Nabokov: "Quit Laughing at Don Quixote!"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E3DF153BF930A25751C0A965948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Vladimir nabokov taught a series of lectures on Don Quixote as part of a humanities survey course that he was teaching at Harvard in 1952. The lectures on Don Quixote were meant to serve as an introduction to the rest of the course. This article from the New York Times about Nabokov's obsession with the literary hero explains well his belief that Don Quixote is taken too lightly, that we shouldn't laught so much at his misfortune's (I am VERY guilty of this!) It is not meant to be a heartwarming novel, but rather a heart wrenching one. I will explain this in more depth after i finish the lectures, but this article makes a good introduction!

Mad-man of La Mancha

Last november when i was studying in spain, we made a trip to barcelona which coincided perfectly with an exhibit in the cultural museum there of the spanish artist Salvador Dali's private collection of paintings. There was one room of the exhibit that was completely devoted to Dali's interpretations and art paying homage to the literary hero Don Quijote. The paintings were beautiful, and they mean more to me now after having read don quixote. i wanted to share a few here:

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"

We cited this quote from William Blake in class today. When I went looking for it online I found a quote of his that I thought summed up the anagogic mindset even better:

“The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.” (Blake)

That sounds like exactly what we're getting at with this religious, woo-woo, idea of art and poetry in the anagogic phase. But anyways, back to Blake, he's my critic but I hadn't done any research on him yet, only a list of questions about his criticism that I had intentions of researching and getting the answers to eventually. But, today was the last straw. Every single time we mention Blakes name, it is followed by excess or exhuberance and I can't stand it any more! I need to know what the connection is here between Blake and excess, exhuberance, what does this mean! For starters, dicitonary and thesaurus: exhuberance, because truth be told, i'm not sure i exactly know what that word indicates in it's most literal form, so before applying it to Blake's mentality, dictionary definition:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/exuberance

Of all the synonyms, the one i grasped best was "enthusiasm", which we etymologically traced to mean "in theos" , "in god" as in overtook by the spirit of god, which makes since in this context, the exhuberance of art, the religious aspect of art.

exhuberant: joyously unrestrained or enthusiastic

sounds like rhapsody to me. I imagine the behavior of an exhuberant person as sparking a lot of sideways glances and "woo-woo" critiques. Which leads me to some Blake artwork I found (apparently he was as famous a painter and engraver as he was a poet!)

The abundance of William Blake paintings out there really surprised me, first because i've always heard of William Blake in the context of poetry and had no idea he was a painter/engraver as well and second because these painting are OUT THERE, exhuberant, OVER-THE-TOP, wooo wooooooooo............

((More on Blake to come))

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

http://www.bartleby.com/236/71.html

Someone brought this up to class today, and I made a note to myself to look it up (special thanks to bartelby.com- a warehouse of essays and poetry for the romantics!) Here is yet another testimony to the anagogic mindset and the unseen powers that move us... the "IT" Heather was eluding to in her blog:

"It visits with inconstant glance

Each human heart and countenance"

We said in class today that anagogy is "almost a rememberance" A rememberance of what? This is an idea I hope to explore a little more in the coming discussions in class, but regardless it is echoed in this hymn by Shelley..

"I call the phantoms of a thousand hours

Each from his voiceless grave"

And lo and behold! A reference even to the "woo-woo" moment that accompanies these anagogic revalations....

"Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing

All vital things ..."

Haha I think i'm just kidding about that one. That's wooing singular, I think it is distinct from "woo-wooing"

As for my favorite line in this gorgeous hymn:

"O awful LOVELINESS,

Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express."

Ode on a Grecian Urn

In reading the first few sentences of the first Keat's letter on the web site that Sexson sent out to us- that on the "Authenticity of Imagination"- I immediately recalled this very important poem of his that we looked at in classic literature while studying greek mythology: "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html

Wow!

Re-reading this for the first time in almost 2 years- since Classical Lit Spring 07- I recall how much this poem moved me the first time I read it, oh! These lines in particular...

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

There's Anagogical for you! As we reviewed in class today, Anagogy is a wording of the highest thoughts, the highest thing imagineable. In works of art, like this grecian urn, beauty is preserved for all time as it cannot be in reality, which is why Keats and the other anagogists defend that poetry and art are above reality, because while nature's beauty changes, conforms, and dies out, beauty and truth are preserved in art and therefore better and ever-lasting.

