~Innocence~

Over the last several days there is a song that I have played over and over.....finally today, it occurred to me why I am so drawn to this song, and that it has ties to what we have discussed in English 300. The song is "Innocence" by Avril Lavigne (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir2Sg_8hC3w) and the lyrics go like this:


Waking up I see that everything is OK
The first time in my life and now it's so great
Slowing down I look around and I am so amazed
I think about the little things that make life great
I wouldn't change a thing about it
This is the best feeling

[Chorus]
This innocence is brilliant
I hope that it will stay
This moment is perfect
Please don't go away
I need you now
And I'll hold on to it
Don't you let it pass you by

I found a place so safe, not a single tear
The first time in my life and now it's so clear
Feel calm, I belong, I'm so happy here
It's so strong and now I let myself be sincere

I wouldn't change a thing about it
This is the best feeling

It's a state of bliss, you think you're dreaming
It's the happiness inside that you're feeling
It's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry
It's a state of bliss, you think you're dreaming
It's the happiness inside that you're feeling
It's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry

It's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry
This innocence is brilliant
Makes you wanna cry
This innocence is brilliance
Please don't go away
Cause I need you now
And I'll hold on to it
Don't you let it pass you by


How very interesting that this song speaks to the same ideas that are brought up in both "My Book and Heart Shall Never Part," and "Don Quixote." The song shows the emotions that get stirred up when discussing innocence and its loss. When we are innocent, we look at everything as beautiful, we "think about the little things that make life great." It is a reality that we will indeed lose much of our innocence, however, I have found that many people (including myself) wish to remain in that beautiful state. The chorus of this song echos a place that I have often been, wishing that my innocence would stay forever, never go away, and that I could hold onto it because I need it. Innocence allows you to look at the world the way that DQ does....in fact the other characters in Don Quixote have let there innocence drift so far away, that they simply cannot relate to DQ's desire to see the world the way it used to be- before the veil of innocence was removed from their eyes. I am realizing, however, that we still encounter moments of innocence. They can be recognized by this --

It's a state of bliss, you think you're dreaming
It's the happiness inside that you're feeling
It's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry

When we encounter these moments, we must grasp onto them and then proceed to carry them with us into the harsh reality of life as we have come to know it.

Touchstone....

"I began by seeing how man was formed by circumstances--and what are circumstances but touchstones of his heart? And what are touchstones but provings of his heart, but fortifiers or alterers of his nature? And what is altered nature but his Soul? --and what was his Soul before it came into the world and had these provings and alterations and perfectionings? --An intelligence without Identity--and how is this Identity to be made? Through the medium of the Heart? And how is the heart to become this Medium but in a world of Circumstances?"

-John Keats

In response to Dr. Sexson's request, I will now share with you a poem that, upon using the above description from Keats, would be referred to as a "touchstone" for me. My understanding of what Keats is depicting may not be exactly what he intended, however, I would hate to fall into the intentional fallacy by failing to share my response to this concept, so here it is.

When we look at our past and then look to our future, we must understand that from birth until death, our lives will be made up of circumstances. These circumstances serve to teach us, alter our nature, impact us, and mold our hearts- they also prove what our hearts contain and are made of. The alterations of our nature are really the alterations of who we are at our core, in our souls. When we were created in our mother's wombs, our souls held the opportunity for intelligence yet they did not yet have an identity. What forms our identity? What else but the very circumstances that build our lives-the emotional ways that we respond to them; anger, fear, joy, etc. things that we carry in our hearts from one circumstance to another. It makes sense then to say that our heart is the medium used to create our identity. However, without the circumstances, our hearts would be nothing more than an empty slate, a potential tool, a place void of identity and passion....

With this fresh insight, I have began to examine my circumstances to see what has given them meaning. I have found that, indeed, the way that my heart is touched and what it carries, gives them meaning and the ability to be a building block in my life.

