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Keats and Fear [Dec. 3rd, 2006|09:17 pm]
Fear is a curious animal. It strikes each and every one of us in one facet of our lives or another.

In spite of being an incredibly unique man who lead an equally unique life, John Keats proved to be rather typical in terms of fear. He feared death. His fear of death tied specifically to the prospect of not being able to drain his pen of ink, if you will. His mind was full of things to express and he feared not having enough years to put it all together. His second fear in death was being unable to fully experience love.

You might say he feared the possibility of not living a full life as a whole. His specification as to what is a full life was love and artistic expression.

So, I guess poets are pretty normal after all. They're actually people. Everyone fears not being able to do everything they want to do on this Earth before it's too late.

I find it interesting that we spend the first 20 something years (fewer in Keats' time) of our lives trying to find direction, and when we find it we spend the next 60 years making sure we do every dream we can think of that lies tangent to that direction so that we don't miss anything. Don't get me wrong, it makes perfect sense to you and me why things pan out that way, but only because it's the way of humanity. From an outside perspective, I think a rational, sentient being might question our initial choice of direction. However, they would only find that no matter what direction you take, you're still going to get sick of your area of expertise now and again and need a break.

Such is life.
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Frankenstein, Life, etc. [Nov. 12th, 2006|05:47 pm]
It's rather apparent early on in Frankenstein that Mary Shelley possesses a very cautious attitude towards powerful science. Specifically, she approaches the subject of controlling life with extreme caution in Frankenstein. So, what would Mary Shelley thing today?

Writing in the complete absence of my personal opinion, at least to the best of my ability, I'm going to attempt to surmise what she would think of today's scientific world.

I think Mary Shelley would take a strong conservative stance on life and science. She may even have used the argument about "playing God," in spite of her husband being a loud atheist (for the sake of agreement in their marriage, I would assume she was at least open-minded to his ideas). However, more likely, I think is that she would have been afraid of the more worldly consequences rather than the eternal. She would fear genetic engineering, euthanasia, and stem cell treatment, certainly, and would have, at the very least, large reservations about abortion.

I've always found it interesting how people's perspectives change over time. Shelley was not considered a conservative by any stretch of the imagination in her time, but today (given that we literally transported her here, rather than started her anew in this time period) her caution would likely be heavy.
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Poets and Poetry [Nov. 1st, 2006|08:07 pm]
In class, I initially wrote the following:

"What is a poet??" asks Wordsworth. He does so rhetorically before answering with, among other things, "He is a man speaking to men [...] who has a greater knowledge of human nature."

With the first part I agree, a poet is a man/woman speaking to his/her species. However, WOrdsworth goes awry when he claims that a poet has a greater knowledge of human nature.

It is not a knowledge, but a greater awareness of his knowledge of human nature that a poet possess, for what is knowledge without the perception of the use of that knowledge and the awareness that one has it? Thus, poetry is the use of one's knowledge on human nature of human nature to express thoughts, feelings, and inane ramblings to fellow humans.

Additionally, poetry is a means of relieving demons and capturing them on a page. It expresses both the divine and the red clay we stand on."

To the above I got a few responses. Two focused on my distinction between awareness and knowledge, and the other focused on my statement about the relief of demons.

I'll first address my distinction between awareness and knowledge. They are different things. You can know things without being aware that you know them. I use "aware" to define "being able to actively use." In terms of human nature, we all have roughly the same basic knowledge. However, it is not until you pull it to your conscious that you can actively use it to your advantage.

My example comes from my debate experience in high school. Anyone knows that people only listen to, and by "listen to" I mean seriously consider, things that "speak to" them, but an effective debater is able to use that knowledge to tailor presentation to his/her audience. It seems intuitively obvious (redundancy intended) that you'd change your presentation to affect your audience more, but that doesn't mean you actively do it. This is because you may consciously concern yourself with the idea that "well, these are the facts," and lose sight of presentation issues. Facts are two sided coins; change the way things are presented and, suddenly, you can change their perception.

During pre-nationals camp (yep, nerd) it was explained to me by one counselor that, as a citizen of the state of New Mexico, telling him that global warming doesn't exist is preposterous, it's just too hot at home. Therefore, I changed my attacks to focus on the infeasibility of the Kyoto Protocol as a relief from global warming and, while I won't go into debatey explanations of the effectiveness of my change in argumentation, I can say that this revised approach found solid results. Meanwhile, when on the Pro side, I argued the massive impacts of global warming by narrowing them down to my audiences' families with the same effectiveness.

