Yes, out with rules and restraint! Let us eat cake.
Romanticism involves creativity, experimentation, and artistic freedom.
It seems the French Revolution was largely due to a reaction against "the excesses of absolute government.... and the economic transformation of society." There was a large intellectual as a direct result of the Enlightenment. It is amazing to me to see the connections and gradual growth of the arts and literature as political environs change.
Nationalism and how people used "folk song formats" to express their cultural foundations.(the ideas of "individual rights but also the obligations of the individual toward society or the nation as a whole..."
And, probably much alike the reoccurring theme in human history, a struggle between liberal thought and conservative thought that played out via religion, art and literature as well.
Kant
"literature is ruled only by its own laws rather than by morality and education"
Wow, this was a completely new approach and really throws all that classical thought right out the proverbial window.
"Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason." The Kantian System
"There is no science of the beautiful, but only critique."
"All bodies are extended" and
"Everything which happens has its cause"
So, the Romantic period gave writers the ability to write about anything! Yes!
And, of course, I will choose a female poet!
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!
Yes, this is romantic and inspiring. Ms. Dickinson states that reality and measure have no place in romance, that her desire needs no compass...no chart...to "row" to her own Eden, a man whom she desires. Love, a luxury filled of wild nights.
A sea of love and feelings so quickly stated and aptly told with emotion.
The poem reflects a freedom of expression and no real reference to God or politics and does not relate a moral cause. She revels in a love and writes of it...freely.
Philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding the Kantian system.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Class Discussion 11/24/08, follow up to The Enlightenment
Reason and Beauty
Why do we critique literary works? how do we...and what do we use as our reasoning base
to come to such judgements?
Habib points to the valuation of employed reason tocome to an opinion.
Come to opinions not from preconceived notions rather from empirical research.
Hmmm, how do I form my opinions....I bet I'm pretty set in my ways.
The way we think is governed by practice and we need to be vigilant when we cast judgement.
Why do we critique literary works? how do we...and what do we use as our reasoning base
to come to such judgements?
Habib points to the valuation of employed reason tocome to an opinion.
Come to opinions not from preconceived notions rather from empirical research.
Hmmm, how do I form my opinions....I bet I'm pretty set in my ways.
The way we think is governed by practice and we need to be vigilant when we cast judgement.
Chapter 13, The Enlightenment
Habib states that the Enlightenment was "a broad intellectual tendency, spanning philosophy, literature, language, art, religion, and political theory," and has been called the "age of reason."
Among the philosophers mentioned in that chapter, we will focus upon John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Locke:
Encourages to look at the world as a group of facts, that result in sensations which wev process mentally and arrive at truths and abstract ideas. Language should be used to clarify an idea and therefore we should attempt to be concise with word and expression "literalization of language" to avoid abusing the language with "error and deceit." An advocate for empirialism, Locke suggests we create the world through language and allow it to provide coherence to external reality. So, we need to be clear, sober, and true when using language....not metaphor and illusion!
Burke:
Desires "to conserve the essential economic and political fabric of feudalism." He's a conservative who thinks we must adjuct to gradual change with a starting point at reality, not the absract and idealist set of principles not related to actual conditions. He maintains that human use falsehoods to reason and that our sensory perceptions tend to rule our thoguhts and translations of the world around us. (BAD HUMANS!)Yet, he does interject that the imagination allows us to produce new images,therefore we can create and "enlarge our stock" of knowledge.We need "refined judgement" via sense, imagination, and the conclusions we draw from such information. Sublime is "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" i.e. pain, danger, and terror...and they are vast, rugged, often obscure and dark.We can use wit stimulate our pleasure, becuase it is wit enables us to make connections between things we are familiar with. We must come to a place of understanding with the use of "good taste" when we "extend our knowledge" and exercise our brain with by assimilating new ideas. I guess, not so much reason and clarity, but the usefullness of what we do experience.
