D Q update

In regards to Chapter XXX -Which recounts the Good Judgment of the Beautiful Dorotea along with other highly diverting and amusing matters.

This chapter for whatever reason prompted me to write a response. i think what has got my attention through out the reading of Don Quixote is that there is always room for insanity. now while this may seem to be stating the obvious in regards to a novel that is about a man whom thinks himself a knight errant, i think i can explain my self more clearly. In this chapter DQ turns down the offer Dorotea makes which is marring Don Quixote, but he declines for he is still hopelessly(emphasis on hopelessly) in love with his lady Dulcinea. Then Sancho opens up his big mouth and tells DQ that Dorotea is not only a better catch, but she is asking for marriage now, and that DQ should marry her. Then DQ becomes so angered that he beats Sancho with his lance so badly that ,"if Dorotea had not called him to stop, he no doubt would have killed him then and there" (255). Not that these kind of shenanigans have been absent through out this novel, but i guess this part in particular got me thinking that there is something so interesting about the imagination, that it would result in some sort of action in real life. Even though Don Quixote will never be with Dulcinea and absolutely has no real concept of who she is, he would beat his friend to a pulp in her honor. i guess I'm just taken with the idea that even though it is only in his imagination, Don Quixote is willing to sacrifice the things that are real in order to defend what is good. What Dulcinea stands for is virtue, kindness, and goodness so i guess what i see in DQ his his ability to defend the things that are real and worth fighting for, even if they are exemplified in people or things that don't exist.

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets

i think that the idea of combining all of these poems in one understanding is really reflective of what we have learned about T.S. Eliot during class. His quote about ceasing exploration and finding your self arriving where you first begun is such an interesting element, an i think it can be seen in the first poem Burnt Norton

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

i think he is right about knowing that time cannot even factor into our lives, which to me relates to the idea of exploration being something that we cannot attain, just as time is not something we can attain, ultimately we just arrive where we were and see it for the first time, just as time goes by but we are still in the time present, we cannot gain the knowledge that we want to acquire a lot of the the times for we end up finding our selves just as clueless and thirsty as we began, and time may gain wisdom, but ultimately i think that wisdom will just prove to us our foolishness and lack of understanding, maybe that is what it takes to be truly wise, is to know that you know nothing time and time again.

definitions please

Words that we have disscussed in class and that are found ihn Frye's text that i can't seem to define on my own
(I picked out the definitions i liked the best)

Pathos-1 : an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion or tears

Spoudaios-active, diligent, zealous, earnest

Dianoia-the mind as a faculty of understanding, feeling, desiring


Alright now on to the theory of Modes:

Fiction According to Frye
There is a difference between fictions and those differences lie with in the characters in the fictions themselves. fictions are not based off morality, not concerned with the god or the bad but rather their ability or inability to accomplish what it is that they are trying to do.

Fiction According to Me
So what i gather from what Frye expresses in this chapter is that fiction is not necessarily didactic, but rather purposeful though the characters in the fiction, which i found to be interesting because i remember always being read fictions that had some type of moral, but looking at that now it is kind of easier to see that we as people always try and discover the moral in a text , even if there is not one to be found. i think the reason we do this is to comfort our selves in some sort of way so that we feel like the three little pigs we able to offer us something. its sees as if we are unable to just deal with the fact that somethings have a purpose, but are not necessarily instructive...

My Vision

When we were talking in class about Frye's theory of modes and the theory of symbols i decide to make a visual representation which in my head really shows the connection between the two chapters, exposing the similarity in pattern that can be seen in Fry's concepts.

LOGOS

The idea that there is the agency of creation through one's voice. God spoke and the world was created right? so then why is this concept something that we tend to pass off as folly rather than applicable in our everyday life. I'm sorry if i am bursting anyone's bubble, but the truth is our voices do have the agency to create. Again I'm going to reference Steven' poem, "That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made".The world that she created around her she was able to do solely because she spoke the words that were the song that became the world. Just as Stevens created the world in which the singer could create he world through song...now i know this is getting a little weird but in my mind it makes sense though not only literature, but our everyday life that we have the ability to create by our words. This ability is so powerful and I don't think we give much credit to it because when i heard of logos my mind stayed on God and the creation, but when you apply it to life, especially literature i think you really get an understanding of how important literature and words really are, it kind of makes me think of those dolls that are all sacked inside one another

ya those dolls...well they are stacked inside one another and through opening one you get another, there is creation in each of them, but they are the reason for the creation. In literature there is the creation of the story, which was created by the mind, words, and thoughts of the creator, and then the fact that the creator was created in the same manner, well that just blows my mind...ya logos is cool

Postcard from the Order at Key West

When we were all given Wallace Stevens' poem "The Idea of Order at Key West", i was given another poem of his that Dr. Sexon handed out as an extra little gift, the poem was titled "A Postcard from the Volcano". And i sort of stored it away in my notebook until we began to get deeper into Wallace's poem. When i pulled it out and read it, it was obvious that the same artist composed both pieces of work. While both pieces of work have multitudes of aspects that could be examined and analysed , there was one aspect that seemed to stick out to me more than the rest, the aspect was the parallel between hearing and seeing. In the Idea of Order, there is an obvious emphasis on hearing the singer's song, where as similarly in the the Postcard there seems to be an emhasis on seeing things.

A Postcard from the Volcano

And least will guess that with our bones

We left much more, left what still is

The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow

Above the shuttered mansion house,

Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.

We knew for long the mansion's look

And what we said of it became

The Idea of Order at Key West

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

I would like to believe that Wallece Stevens knew something that we still try to grasp in regards to poerty and literary critisism. he seemed to know there is so much more than reading the piece of literature. One must hear it and see it with poery seeing eyes and poetry hearing ears. and in that i would like to think poetry takes on another form, maybe even a form removed from critisism. maybe...

Alright so here it goes...

i have written many post in my notebook, but have yet to transfer them onto my blog...so that is what i am going to do...it may take a long time but that is what i get for being procrastinator extraordinaire, what can i say...i mean i am an English major for crying out loud! so here is where i will begin to expose the thoughts i have had all semester