all in all

Its funny, typically the blog is a writing relief, it is perfectly acceptable to write in casual style, there is hardly a concern conveying messages because the language and ideas are not entirely far from reach. However, the same cannot easily be said when the ideas, directions, and connotations of anagogy are brought to discussion.

While sitting down to write this, I accumulated about a page of opening statements, that now lay barely visible under the wrath of frustration and a rubber eraser. To try and begin the discussion of anagogy with any opening sentence or paragraph itself, reduces the very limitlessness of the concept.

My proverbial doors of perception to this concept, first began to unlock, unlatch, and creek open when our Dr. Sexson expanded up the commonly used yet commonly misunderstood word: Apocalypse. The lifting of the veil as it had been described.

This de-masking, can be seen in many religious texts, obviously in the Christian Bible…apocalypse, rapture… but it is seen somewhat more clearly, more true to the Greek origin of he word in the Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita.

In Bhagavad-Gita there is a discussion between Krishna (what serves essentially as a God) and Arjuna (I think a king if I remember correctly). Krishna, in order to convince Arjuna to go to war must show him in a sense how insignificant he is in respect to the entire order of things, to show how the world as Arjuna sees it is only micro in the eternal macro. Giving Arjuna divine eyes to look upon Krishna, Arjuna sees…all.

“All was magnificent, all expanding, unlimited.”

Arjuna says, “you are the origin without beginning middle or end.”

Krishna answers “Time I am, destroyer of worlds.”

It is here Arjuna understands, he understands in a way no one has before: limitlessly. Connecting this moment that Arjuna has of exuberance, of absolute power, knowledge, everything. Of absolute period – with the notion of anagogy, the idea that these things that he sees are attainable through literature. That complete understanding of all, can be reached once literature can be seen without a veil: complete, utterly infinitely eternal…lets just say woo-woo.

In fact when Openhimer viewed the first atomic explosion in Los Alamos, while others cried, laughed or remained silent, he too was reminded of the Bhagavad-Gita, and later cited these same passages while recounting the experience… “as if a thousand suns…”

This moment in class, discussing Frye was my woo-woo moment, my nuclear explosion.

Now this is certainly not to say I understand anagogy fully, or have truly ever seen literature or the world at this level, for I do not feel that is truly possible with human constraints. But it is the recognition and acknowledgment of this of plane existence which is significant. Blake too, sees them but, admits does not see them to their full extension.

“ the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.”

Its pretty crazy because all these things, well they border on the idea that anagogy is itself religious, that those who see, are truly enlightened. It follows almost any major religion. One is all and all is one. For quite a long time I have never considered my self a religious man, but all this while studying English, I have in a sense been pursuing the enlightenment that almost all religions strive to attain. Again I am nowhere near there, nowhere, but still its pretty woo-woo.

“I’ll reveal the truths of heaven, all the oracles

That highest wisdom holds. The things I sing

Are mighty things our forebears did not probe,

Things that have long been hidden. Let us roam

Among the starry heights; yet, let us rise

Above the earth-this site so dull, inert;

Let clouds transport us, let us stand upon

The sturdy Atlas’ shoulders; from that height

We shall watch those who stagger far below"

-pythagoras

Sancho Zimmer Pedro Martinez

constantly in class we discuss, how literature repeats itself, not only in texts but in real life. About a week ago in Don Quixote I was reading the passage where Sancho is tossed around by the group of men at the inn, one of the men being named Pedro Martinez, I couldn't help but laugh because as anyone from New England can remember. Pedro Martinez was once a pitcher for the Red Sox and in a playoff game against the Yankees he threw Yankees manger Don Zimmer (72 year old fat man) to the ground...hilarious... I tried and tried to find a youtube of this but MLB removes all of its film from online, there was however this one clip of the fight but it is unfortunatly followed by some wicked stupid acting by a yankees fan, so just check out the brief fight -picturing this to be sancho- and dont bother with the film after. 

small frye in a baked potato world

I just sat down to the arduous task of reading some Frye -its been hard with all these low mimetic comedies coming in from netflix- and i found a passage that links up exactly to a point i was trying but had a difficult time making a few posts ago. Originally i had commented on a blog by Jiwon in which there is a segment of Edward Said and i went on to say something about his view of Orientalism and what that is all about. The point i was trying to make is that while we are beginning to study our own critics-and the theories to which they contribute- it is important to recognize that we must also be absorbing all the orbiting information around our critic and around those of our peers. Or as Frye puts it, "With critics using material from psychology and anthropology, with Aristotelians, Coleridgians, Thomists, Fruedians...with students of myth, rituals, archetypes, metaphors...The student must either admit the principle of polysemous meaning, or choose one of these groups and then try to prove that ll the others are less legitimate. The former is the way of scholarship, and leads to the advancement of learning; the latter to the way of pedantry pg 72"
now while this idea might be already quite apparent to most, or has already been cited, but i feel that this passage from Frye signifies the very theme of this class: Survey of Literary Criticism.

