Kelsey S

Honesty

2008-12-12T16:11:00.001-08:00

OK, maybe I am preaching to the choir but when we first received our assignment to read all of Don Quixote, I panicked. It is not like I haven't read something like that, but on top of all of my other classes. woe is me... I really enjoyed reading it. It is actually one of the best books I have read. THANK YOU again, Dr. Sexson, for allowing us to read something so great!

final class

2008-12-12T16:07:00.001-08:00

THANK YOU everyone! It has been a fun semester with everyone. Thank you for providing a good escape into tangents and getting stuck with pencils on the last day of class. I have really enjoyed the class.
Have a wonderful break everyone and I am sure I will see everyone around!
Kelsey Stavnes

The Final test

2008-12-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

1. What is the difference between criticism and complaining? Don Quixote
2. Harold Bloom, Edith Grossman, introduction to Don Quixote
3. What can tell the truth that is enchanted in Don Quixote? the enchanted head
4. What does La Mancha mean? Don Quixote of the Stains
5. What happened to Don Quixote in the cave? years were added to his life
6. What is the name of the knight? Knight of the White Moon
7. Who really was the Knight of the Wood, the Mirrors: the bachelor Carrasco
8. Page 804 "To believe..." fill in the blank (impossible)
9. Page 346 in Anatomy of Criticism: The culture of the past is..."
other questions in the book, so make sure you read!

50 points.
know poem, about schools of thought, Don Quixote, amd some individual critics

group presentations 3

2008-12-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

PSYCHOANALYSIS:
Freud: great creator of the Modern Age
"Truth is unseen"
hidden psychological truths

MARXISTS:
hidden in text
concerned with social hierarchy, socioeconomic status, and class struggle

group presentations 2

2008-12-12T15:56:00.001-08:00

FEMINISTS:
Reductive: concerning women: number of women, treatment of women, was it written by a woman?
Expansive: bell hooks, what kind of literary work is this? What does it say about gender differences?

READER RESPONSE:
spectacle metaphor

however you can not make something mean whatever you want it to mean!

group presentations 1

2008-12-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

NEW CRITICISM:
also known as formalism
values technique
text itself in the expense of everything else

DECONSTRUCTIONISTS:
no absolute meaning of the text
nothing outside of the text
counters unity (in structure, image, and tone)
"The Well-Wrought Urn" by Cleanth Brooks
no unified whole; everything is under construction.
Northrup Frye is a Deconstructionalist

Henry James

2008-12-12T15:36:00.000-08:00

I couldn't get a photo of myself on the blogsite. It would not allow me to do it...

A little about me:
I lived in the United States but traveled to Britain a lot.
I studied at Harvard but decided reading literature was to more my liking.
There is speculation that I loved my cousin Mary, and that I was perhaps homosexual.

Common themes in my literary works:
relationships between people
corruption
love
obsessions
morbid kind of things (like ghosts)

My major works: The Turn of the Screw
The Portrait of A Lady
The American
The Real Thing
The Ambassadors

