Lesson Plans of the Past

The Little film about Little Books I saw not that long ago. I don't think I have laughed so whole heatedly in a while as I did watching moments of the film. Some very intriguing clips from passages in the books and the way in which they represent life at that time was a lesson for me in itself. Noticing how some names where capitalized and others weren't is particularly interesting when some of the books talked about the bible. I remember books growing up and the ones I remember the most had personified animals in them. This seems a very old and successful idea for children lesson plans. I had to laugh about how accurate some of the books lessons where about the dangers in daily life. "Don't drink from a hot tea pot! Don't get crushed under a horse carriage!" I think the illustrations got to me because I cannot think of any type today that can match there "true accuracy" about life danger lessons. I'm not sure at what point a child reads for inquiry beyond what their given to know. The film captures this idea of a child growing in knowledge beyond the letters and pages of early learning. It shows the wanderlust of a world apart from the household. In turn it also shows the construction of the little books and critiques societal thought about that world without saying anything, just showing the pages and clips of passages. It reminds me of reading old national geographic magazines. The spectrum of geographic study is very different from the 1940s contrasted with the 1980s. It's different because we learn more and different because we don't remember what we learn but in fact relearn what was forgotten. A little bit like a centrifugal lesson according to.....what his name again? Well, that's my most prominent thought about the film so far but I'm sure many connections will be made to Don Quixote as I try to read six hundred pages in due time.

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After reviewing what I had scrambled down for notes today I think I could have done pretty well if it were a pop-quiz. True, not much about Don Quixote was said in Lu of questioning for the exam. Frye, sure was. I'm not to the Canon character in the novel yet. I just finished the chapter were Quixote set free the men from in route to the galley's. I thought more would develop from the interest of Quixote in the guy whose history is still being written. For sure, I thought Quixote and that guy were going to team up. In all that Quixote said about the unjustified punishments, it was pretty bold an arrogant. There might be a difference between those two terms but Quixote doesn't make it easy to define the difference. As a character his actions are very bold and his vocal suggestions or more accurately demands, are come off very arrogant to the others characters in the novel. I've seen the musical and one thing I remember most is the expression of Sancho's face while Quixote continues speaking anything and everything that's on his mind to others. While reading I imagine this vividly and it may be something I've brought to the novel but I'm not sure yet. In fact, I'm quite sure a lot of knowledge I have about the world will connect in some kind of way with Cervantes' dianoia's as E.M. Forster has said.

tuesday-

I'm trying to remember all what was said in class discussion yesterday and I got to thinking about what the variety of questions will be for the test. A vast range of interests I'm sure will construct a most challenging exam. Well, maybe not too challenging because I want to pass. I feel like Frye's theory of modes is father back in the semester than it should be. Although we allude to Fyre's graph of modes and strive to place whatever idea we talk about into it, I'm still wondering where Catcher in the Rye would fit. I feel it kind of belongs in the low mimetic/thematic box but I'm not sure. Would that be placing a kind of modernist notion in a low mimetic? I mean if certain texts that we know kind of exemplify a literary idea does it help to place it into Frye's method for understanding modes or not? Again tonight I had Quixote pop into my head while reading for another class. I kind of chuckled about my thoughts too. I tried to imagine what the sum of Don Quixote and the Terminator would be. If Quixote can get beat up constantly and come back to life in a somewhat coherent state then he must posses some kind of super human endurance or android regenerative qualities. If the Terminator comes from the future with apocalyptic news then I'd like to bet (apart from the story in the movie) that the loss of chivalry must have something to do with it. Even though many of Quixote's engagements with the "enemy" seem ridiculous we must wonder how what he actually forecasts in his mind might be more dangerous than the reality Sancho sees him in, for now. Maybe that will be my question- If Don Quixote engaged the Terminator what would happen? Would Quixote accuse him of possessing his amour or would the Terminator surrender and take over Sancho's duties and service Quixote in his exploits? Answer- both

Amost getting it-

Page 119 is rich in Frye- "Rituals cluster around the cyclical movement of the sun, the seasons and human life." "Recurrence and desire interpenetrate" I don't think I understand what Frye means as concretely as he did but in trying to think about how the archetypal phase of symbols works I somewhat get it. The traditions of rituals in conjunction with what is happening in nature surely operate in side by side. It helps to think about the rhetorical political landscape and how words refer to the natural shift in things. Words and phrase captured by the media or more accurately edited by the media play on the "motifs and themes" that are most likely to fuse with a particular human emotion. It almost seems for me that in Frye's theory of symbols the formal stage is really fused more with the archetypal stage before anything else. Although understanding the formal phase or any other stage for that matter requires comprehension of examples it nevertheless operates hidden in daily rhetoric. Well, maybe not hidden but spoken plainly without hinting at what language is referring to directly. So far I may have convincing myself that this happens but not until others might suggest similar instances in class.