* Editorial note: Anthropogenic global warming is a mockery of science. The Kyoto Protocol is a mockery of global poltiics. Combined, they make one of the most ridiculous political-polarization tools in the history of mankind.

As to my statement on the relief of demons. I never claim that writing something down expels it from all memory in the world. My point is that putting your demons on a page externalizes them so as to allow you to move on.

My original writing seems to be cut short... because it was. I was planning on extending further, but I lost my train of thought. Essentially, I was going to go into a list of maximums and minimums that poetry manages to encompass, but that's flowery and boring.

It's a lot easier to make these posts interesting and of decent length when I have a specific point or two to focus on.
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Byron's Defense [Oct. 29th, 2006|11:46 pm]
I find Byron's defense of Don Juan interesting on a few levels.

My first point of interest is his defense of the length of the work.  He says that "if one's years can't be better employed than in writing poesy, a man had better be a ditcher."  Coming from a writer, this seems a rather odd statement. However, this serves as further proof of Byron's mass appeal. He was said to be a ladies' man, if you will, and that probably stems from having "a life" outside of his work. It also shows that he understood the idea of people having a certain attention span, and how word economy affects that. It also shows that he understood how short, succinct works, if written well, easily have the same rhetorical powers as long-winded, meandering ramblings.

Secondly, I find it interesting that, even in having a strong concept of the real world, he says that he will not pander to any audience with "ladies books" or the like. Such a bold move is interesting. He doesn't bother with simply being popular and making money, he writes for himself, or, as he puts it,  "I have never written for their pleasure."

In essence, he knows what he wants to say and he says it, a rare quality in most artistic ventures.
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Albatross, Eternal Life, 42, and, Possibly, the End of the Universe [Oct. 22nd, 2006|09:36 pm]
To sum up the plot of "Rime" (old spelling used in the book) in everyday language: dude kills bird, that action leads to his friends' deaths, he is eternally damned to have to tell his story on earth.

I think that leads to a broader analysis of the Albatross.

The idea of a specific entity that is the linchpin of a series of events appears in many stories. Now, as a linchpin, the albatross' death in "Rime" could be construed to actually being a good thing. There is always the battle about whether or not eternal life would actually be enjoyable. If you happen to lie on the side of those who think frolicking about the earth forever would be delightful, then the death of the Albatross could be a good thing, and might lead you to becoming a murderer. Or, you could be on the side that says living forever would get rather dull. With these people my allegiance lies.

Given all of the above, let us ponder the infinite wisdom of Douglas Adams. The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42.

According to said wisdom, if one person knows the answer and the question, the world will end.

I think the world is about to end.

42 is the answer.

The question, thus, is "To kill or not to kill your Albatross?"
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B/Pride and Prejudice [Oct. 2nd, 2006|12:00 am]
I'm honestly not sure where to begin.

Bride and Prejudice was an experience, but, then again, Indian movies are an experience as a whole.

What I find most interesting about the story is the changes that were made from the Jane Austen novel. Some of these are rather simple, like the adjustment of names of the Indian characters to reflect their ethinicity and the change to a modern time period.

Beyond that however, is the biggest change, which occurs near the end. In the novel, Darcy reveals that Wickham tried to elope with his little sister, but in this Bollywood adaptation, we find that Wickham tried to elope with her because he got her pregnant at a mere 16 years of age. The shock of this is lessed with the hilarity of the fight scene in front of the movie screen, which includes the exact moves of the fight scene in the backdrop movie. However, that humor aside, this is a major change to the story. While the book implies a loss of virginity, this movie makes it blatantly obvious that Wickham went full tilt into seducing Darcy's sister.

On top of this, I find Darcy a much more sympathetic character in Bride far sooner than in the book. This may be tainted by the fact that I already knew the story, but he comes across as having something deeper early on, while Lalita antagonizes him simply because he is American. I suppose that's where prejudice plays in most obviously in the book and this movie.

It was mind boggling, but an altogether interesting way of telling the story. I'm surprised at how quickly the story is told, given that a good 1/3 of the movie is spent in song and dance.

A surprising assignment, and not too painful to boot.
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(no subject) [Sep. 17th, 2006|12:56 pm]


I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the authors we've discussed lately would have found this 1950's ad horrifying.

Wollstonecraft would have had a conniption. It would have been followed by a 200 page response to each of the bullet points that elaborates on how a woman exists not to serve the man, but to be his equal. Barbauld and others would have agreed.

So, in modern terms, what would happen? I imagine those authors banding together and walking the streets of towns large and small, chanting "Death to Chauvinism" or what-have-you.