My apology

2008-12-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

According to Reason and Imagination, as well as other students and peers of mine on the Montana State University campus, the subject of English should be avoided at all costs. I am actually worse than most English majors: I am majoring in English education in the secondary level. Why would a person choose to study English first of all? Second, why would any sane person choose to make English or literature their major of choice? Well, I will tell you. Rather than apologize for my unforgivable mistake in majoring in English teaching at the high school level, I could tell you, the reader, why I choose to continue to love my major and why I chose it to be my major in the first place.
To be able to incorporate such broad ideas into a single work of literature is something that no other class can fully encompass at all nor on a daily basis. In Literary Criticism, we often venture into the unknown. We escape from the reality of existence and into the worlds of imagination, thought, and poetry. These little tangents, in which we decided were not wrong but actually stories within stories and quite necessary to venture to, allow for the imagination to blossom fully and without restraint. Without full-embodied imagination, we would not be able to read the literature that almost makes reading worth it. This is the literature that makes us crazy people decide to enrich our learning and make the 'horrendous' subject of English our major. Without imagination, life would be boring and as we discussed in class: If you are bored by something (life, literature, not having something to do and cannot think of anything), then you are boring!Without imagination, there would be no Shakespeare, no Stephen King, no Nicholas Sparks, no Jane Austen, no Edgar Allan Poe... no (gasp) Northrop Frye!
Northrop Frye and the Anatomy of Criticism would no longer exist without imagination. No claims could be made, no examples brought forth, and no charts and diagrams could be mapped out. Northrop Frye's ideas would not be available to us readers and literary critics alike. “Who?,” You ask. Maybe an example of someone more well-known would better exemplify my point that imagination is key to literature. Imagine the world without a key character, Don Quixote. He lives a life that is not real to us, but through his imagination, he lives an eventful and noble life. The entire novel Don Quixote would not exist without imagination and, yes, a crazy gentleman-turned-knight-errant. Don Quixote explores a new territory of the time and allows for laughter, realism, irony, plot summary and analysis, as well as imagination take part and unfold into the span of a novel.
Another reason I love English is because so many things are incorporated into the literature. Poetry, novels, novellas, textbooks, and song lyrics are brought in and a person can experience so many different cultures and ways of thinking from them. While reading a book, a person can climb into the pages with the narrator or the main character and explore a new jungle, be scared out of their wits, or even fight some windmills. By reading of another person's adventures, the reader can experience a new life apart from their own and venture into the unknown with a better grasp of what lies ahead. Lyrics and poetry allow for a release of sorts, a catharsis of emotions, and a way to fully express what the underlying feelings are. By reading and writing any form of literature, I am transported to a different time, a different place. Unlike what I was used to and who I used to be, I too scramble to find myself along with the narrator. I experience similar emotions in response to the difficulties and hardships expressed. I feel sorry for those who do not experience the same things, because it helps instill my inner self and helps with my growing vocabulary.
After considering how much literature and English give to my overall education, how could I not like English? It allows for me to release emotions, it connects me to the world and current events, it helps my vocabulary become better, and literature helps me and others to better understand the importance of accepting people as they are. Literature and English classes allow for life experiences to be related and stories to be told. It also allows for a more understanding part of the soul to develop. It allows me to experience a lifestyle different from my own and for that, I am grateful. English, along with all of its components, allows me to morph into a better person who is more accepting, more articulate, and well-read. It allows me to be truly myself and to fully express myself with words, actions, and thoughts. Imagination takes over my mind when I read and I give in to the overwhelming sea and am fully submerged.

Tangents

2008-12-12T15:23:00.001-08:00

Tangents are not wrong just stories within stories. When are they wrong? I do not think ever unless everything else is not getting done and all of one's time is on the tangents themselves. Some of the greatest poetry and literature is written in stream of consciousness which is just writing about whatever pops into your mind at that moment.

The poet...

2008-12-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

The poet never affirms anything, therefore he or she does not lie.
That is quite the observation; Maybe I could try it with my parents, although they would probably tell me to answer the question and thus the experiment would be no more. It is interesting that the poet would have to resort to this self-enclosure to defend one's self. I guess it would be nice to not have to defend myself against people about what I wrote, why I wrote it, or some other issues like politics, religion, and other interests.

