E N G L I S H 2100H
honors literature & humanities

notes archive

archive 2: Sep. 5 - Sep. 19
archive 1: Aug. 20 - Sep. 3

POSTSCRIPT: 3 September 2002 (Tuesday)
--We reviewed the central rhetorical concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos (aka the ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals). I encourage (but not require) you to check out the excellent discussions of these three types of persuasion--ethos, pathos, and logos--posted by Professor Daniel Kies of the College of DuPage. We also considered the Aristotelian concept of kairos, defined below by the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965):

Kairos is one of two words created by the Greeks to designate time. The other is Chronos. While Chronos designates the continuous flux of time, Kairos points out a significant moment of time. Chronos points to the measurable side of the temporal process -- clock-time -- which is determined by the regular movements of the stars -- especially the movement of the earth around the sun. Kairos points to unique moments in the temporal process -- moments in which something unique can happen or be accomplished.

In the English word "timing," something of the experience which underlies the term Kairos is preserved. "Timing" means doing something at the right time. One can formulate the differences between Chronos and Kairos by saying that Chronos brings out the quantitative, calculable, repetitive elements of the temporal process while Kairos emphasises the qualitative, experiential, unique element.

**--For the rest of the class period, we discussed the folk tales and fairy tales that had been selected by the class. We'll conclude this discussion on Thursday--and then move on to King Lear.

PREVIEW: 3 September 2002 (Tuesday)
POSTSCRIPT: 29 August 2002 (Thursday)**
--After announcements (in brief, everything's happening at noon next Wednesday) and a reminder to visit this web site often (in particular, check ASSIGNMENTS for next Tuesday and Thursday), we generally agreed (I think) that we'd not ban "Cinderella" from the house but we would make a point of instilling a healthy sense of skepticism in our offspring. The musical clip that we saw was from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods (good fun--let me know if you'd like to borrow the video).

-- If Angela Carter's short short story "The Werewolf" (originally published in 1979's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories; now also available in the larger collection Burning Your Boats) sparked any interest or curiosity, you might enjoy reading Anna Katzavos' interview with Carter, first published in 1994. "My anatomy is only part of an infinitely complex organisation, my self." -- Angela Carter

-- We're beginning to move beyond the stock plots, familiar character types, and (usually) conventional morals of fairy tales to somewhat more complex literary works and literary worlds--with characters to be examined, themes to be explored, and language to be studied and enjoyed. In D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner," we find the lineaments of the fairy tale (particularly in the opening paragraphs) recast in the setting of a modern short story--and/or tale of the supernatural. We find ourselves talking about symbols (the "modern" rocking horse itself--and all that business about Paul's eyes), setting, metaphors, and multiple conflicts. Nonetheless, in a number of ways Lawrence's tale mimics the simple movement and moral of "The Fisherman and His Wife." (Lawrence's most critically acclaimed works, by the way, tend to be his early, semi-autobiographical novels--Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow; his most notorious work--banned in both the U.K. and the U.S. for over three decades--is Lady Chatterly's Lover.) Here, btw, is the D. H. Lawrence poem quoted from in class, "Wages":

The wages of work is cash.
The wages of cash is want more cash.
The wages of want more cash is vicious competition.
The wages of vicious competition is -- the world we live in.

The work-cash-want circle is the viciousest circle
that ever turned men into fiends.

Earning a wage is a prison occupation
and a wage-earner is a sort of gaol-bird.
Earning a salary is a prison overseer's job,
a gaoler instead of a gaol-bird.

Living on your income is strolling grandly outside the prison
in terror lest you have to go in. And since the work-prison covers
almost every scrap of the living earth, you stroll up and down
on a narrow beat, about the same as a prisoner taking his exercise.

This is called universal freedom.