Wollstonecraft:
Hmmm, a feminist! Yes, finally. She felt women could have reason and felt women should benefit from education as men had throughout the centuries. "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" in 1792 expressed her concerns for the economic and educational rights of women. That truth must be common to all...and she does anticipate a negative male reaction to her asssertions! the simple truths should not just include the male intellect....but all individuals. No predujice and misogyny...men contribute to the degradation of females as "artificial, weak characters" and this is a mistake.Women should not be enslaved by the ideas of men and held captive by societal expectation that a women look nice and BE nice and controllable. Social equality will lead to educational equality....but not quickly she concedes. The entire political and economic system is built upon the separation of women from education and societal position. Though, later feminists took some issue with her thoughts about marriage and her ideas that "morality and virtue shoudl be founded on eternal and immutable principles." Yes, feminists come in different forms and vary in opinion...as they should, being individuals and all! She did demand a radical restructuring of the social and political orders to garner female equality.
Among the philosophers mentioned in that chapter, we will focus upon John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Locke:
Encourages to look at the world as a group of facts, that result in sensations which wev process mentally and arrive at truths and abstract ideas. Language should be used to clarify an idea and therefore we should attempt to be concise with word and expression "literalization of language" to avoid abusing the language with "error and deceit." An advocate for empirialism, Locke suggests we create the world through language and allow it to provide coherence to external reality. So, we need to be clear, sober, and true when using language....not metaphor and illusion!
Burke:
Desires "to conserve the essential economic and political fabric of feudalism." He's a conservative who thinks we must adjuct to gradual change with a starting point at reality, not the absract and idealist set of principles not related to actual conditions. He maintains that human use falsehoods to reason and that our sensory perceptions tend to rule our thoguhts and translations of the world around us. (BAD HUMANS!)Yet, he does interject that the imagination allows us to produce new images,therefore we can create and "enlarge our stock" of knowledge.We need "refined judgement" via sense, imagination, and the conclusions we draw from such information. Sublime is "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" i.e. pain, danger, and terror...and they are vast, rugged, often obscure and dark.We can use wit stimulate our pleasure, becuase it is wit enables us to make connections between things we are familiar with. We must come to a place of understanding with the use of "good taste" when we "extend our knowledge" and exercise our brain with by assimilating new ideas. I guess, not so much reason and clarity, but the usefullness of what we do experience.
Wollstonecraft:
Hmmm, a feminist! Yes, finally. She felt women could have reason and felt women should benefit from education as men had throughout the centuries. "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" in 1792 expressed her concerns for the economic and educational rights of women. That truth must be common to all...and she does anticipate a negative male reaction to her asssertions! the simple truths should not just include the male intellect....but all individuals. No predujice and misogyny...men contribute to the degradation of females as "artificial, weak characters" and this is a mistake.Women should not be enslaved by the ideas of men and held captive by societal expectation that a women look nice and BE nice and controllable. Social equality will lead to educational equality....but not quickly she concedes. The entire political and economic system is built upon the separation of women from education and societal position. Though, later feminists took some issue with her thoughts about marriage and her ideas that "morality and virtue shoudl be founded on eternal and immutable principles." Yes, feminists come in different forms and vary in opinion...as they should, being individuals and all! She did demand a radical restructuring of the social and political orders to garner female equality.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Ch. 12 finish and Ch. 13, Enlightenment
John Locke,
Edmund Burke,
and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Reason drives peoples visions of how to approach writing.
No one has to cow-tow to authority!
Used to access the neo classical as the source of knowledge, but they reformulate it in the Enlightenment.
Pope as a writer....Wit
Neoclassical concepts: rules of the unities: time, place, and action. Also, it puts and emphasis on the importance of nature. (permanence, connection to the divine, the power of the divine..art must be measured and inspired from nature.
What is wit? To Pope it was intellectual acuity.
taking two dissimilar objects or thoughts and finding a common ground.
capacity to find hidden relationships underlying the appearance of things.
Broad and heated debate...what is Wit?, "wit is a negative quality, puns are the lowest form of writing. distorts clear and truthful insight."
Puritans saw it as morally defective and corrupt...
Three modes of communicationExpressive, transactional, and poetic
More of Pope
Wit is the poetic use of the language... being able to criticize poems is an art, see the picture of the poem and see the wit.