Paul De Man

Paul de Man, 1919-1983 a deconstructionalist plagued with posthumous scandal ( caches of writings for a Belgian newspaper with anti-semitic tendencies were discovered and widely published) was for a time a professor at such institutes as Cornell, Johns Hopkins, University of Zürich as well as Yale. As a deconstructionalist his views conflicted or rather cast criticism towards such schools as the Romantic, questioning its support of "symbol over allegory, and metaphor over metonymy.

-For those of you without the extra 40 seconds to check out the links (or maybe you already know what there is to be said...) but metonymy, as i learned it to be is similar to metaphor in the sense that it is a substitution of one term for another, but rather than it being based on similarities, it is instead based on contiguity
the examples given by wikipedia are slightly as follows
Metaphor: "that man is an ass" (instead of that man is mean)
Metonymy: "The Whitehouse issued the following statement:" (instead of "Prez sayz: 'kill'")
both are ways forms of representation the latter holds on to a thread of extension or contiguity-

Despite the controversy and criticism surrounding de Man what w there is still great support by his peers and students and a call to applicate his work for what it was rather than the context in which it was surrounded.

It's all greek to me.

I was looking around at the blogs the other day to see just how far behind I was on posting. I came across Jiwon’s blog –which I’ve cruised over before- just to see what she had been doing and I saw this picture of Edward Said. At the time I didn’t even think that this may have been her critic to study, I thought that maybe she was just into Said as a figure. Because I myself am “into” him because I support his ideas on a progressive peaceful plan for and end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. (its more of a symbiosis) but anyway… Edward Said once wrote-and is probably most famous for- the book Orientalism which explores this idea that the western world views the east with a set of preconceived notions that in turn skew our view of things that we don’t fully understand. Its kind of like measuring the weight of and unknown object in milliliters. I feel that this idea –for me at least- has to be understood when analyzing Idea of Order at Key West. For I don’t think it’s a poem that adheres to anything typical or on a plane that I am familiar, instead it “sings beyond the genius…” and to see beyond, I can’t look at it completely conventionally. This idea is shared by Frye, or at least I believe that is what he is getting at in Archetypes of Literature. That there are many different schools or views that can be taken in the critical world, but maybe that the key is not to be restricted or locked into one particular school or lens in which we choose to see.

Also I would like to mention, and not to embarrass Jiwon, instead I mean to praise her. Reading her blog I learned that this is the first class she has taken in English, meaning taught in English. Imagine-if you can- going to Korea and taking a class with the Korean equivalent to Dr. Sexson with all his vast and extensive knowledge of mythology and so forth that is constantly brought into discussion. Now that’s pretty damn impressive. And speaking of a different cultural lens, I guess I’d really like to see what she thinks of Wallace Stevens.

Don Quixote fills the roles...

During one of the first class sessions Dr. Sexton asked us, "Why are we reading Don Quixote?" even though i'm fairly sure that he did not say that, or exactly that, i remember generally that we were called upon to recognize why Don Quixote- of all books -is significant in a literary criticism class. As i have only begun to get at Don Quixote, Antinomy of Criticism and all the other required reading I feel as though i'm not fully qualified to answer that. However while reading Don Quixote i keep coming up with correlation and consistencies with class and the various other readings. In Frye's Archetypes he claims that literature, even good literature is often subject to personal variables. He states, "Casual value-judgments belong not to criticism but to the history of taste, and reflect, at best, only the social and psychological compulsions
which prompted their utterance." (pg 700?) I feel as though Frye brings up this point as some what of a cautionary, that it is important to recognize predispositions and to look beyond them. And i use the word cautionary intentionally because i feel it can be dangerous. Such trivial things have no place in criticism -at least on this level that Frye persists- and as a result can often be quite damaging if not cataclysmic.(see picture above...)

As serious and sullen as book burning is ...I found it hilarious! that the priest and maid are running through books to be tossed into the fire. i think on page 47 the priest is condemning many, while at the same time praising few, "The olive branch should be cut up immediately and burned until there's nothing left but ashes, but the palm branch of England should be kept and preserved as something unique...for two reasons: one, because it is very good i and of itself, and two, because it is well-known that it was composed by a wise and prudent king of Portugal."
And of course i was cracking up when it goes on, "And not wishing to tire himself further with the perusal of books of chivalry, he ordered the house keeper to take all the large ones to the corral." I don't think the priest would be allowed in Sexson's Book club.

"All literature is displaced myth"

I feel-to get into the rhythm and context of class- it would be only fitting to apply Frye's anatomy of criticism, his theories there in as well as the critical theories in archetypes of literature to Steven's Oder at Key West. For any of you that have read his Emperor of Ice cream and tried to analyze that... it goes without saying that Stevens can be at times difficult. Difficult in the sense that it is a challenge, as well as extremely vast-vastly ambiguous and applicable-. These are the very same qualities of literature which Frye speaks of, the same reasons that literature itself can be so powerful and entertaining. Now i have a lot of ideas for what I would like to say about Key West, but have not really gotten a chance to get them out or how to express them, i suppose the best way would be just to write ("how do i know what i think...") but i am currently about to head to class, our class actually and will follow up soon.