Final Thoughts

This class is easily my favorite of this semester. All the material that we covered and learned about is useful to me in my field and all the little quotes about literature and life really breath new life into the interest of my career. Some days it is hard to possibly read any more literature, but with English 300 I always actually looked forward to the class. The way it was set up and the assignments were all well done. The myriad of presentations, group projects, and speeches was both didactic and refreshing. Most classes are pure discussion based or lecture based; I'm glad this class had a healthy mix of the two with daily oddballs thrown in there for good measure. If Longinus was in the class he might of referred to the feeling I had walking away from the classroom as "sublime".

Spectacles/Shoe Analogy

"Putting on a different pair of spectacles"
"Walking in the shoes of another."

These two quotes close to the same thing. Both tell the reader to look at things from a different point of view. I believe all literary critics must do this in order to have a complete and unbiased understanding of literature and any other topics out there. My parents raised my with this concept in mind and I guess that is why I am a reader response critic; no one person's interpretation of the text is correct. The correct interpretation of the text is unique to however is reading. The fact that putting on different pairs of spectacles actually physically changes how you view a certain subject really gives you a good idea of what it takes to read a text in a unbaised and unjudged fashion. Even though I don't wear glasses, I do change pairs of spectacles everyday.

My biography

I plan to write a few books in my time as an English major and teacher, both for my colleagues and my students to read and reflect on. I will insert countless quotes from books and numerous poems that help describe my growth as a human being and what literature influenced my life. Deconstructionists would point out that I should put my entire existence in the text, because according to them, there is no outside the text. Hypothetically, I'm writing and creating my biography everyday and the day that my biography is published is the day I leave this world. Kind of an interesting take on an authors choice of words for his text eh?

Frye, Page 100

" In short, we can get a whole liberal education simply by picking up one conventional poem and following its archetypes as they stretch out in to the rest of literature."

This quote very basically describes what his book is laying out there to the reader. Find an archetype in a book and you can follow that same character in countless other forms of literature and also in everyday life. I'm sure there are the romantics and the realists out there; me, I'm a hopeless romantic, but what poetry loving English major doesn't. DQ was used to further deploy Frye's thesis, there are many in the world that dream of doing what DQ just decided to get up and do. He is an icon and obviously an archetype for the romantic hero in a modern world. The quote seems to me as an easy, if true, way out of doing a lot of research and reading a lot of books. I believe that is part of the journey in learning the texts of old and new.

Literature is Everywhere

When I heard Professor Sexson say this to me at the beginning of this course, I really didn't understand what it meant and honestly I didn't really believe that literature was in EVERYTHING. At the end of the course I can safely say that I finally understand the accuracy of this statement. Without literature, most things on Earth cease to function. See that math problem? If there weren't words and symbols to explain the equation ( thus literature ) you couldn't solve it. An archetect cannot fully portray the demensions of a building and the functions for each room without using English to write down the instrustions; it would just be a picture of a building without literature. I even put this quote about literature in my English Major Apology. I see now that English and literature are in everything; makes my job easier right? Or harder?

Frye, what a guy

Before reading Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" I really had no idea of how the class was actually going to critique the required text. At first, his language and numerous claims about literature went way over my head. I don't think I really caught on to his writing for the first month, but when I finally did, I fully realized just how great of a job Frye has done in classifying all forms of literature. As I read on and on into his book, many "light bulbs" sprung up in my head regarding past books that I have read and what category they belong in. The truths of much of literature appeared before my eyes like they have been there all the time...and well they have. This is easily the most influential text regarding literature in my college career so far.

I Gave DQ a chance.

Honestly I didn't want to read Don Quixote because of what I have heard of it in the past; it seemed just really boring to me. Thank you for the scholarly slap in the face, professor Sexson, as soon as I started reading the book I became deeply absorbed by the fascinating character that is DQ. Cervantes' writing style is enjoyable to read and I never really felt like I had to read the book, more like I wanted to read it. This class's disection of DQ has been very educational and actually help explain some of the cloudier subjects related to me first by Frye. Thank you professor for "making" me read this wonderful text!

The Power

Chris's presentation talked about his "power" that he had in the world. I interpret this power as having the power of knowing where you are going. English can help you have this "power" as it shows you where man has been in the past and how he might possibly in the future. The obstacles in his story such as the falling man or the hairy monster might represent the daily obstacles that we face everyday, but somehow the English major is at ease. Why is that so?

I'm definately a Reader Response Critic

Even though I was assigned to be part of the Reader Response group for presentations, I know that I am a reader response critic in real as well. It has always been my opinion that everyone has his/her own side to a story and that people should put themselves in others shoes and really listen to the two sides of a story before they make a decision. How I read a book is vastly different than Frye reads a poem ( mostly on the fact that Frye will analyze everything in the book and find it's appropriate archetype ) and that is what makes stories so interesting! If all books were understood the same way, then there really wouldn't be any literary criticism classes now would there? So I'm thankful that all of us have our own interpretation of the text; it is very refreshing to hear multiple ways of looking at a text in a day that is full of routine and boredom.

