed on any of texts distributed thus far, new or old, as long as you have not yet addressed the piece.

The final in-class essay (#6) directions and topics (to be written in final draft in class) are below.  Please bring text handouts to use for reference and support.

ENC1102 Final Exam/Summer 2013 (to be done in class week 11)

In an essay of 450-500 words or more, address three to four different texts from the course material to show the images, symbols, and story elements that address one or more of the following themes:

·      The personal work/struggle involved in finding one’s own measure of direction, strength, truth

·      The rebellion or revolt against materialist values, family influence, or cultural conformity in favor of truer, more self-reliant values or personhood 

·      Father/son, mother/daughter conflicts:  what motivates them, how they get resolved (or not) and the narratives expressive of them

·      The spiritual dimensions discoverable in the natural world and/or human soul/psyche

·      The various faces Nature wears or the perceptions and uses made of the natural world, in fiction, poetry, and actual life itself

·      The writer’s use of symbols and figurative language to express ideas about artists and art works, what they can deliver and what they cannot (as an expression of humanity’s need to create, to play, make meaning and underscore a sense of connection to what is true and to others and to what is past and is to come

·      The writer’s use of narrative (story), including its imagery, symbols and figurative language to communicate the beauty, mystery, peace, sweetness, ugliness, chaos, bitterness, danger (etcetera) of the world

·      Explorations of Love, familial, romantic, or nature-inspired, whether

“divine” or idealized as a vision of harmony and fulfillment, or whether of the everyday familiar ; you might write of love’s importance, its fault lines, its complexities,  as in works that show a negative face or reversal of the bonds of love

You may find overlaps here.  You are free to make associations between works and themes.  You must include titles and authors and use direct quotation to make specific the examples and language used in the referenced texts (20% rule applies).

Final Project Composition Description (#5)

Due week 10 or week 11, the final composition is an individual creative piece of 1000 words length, fictional or non-fictional: original poetry, short story, brief play, essay, or some combination of the genres.  You might consider rewriting or remaking some well-known story, myth, or fairytale. If you choose to write a short story or other fictional piece and the word count falls short, an introduction to the piece, discussing your creative intent and influences, may serve for any shortfall in the main text. Short stories or fictional works should be plausibly developed and structured to maximize aesthetic and dramatic engagement of the reader.

Original illustrations in whatever medium you choose may be used to enhance the presentation and substitute for any minimal word shortfall (of 200-300 words). Double space and title your piece.

All essays must address themselves to a literary text(s) and/or theme and make reference to particular textual sources.  You may write on a theme developed in any one or several of the various texts looked at this quarter.   You may choose to write a personal essay that recounts your own “journey,” with references to and/or comparisons to stories or poems read; in short, you may write a piece that illustrates certain literary plot lines or themes in terms of your own personal experience. Double space and title your piece. 

If you are writing a standard interpretative essay that focuses on the specific construction and meaning of a text, introduce subject texts by title and author up front.  The introductory paragraph(s) should make clear what point you intend to develop as a thesis, and the body paragraphs should set forth the material textual evidence and examples that have led to your thesis claim.  Your aim is to show readers how a text may be read in the manner you are claiming.  Provide support for your thesis through use of direct quotation, paraphrase and summary where necessary.

Topic Suggestions:

*Explore natural images that provide us with a way of thinking about human feelings and the self, the life cycle from birth through death, the effects of time’s passing, our place in the natural world, what we need and want from life.

*Explore stories that illustrate particular conflicts between generations, as between children and parents, men and women, or between the relatively powerless and those who have power– be it superior physical strength, age, or perhaps the authority of tradition, custom, and law on their side.  

*Explore the individual’s search for meaning in the world, or of those characters whose experience is of a kind that seems to offer insight and understanding as regards some particular subject, whether the importance of family, role models, the need for independence, distance, freedom, strength, courage, fortitude, a quiet space to reflect and create, etcetera.

Six Elements of the Human Condition ( from author Paul Ricouer)

1.     Finitude  (our sense of limitation, mortality)

2.     Estrangement from God or the Divine, the numinous

3.     All is in process, we are all becoming, too, and transcendence is part of this process; the truth is never whole and complete, we see in part.