-- A few more rhetorical terms that we all recognize: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, irony, and metonymy. Over the Labor Day weekend, I'll post to this page a preview of Thursday's class (Sep. 5), offering you a few guidelines to reading the assigned handout, "Shakespeare's Use of Rhetoric," by Brian Vickers.
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-- Finally, we looked at two distinctly different versions of the opening scene in King Lear (the first, Peter Brook's production, starring Paul Scofield as Lear; the second, the Laurence Olivier Lear). In next Tuesday's class, following our examination of the folk tales we collected (please be sure to spend some quality time with "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," by Marquez), we'll return to this scene and consider--among other things-- (1) which character deserves the award for eloquence--and which for arrogance; (2) how to distinguish Goneril from Regan and Edmund from Edgar; (3) and how something can come from "nothing."

PREVIEW: 29 August 2002
POSTSCRIPT: 27 August 2002
--Following the quick quiz in Tuesday's class, we briefly considered the prevalence of the journey motif in folk tales. From Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (and in just about everything in between), we find a hero (most often male, but sometimes female) who leaves home to explore the world (experiencing alienation, separations, and confrontations) before resolving conflicts in a return home (reconciliation)--or in death. The best-known authority on the hero's journey is (or was--he died in 1987) Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces and twenty other books on cross-cultural mythology and the search for meaning:
The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero's passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale. Therefore it is formulated in the broadest terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls. Who and where are his ogres? Those are the reflections of the unsolved enigmas of his own humanity. What are his ideals? Those are the symptoms of his grasp of life. (Campbell, 121)

diagram by Christopher Vogler, adapted from Joseph Campbell
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. (Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 5)
--PURELY OPTIONAL: Take the Hero's Journey.
--We paused to examine some of the folk tales assigned for today, ranging from comic stories (such as "The Brave Little Tailor" and "Doctor Know-all") and straightforward moral fables ("The Fisherman and His Wife") to more complex--and grisly--tales ("The Goose Girl"). We noted how "The Lady and the Lion" is a variation of "Beauty and the Beast" and how "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" concludes with a rare example of an aging protagonist (the Soldier) selecting the eldest daughter (rather than the youngest).
--On Gender-Types in Grimms' Tales:
Following are a few observations from Maria Tatar in The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales (Princeton UP, 1987). Tatar bases her conclusions on the study of the more than 240 tales in The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. In light of the twenty or so tales that we've been looking at, consider whether you agree or disagree with her observations.
-"Contrary to conventional wisdom, fairy-tale heroines have no monopoly on victimization. Male and female figures seem to suffer in equal parts, though the narrative duration of female suffering tends to be greater. And the tyrants that oppose and oppress the protagonists of fairy tales are just as likely to be a father as a mother." (75)
-"If the female protagonists of fairy tales are often as good as they are beautiful, their male counterparts generally appear to be as young and naive as they are stupid. . . . To the question, 'Who is the stupidest of all?' most fairy-tale fathers would reply, 'my youngest son.' Yet that son is also the chosen son, the son who ultimately outdoes his older and wiser siblings. . . . In fairy tales throughout the world, the one least likely to succeed paradoxically becomes the one most likely to succeed. Merit rarely counts; luck seems to be everything." (87)
-"The many faces of maternal evil in fairy tales represent the obverse of all the positive qualities associated with mothers. Instead of functioning as nurturers and providers, cannibalistic female villains withhold food and threaten to turn children into their own form of nourishment, reincorporating them into the bodies that gave birth to them." (140)
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--In the last part of class, we turned to some of the non-Grimm tales that you brought in today, accompanied by a paragraph explaining your interest in the tale. Beth offered a faithful version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" (please read this online version). Some of Andersen's best-known tales include "The Ugly Duckling," "The Red Shoes," "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and "The Snow Queen."    Both Rena and Sophia encouraged us to visit the collection of African-American folk tales at Afro-American Almanac: see, in particular, "Why Women Do Not Have Beards" and "Tar Baby." Though commonly attributed to Joel Chandler Harris (a nineteenth-century Georgia journalist who popularized African-American folk tales in numerous Uncle Remus collections), the story of the tar baby may be over 2,000 years old. The tar baby’s oral history is linked to tales in which a rabbit or hare plays the trickster (a character type that also appears in many Native American folk tales). Over the next few class sessions, we'll continue to study these tales and others that you collected. (Btw, stories that were submitted without commentary will simply be returned in the same fashion.)