Follow Nature! derive inspiration from it...unity and order...look up "The Rape of the Lock" by Pope..
Literary Artifacts,,,,think out a few in my head for class..
Edmund Burke,
and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Reason drives peoples visions of how to approach writing.
No one has to cow-tow to authority!
Used to access the neo classical as the source of knowledge, but they reformulate it in the Enlightenment.
Pope as a writer....Wit
Neoclassical concepts: rules of the unities: time, place, and action. Also, it puts and emphasis on the importance of nature. (permanence, connection to the divine, the power of the divine..art must be measured and inspired from nature.
What is wit? To Pope it was intellectual acuity.
taking two dissimilar objects or thoughts and finding a common ground.
capacity to find hidden relationships underlying the appearance of things.
Broad and heated debate...what is Wit?, "wit is a negative quality, puns are the lowest form of writing. distorts clear and truthful insight."
Puritans saw it as morally defective and corrupt...
Three modes of communicationExpressive, transactional, and poetic
More of Pope
Wit is the poetic use of the language... being able to criticize poems is an art, see the picture of the poem and see the wit.
Follow Nature! derive inspiration from it...unity and order...look up "The Rape of the Lock" by Pope..
Literary Artifacts,,,,think out a few in my head for class..
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Class Discussion 11/12/2008
Conference that Dr. Nelson spoke at in Iowa last Friday.
Multi-modal (multimedia) writing
Saw and visited with Debra Marquart, a a poet and a professor at Iowa State
watched Youtube...."Video Poetry"
We can access archives.org for video that isn't subject to copyright infringement problems. Or, some popular video can be used as an "educational purposes" platform, therefor not strictly a problem.
Various literary forms in a wide range of forms.
"The message is in the medium." qtd.
"Movie Maker" (downloaded just now!)
"I-Movie"
to use as the tool to create a visual critique!
Contemporary rhetoric is very different from how we used to say things'''
i.e. old James Bond films as opposed to the new one to be released this Friday.
Nowadays, heroes may fall and then continue on as a hero.
Why would "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" movie be so popular around the time of our recent 2008 economic crisis?
if it's popular, then it is teaching...and we want to gain something from the story.
Film project....not too big...some literary work to set to video for a visual critique.
Critique Paper due Monday, November 17th
Multi-modal (multimedia) writing
Saw and visited with Debra Marquart, a a poet and a professor at Iowa State
watched Youtube...."Video Poetry"
We can access archives.org for video that isn't subject to copyright infringement problems. Or, some popular video can be used as an "educational purposes" platform, therefor not strictly a problem.
Various literary forms in a wide range of forms.
"The message is in the medium." qtd.
"Movie Maker" (downloaded just now!)
"I-Movie"
to use as the tool to create a visual critique!
Contemporary rhetoric is very different from how we used to say things'''
i.e. old James Bond films as opposed to the new one to be released this Friday.
Nowadays, heroes may fall and then continue on as a hero.
Why would "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" movie be so popular around the time of our recent 2008 economic crisis?
if it's popular, then it is teaching...and we want to gain something from the story.
Film project....not too big...some literary work to set to video for a visual critique.
Critique Paper due Monday, November 17th
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Class Discussion 11/5/08
Discussion about assigned Paper, due November 17th!Use Plato or perhaps Aristotle to reconcile a sonnet...peom...show how time of composure is important, show importance of structure, how careful is the construction of the composition?
Validate it with the rubric of the philosopher I choose...what do I value in the piece?
Classmates discuss their thoughts about works they may choose to do the paper...and the Professor discusses some key points of these poems/works and how we might approach our piece.
"Think about stuff from the same era, who's in the era and category?"
"drop our choice into the litmus (critical theory) and see if it turns blue (fits the neo-classical format)"
Is there a lesson? moral and cultural implications? apy attention to the underlying message and language used to portray ideas.
Pope
Validate it with the rubric of the philosopher I choose...what do I value in the piece?
Classmates discuss their thoughts about works they may choose to do the paper...and the Professor discusses some key points of these poems/works and how we might approach our piece.
