Musing about term paper topic...

I believe that in this class we have asserted that 'play' of children isn't completely physical and it isn't completely contained in texts. We have taken . The aspect of child's games that are especially intriguing to me is the notion that these games have a didactic value to them. A child 'playing' in one of these games often merges the physical with the 'textual'. Is the state of being a child the beginnings of the time in which children as people are beginning to understand the ongoing "human narrative"? Since children's lit. reveals the archetypes of humanity more clearly than more 'adult' texts, are children better masters of 'knowing' these archetypes? I guess, the topic that I'm musing around is the notion of the concept of 'play' being a combination of 'physical' and 'textual' elements. It's almost as if children playing are like the theater without the 'adult' notion that what they are doing is performing something that is not 'real'. This brings in the idea of children seeing the world in metaphors and not in similes. They are not acting "like" a character in another reality, they "are" a character in another reality.

Please tell me if I am off-base Dr. Sexson, although I believe I am getting closer and closer to a topic for our 3-100 page paper.

Notes on class 10/29

Announcements--

*Wear Costume Friday get some needed E.C.!

*Term papers-- Start considering topics, will be given in Z-A order, length between 3-100 pages.



Terminology

*Synecdoche-- a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part.




Quotes

*It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.-- Henry James

*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.-- T.S. Eliot


Parallels and Connections between various texts

*Ending of Snow White where the Queen has to put on the red-hot iron shoes and dance to her death reminded me of a song by the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! called "Satan Said Dance". The lyrics are as follows



"Satan said dance

He says to me to shake around
And don't stop 'til you hit the ground

And I know it is not how you thought it would be
No whips no chains just dancing dancing dancing dancing
dancing dancing dancing dancing dancing dancing dancing
dancing dancing dancing dancing"

*This may be kind of a stretch but the concept of dancing as torture is the kind of image that doesn't really come about too often and is pretty memorable when it does. This idea of dance as torture is pretty intriguing really. It evokes images of Sisyphus, condemned to do a task, but rather than suffer for eternity as the song suggests, the fate of the queen is an eventual ceasing of her dancing but only after she dies. Torture in fairy tales seems to provide an interesting perspective into the views of "justice" and "morality" that seem to be a main focus on these tales.

Notes 10/27

People

Lewis Carroll-- Found the didacticism in fairy tales and children's lit. to be annoying so he responded with cynicism, parody, critique, viciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_carroll

Northrop Frye-- Literature liberates us into play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Frye

William Bennett-- Concerned with "morals". Secretary of Education under Reagan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bennett

Oscar Wilde-- Life is an imitation of art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Terminology

*Sublime-impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or power; inspiring awe, veneration, etc.

*Esoteric-understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite

*Talking Head-1. Television Slang. a closeup picture of a person who is talking, esp. as a participant in a talk show.
2.Slang. a person whose talk is empty and pretentious.

*Eviscerating- to remove the entrails from; disembowel, to deprive of vital or essential parts


Other Notes

*"All art aspire to the condition of music."-- Arthur Schopenhauer

*Matrix based on "Alice In Wonderland"

*Next to Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll most quoted author in English.

*Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"-- tricking into believing that it is real.

*Communion as cannibalism-- "Juniper Tree" eating of the child. Also, "Hansel and Gretel" witch seems to want to digest the children to consume their youth. Eternal life.

*Nonsense in Carroll as hiding the moral.

*"Never trust the teller, trust the tale"- DH Lawrence

*Mary and Martha new testament biblical story Luke 10:38-42 parallel to Ant and Grasshopper in Aesop's fables. Idleness as immoral, and idleness as being the "one thing".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper

White Rabbit-- Jefferson Airplane

One of the more recent an popular culture oriented references to Lewis Carroll's Alice texts can be found in the song "White Rabbit" by the 60's psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane. The song portrays much of the song in the context as the journey being produced by hallucinatory drugs such as LSD and Mushrooms.


