I have really enjoyed all of the pictures we have been looking at in class. They really bring a nice added perspective to the texts that we are reading. I really enjoyed the one of Adam and Eve leaving the garden. All of the emotions that were expressed even though you didn't have clear views of their faces... It spoke alot to me.
I am glad that there are visuals to add to the text. It helps brings things more to life. Kind of a random thought but there it is.
Sorry everyone on the lateness of my blog entry. I moved last weekend and everything that could go wrong did. Anyway, things are getting put back together and I'm just now submitting blog number 6...
Here's what I'm thinking: I looked up the word paramour in the Oxford English Dictionary and found that most of the entries involved some sort of adulterous undertone except one: "a woman who is the object of a knight's love, and for whom he does battle; (hence) an object of chivalrous admiration and attachment." Or what if...adultery is kind of written into the code of chivalry? A knight is supposed to love and admire the queen (or another lady) and battle for them plutonically? I don't think so. Chivalry fosters adultery by saying, "Look at this beautiful woman: you love this woman! Go, fight for her and win her admiration! But don't you dare touch her!"
I just wanted to say that this blog was a very interesting experience for me. It was my first time writing on a web blog and it was especially interesting since I knew everybody from the class. But it would have been nice since we were all in the same class to have talked about the blog and some of the interesting topics that were raised.
Looking back over the weeks, I really wished the discussions in class could've resembled the discussions on the blog. Yes, it was required, but some very interesting topic threads arose out of some of the tiniest comments. Perhaps in the future, the blog can more actively lead the flow of some class time.
PS: "Paradise Lost" exposition sucks.
Woo! I am having a hell of a time figuring out a direction for my second paper. Anyone else?? So, I thought I'd start up a place to bounce some ideas off of each other. I was trying to do a paper on the concept of "God's Privetee" in the Miller's Tale and Dr. Faustus, but I'm stuck on coming up with a good argument.... a key difference... anything. Can anyone help??
Woo! I am having a hell of a time figuring out a direction for my second paper. Anyone else?? So, I thought I'd start up a place to bounce some ideas off of each other. I was trying to do a paper on the concept of "God's Privetee" in the Miller's Tale and Dr. Faustus, but I'm stuck on coming up with a good argument.... a key difference... anything. Can anyone help??
With regards to Milinda's comment, I always thought that Beilzibub and Satan were one and the same, same as Lucifer and so on. All differnet names for the same character. Yet I'm also confused reading Paradise Lost becasue it seems clear that they're actually different characters. And who is the Fiend? I would enjoy this text much more if it was more straightforward.
I am not educated in religion, so Paradise Lost is, well, lost on me. In Book 2 around line 300 I can't tell if Beelzebub and Satan are the same devil, or if one is known to be greater than the other. Can anyone clear this up?
Thanks!
Dear god, it's hard to find a rhyme for iambic.
Oh shit, there's two too many beats that line.
Condemned to a world that's decasyllabic --
Or close, at least -- how I loath this design!
I hate its cute quatrains of sing-song rhyme,
Whose twists and turns end up at a couplet;
And how an extra beat feels like a crime,
And constant rhyming makes me turn scarlet.
I thought true beauty came right from the heart,
And did not need scansion or clever rhymes.
Just how does this poetic form impart
Its message in a way that's more sublime?
And now, instead of love or life or time,
You get a poem that's on trying to rhyme.
------------
During my many storied years drifting around the English department, I've always been fascinated by the fact that every professor I've ever had in a poetry-rich class (Professor Mueller aside, actually) has openly admitted to being a terrible poet themselves. Conversely, everybody I've ever talked to in the Creative Writing department who has a fancy for poetry says they can't stand doing scansion or analyzing other people's work -- they just tend to know that their poetry (or any other poetry) sounds good and do the whole process from intuition. Why do you think it is that those who do the analysis -- be they students of English or any number of majors in the liberal arts -- often, for lack of a better term, suck at the actual craft? And why do those who do the creative legwork often eschew the critical/analytical part?
