Rhetorical Competition #1:
Neutering Exercise (Spring 2005)
Instructions: Read all of your classmates' contributions to this semester's NEUTERING PROJECT.  Then, no later than 5:00 on Friday Sunday, February 11 13, send me a brief e-mail in which you:
(1) cast your vote for the one  neutering exercise from our class that you think most effectively and imaginatively responds to the guidelines for the assignment (see below); and
(2) provide a short (one- or two-sentence) justification for your choice--keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the exercise was to reveal the ways in which altering the style of a text also affects both its meaning and the reader's response.  (The "moral" of the exercise appears in a note to the Spring 2002 Neutering Project.)

Votes and comments on your classmates' neutralized texts appear below.

Final voting results appear below your comments.

Guidelines for this exercise are posted at ASSIGNMENTS for Feb. 2.:
"By now you have selected a short memorable text of any sort (a poem, a song lyric, an excerpt from a story or poem).  Your challenge is to attempt to strip the text down to its basic meanings, rewriting it in the most neutral style you can manage.   As we'll see, eliminating style is impossible, but for this exercise you will attempt to do so."
Neutering Exercise (Spring 2005)
Neutralizing Exercises have been posted in the order in which they were received. 
In several cases, original formatting has been lost, and texts get a little messy.   Sorry!

-Emily Dickinson, Poem 199 (Christi Healan)
-Wordsworth, "The Idiot Boy" (tsupon21@comcast.net)
-Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel" (Heather Glover)
-Sylvia Plath, "Tulips" (Pamela Melton)
-Shakespeare, excerpt from King Henry V (Arthur Tanney)
-E. A. Poe, "The Raven" (Shelley Rhodes)

-Jim Morrison, "Ghost Song" (Oakley Julian)
-Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road" (Kirstin Mullis)
-Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art" (Alicia Ferrell)
-Avril Lavigne, "I'm with You" (Robtheringwraith@aol.com)
-The Pixies, "Nimrod's Son" (Patrice Beavers)

-"Mary Had a Little Lamb" (Kasey Ray)
-Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" (Katie Sanders)
-Incubus, "Drive" (Dee Dee Coursey)

-John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" (Chris McCormick)
-REO Speedwagon, "Can't Fight This Feeling" (Kelley Sanders)
-Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 (Jolene Burge)
-William Blake, "The Tyger" (Chris Shirley)
-Darrell Orrell, "Baptism" (Ariana Siennick)

final update 13 February 2005 (9:30 p.m.)

VOTES & COMMENTS

-  I cast my vote for Arthur's version of the Crispin's Day Speech.  Although his version contained a style, he came as close as I have ever seen to having no style.  I would have never gone to war for Arthur.  By the way, I do not feel that I was influenced in any way by your presentation of Arthur's work.

- I would like to vote for Oakley Julian’s neutering on Jim Morrison’s “Ghost Song.”  Her neutering of the text makes it sound strange and absurd (much different from Morrison’s rendition).  If The Door’s lyrics had been that neutered, they would not be remembered today.

- I am casting my vote for the best neutered assignment to Christi Healan and her attempt to revise Emily Dickinson's Poem 199. I think she does an excellent job in really breaking down what Emily Dickinson is saying in her poem. After reading Christi's revision it really helped me to understand exactly what Emily Dickinson was saying about being a wife. Christi does a good job at explaining and comparing the single life of the woman in contrast to the married wife. In the short few words that Emily Dickinson uses in this short poem Christi just does a great job of pulling everything out that she can to help the reader better understand it.

- I chose REO Speedwagon, "Can't Fight This Feeling" by Kelley Sanders because her neuter had more of an _expressional feeling.   She understood the underlining of the song, but formed it in words that probably made more sense to her adn to the rest of us.  The neutered text was an emotional one.

- My vote for the number one Rhetoric Excercise goes to Alicia for her neutralizing of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art."  I like the way she made the poem into a "life lesson" for the reader. Alicia's "neutered" version still retains the gentle qualities of the original and conveys the message very clearly.  Great job!

- There were several examples that i liked, (Katie's and Rob's) but i have to cast my vote for Arthur's nice piece of monotonous drone. I was reminded of the teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: the monotone voice with no emotion. Very funny.

- I seem to have taken a liking to Jolene Burge's Neutering of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. This is as plain and simple as I have ever seen Shakepeare. It strips this well-known sonnet down to its core and leaves us with the bare necessities. *** As a side note, I would like to propose  that Chris Shirley be tarred and feathered (not to mention receive a grade deduction) for making the rest of us look bad.