Lyrics to song "White Rabbit"--Jefferson Airplane


One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Recall Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said;
"FEED YOUR HEAD



This notion of drug-induced hallucination as a type of fanciful, childlike state runs through the literature of Auldous Huxley as well. In his novel "Island" he uses mushrooms as his comparison for what the Palanese people call "Moshka medicine." The children in this novel are taking the drug to symbolize their inclusion into adulthood. The use of the drug evokes Blakeian imagery with the assertion that "if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite". The connection between drug use, Alice in Wonderland, Jefferson Airplane, and William Blake seems to be an astoundingly imagistic one based on the perceptions of what appears to be "reality" and the perceptions of what appears to be the "fanciful".







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit_(song)

My Book and Heart Shall Never Part-- Blog on film

First of all, I would like to say how much I enjoyed the film. I was having a bad day, so I came to the Emerson with a little baggage about having such a bad day. After I watched the film however, I felt relieved of all the stress of school and work. It was just really nice being able to watch an educational film that was fun. On that note I believe that the film functioned at achieving it's most basic goal-- to entertain.
To move on, I would like to talk a little more about the production of the film. The elements that went into the film were fantastic. I especially enjoyed the soundtrack of classical guitar compositions. Like the pamphlet said, it was a traditional sound yet had room to play amongst the images. The cinematography was also very well done. I was very impressed at how the books were filmed in an interesting way. The film of the children at play was also very good.
Now onto an examination of one of the most fundamental parts--the educational value of the 'text'. I found that the film seemed to be aimed at a introductory level audience to this type of literature. However, I felt that somebody who had a deeper sense of the educational aspect could also enjoy the film. This aspect of the film appealing to both introductory kinds of people and advanced kinds of people was one of the strongest aspects to it's production.
One of the claims I felt the movie was making that by gaining literacy, a child was entering into the discourse of humanity. This could be viewed as thus being able to both listen to and adopt the human narrative and also contribute and add to it. I would like to talk a little about the role of 'narrative' in the lives of people. I just finished reading an article by Fisher about how narrative is one way in which people construct morals, values, and other things of the ethical nature. This idea seems intricately connected to the idea of how children's literature was supposed to construct morals and teach the children life lessons. Also, this claim seems to rely on the fact that each story is the retelling of other stories that came before. Although origins and originals are banned talk in this class, it could possibly be asserted that each child who learns their first letter is at the moment of eating of the tree of knowledge-- at the origins of their entering in to the conversation of the human narrative. We could possibly assert then that not only does narrative assist in the construction of morality, but it also hand in the construction of identity-- both collective identity and personal identity.

Rebuttal of Cinderalla Moral

Please let me sum up the so-called moral of Cinderella. Beautiful women are rarely intelligent or nice. If a man can find a woman who just happens to be beautiful, intelligent, and nice it's most likely some other guys girl. So if somehow you're lucky enough to end up with such a girl, you should probably make sure she's been checked for STD's. Nothing ruins grace like a case of syphilis. Also, you really have to watch out for the witty, intelligent girls. Those are the ones that trick you to spending all your money on them and then running off with some other guy. Not only that, but the concept of the fairy god parent is very shaky. I'd be a little wearisome of getting set up with a girl by some other person, especially someone with magical powers (who knows what evil could ensue?). I believe that my life can have great events without the match maker making my match (tongue-twister). What is the fairy god parent anyway? Is it like the host of some dating reality t.v. show? Is the fairy god parent some mystical wingman? I don't know. The fairy god-parent seems a little sleazy to me. So anyway, here is the short, sweet, and real truth of the story. Moral: If your friend sets you up with a beautiful girl, make sure she won't infect you or steal your money. The end.




*Look for clues that this woman could be out for your money.















*Public Service Announcement making sure you consider who your "Cinderella" actually is.

Fractured Fairy-Tales

Fractured fairy tales from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle t.v. show.-- Rapunzel. An interesting twist comes at the end when Rapunzel and the prince are talking and Rapunzel tells her new husband that she wants some of that salad. The witch says "here we go again" and laughs. This is pretty interesting. In this simple and sweet twist on the story, the witch reveals that the story of Rapunzel will be perpetual for the rest of eternity. Just as a story Rapunzel-like came before, more Rapunzel-like stories will come after.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nea6Azgh1Pk

Three is a Magic Number...