Some student provided questions for the final

1. Criticism vs. Complaining
2. What enchanted thing does Don Antonia tell DQ about the truth: truth is the head.
3. English translation of D.Q.: "D.Q. of the stains"
4. What happend to DQ in the cave? added years to his life.
5. Who was the knight that defeated DQ? Knifght of the white moon.
6. Who really was the knight of mirrors, wood, and moon? Bachelor Carrasco.

That isn't all of them, I hope to get the rest up.

More than just an election

This year's historical election wasn't just about electing America's first African American president, it was an event that should of eased the souls of all the writers of early American colonialism, human rights writers, and slavery narrators. The ideal world of equality was a mere dream and hope against hope for our predecessors; now it is a true reality. Literature has had a constant impact on society regarding social injustices and although it took America so long to reach this point, I can't help but feel that all of the protesting texts created out there were all rungs on a ladder to equality.

My Book and Heart Shall Never Part

Found this old little blurb I wrote down after watching the movie.

The movie is very enjoyable and reminds me of when I was a kid. I have always loved books; I blame my mom who is a book fiend; and I would always look forward to the book fair. Back in those days, life was innocent and I was oblivious to the vast majority of the world around me. This movie reminded me why I got into books in the first place: they absorbed me and took me off to far away places. I was one with the text and I am sure that Deconstructionists would point out the fact that I had become literature; there was no outside the text in that time frame of my life.

More Vocab

Threnody-song of lamentation.

"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen,
Nobody knows....."

This well known woeful song of old is a good example of a threnody.

Schools of Criticism

New Criticism- "Formalism"-values technique and stays inside the text.

Deconstruction- there is no absolute meaning to a text. There is no outside the text, everything in life is a text. Unity of structure, images, and tone is important as witnessed within "The Well Wrought Urn" by Clean Brooks.

Feminism- Reductive-- looking at the text just regarding women, have a sort of biased view.
Expansive-- Bell Hooks--what do we understand about women in the text and how sex functions.

Reader Response- Reader makes the story just as much as the author does. "Each time you put on a pair of spectacles, you see the world differently".

Marxist- literature can be tied with society in relation with class, politics, and anything that has to do with social ranking.

Real life DQ adventures

Perhaps my favorite part of the presentation video that our class saw on Wednesday was the scene where everyone, still in costume, walked into a supermarket. The expressions on the employees and costumers after seeing Sancho Panza and DQ in the checkout line were priceless. This is probably the most accurate depiction of how people in Don Quixote would of reacted to a old man parading around in modern times as a knight errant. Everyone just stopped and stared, some laughed, as I'm sure that the "normal" people did when our hero DQ walked by them on his knightly journey. Very interesting.

Presentations

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the presentations and how well they were all put together. Learning can definitely be fun with this group of people and the wide array of methods that Professor Sexson allows us learn is refreshing and in the end much more beneficial to our overall learning process than many of my other classes. All the presentations were enjoyable and covered quite a bit of information regarding their school of criticism. I feel I have a much better understanding of some of the major schools of literary criticism now. I will post some basics notes on the schools of criticism at a later date.

John Donne goodness

Her is my favorite piece of work from John Donne. I love his imagery of death and it is enlightening to see death as more of a victim of time, rather than a decider of time. Death really does have no power until that one moment in time when our corporal bodies fail us, but at that point we really don't care. Here is the poem, tell me what you guys think!

Divine Sonnet X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Synecdoche, NY

I was watching "The Colbert Report" tonight and his guest was someone who worked on the movie "Synecdoche, NY". It is a story of cities living within cities living within people's minds. Since synecdoche basically means referring to something by referring to a part of a whole of the subject, the models of New York City in the actual NYC are synecdoches. Towards the end of the interview, Colbert asked the guest "what is the correct way to understand and watch this movie?"; to this the guest only said "Whatever you want, the viewer can only be right." This directly connects with Reader Response criticism in the fact that the reader's interpretation of the text is the text. I'm definitely seeing this one in theaters...if i can.

Freud Pic

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud is my critic for this semester and here is a nice picture of him. He doesn't look too happy now does he?

Universal Symbols

There are symbols in literature such as food, drink, death, light, darkness, marriage, and other concepts that are universal to man and require no set language. Many of these symbols deal with marriage or lovemaking, such as much of the Indian architecture in which they use sculptures to depict multiple couples making love on the wall of temples or other important buildings. In all cultures there is of course the phallic symbol. This is where Freud steps in and would tell you that the phallic symbol, and any other sexually involved symbols, is the most dominant and easiest to communicate between peoples. The base instincts of man urge us to create sexual and nature scenes of courtship in all forms of the arts, especially literature. Humans are sexual beings.