How do symbols form?

I understand what Frye has to say in his "Theory of Symbols" from a few examples I've read so far. He mentions that a dictionary would be useless if we did not already have some knowledge of others words. I understand this notion to be explained further in thinking about how we can't totally comprehend the meaning of a word until we picture it. We do not have a complete understanding until the picture or "symbol" gives us an image to base a definition or description of off. Even then it's still a continuing form and shape that floats aimlessly until we attach it the best definition of it we view as the most qualified. Frye uses a cat as a symbol that is broad enough to float through different meanings and different personal attachments to the symbolic meaning. At times a symbol gets confusing in how the text means to show it or how the author of the text meant to use the symbol in relations in textual imagery. "The reality-principle is subordinate to the pleasure-principle" can sum up all that is learned when constructing a symbol in reading literature. It seems that a common reaction to that phrase would be "of course!" It may not be though. If literature at it's most basic operation in the universe "instructs and entertains" then why do we need answers to know which comes first? The pleasure in being entertained surely dominates the recognition of feeling more knowledgeable while reading. In a way it also disguises infusing knowledge while being entertained. In thinking about how we forms symbols or how the symbols form the meaning of what we read I would recommend consulting your consciousness differently. Don't think about how the symbol comes to makes sense after reading, think about how the symbol makes more sense as the reading continues. It makes more sense because a symbol has multiple meanings and it would be impossible to dissect which ones induce the pleasure-principle and which ones induce the reality-principle or the learning principle.

Missing Cervantes

I just spent three hours ready fifty pages of Faulkner. The whole time I wish I was reading Cervantes. I miss Don Quixote. I miss reading about his mind when I'm forced to read something I really can't seem to find relevant to my education. Reading Faulkner is not what I imagined taking most of time this semester. I did not think most of my time reading any assignment would morph into ponder what reading in Don Quixote lies ahead of me. I think the class discussion about the essence of what constitutes a comic book hero provoked me to wonder exactly how Don Quixote is one. If that's true then do all the other characters have less than heroic implications and ideals in the novel? I suppose not but what is their purpose? It's odd that I feel kind of sad for Don Quixote at times but I always seem to side with the other characters before I truly believe his thoughts. I don't why. I really wish I could remember anything I've just read in Absalom Absalom moments ago. I shouldn't fret though because I know I now have a yearn to read Cervantes. Whether it is a yearn to read in spite of something else or a yearn to just return to a world in a book that is suspended from the norm, I don't know. It's probably both and that might be a good thing. I feel some reading always is accompanied with a spiteful attitude. In the case of reading Don Quixote that spiteful attitude turns into many attitudes or perceptions about reality. While reading Cervantes, perceptions about daily interactions seem less important. Perceptions about life seem to only matter in regards to what happens to Don Quixote's life. This is what I know after reading Faulkner. Bazaar eh?

I. A. Richards

"Almost no contemporary critic has written without being touched by Richards at some point" has been said about I.A. Richards in regards to influence on others. Richards believed that a comprehensible approach to literary criticism would need to be placed upon reason in a a more "scientific approach to it". His ideas helped harbor the "new criticism" into the vast philosophy of viewing the text differently than as before. To "construct a less subjective standard of literary value" is one of his major themes in striving to put old opinions away in thinking about a text. It reminds me in thinking about the low mimetic/ thematic box of Frye's criticism works to illustrated this notion. The separation from the dominant order is clearly a method that Richards has created for criticism. The individuality of separating from the older or traditional approaches to a text create a new approach. Richards also wrote poetry revealing "new insights into himself well into his old age". His was very active in mountaineering and traveling but I can't really think of any Brit than isn't at some point in their life. One thing that is most disagreeable with Richards is his idea that world problems could be reduced through the promotion of English. Although his work with linguists and suggesting a "basic English" vocabulary is commendable, history since the publishing of his book So Much Nearer has taken a different view. History has also been taken his "new critical literary" approach as one of the founding ideas as new method.