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Rhapsody to Rilke

I liked how we used that word in class on Friday, discussing how both Sidney and Shelley's Defenses are rhapsodic in nature. I was intrigued by that beautiful word so i made a note to myself to look it up when I got home. Rhapsodic (dictionary definition): extravagantly emotional. Is it just me or is the literal, dictionary definition sounding pretty poetic there? Extravagantly Emotional. That's how I like my literature! I don't like literature laid out as math: none of these "how does X function in the text" analytical inquiries. I just want to be moved by something extravagantly emotional. Like Sidney, Like Shelley, where the poet is the "great legislator of morality".

One of the great Rhap-ers i've encountered in my literature experience and who has impacted me the most has been the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose prose piece "Letters to a Young Poet" I have returned to time and time again in times of loneliness and anxiety. As I am re-reading the letters right now, the mention of his work in our recent Northrop Frye reading assignment- the anagogic phase- was one of those classic instances of synchronization that seem fall on english majors at least 3 times as often as the average human being. Although, the "Letters" are the only literature by Rilke I have read (so far), it has offered me more comfort and been more valuable to me than anything else they've handed me in school. It is extravagance and exhuberance and emotion: it is poetry as religion, which is why Frye employs him as an example in the anagogic phase, where literature is thought to express the highest spiritual meaning. "Anagogic Criticism is usually found in direct connection to religion, and is to be discovered chiefly in the more uninhibited utterances of the poets themselves" (Frye 122). For Rilke art and poetry are the essence of life. I tried to see if I could figure out exactly which passage in the letters Frye refers to on that same page, 123, where he uses Rilke's idea of the poet "revealing a perspective of reality like that of an angel", and if it is taken out of "Letters to a Young Poet", I think it must be here in the sixth letter, where he advises the young poet to "think, dear sir, of the world you carry within you... be attentive to that which risses up in you and set it above everything" and then, the spiritual revelation of the poet:

"As the bees bring in the honey, so do we fetch the sweetest out of everything
and build Him. With the trivial, even with the insignificant (if it but happens
out of love) we make a start...with everything we do alone...we begin him"
(Rilke)

Effectively, the poet builds god, he and god are one. Anagogic may be the only one of the 5 symbolic phases i'm clear on, thanks to the Rilke allusion.

This will probably be the first of several blogs focusing on connections in Frye with Rilke.

If you haven't read it yet, go read it now, because I think no matter what point you're at in your life this book will spark lightbulbs and passions, or at the very least be helpful and comforting. I reccomend it to any and everyone!

Polemics, Apologetics

Frye preludes "Anatomy of Criticism" with a polemic introductions- having come across this term on more than one occasion in the study of lit crit, i had to wiki the definition, just to be clear on what we were referring to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_Criticism (see "polemic introduction"). What makes Anatomy of Criticism polemic? Polemic is defined as "the practice of disputing religious, philosophical, or political matters"- in other words, the "touchy" subject, the ones which, as we said in class, you NEVER bring up. So a polemic text, than, like Anatomy of Criticism, seeks to dispute a theory that is seemingly indisputable. That's Frye for you, going above and beyond mere dispute.

Curiously enough (leave it to the genius of wikipedia- one thing leads to another, link after link of synchronization), the definition for polemic included it's antonym: Apologia. As in Apologetics. Apologists argue for, rather than against, those touchy theories. Apologia is Frye= polemics. Sidney/ Shelley= apologetics. Anyways, i thought it was quite interesting that Frye and Sidney are by definition, opposites, both in style and in school of thought, since that was the initial impression I got in reading and comparing their works.

Myth of the Declining Ages

http://www.mythology.us/ovid_metamorphoses_book_1.htm

I posted this link primarily so that the class would have access to Ovid's "Myth of the Declining Ages" which we have seen referenced in Sidney's Essay, Frye, and frequently in class. However, a rereading of the following, the opening lines of Book 1 of Ovid's Metamorpheses, recalls Sexson's words in our class discussion this afternoon (or, I suppose that technically Sexson was recalling Ovid):

"I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you
are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin
out a continuous thread of words, from the world's first origins to my own
time."

This is, essentially, the idea that all poems are made out of other poems; all stories are a retelling; all literature is displaced myth: this is the assertion at the heart of Frye's theories on literary criticism. And lo and behold, it's Ovid! Amazing....

Check out the Myth of the declining ages, which recalls another part of our class discussion today, that of scripture and the religious interpretation of myth. Frye says that all literature is an extension of myth and you will see outlined in the myth of the declining ages the story of the fall of the man in the Bible (followed by Jupiter attempting to destroy the world with a flood. Biblical?)

And that's just the beginning...