Dante's Levels in Can Grande

2008-12-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

1. Literal

2. Allegorical

3. Moral

4. Anagogical

Another random reference

2008-12-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

While we were discussing the role of literature in class (should be didactic and entertaining), I thought of those old movies they made us watch in elementary school. They are the School House Rock videos, and boy were they entertaining... What's kind of sad is I bet you could go to almost every student and ask; they would remember at least one song! It did the job though. Students learned what a conjunction is and a noun (really pretty basic stuff) and were entertained. Learning is so much more fun if at least entertains you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODGA7ssL-6g
School House Rock Conjunction Junction taken from Youtube.com

random reference

2008-12-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

While we are constantly going back and forth to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood, something came into my brain. For some odd reason, I thought of Mary Poppins and the song "Just a spoonful of sugar." It is entertaining and it kind of goes with Aristotle. What I mean by that with his "too big, too small, just right" theory, couldn't we substitute words for big and small? What if something is too bitter/sour or too sweet? Wouldn't it be nice if a spoonful of sugar/spice/something made everything "just right?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Pbd3RSbLo
It is the sing-along version of "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Youtube!

OH BOY!

Random.

2008-12-12T14:50:00.000-08:00

I noticed I have written in my notes that drama is the best genre to create suspense and drama (notice the tautology?) Totally meant to write emotion..

Aristotle's theory of Goldilocks and the Three Bears:
Too big
too small
just right!

Literature shoud teach and have good morals, not just entertain!

from a while ago

2008-12-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

literal: motif

descriptive: sign

formal: image

archetypal: myth

anagogical: monad

a few more individual critics

2008-12-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Joan: Eve Sedgwick:
open-mindedness
normal versus abnormal

Kevin: Stanley Fish:
Milton scholar
reader response
maverick

Chris: Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert
feminists
dressed up and took off/put on glasses to distinguish characters/critics

Derek: Homi K. Bhabba:
post colonial theory
hybrid culture

Bobby: Virginia Woolf:
bipolar
not a happy person
suicidal
(wow, that makes her sound so depressing...)

The REAL Matthew Arnold blog

2008-12-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

I think it is kind of interesting to see that the same guy who though poetry is a substitution for religion came up with the phrases "crisis of faith" and "criticism of life" in his introduction. This is the man who came up with touchstones. The two phrases almost seem too dreary for him to express in comparison to the rest of his ideas.
So after a little research on every one's favorite, Wikipedia, I read that he liked to annoy his friends with controversy, contradiction, and melancholy, all in a frivolous manner.
I thought it was interesting

Matthew Arnold

2008-12-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

I read over Kayla Kitchen's blog today and read her entry entitled "Poetry as religion." She confessed that she is not a fan of poetry and said that it was restrictive. I, like many others in the English major, completely disagree. Poetry allows a writer to fully express themselves in so many different ways. Poetry is religions, religion is poetry. Poetry allows for the soul to be purged, catharsis, and feeling and emotion to be fully expressed, not only in ways of words and literary works, but song, dance... anyway you like it. Words can describe feeling and emotion better than most other things can, and so much music is inspired by such feeling that needed to be expressed.

My touchstone

2008-12-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

My touchstone piece of literature is Psalm 139.

Psalm 139 (King James Version)
1O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
3Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
19Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Why is there never a just right or perfect?

2008-12-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Better than this,
Worse than that.

Too hot,
too cold.

Too sunny,
too windy.

Too messy,
too clean.

Too dark,
too light.

Too busy,
too slow.

Too funny,
too serious.

Too much to do,
not enough to do and BORED.

Why is there never a just right or perfect?

Even more individual critics

2008-12-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

Kayla: Annette Kolodny
“Lay of the Land”
radical feminist
paradigms

Maggie: Henry Louis Gates Jr. “Skip”
www.theroot.com
likes Obama
civil rights movement

Jessi: William Wordsworth:
nature = healing

Doug: T.S. Eliot:
time and existence

Lion versus Lamb

2008-12-12T14:08:00.002-08:00

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Most people know about the comparison of Aslan to Jesus.

There are the common similarities: both arrived at the same time as Father Christmas/Santa Claus (late December), both said they were sons of God or a great Emperor, both gave themselves up for someone else's fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people, and came to life again.