--Because I was looking at my watch upside down, class broke up a bit early today. So on Thursday let's make sure that we say a few words about our readings of "Cinderella." We'll then discuss the two stories handed out today (Angela Carter's "The Werewolf" and D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner") before arriving, at last, at the opening scene of King Lear.

PREVIEW: 27 August 2002
--Following a quick content quiz, we'll continue our discussion of Grimms' tales (the 21 gathered in our small anthology).   Among other things, we'll look at the prevalence of the journey motif--perhaps the most fundamental and enduring motif in all literature. Recall T. S. Eliot's words in the fifth movement of "Little Gidding":
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
--In addition, we'll begin listening to some of the (non-Grimm) tales that you'll be bringing to class--along with your explanations of what attracted you to these tales.

POSTSCRIPT: 22 August 2002
--After a progress report on our first assignment (to send me an e-mail) and a further review of the syllabus (re. attendance and quizzes), we settled down to a discussion of the first 11 tales in our collection--some common themes and motifs, recurrent characters and situations, structural similarities (and differences), and gender issues. We gave some attention to the ways that American popular culture has appropriated--and, in the process, redefined--many classical folk tales.
--If you have an interest in feminist readings of and responses to classical fairy tales, you may want to check out this online discussion at WMST-L (though almost a decade old, the discussion includes a solid bibliography) as well as this concise article--"Women and Fairy Tales"--by Terri Windling.
--Noting the origins of many folk and fairy tales in predominately oral cultures, we considered the importance of memory to those cultures--and how narrative itself (as well as concrete imagery and various rhetorical devices of repetition) served as an aid to memory.    An oral style, we noted, tends to be additive or paratactic (as opposed to the hypotaxis of a more conventional literary style), typically relying on polysyndeton (as in a youngster's report on his or her adventures). Conventional modifiers (known in rhetoric as epithets)--such as "snow white" and "rose red"--also appear frequently in texts that originated in oral cultures. We also noted how folk and fairy tales tend to favor the number three (a sequence known in rhetoric as tricolon). (Btw, make sure that you learn--i.e., be able to recall, recognize, and use--any terms, such as these, that are introduced in class.)
--Toward the end of class, we read a few short tales collected by the Grimm brothers that never made it beyond their first edition. Because I've not been able to find copies of these tales online, I'll distribute photocopies in class on Tuesday.

PREVIEW: 22 August 2002
POSTSCRIPT: 20 August 2002
-- In our first class meeting, we exchanged introductions, briefly reviewed some key items on the syllabus (including the reading list), suggested a few definitions of rhetoric, and considered certain similarities between traveling to other countries and reading literature.
-- As a warm-up to our readings for this Thursday (see ASSIGNMENTS). we discussed some of our personal encounters (as both children and adults) with folk tales and fairy tales--as well as their origin in the oral tradition. Is Little Red Riding Hood rescued by woodcutters--or devoured whole by the wolf? That depends, of course, on which of the many versions we've read. And what nationality is Ms. Hood? English? French? Estonian? German? Italian?   What might such tales reveal or imply about cultural attitudes toward the roles of men, women, and children? And should children even be exposed to fairy tales? What character types and plot patterns do we find repeated in folk tales and fairy tales? And what do such tales have in common with "real literature"? We parted with a few points to ponder--points that we'll pursue in class on Thursday.

English 2100H is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
University Hall 297D
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912-921-5991
e-mail: nordquist@mail.com

26 September 2002

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