Apology for Criticism

Admittedly, I've been feeling incredibly bitter towards the subject of criticism and critics of all categories in the last week... a condition that was probably brought on by the density of Frye and complemented by the criticism of films in my MTA class and the incessant picking apart of literature in my other survey classes for english lit. Reading Sidney's "Apology for Poetry" has been a complete relief in light of all this criticism, to encounter some literature that holds poetry up for it's beauty regardless of symbols, tones, genres, etc- "art for art's sake"-this is the attitude I want to uphold in regards to literature, the attitude of of Shelley.
However, I came across a passage today in Frye that struck me for it's convincing argument for criticism- so convincing that I had sort one of those lightbulb moments where it all came together: This is why criticism is so important!
It happened on Page 87 in the theory of symbols essay. Citing the example of the Bible as the inevitability of a sacred book and commentary on it's contents, Frye asserts that "when a poetic structure attains a certain degree of concentration or social recognition, the amount of commentary (read: criticism) that it will attain is infinite" (Frye 88). The analogies that follow to explain the inevitability and need for the critic, such as that of the scientist who is able to make theories about phenomenas in the universe that he cannot see or count, gave me the insight i needed to grasp this idea: "there is no occasion for wondering... how one small poet's head can carry the amount of wit, wisdom, instruction, and significance that Shakespeare and Dante have given the world" (Frye 88). And just like that I can't debate the relevance of criticism any more. As the poet's words, however beautiful they may be, are open to infinite interpretations and reactions, there is a case for criticism.

A Visionary Critic

William Blake: November 28, 1757- August 12, 1827

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5935

Wow. In reading the briefest of brief summaries of the life of William Blake I can already say that I get it. I understand Sexson's insistence on the importance of this man to literary criticism. And that is just from the summary. I've yet to read this man's work (which goes beyond just poetry) and see what everybody's talking about. Additionally, a while back when I first wiki-ed Northrop Frye for information on "Anatomy of Criticism", I was linked to his biography (Frye) in which I discovered, in the first few sentences of the wiki-bio, that William Blake was one of Frye's primary influences. In fact, it was "The insights gained from his study of Blake" that "set Frye on his critical path,and shaped his contributions to literary criticism and theory" (wikipedia, Northrop Frye). Statements such as this suggest that in our thorough studies of the theories of Northrop Frye, we have been, effectively, studying William Blake all along. "Anatomy of Criticism" was inspired by Frye's works on Blake.

Blake's philosophy is in the vein of our favorite romantics: imagination above reason, exhuberance: "His poetic and artistic work is characterized by a unique commitment to imagination as opposed to reason, and the visionary, almost terrifying, and sometimes grotesque nature of his subject matter" (William Blake- poets.org) And I would go further as to say not only by exhuberant ideas, but also an exhuberant manner of presentation of these ideas: in "illuminated manunscripts"- text, engravings, illustrations all intertwined.

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's" said Blake. Isn't this the cyclical thought behind the chapters in Frye we are studying now?

I've read a bit about Blake as a poet and painter thus far, but i've yet to look into his role as a critic. Although I suppose that these roles are really one in the same.

Tautologically Speaking...

I started reading Frye's second essay on the theory of symbols after class on Monday, with the subject of Tautology fresh on the brain. After our discussion about how this circular speaking is utilized by everyone from children trying to make reason, to the politicians we talked about in class, to GOD! We mentioned passages in the Bible that are tautological. I wonder if in an effort to express some ideas that are just too big to wrap the human mind around we can't help but resort to what ends up being repetition.
I think that literary criticism would be one such idea. Actually, when I was first getting into the theory of symbols, my initial thought was "Is this how you have to write in order to express a theory without a trace of tautology?" and, if so, what hope is there for the rest of us!
That was initially, as I read further I started to make note of some sentences that, within some very dense and meticulous passages, sound right repetitive... in Frye. For example, in "Literal and descriptive phases: symbol as motif and sign", I was a little stunned after reading this one:
"Poetic images do not state or point to anything, but, by pointing to eachother, they suggest or inform the mood that informs the poem" (Frye 81). Now, that sounds circular to me. But I'm sure a critic like Frye would never implore such a pathetic principle in his work.
Am I not getting the right idea of what Tautology is?
A wiki-search for the definition asks me to be a little more specific.... do I want to define tautology in regards to rhetoric or tautology in logic. I assume for our classes purposes, the rhetorical version. But just out of curiosity, what's the difference?
Tautology (rhetoric) is what we were making fun of Sarah Palin for in class- that is, the unecessary repetition of an idea; using different words to say the same thing twice. People who implore this rhetoric technique end up sounding either a)confusing, b) like children or c) like idiots. Rhetorical tautology can be logical if the sentence illustrates a truth, but it will usually be a completely useless assertions (wiki ex: "If you can't find it, you're not looking in the right place). Basically tautoloy in rhetoric is always going to be useless, senseless, or unecessary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology
As for tautology in logic- tautology that actually points to the truth and gets you somewhere.... that's a concept for the mathmeticians.