"Think about stuff from the same era, who's in the era and category?"
"drop our choice into the litmus (critical theory) and see if it turns blue (fits the neo-classical format)"
Is there a lesson? moral and cultural implications? apy attention to the underlying message and language used to portray ideas.
Pope
Monday, November 3, 2008
Class Lecture Notes November 3, 2008
Sidney whispers the ideas of Horace...and builds upon these ideas by elevating the poets.
Poets are chief among teachers; poets have the ability to inspire through "God"...tap into peoples emotions. Poem have noble law of a "golden world" ...and the world is "brazen"...bronze, inferior to the golden world the poet creates.
Winter Trees Cough Like Old Menby Eugenio Montejo
Winter trees cough like old men
about death's white nightmares
while the rain talks in Latin.
They cough about the sobbing tragic
ash, they bind valises for leaving,
they darken—and in the chill
of frost from the sun,
the lungs bristle to see coffins hidden
in the dry capes of kings.
Who is the speaker? words express : cough, death's, sobbing, tragic, darken, chill, frost, coffins, capes....A funeral? Latin used for burial rights?(metaphorical language) used for the funeral(literal scenario)...
When you use metaphors you have the vehicle and the tenor. i.e. The thing you are after and the way you get to it.
My life has stood-a loaded gun
by Emily Dickinson
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face Had let its pleasure through -
And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -
To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -
Though I than He - may longer live He longer must - than I -For I have but the power to kill,Without--the power to die--
Speaker? a human being, a person discussing their feeling of being "a loaded gun"...the language used allows an idea to be brought forth without saying the straight forward truth.
Harmony and balance....can be set to "The Yellow Rose of Texas" as Dr. Nelson so nicely sang for us in class!
Neoclassical critics....the unities...place, time and action.
Rule-bound...stick to a "composition as a rational and rule-bound process"
What are the forms the literature takes to reveal the metaphor?
can these rules be used for contemporary literature/films....?
the big fight is whether plays and poems have to follow rules...should these rules be broken? If it "ain't in the classics...then it ain't anything."
i.e. Shakespeare has plays in five acts...does this conform? is there beauty in tragedy?
continue reading...Dryden, Pope, and Johnson....pg. 284 and onward
What is the situation?
What attitude toward the situation?
Poets are chief among teachers; poets have the ability to inspire through "God"...tap into peoples emotions. Poem have noble law of a "golden world" ...and the world is "brazen"...bronze, inferior to the golden world the poet creates.
Winter Trees Cough Like Old Menby Eugenio Montejo
Winter trees cough like old men
about death's white nightmares
while the rain talks in Latin.
They cough about the sobbing tragic
ash, they bind valises for leaving,
they darken—and in the chill
of frost from the sun,
the lungs bristle to see coffins hidden
in the dry capes of kings.
Who is the speaker? words express : cough, death's, sobbing, tragic, darken, chill, frost, coffins, capes....A funeral? Latin used for burial rights?(metaphorical language) used for the funeral(literal scenario)...
When you use metaphors you have the vehicle and the tenor. i.e. The thing you are after and the way you get to it.
My life has stood-a loaded gun
by Emily Dickinson
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face Had let its pleasure through -
And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -
To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -
Though I than He - may longer live He longer must - than I -For I have but the power to kill,Without--the power to die--
Speaker? a human being, a person discussing their feeling of being "a loaded gun"...the language used allows an idea to be brought forth without saying the straight forward truth.
Harmony and balance....can be set to "The Yellow Rose of Texas" as Dr. Nelson so nicely sang for us in class!
Neoclassical critics....the unities...place, time and action.
Rule-bound...stick to a "composition as a rational and rule-bound process"
What are the forms the literature takes to reveal the metaphor?
can these rules be used for contemporary literature/films....?
the big fight is whether plays and poems have to follow rules...should these rules be broken? If it "ain't in the classics...then it ain't anything."
i.e. Shakespeare has plays in five acts...does this conform? is there beauty in tragedy?
continue reading...Dryden, Pope, and Johnson....pg. 284 and onward
What is the situation?
What attitude toward the situation?
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