Test Question

My question or subject I'm bringing to class tomorrow will be about Freud's definition of psycho-biographic analysis; it's meaning and applications.

Freud Speech

Here is my rough outline of my Freud speech, hope it was a good one.


My name is Sigmund Freud and I was born in Morovia, Austria on May 6 1856. I

founded psychoanalytic school of psychology, created the idea of Unconscious Mind and the

defense mechanism of repression. Sexual Desire is a concept here and so is my interpretation of

dreams; the connections with dreams and awake hours. I am the godfather of Psychoanalysis

and have a literary criticism that I call my own. My Freudian Criticism not only examines the

text, but also the author. On a base level of criticism you may find the run of the mill phallic

symbol in the text and the question of if the author consciously or unconsciously meant anything

by certain actions or objects in the text. On the next level is the use of psycho-biographic

analysis, which involves the authors childhood experiences, fantasies, the Oedipus complex, and

repressions that somehow effect the concepts within the text. Then there is Ego-analysis which

attempts to show the pleasure within artistic creation that the reader and the author experience.

As you can see I have constructed quite a few theories and works in my time and I would further

say that I am awesome; sorry there goes my ego agai

Touchestone #2

"Life is a waterfall
We're one in the river and one again after the fall"

These are the first two lines of the song "Ariels" by System of a Down. I think it is profound because of the metaphorical use of referring life to different forms of water. Humans are "one" or together in the river of life and the waterfall symbolizes the death of a human. We are one in life and also one in death.

Touchstone passage

My touchstone passage is from Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. The last stanza of the poem goes like this: "I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference". Taking the harder path traveled by the few is the kind of life that I want, and I know it will mean all the difference. You only live once, so choose the path traveled by few and you will be amazed at what you can find and how individual, and not drone-like, you will become.

This is my touchstone passage because I constantly refer to the last two lines to describe choices in life.

Freud and The Flea

If Sigmund Freud and John Donne sat down for a light breakfast at a local diner and reviewed Donne's poem "The Flea", I'm sure that Freud would complement Donne on his rampant use of sexual imagery. Seems to be a smorgasbord for our psychoanalytically charged Freud. Freud has his own reader response criticism of the text even if he cannot or will not admit so. He creates the text with his criticisms of sexual suppression, ego conflicts, and the unconscious into a unique version of the words on the page. Freud's carnal visions are polar opposite of Rev. Leghorn who symbolizes the religious side of the poetic analysis. The mixing of the blood in a filthy insect is thought to be corrupt and there is a direct link between the mixing of the blood and the loss of innocence sexually. Leghorn thinks that the holy trinity is represented in the text. Either way, Freud can't get enough of this stuff and the religious community views these types of text with a filter in some sense.

The Flea

Hey guys, here is John Donne's poem "The Flea" that my group and I used in our presentation.


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

R. I. P. Crichton

Michael Crichton will be missed by many people. My mother was a microbiologist and her interest in the microscopic organisms that inhabit the world around us rubbed off on me and I love his "Andromeda Strain" and of course "Jurassic Park" is a classic. His books helped spur my interest in reading engaging intelligent adult literature. His fantastic vision of the future is not too far off. In my opinion, not only does he possess a unique storytelling ability, he also is a pioneer of the modern fiction literature movement.

About monday...

Playing Rev. Leghorn was very enjoyable. Portraying a religious philosophy behind a poem and arguing with the opposite of course; Freud. There sits Jiwan in the middle as the common voice and central focus of reader response criticism; she creates the story just as much as Freud and the Rev. In the end, all three are correct, because everything is just a matter of reader interpretation.

aLETTERation

Alliteration is when the first letter of a word starts with same letter as the exact next word. A fun fanfare is a good example; but what is aletteration? It is a good play on words similar to "letterally". Aletteration would be the redundancy of letters; two of the same letters in a row. There are many words in the English language that have aletteration such as scoop, creek, and also aletteration! Hopefully this will come up in class sometime, in the mean time just think about all the words that have "aletteration".

Sigmund Freud Speech

My name is Sigmund Freud and I was born in Morovia, Austria on May 6 1856. I
founded psychoanalytic school of psychology, created the idea of Unconscious Mind and the
defense mechanism of repression. Sexual Desire is a concept here and so is my interpretation of
dreams; the connections with dreams and awake hours. I am the godfather of Psychoanalysis and have a literary criticism that I call my own. My Freudian Criticism not only examines the text, but also the author. On a base level of criticism you may find the run of the mill phallic symbol in the text and the question of if the author consciously or unconsciously meant anything by certain actions or objects in the text. On the next level is the use of psycho-biographic analysis, which involves the authors childhood experiences, fantasies, the Oedipus complex, and
repressions that somehow effect the concepts within the text. Then there is Ego-analysis which
attempts to show the pleasure within artistic creation that the reader and the author experience.
As you can see I have constructed quite a few theories and works in my time and I would further
say that I am awesome; sorry there goes my ego again...