Music, Sweet Music

Weeding through the second essay of Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" I found myself becoming incredibly frustrated- frustration which began with me simply having to call my attention back to the words in front of me repeatedly as I started to zone out, unable to absorb the complex ideology, and eventually progressed into me having to control urges to just throw the book out of my sight. Call it critical overload. I'm taking 15 credits right now, and all 15 of them are reliant on criticism. I suppose that since there has been art there has been criticism; poetry, novels, films: these are highly influential genres and everybody has their opinion to voice. But Frye, Frye takes it- I've got to be honest- a little overboard sometimes. Truth be told i'm getting pretty annoyed here...But then again I'm probably just trying to compensate for or excuse not being able to understand him half the time...this feeble mind.....


But in the most recent reading of Frye, in between those "overboard" passages, I did happen upon some analogies that gave me some clarity. Fresh off of this newfound "understanding" of Frye (a vague understanding, but thats better than my previous state), I was very grateful for the "lightbulb" moments assignment we recieved in class today. In the last couple of days I've had a few to contribute!


It started for me in the description of the formal phase in the theory of symbols. (The formal phase which coincides with the New Critic's school of thought, which I'm to adopt for the final project), wherein Frye suggests the analogy of music as a way of understanding the roles of form and imagery in text. "The average audience at a symphony knows very little about sonata form, and misses practically all the subtleties detected by an analysis of the score; yet those subtleties are really there, and as the audience can hear everything that is being played, it gets them all as a part of a linear experience; the awareness is less concious, but not less real. The same is true of the response to the imagery of a highly poetic drama."

As with Walter Pater ("All the arts aspire to music") and Rilke ("Language where all language ends"), nothing proves more infallible an analogy than that of Music.

Comparing Criticisms

I'm fulfilling the last of my core credits this semester- the "A" credit, the "arts" credit- in an Media and Theatre Arts program 100 level class called "Movies in America", in which we've been dealing largely with movie criticism since the debut of cinema in the US until the present day. Many of the theories behind critiquing movies allign with those I've encountered before in literature classes. Movies to me, aren't a big deal. I'm not obsessed or passionate about them like, say, my brother, who is an MTA major and can relate every little daily scenario to some cinematic moment. He's got a lot to say about all the details of a film: the lighting, the sound, the cinematography, directing, editing, etc... but I've been paying a lot of attention to his rants and raves lately as well as those of my professor in MTA101 and kind of inwardly comparing and contrasting Movie criticism and Literary criticism. Well, I know it could be argued that film criticism IS literary criticism, since movies can be considered literature. Many are based on books and all rely on a script, a written play-by-play of the film. Tuesday, we were discussing the "Auteur" theory in regards to the movie Citizen Kane, which we then watched in class. I know from American Lit that this movie is regarded as an American masterpiece and a milestone in cinematic history. http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Academy-Awards-Crime-Films/Auteur-Theory-and-Authorship.html

Essentially, this "Auteur" or "author" theory proposes that the director of a film is like the author of a novel; permeating his artistic vision through the scenes of a movie like a novelist does through the words in a book. That we appreciate art because of the artist, that the voice of the artist comes through in the finished product. But this is a tricky theory to apply to the film genre,because how can you call the director the artist when a whole team of people go into the movie-making process? I tried to consider these ideas in light of some of Frye's ideas about literary criticism. So much more goes into an artistic body of work- be it film, novel, poem, painting- than just the words on the page, which are essentially just symbols. Although I do think that the author of a novel has a lot more responsibility for the finished product than the director of a film, who collaborates with a whole team of other artists to produce the final film. In some movies, it is the cinematography that really stands out, in others the score, and still others the acting. These elements don't come into play in a novel or poetry, or do they? One way I considered it was that the words on the pages of a novel are like a script, and the reader's interpretation is like a performance, in which sense, we're more responsible for our understanding or interpretation of the book than the author. Compare, contrast. Compare, contrast. These are other ways I'm finding to consider this complicated concept of criticism.