In class, we brought up the idea that Aslan is a lion, and Jesus is referred to as a lamb. That is a predator-prey relationship. What is the significance of that?

more individual critics

2008-12-12T14:08:00.001-08:00

Heather: Helene Cixous:
Jewish feminist
human meets inhuman, feminine meets masculine

Brittani: Wolfgang Iser:
reader response theory
text as a whole

Kyle: Sigmund Freud:
id, superego, ego
important in psychoanalysis
childhood memories and emotions
dream and analysis

Jiwon: Edward Said:
history is dynamic

duality in the texts, excitement and adventure on the brain!

2008-12-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

duality
what other major provides the opportunities that English does? NONE!
intellectual excitement and adventure, take for instance Don Quixote: that is excitement and adventure from page 1 to the end! it is filled with adventure and excitement, from attacking windmills to wineskins, to flying on a horse, to finally dying.

M. H. Abrams

2008-12-11T23:22:00.000-08:00

ANCIENT focuses on UNIVERSE/WORLD (mimetic)
NEOCLASS focuses on READER/AUDIENCE (pragmatic)
ROMANTICS focuses on CREATOR/ARTISTS (expressive)
MODERN focuses on WORKS/TEXTS (objective)

So therefore, which category does the poem "Idea of Order at Key West" fall into?
Romantics focuses on the creator and the artists, and the poem is about creation.
"She sang beyond the genius of the sea, the water never formed to mind or voice"
If she is the creator (or a god, in a sense), then the water is her clay to mould as she will and the poem completely expresses her creation of the world.

"Impossible Dream"

2008-12-11T23:18:00.000-08:00

This was taken from YOUTUBE.com
It is called "Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow

trust

2008-12-11T23:12:00.001-08:00

"Trust the tale, not the teller"

I think this approach of not caring what the author said/meant to say is a great one, but incredibly difficult to get a firm grasp on. Sometimes, a text just opens itself up for author's intent, but the idea that it doesn't matter is hard to fathom. All of my life I have been told as I am reading texts that it is about my own response (similar to the reader's response school of thought) but we always considered the author's meaning. Need to get a better grasp on the entire concept...

Creation

2008-12-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

"Creation comes with voice and voice is POWER." I agree with this statement but I tend to disagree as well.
In Genesis, God spoke, in order to create, and action was done immediately and without question.
I am not sure that I agree with the second half of the statement. Some of the greatest leaders speak only when they have something really brilliant to say. Because they do not use their voice as often as others, are they somehow less powerful? Voice is power but it is how you use your voice that makes you powerful

Remembrance

2008-12-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

I thought it was ironic that we were discussing remembrance on November 5th. Anyone else?
V for Vendetta/Guy Fawkes:

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gun powder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot"

Remembrance is something that is integral to learning and life; I wonder when it is considered a bad thing to remember? Where is the line that people draw with living in memory world versus reality? People should learn from the past, remember the past, but still live in the now or the future.

Individual Critics

2008-12-11T22:27:00.000-08:00

Judson: Ivor Armstrong Richards (I.A. Richards)
Focused on the past, mental integration Pseudo-statement

Carl Gustav Jung:
Analytical psychologist
1. shadow
2. anima/animus
3. divine couple (self)
4. child
5. self

Rosanna: Mikhail Bakhtim:
lived in mind, political satire, grotesque realism, laughter, dialogical imagination, carnival

Jon: Paul deMan:
Deconstructionalist

Jessica: bell hooks:
white supremacy, capitalist patriarchy

A more detailed Frye diagram

2008-12-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

Tragic Myth: mythic tragedy relates to the death of a god (The Bible or the Crucifixion of Achilles)

Comic Myth: Mythic comedy shows a hero's struggle into world, society, or realm of the gods (Hercules)

Thematic Myth: literature that contains and claims divine word and inspiration (The Bible, The Koran)

Tragic Romance: romantic tragedy can be seen in elegies for the death of heroes ("Elegy on the death of Gen Montgomery" by Ann Eliza Bleecker)