- I cast a vote for Kirstin Mullis [neutering of Springsteen's "Thunder Road"]  because I think she really understood the song and the meaning behind the words.  Her neuter version refects what the song is all about and it describes the scene and moment perfectly.

- My vote goes to Kelly Sanders and "can't fight this feeling". I like how Kelly kept repeating the "I love you" phrase and "love" although neither the word nor the phrase exists in the original. The repetition made the text seem monotonous. The overuse cheapens not only the word but all the metaphoric language in the song. Because she was consistent in her neutered text with the use of love, I thought that it neutralized any power the original text had. The neutralized text is not persuasive because it has reduced the original text to a cheesy song, which is what it basically is. Although the rest of the class (including myself) had great examples, I thought "can't fight this feeling" was the best.

- My vote is for Kelly's version of REO Speedwagen. I think that she did a great job trying to make a sappy love song not so sappy. However, I don't think that her version would have been a hit song.

- Of the ones posted, the one I thought was best was Arthur Tanny's "St. Crispian" speech. It is very deadpan and comes across very textbook and pedantic. All of the beauty of the speech is translated into banal language.

- I was impressed by several entries, among them Heather Glover's revision of "Yet do I Marvel" because she added a nice touch that I noticed several others (including myself) did not, which was to neuter the title as well as the text. However, I'm voting for Kirtin Mullis' Rumble Path version of Springteen's Thunder Road.  After re-reading it, I still laughed (lines like "toss flowers in the precipitation" and "flattened out there like a murderer in the flaming gasball" are among the best!).  As a music fan, I was somewhat appalled at how she was able to take a song of youthful passion and rebellion (an anthem for many during its time) and make it so silly and meaningless...I personally will hear lyrics with a different ear now. 
This is also the kind of neutering that I imagine would make the spin doctors of the world cringe in horror.

- Hmmm. Well, I thought Arthur Tanney did a great job of neutralizing Shakespeare's King Henry V's speech. His "politically correct" word choice downsized the speech from what was an invigorating rally to war, or even a sarcastic pep talk, to an emotionless matter-of-fact statement that can only be rivaled by a politician.

- After careful deliberation, I am casting my vote with Rob, who neutered "I'm With You" by Avril Lavigne.  I think Rob maintains the meaning but completely removes the pop-princess fluff from this song, making it so condensed and boring that it feels less like a song and more like a hurriedly-scrawled suicide note from someone so pitiful you wish she would go off with the stranger and never, ever come back (of course, I'm not an Avril fan, so I already wish she would go off and never, ever come back).

- I believe Christi Healan did a great job on Emily Dickinson's Poem 199. While many of the neutering exercises shortened the original pieces by eliminating flowery language, Christi lengthens Dickinson's work to fully convey the meaning; I imagine this was a more difficult task. I think she does a good job of eliminating (or distorting) the emotions inherent in the poem. *** On a side note - I liked Chris Shirley's neutering of "Tiger, Tiger."

- Originally I was going to vote for Patrice Beavers' example because I did not want to seem like I was voting only on our class experience. However, I have decided that instead I will vote for Arthur Tanney's example. It is just so outrageously funny and insulting to the original that it deserves my vote.

- After reading all entries twice, Arthur’s selection of the St. Crispin’s Day speech made for an excellent neutering. I liked how his careful choice of pronouns depersonalized the text.

- I am not sure (aporia) which one I like more, they are all so good. I mean, look at Keats and Marvell and Poe (polysendentic tricolon). OK, sorry; I'm done now. I am gonna go with -Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" (Katie Sanders). The reason is that she fulfilled the assignment and did so very well. I narrowed down all the pieces I liked because they actually did the assignment, specifically did the assignment well and without skipping lines (many people did good jobs on the lines they did, but skipped much). Once I had all the ones I liked, hers was the best combiniation of a good job with a good choice.
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RESULTS

Winner.  The top vote-getter (with six votes) is Arthur Tanney's neutering of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V (). 

Honorable Mentions.  Other recipients of multiple votes include Kelley Sanders' version of "Can't Fight This Feeling" (3 votes ), Christi Healan's version of Emily Dickinson's Poem 199 (2), and Kirstin Mullis's version of "Thunder Road" (2 ).  The fact that more than of half of the the contributions received at least one vote is evidence of the generally high quality of the exercises and the generally thoughtful quality of your evaluations.  And the fact that nobody voted hor his or her own contribution is a testament to your sense of honor and good will.  Though not all of the exercises follow the guidelines, most demonstrate an awareness that style is far more than word choice. 

In conclusion, while the style of a text may be transformed, ultimately it cannot be wholly neutered (or neutralized)--though many of you gave it a good try.  Excellent work overall.

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