Or do I just know the wrong people?
about be frustrated that i can't write sonnets...
I am not a writer, I'm a reader.
I'd love to be a writer, but I'm not.
I'm useless when it comes to rhyme and meter
even worse when I must devise a plot.
The world looks more like a canvas than a page
in a book with rows of black printed lines.
Or maybe more like actors on a stage,
imporvising as the spotlight shines.
Some express themselves with paper and pen,
and musicians put their words to song.
I see the world best through a camera lens,
and in that I can see nothing wrong.
Except that now I find a writer I must be,
Or I am since this was written by me.
Two points we are, attempting to connect,
Yet greater spheres rise up amidst our line.
Unseen borders, as north and south reject,
So are we forbidden to intertwine.
Our hearts are strong magnets insep'rable.
We are one without the binding of law.
Though of love we are more than capable,
These national bound'ries clasp down a claw.
If only you were born here or I there
We could be with each other so carefree,
But ease was never something we gave care:
Good things are come by easy times rarely.
So if these borders fail us, we'll not part.
We'll go elsewhere to get a brand new start.
An old book sits looking tattered and worn.
Alone on a bench as people pass by.
Not one soul looks closer through out the cold morn'.
From sunrise to midday nary a try.
The cover as wrinkled as strewn hay.
No title or art, not even "by John".
Time has faded onyx black to dull grey.
Loose pages hinting where others had gone.
But I sought out the knowledge and spirit
this iscarded treasure so longed to share.
Gathering courage sat down beside it.
With passion and hast its secrets laid bare.
Till sunset I sat as with an old friend.
The saddness of knowing someday the end.
It sunk ‘til it was small as a watch charm:
The Smith ‘n Wesson, your granddad’s glory
Lies eight hundred feet down from reach of arm,
Your dad misused it, won’t be your story.
After fishing the Irati River,
Before making Brett happy and careless,
With enough wine drank to fill a quiver,
Suicidal chaps jump into bull’s fence.
Catherine said death is just a dirty trick
Death was like saying good-bye to a statue
Rush bodily out of yourself and quick
Christ shoot me, O purest Mary please do.
Claimed to abstain death from your own finger.
Why did you surrender to the trigger?
Quatrain 1: For Whom the Bell Tolls, pg. 336-338
Quatrain 2: The Sun also Rises, pg. 117, 209, 200.
Quatrain 3: Farewell to Arms, pg. 342, 343, 57
Your body drew a figure
Keeps lying on my bed,
This is a hard procedure
But I should move ahead.
Still staring at her sheet-dance
And lying on the floor
I realize “She’s done it once…
Left things behind the door�.
Like dreaming flying acrobat
Like steam boat of the Nile
I’m being more and more apart
And all I see; denial
So I lied once more on my bed
And took you –again- out of my head.
From sonnet 5, John Donne seems like he lives in conflict/misery after his separation from the Catholic Church to the Protestant church. He links his enlightenment to Protestantism to the finding of “new spheres� (6) of the scientific world. The Catholic Church’s view of science is heretical; thereby he links his action as heretical, thus he’s going to hell. To me, he seems sure that he is going to hell no matter which church he follows for his sin (his betrayal of the Catholic Church). Since both churches follow the same god, Jesus, so the betrayal of Catholic Jesus would translate to the betrayal of Protestant Jesus right? John Donne seems to think so by saying “black sin hath betrayed to endless night/My world’s both parts, and O, both parts must die� (3-4). Because if not, how can one God be both accepting to converters, while the other one anger by deserter. I mean, in the end, John Donne is still worshiping the same man/god.
*I don’t know much about the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, so I hope this reading isn’t way off the ball field ^_^
Question: Does anyone here feel that the reading for Monday is too much? I feel like I’m plowing through the poems instead of savoring or even taking time to understand it just so I could have the readings done for class.