In all honesty, my heart has been carrying hurt and sadness....a "touchstone" of my heart that is serving to alter me, perfect my strength, and form my identity at this point in my life is going through the experience of my grandfather's Alzheimer's with him. I live in my grandparents home and, as a result, am confronted with the reality of the situation on a regular basis. You may not be following me at this point, and instead wondering why I am sharing my life with you, but I do so because it provides the background for what my touchstone poem at this point is.

When I was reading through one of my old literature books, I came upon this poem that can be described as something that alters my life and touches my heart because of its familiarity.

Alzheimer's

"He stands at the door, a crazy old man
Back from the hospital, his mind rattling
Like the suitcase, swinging from his hand,
That contains shaving cream, a piggy bank,
A book he sometimes pretends to read,
His clothes. On the brick wall beside him
Roses and columbine slug it out from space, claw the mortar.
The sun is shining, as it does late in the afternoon
In England, after rain.
Sun hardens the house, reifies it,
Strikes the iron grillwork like a smithy
And sparks fly off, burning in the bushes--
The rosebushes--
While the white wood trim defines solidity in space.
This is his house. He remembers it as his,
And the garage, the rhododendron he planted in back,
A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved
Music. There is no time for that now. No time for music,
The peculiar screeching of strings, the luxurious
Fiddling with emotion.
Other things have become more urgent.
Other matters are now of greater importance, have more
Consequences, must be attended to. The first
Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who
This woman is, this old, white-haired woman
Standing here in the doorway,
Welcoming him in."

--Kelly Cherry


It is my belief that touchstone passages and moments do not only flow from a place of elevated joy and happiness, but from a place of understanding; Where you encounter something that strikes you hard, gives you new insight, redefines who you are, and overall touches you deeply.

~The Sublime~

This whole idea of the "sublime" is a fascinating one. Sublime comes from the Latin word sublimis, which means "to look up from." In other words, this is experienced when we encounter something that elevates our thoughts, emotions, etc. above the natural, or above our consciousness, taking us into what (if I understand right) Frye would call the world of anagogy.

I have a very special place in my heart for music and, throughout my life, I have had trouble expressing what music does to me- what it makes me feel and experience. It has previously been something that no words could define and to which nothing could be compared or given justice to. Now, however, certain possibilities are coming together in my mind. When I listen to music, I become wrapped up in emotions and into the powerful sensation that I am flying, dancing, swirling with a force that takes my heart and lifts it up and outside of myself. Now to explain that to the average person may prove to be quite difficult...through the discussions in our class and the insight of Chris, I have come to realize that what happens to me when I encounter music can be summed up in the word "sublime."

This realization is exciting to me because it wraps up all of my emotions, thoughts, and expressions relating to music, putting them into a word which allows everyone (or at least those who understand the sublime) to know that music stirs my heart to look up from my daily circumstances, reality, problems, and fears, separating myself from them and allowing me to have, what I would call, a divine/religious experience. Some of the music that has the greatest affect on me in this way is from artists such as Celtic Woman. In order to enter into the sublime with me, I will post a link for one of their videos. Sit back, close your eyes, and enjoy.........


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfO6JpR5Ip8

Today in class!

Today in class we were introduced to more fascinating literary critics: Hélène Cixous, Wolfgang Iser, Sigmund Freud, and Edward Said.


Heather
Hélène Cixous

-Born in Algeria, 1937

-Jewish

-Wrote without a genre

-Most famous theory "Le rire de la méduse" which encouraged women to communicate with their bodies and not with words.

-Said "It is impossible to define a feminine practice of writing, and this is an impossibility that will remain, for this practice can never be theorized, enclosed, encoded, coded -- which doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. But it will always surpass the discourse that regulates the phallocentric system: it does and will take place in areas other than those subordinated to philosophical-theoretical domination. It will be conceived of only by subjects who are breakers of automatisms, by peripheral figures that no authority can ever subjugate"

Brittini

Wolfgang Iser

-Born in Germany
-PhD in English
-Interested in intercultural exchange
-Believes that meaning are not crated solely by the author

Kyle
Sigmund Freud

-Born in the Australia empire, 1856
-Developed the idea of the id, ego, and super ego
-Godfather of psychoanalysis
-Believed that literature always had sexual desires, phallic symbols, etc. as its underlying theme or motivation.