Thanx

English Major Apology

Here is my apology for my English major; hope you guys enjoy and find some common ground on why we as English majors are blessed.

English Major Apology

Literature is in all things; it critics the life we live and the world around us. All the other
fields of study in this world have only one thing in common; there is literature in them. There
is even literature within the equation for a math problem or a hypothesis of a science experiment; it is not limited to just the liberal arts. This is why I love literature and choose to study this fascinating field. Nothing in this world speaks more to my soul and my mind than literature does. Literature, and especially poetry, are sublime to me and I am never ashamed to admit to sharing Longinus’ attitude towards literature. An enlightening passage in a book, comic ironies within written and spoken dialogue, a metaphor and simile drenched sonnet; all these are
occurrences in which a little nerve in the back of my head twitches at just the right angle so as to
cause me great scholarly pleasure and even a little giddiness at times.

In my opinion, literature contains the greatest reservoir of knowledge that a
human can tap at any one time; within all the texts of the world lies the secret of man and his
connection with the world around him. Literature asks all the most crucial and convoluted
questions about life and often offers several sublime ways of living life and acquiring knowledge.
Most of all, I love literature because it allows me to be somewhere else and experience that place
on my own time. My life likes to be hectic at times so a nice dose of vitamin S ( S for sublime of
course ) can transform my stressed out and exhausted mind into a soothing state of bliss and
intellectual stimulation; any book will do. Where else in this world do you have the power to
transport to a different reality simply by looking on the written page? Although literature is a bountiful source of entertainment and pleasure, it is also a viable intellectual tool that one can use to increase the quality of their existence and understanding of their existence.

All men share a common fear of being forgotten; men strive for immortality. Death is a
uncertain end, and all men also share a common desire to be remembered from generation to
generation for their accomplishments and greatness of character. Since there is no true method of fully achieving immortality, we must be immortal on the written page. Works of literature far
outlive their authors and are constantly studied by new generations of humans. Even though my
body will fail and I may fade from this Earth, the memory of my existence, quality of life, and the
countless amounts of intellectual expressions will be recorded on paper and I will, in a sense, be
immortal. This is what literature can do for me, but what can I do with literature?

Perhaps the most important and powerful use of literature is that of logos. The power to
create through the agency of the word is truly the crowning achievement of literature. A small
brown book with a rough cover is lying on the ground and a man walks by and picks it up. Upon
opening the book the man discovers that all the pages are blank; this is his book and he can write, and in a sense, create whatever his heart and mind desire. In literature, there are no restrictions, perimeters, ranges, or any other restraining nuisances that may hamper the explosive productivity of the creator; the world is your sandbox and you already have all the necessary tools in order to form it as you see fit. Poetry is by far the best use of logos and is considered to be an ultimate form of creation. The Greek word for poet is poesis, which means “the maker”; the world that poetry creates is that of an imitation, a sort of “golden world”; the poet seems to improve on nature. When reading poetry, I often feel the world slow down and my mind begin to clear from the everyday floods of stress and tiresome schedules. It is a meditative tool for me to escape the real world and fall into a much more interesting world. I am a song writer and amateur poet and have written a good amount of both thought-provoking songs about life and the intricacies therein, and vivid poems about anything from love to the cyclical ritual of the sun and its connection with humans in physical and symbolic ways. Lyrics in music are poetry to me and there is something very enjoyable about analyzing the inner meanings of the song and its creators. Both song and poetry have the ability to contain immensely important passages known as touchstones.

These touchstones are merely passages from literature that seem to bring deep meaning
and emotional response to the reader. Whatever the touchstone might be, it is very important to it’s owner and can greatly influence their life; no other field of study has this power. A good
example is the posting of favorite quotes around a classroom or bedroom. I put famous quotes
on my walls to give me short bursts of intellectual pleasure and to help explain life. When I
become an English teacher I will hang enlightening quotes on my walls in the hopes that one of
my students is inspired and their life is forever changed because of a simple quote. Literature is
the only subject that is impacted my life on a noticeable and beneficial scale. Many of my
colleagues have referred to English as being a “useless” major with less worth than other fields;
to this statement I severely disagree. The worth of literature is far beyond any other field with
regards to worldly understanding and self-exploration; I can safely say that although I use, refer to, and produce literature everyday, the information that I have accumulated from all other fields of study is rarely of use to me. I do not apologize for being an English major, I revel in it.