4.     The paradox of the freedom and burden of human choice.  The give and take tension of every moment’s choice.

5.     Our existence lies within and through others, people primarily, sociality being a primary aspect of human nature.

6.     Our identity is linked to our origins and participation in the universe or cosmos.

Week 9

Today we will review the film Howl, in which James Franco portrays the poet Allen Ginsberg, whose life and work illustrates the tensions of mid-century America, between the haves and have not, between conservative elites and the disaffected, educated and uneducated alike, searching for more transparency and candidness in national life, more tolerance and compassion, amid an increasingly corporatized and militarized order that proved an obstacle to simple human happiness.  Ginsberg, like Walt Whitman, and like the black writers named below, wrote for common people or for everybody and was without social pretension.

We will also look at several short narratives over this week and next written partly in the vernacular of African American people, including one by Zora Neale Hurston called "The Gilded Six-Bits." and another by Langston Hughes called "Red-Haired Baby." Both writers are representative of the Harlem Renaissance, an early 20th century period when a great many black artists rose to prominence and distinguished Harlem for its artistic culture.

Of the critics who complained he showed black people in a deplorable light (however realistic) and wanted instead portraits that would show black people in the best possible light, as they strove for greater social integration and justice, Langston Hughes would write: "I sympathized deeply with those critics and those intellectuals, and I saw clearly the need for some of the kinds of books they wanted. But I did not see how they could expect every Negro author to write such books. Certainly, I personally knew very few people anywhere who were wholly beautiful and wholly good. Besides I felt that the masses of our people had as much in their lives to put into books as did those more fortunate ones who had been born with some means and the ability to work up to a master's degree at a Northern college. Anyway, I didn't know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them. I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren't people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they seemed to me good people, too." 

Week 8

(for Next Week:)

                                                                Allen Ginsberg

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
       – Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet

   Howl is a poem by Allen Ginsberg, first published in 1957, and Howl is, also, more recently, a film, directed by Bob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, about the poet and his work.  One of its source inspirations,  (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745) "Song of Myself", by Walt Whitman, invites stylisic and thematic comparison as autobiographical free verse poem written in long lines, many including catalog elements, and a narrator intent on laying bare the cultural and natural, physical experience of being human, and of exploring/celebrating the sexual dimension of our lives and the diverse quality of human identity. The poet's uninhibited, challenging voice is central to both, and both draw attention to the importance of authentic self-expression and relationships built on candor and openness. 

 Having you watch the film Howl (starring James Franco in the role of the poet Allen Ginsberg, author of the poem “Howl”) I will be interested in your response to the content of the poem and the film, the poet’s explanations of his work and why he wrote it, and the critical responses expressed during the trial scenes.  If you owe a short response, or want to focus on Howl as a final project:  In your own words, relate what the poem is about, what you thought of Ginsberg’s discussion of the work, and the opinions aired in court on the matter of its obscenity or no, its artistic merit, the advisability of censoring its publication, etcetera (350 words, short response).

Several links posted here may be useful:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/life_and_art/2010/09/how_howl_changed_the_world.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2006/04/the_paradox_of_howl.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2010/09/howl.html

http://www.shmoop.com/howl/section-1-lines-6-10-summary.html

http://www.dhs.fjanosco.net/Documents/HowlOnTrial.pdf
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                                                                  "Icarus"  –by Henri Matisse

Today we start with a quiz on the two short stories (authored by students at Ai) given in handout last week.

Use complete sentences and paragraphs to answer the following.

1.     Discuss the aptness of the title “Lucky To Be Me” and its apparent reference(s).

2.     What makes up the bulk of the story? Summarize exposition, plot and setting elements of the story and provide a clear elaboration of the central conflict.

3.     Is this a love story?  If not, what kind of story is it?

4.     Discuss the final paragraph and image in terms of the story’s trajectory or arc.  What symbolism may be seen in the image of the deer?

5.     What fairytale is alluded to in “The Lingerie Salesman”?

6.     What is the narrative point of view of “The Lingerie Salesman”?  And what are we led to think of Nelson?

7.     What genre best describes the story, love? horror? adventure? dark comedy?

8.     Describe the climax of the story.

"Seated Woman"

We will proceed to readings introduced or reproduced for reading and discussion which we have not yet had time to address, and in advance of next week's Howl.