Since we talk about the number three being so important in fairy tales I thought it would be nice to post the song three is a magic number. Please watch it because Schoolhouse Rock is classic... Also, look for mythological reference, possible connections to fairy tales, and just enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11N-BD1aBo0

*Check out the Blind Melon cover of the song to. It's a little more rockin' than the original. Shannon Hoon did wonders with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVfe6rdHRKI

This is a quote taken from from the introduction of poets in a book called Invited Guest: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Southern Poetry. This introduction is discussing the poet Randall Jarrell. "Jarell knew that poetry, like children's tales, was a culturally recognized means by which psychology swelled into the mythical... His poems of the 1950s become a catechism of lost innocence and he often draws on fairy tales, dreams, and mythological stories to explore the consequences manifested by experience in a world not rescued by religion, community, or politics". This is very fascinating that when things such as religion, community, and politics aren't working that Jarrell found it more useful to use the language of children's tales, mythology, and dreams. Perhaps Jarrell understood that all the stories that we're contemporary to him were not original but rather the retelling of stories told already. Perhaps he found solace and comfort in being able to pursue storytelling from this angle in the confusion of a post World War II society. This could have helped him to mirror events current to him with the past so as to understand that . The two poems of his that I found to be the most interesting were "A Girl in a Library" and "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", neither of which are children's lit.. Especially in "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" it was interesting to note the childlike image of the gunner and the gore in which he died and is washed from the turret. This recalled images of chopped off toes and heels, doves pecking out eyes, dead bodies of wives hanging from the ceiling, and fingers being pared like radishes. The relationships between death and child and between gore and child is very interesting. Perhaps someone has pursued that... It is also worthwhile to note that he died in 1965 while hit by a car on an evening walk. How fascinating to know that this stuff happens.

A link to Randall Jarrell on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell


"The Animal Family"




"The Bat Poet"
http://stuffasdreamsaremadeon.com/2008/09/30/the-bat-poet-by-randall-jarrell/http://stuffasdreamsaremadeon.com/2008/09/30/the-bat-poet-by-randall-jarrell/

"What is.." The Jeopardy Blog!

What is a child?-- Simply put, I believe a child is similar to the Colridgean reader yet different. For a child does not need to "willingly suspend" any sort of disbelief because a child has no disbelief, only belief. To willingly suspend disbelief is to become childlike. To believe is to be a child.

What is a book?-- A book is any text using symbols to tell it's story.

What is nature?-- Nature is green. Nature is clouds. Nature is what I step into when I step out my door onto grass.




*I hope these answers make some sort of sense. If not, that's okay also because I think they're my own personal answers so they should only make perfect sense to me!

Song of Adam

*Here is a song I wrote. See if you guys can find some reference to fairy tale's in it. If so, that's awesome! I didn't write it with any in mind, but rather the story of Adam and Eve. I just thought I would put it up on here because this seems like a fine place to put such things on. Hope you find it relevant and also that you like it!
SONG OF ADAM

When I was young,
Young as the earth,
From the dirt I came,
The stars foretold my birth,

When the sun came out,
I'd laugh and shout,
Running through the waving fields.

When I tilled the ground,
My plow undressed the soil,
From the center of my plot,
A tree grew from my toil,

I'd rest in its shade,
Sing and pray,
And pick thistles from my white shirt-sleeve.

When I got drunk,
Red grapes plucked from the vine,
I accused my God,
My blood was thick with wine,

All the jealous angel scarecrows,
Green-eyed and wide,
Would sway in the breeze and cry.

When I felt alone,
Alone in all this world,
From my flesh she came,
From my bones she uncurled,

When the leaves shone though,
The leaves on the trees,
I saw her hair floating in the breeze.

The angels sang...

When the salty-sweat,
rolled between her breasts,
I felt that living drum resounding in my chest.

When the voice of God,
Bellowed in my ear,
All I could hear was when she said her name was Eve.