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.