The Diverse Depictions of our “Almost-Instinct” Love as Seen in the Poetry of Sydney, Browning and Larkin

Of all the human emotions which have inspired artistic expression, the most prominent perhaps is love. From ancient statues of the unclothed, airborne son of the goddess Venus, to caricatures of a chubby cherub drawing a heart-tipped arrow printed on last year‟s Valentine‟s Day cards, love has pervaded throughout history alongside humanity itself. It is prevalent not only in the visual arts but also in literature, where various authors have treated the subject in unique ways. By evaluating these works, it can be seen that, while a vague conception of love has persisted, those emotions noted to accompany it have gradually changed. In deed, love as it is perceived now is most certainly not the love of centuries ago. From the Renaissance sonnet sequence of Sir Sydney Philip, to Robert Browning‟s dramatic monologues of the 19th century, and finally to Philip Larkin‟s 20th-century poem “An Arundel Tomb,” one can witness the many transmutations of the idea of love throughout history.

Sir Sydney Philip‟s sonnet sequence, amassing over one hundred sonnets, recounts the unhappy romance between Astrophil (“lover of star”) and Stella (“star”), a story wrought with despair. From the very form of the first sonnet in the sequence, penned in iambic hexameter, readers get a sense of the burden of love: that it is an emotion that overwhelms and flows beyond the iambic pentameter typical of sonnets. The first four lines,

"Loving in truth, and faine in verse my love to show,

That the deare She might take some pleasure of my paine,
Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pitie winne, and pitie grace obtaine,"

which build upon each other in content, reflect the climactic accumulation of thoughts within the speaker as he struggles to confront his emotion. Astrophil describes his love for Stella as the “blackest face of woe,” one that reduces his mind to a “sunne-burn‟d braine” incapable of producing any impressive “inventions.” Certainly, the way in which the speaker presents himself in love – “Thus great with child to speake, and helpless in my throwes/Biting my trewand pen, beating my selfe for spite” – makes love out to be upsetting rather than pleasing.

Sonnet 31 of the sequence “Astrophil and Stella” is another which conveys an unfavourable impression of love. The poem presents Astrophil apostrophizing to the “Moone” who “climb‟st the skies” soundlessly and with “wanne a face.” Because of the moon‟s “languisht grace,” Astrophil believes it to be in love, implying in turn that he himself feels languished. The reason becomes apparent in the concluding quatrain and couplet wherein Astrophil reveals that he has been rejected by a “proud” Stella who calls his love for her “but want of wit.” This sonnet in the sequence conveys the loneliness of thwarted love in the solitary figure of Astrophil talking to the unresponsive moon. The conclusion of the poem in four questions which are never answered effectively conveys Astrophil‟s sense of confusion after having been misled by his own love into a state of dejection.

The sonnets of “Astrophil and Stella” follow Petrarchan convention. Like Petrarch who pined in his poems for the love of a woman named Laura, Astrophil yearns for Stella throughout the sequence which ardently focuses on the speaker‟s “resulting agony” from unrequited love (“Poetry” 179-180). Thus his sonnets present love as a distressing ordeal. Paradoxically, however, the sequence, which dwells obsessively on the despair of the speaker, inherently glorifies it as well, portraying love as something which is at once painful and pleasurable.

Robert Browning‟s dramatic monologue, “My Last Duchess,” is strikingly different from “Astrophil and Stella.” Spoken by a Duke to the envoy of a Count, the monologue conveys the idea of a love that is forcefully possessive rather than, as in “Astrophil and Stella,” one that harmlessly languishes in despair. The shocking story within the poem is of a Duke who, jealous of the fact that “the bough of cherries some officious fool/Broke in the orchard for her,” among countless other things, drew the same “spot of joy” into his Duchess‟ cheek as did “[his] favour at her breast,” gives “commands” to have the lady killed. Her portrait, kept behind curtains that “none puts by” but the Duke himself, represents the Duke‟s domination of her in that he has ultimate control of who at last gets to see her. The meticulousness of the poem‟s structure – always ten-syllable lines arranged in successive couplets – further alludes to the speaker‟s need for order, and moreover adds a sense of calm to the poem which, coupled with the content, creates a rather sinister mood. Ironically, while the Duke attempts to discredit his former wife by saying she had “a heart…too soon made glad, too easily impressed,” his descriptions of her betray him, showing rather an innocent woman who delighted in all things in life, be they “the dropping of the daylight in the West” or “the white mule she rode with round the terrace,” and portraying himself instead, as Arnold Markley terms it, as “somewhat of a monster” ("An overview of 'My Last Duchess'”). Thus the poem invites us to see the deluding and destructive force of possessiveness within a relationship. The conclusion of the poem reiterates the theme of possessiveness: “Notice Neptune though,/Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!” Corresponding to the way that the domineering sea-god conquers the wild and elusive sea-horses, the Duke manages to tame his Duchess and pin her to the wall as another part of his personal art collection, immortalizing her in artwork in the same way that he has the powerful Neptune “cast in bronze.”