I'm short on having a lot to say this week, but I do offer my classmates the above ad and a path for thoughts to wander on. What if these revolutionaries were alive when this ad was published or even today? Would they applaud the change since the 50's?

As I said before, the response to the ad would be angry. However, I think the authors would find today's world very pleasing. Stopping short of the same arguments from last week about the equality of today, I will say that the fact that the above ad has circulated around the internet as a comedy item says a lot about the mindset of people today in relation to gender equality.
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A Strange Dichotomy of Male Control [Sep. 10th, 2006|07:07 pm]
In the excerpt from the second chapter of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft presents a feature of male-dominated society that seems self defeating. She tells us, essentially, that men force ideas upon women that they should be subservient, pure, and infant-like. However, she then explains that men complain about women who nag incessantly, needing to be taken care of even after having children that, theoretically, they should be raising.

Thus, men of Wollstonecraft's time created their own little Frankensteins. They made a creature who knew only what they allowed her to know. Asking someone to think and know things based on common sense, intuition, and problem solving skills that we would consider common when they have not had the formal training to do so is obviously ridiculous. Therefore, the repression of women only furthered the stereotype that they were somehow less capable than men.

In essence, male dominance became its own worst enemy. Rather than liberating men of cares and allowing them to control the world without additional responsibilities, it made them caregivers as well.

Karma? Perhaps.
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W Blake [Aug. 29th, 2006|02:57 am]
I have a strong suspicion that history repeats itself not only in terms of events (wars, etc.), but also in social trends. The discussion of William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" serves as evidence in affirmation of this suspicion.

Blake condems organized religion, government, and society as a whole. Interestingly, he says many of the same things that a typical 18-24 year old student would say. However, he does this with eloquence and a level of maturity not found in the vast majority of said demographic.

I believe he achieves this level of poise because he observes something very abstract that, paradoxically enough, makes his words more concrete. He takes notice of perspective and relativity.

Relativism tells us that all things are relative. It says that a mouse is tiny compared to an elephant, but rather large compared to a bacterium. It also states that because of this all things are relative, meaning that everything is related because everything can be compared to everything else. Yes, even apples and oranges.

Now, wait a second, you can’t really compare everything to everything else.

Since relativism requires the observance of a little idea I'm going to call "Perspectivism," the former is not universally true. If I remove the issue of perspective from Relativism, it no longer works. If we take a microscope and zoom in on the elephant, mouse, and bacterium, we'll find that we see the exact same amount of material of each creature. Taking into account the assumption that we have no idea if there is any additional creature beyond our frame of reference, all three creatures will appear to be the same size.

Thus, is "Perspectivism" universally true? No. I guarantee someone out there doesn’t agree that perspectives are key to understanding anything.

Example: I’ve never been through a divorce. I know lots of people that have. Can I compare to them? No, not directly, not in a purely relativistic sense, but according to my personal idea that, given the proper perspective, we could relate a divorce to the loss of a friend or a break-up. In a "perspectivistic" sense, I can perfectly comprehend and console someone through a divorce. I will, of course, admit that there is certainly a difference in the degree of pain someone in a divorce experiences versus a bad breakup, but the essential ideas are the same. However, I’ve had friends, more than once, tell me that I “can never understand, [I]’ve never been through it.”

I won't argue because it honestly doesn’t matter in relation to my larger point.

It doesn’t matter because not believing in my ability to relate does not infringe on my rights to think that I do, just as my belief that I can relate does not infringe on your right do disagree with me, and, therefore, neither of us are harmed.

To bring us back from the tangent, I'll say that my overall point is that Blake realizes that everything relies on perspective. He makes this clear in the title. "Proverbs of Hell" obviously wasn't intended to make the reader immediately think of the Church's visions of morality and the world. In choosing to assume the perspective of a heretic, he realizes his audience will be in a questioning frame of mind. If the reader is questioning the ideas Blake presents, he/she is more likely to question the alternate ideas of the establishment because comparison is the most natural vehicle of questioning, and it is this overall questioning of ideas that social commentators strive for.


We can see, because of this, that the ideas of Blake are repeating even in this day in age. There is a growing group of people, young and old, who choose to question established norms and the direction our world is going. This trend cycles with a counter-trend of obedience, and therein we have an unending cycle of norms repeating throughout history with other important bits of history like the rise and fall of nations. In fact, we could even claim that this questioning is related to that rise and fall, making it a part of a larger pattern on the path of humanity.
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