Comic Romance: romantic comedy is placed within a pastoral or idyllic setting and shows an integration of the hero with a romaniticized form of nature (Pride and Prejudice, William Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper"

Thematic Romance: literature that focused on deeds, charms, proverbs,... of the gods that is left up to a nomadic society to chronicle

High Mimetic Tragedy:High Mimetic Tragedy focuses on the death of someone who is noble (Oedipus Rex)

High Mimetic Comedy: High Mimetic Comedy shows a strong central figure who gains riches and honer through force (Knight stories, The Hobbit)

High Mimetic Thematic: literature dealing with a society that is built around epic events in a nation as well as being centered around a capital city (stories about Troy and Trojan War)

Low Mimetic Tragedy: Low Mimetic Tragedy reveals the death of a "common man" while appealing to people's emotions (obituaries, Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman."

Low Mimetic Comedy: Low Mimetic Comedy follows a hero/heroine on their path to social elevation and often ends in marriage. (any boy meets girl movie...)

Low Mimetic Thematic: literature that tends toward individualism and romanticism and is written based on the writer's thoughts and ideas as well as their experiences (today's poems, Psalm 23)

Ironic Tragedy: Ironic Tragedy shows the suffering or death of one who is considered low and pathetic in society (Macbeth, Don Quixote)

Ironic Comedy: Ironic Comedy often reveals the plight of a helpless victim inflicted with pain by others who watch with pleasure *catharsis* (John Coffey in the Green Mile, Don Quixote)

Thematic Irony: this is where the poet is more of an observer rather than an authority and the writing tends to emphasize discontinuity and anti-epiphany ("The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot)

"all literature is displaced myth"

2008-12-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

If all literature is displaced myth, is truly everthing in life myth? If you go outside on a nice Bozeman day, and think to yourself, "what a glorious day! the leaves are falling and the sun is out," aren't you referencing literature? Many writers wrote stories, poems, and novels about nature- Walden Pond by Thoreau, for instance- if then ALL literature is displaced myth, most any thought a person has in their brain can be directly linked to literature, and therefore-myth. that's crazy!

My Hollywood Square

2008-09-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

For my box to "go to town" with, I chose High mimetic comic.

Vico's Ages/Time Line

2008-09-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

1. Age of the gods
which used hieroglyphic language
2. age of heroes
used epics and epic stories
3. Age of men (humans)
commerce, trade, and economics
4. age of chaos
jipper terms such as "dude," "awesome," "cool"

I think we ought to include the term "sweet" into the age of chaos' jipper terms!

Northrup Frye's diagram

2008-09-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

1. myth

2. romance

3. high mimetic mode

4. low mimetic mode

5. ironic

This diagram declines steadily.

Running Commentary of Don Quixote #1

2008-09-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

I am currently on page 110. In the novel, Don Quixote is laying on the bed having his wounds mended. Sancho explains Don Quixote's role of adventuring knight to the servant of the innkeeper.

Vocabulary

2008-09-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

flyting: insulting another person in a comical way

centripetally: out
centrifugally: inwards

intentional fallacy: focuses on what the author meant to say/mean... we don't care!
What it means is what it is

alazon: pompous imposter which can be of two types:
1. pedant- teaching type, professor, instructor

2. soldier

cosmogony- birth of the world

mimisis- imitation

poesis- creation

Apotheosis: to be immortal

gnos: to know (agnostic=to be without knowledge)

Demonic: from Greek (Daemon)-animalistic, alter-ego

didactic vocabulary- teaching words

cliches

2008-09-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

After talking in class about cliches, I thought about this exaggeration a little more. Have we become too lazy as human beings to come up with our own thoughts, ideas, or concepts? Must we really dumb ourselves down so much as to use another person's words that came about who knows when? After thinking about this for a few minutes, I realized that the answer is yes. We have become a lazy race of living beings, but the cliches most commonly used often fit what we are saying to a T.