Jiwon
Edward Said
-Jewish
-Believed any history is not standardized but idealistic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Matthew Arnold-

*Poetry as a "criticism of life"
*Poetry deals with the questions in the meanings of life
*Poetry as a substitution for religion
*"More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to provide for us, to console us, to sustain us, and to interprit life for us."
*Notions to take away from the essay:
-Notion of "Touchstones"
-Poetry as a religion

What you should know!

Hayden White has made many contributions to literary criticism, however, here are what I believe to be the most important.

1) Hayden believes that the techniques and strategies that historians and imaginative writers use in the composition of their discourses can be shown to be extremely similar. Essentially his opinion is that the writing of history is a poetic act and that historians and poets have "mutual implicativeness" in their respective techniques of composition, description, imitation, narration, and demonstration.

2) They key words to remember for Hayden White are "Master Tropes." He believes that Master tropes are the basis-the mode of consciousness-for all interpretation; and they resonate with modes of representing the world:

1. Metaphor
2. Metonymy
3. Synecdoche
4. Irony

Too bad this may not make much sense....

As I was going through my notes today, something grabbed my attention in a new way--the word "Apocalypse." In essence, this word means to "remove the veil." The more that we have studied literature and discussed it in class, the more I have come to see how poetry is essentially an apocalypse. This goes right along with our discussion on innocence, because poetry has a way of removing the veil of innocence from our eyes and allowing us to see things in a very new and revealing light. For example, in the movie "My Book and Heart Shall Never Part," the children new little of the world except for what they had seen or been told. When they learned to read and opened up books, however, they began to learn about lust, death, racism, etc. In other words, poetry (used as a metonymy here) slowly pulls away the veil that keeps a child innocent, and opens up their eyes to the reality of what really exists in the "real" world.

Spoken poetry also has a way of removing veils, giving us the ability to see the the true beauty of the world. This can be seen in the poem "The Idea of Order at Key West."

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

The question being asked here is why, after hearing her sing, did the town suddenly look so much more beautiful, enchanting, and magical. It seem as if, through her words, the town itself did not change, but the way that people looked at the town changed. The veil had been removed from their eyes and gave them the sight needed to see the real potential that the world can have when seen through the eyes of poetry.

What is a child??

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect the other night when I walked into the Emmerson and sat down to watch "My Book and Heart Shall Never Part." First of all I was taken in by the beauty of the old books with their stunning covers strengthened or mended with bits of cardboard, newspaper, pictures, or whatever else people had lying around. I have always been fascinated with things from the past, especially when they are very old--one of the books in the movie was from 1790, almost 219 years old!! The little children made the books come alive, their looks of awe and excitement probably mirrored mine as they searched through fading pages and found themselves immersed in the stories.

The question that really stuck in my mind as I watched the movie was, "What IS a child?" The first time they pick up a book, a whole new world is opened up for them. In fact, I just walked into the room when my grandparents were watching the movie "Love Comes Softly," just in time to hear a woman telling a child that "once you can read, you can have every adventure that you dream of." How very true that statement is; books open a child's eyes to things they only ever imagined. The potential problem with that is, are they learning about some things too early? The answer may depend on a person's answer to the question--what is a child?--It occurred to me during the movie that we can either view a child as a symbol of innocence to be cherished, or a new mind to be molded, shaped, and influenced. Honestly I don't find much wrong with seeing how ripe a child's mind is for learning new things, however, if we choose to focus only on what we can teach them we have a greater potential of destroying their innocence too early.

In class we have discussed how wonderful it would be to read things innocently as a child once again.....do we really want to take that experience away from children early on in their lives?? My answer would be no, but unfortunately the media's answer seems to be becoming a stronger and stronger yes. The movie by Dr. Sexson and his wife, opened my eyes to the power that is in the hands of the writer when it comes to shaping the next generation......I hope that they make the right choice in what they decide to teach.