“An Arundel Tomb” by Philip Larkin, in which the poet speaks of love in the voice of one not explicitly involved in it, deals with the subject in yet another way, touching on the concept of love surpassing death, an romantic ideal that many would like to believe. The poem describes the tombs of an earl and countess who “side by side…lie in stone,” holding hands in a seeming final act of love. There is much focus on the fact that the earl and countess have essentially lost every other vestige of their identity. For example, as mentioned in the first stanza, their faces are “blurred” and their dress is only “vaguely shown.” “The Latin names around the base” do not capture the interest of the tomb‟s visitors who “look, not read,” and who likely wouldn‟t understand Latin even if they did. The “plainness” caused by the lack of identity of the two “hardly involves the [eyes]” of the tomb‟s visitors, until they see “his hand withdrawn, holding her hand.” The fact that it is their clasped hands which draw attention suggests that while time has stripped away everything else about them, their love lasts on in their embrace, undying.

Undermining this rather positive interpretation of the poem, however, is a doubt – a secondary meaning that can be found even in the use of the sole word “washing” in the line “Washing at their identity.” As Bryan Aubrey notes, “washing” can imply two things (“Critical Essay on an „Arundel Tomb‟”). Traditionally, water suggests purification. If we apply this significance to the line in the poem, as Aubrey in his “Critical Essay” does, the poet seems to say that the earl and countess have been purified by the departure from individuality, stripped of those worthless elements – their faces, their names, the way they dressed – leaving behind only the pure essence of life: love. The word “washing,” as Aubrey further argues, also suggests erosion, as a stone washed down to a pebble in a river, and this meaning applied conveys the idea that the erosion of the earl and countess‟ respective identities has transfigured the truth about them. What remains of them, their love, is but a pebble of what truly was, and therefore unreliable as fact.

This second interpretation tallies better with the conclusion: “Time has transifigured them into/Untruth.” The speaker considers the fidelity immortalized in the stone figures “hardly meant” by the dead earl and countess. Despite this, it has “come to be/Their final blazon, and to prove/Our almost-instinct almost true.” All of this clearly conveys the notion that the act of love by the effigies is nothing but a lie. The second last line – “Our almost-instinct almost true” is particularly interesting. The speaker seems troubled by the conflict between the “sharp tender shock” he received upon sighting the clasped hands and his own brooding certainty of the finality of death. That he calls the idea of love surpassing death an “almost-instinct” suggests that he has an inclination which comes to him as naturally as an instinct to believe in love and its eternal quality, but denies this tendency, terming it instead “almost” fact. The speaker sounds as though he himself wishes he could believe in the “almost-instinct.”

The final line of the poem, despite the certainty of the speaker in saying the tombs are now merely “untruth,” arguably undermines the speaker‟s sureness. This, as Aubrey notes in his “Critical Essay,” is due largely to the fact that the last line – “What will survive of us is love” – is able to stand alone. Unlike the rest of the stanza, whose lines feature enjambment and must always be read together with others to be understood, the final line has an affirmative tone. It is the heaviest, most striking line of the poem, and weakens the speaker‟s arguments by sheer emotional force alone. Most fascinatingly, that the last line, rather than the work‟s true message, should be in fact the most memorable part of the poem seems itself to render our “almost-instinct almost-true” – readers are more affected by one line which speaks to the heart than the entire poem which makes an argument to the mind. In brief, “An Arundel Tomb” engagingly offers a complicated and contradictory view of love that grapples with its very reality.

By the works of these three poets alone, it can be seen that the topic of love has had numerous interpretations and has been worked over in highly divergent ways by authors of various eras. From Petrarchan sonnets of the Renaissance which deal with the agony of unrequited love, to monologues which speak of its possessive and jealous nature as manifested in egocentric personalities, to more modern, complex poems with layers of meanings contemplating the immortality and truth of love in an ephemeral world, Love has been pondered from all angles. Perhaps it is because of all these variations in its depiction that love remains such a mysterious abstract today. Is love despair and pain? Is it the selfish need to control others? Or is it pure and immortal, “that later thing than death, more previous than life,” as Emily Dickinson once wrote? Whatever it is, it continues to fuel poetry the world over, inspiring fond memoirs by the wrinkled hand of a widow as it does “Roses are red, violets are blue” verses in the smitten schoolgirl, even to this exact moment, to this brink of history.


Sources

Aubrey, Bryan. "Critical Essay on 'An Arundel Tomb'." Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Gale. OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY. 3 Dec. 2009 .

Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. Eds. Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones. Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993. 278.

Larkin, Philip. “An Arundel Tomb.” The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. Eds. Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones. Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993. 687-688.

Markley, Arnold. "An overview of “My Last Duchess”." Poetry for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center. Gale. OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY. 3 Dec. 2009. .

"Poetry." Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students. Ed. Paul F. Grendler. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. 179-180.

Sydney, Sir Phillip. “Astrophil and Stella.” The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. Eds. Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones. Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993. 27.

Thoughts on Some Works of Canadian Literature

A comparison of Canadian wolf-stories

Both Ernest Thompson Seton and Farley Mowat wrote within a trend of literary environmentalism which stressed the relationship between man and beast and exalted the environment as a place of harmony and morality. Thus their respective works, “Lobo King of the Currumpaw” and Never Cry Wolf, share these elements, as well as the general purpose of advocating justice for animals. “They surely have their rights” (12), says Seton in his “Note to the Reader,” similarly Mowat in his “Preface” states that the wolf is a “fellow creature which has at least an equal right to life” as humans.

To reinforce the notion that animals are akin to humans and therefore deserve the same rights, both writers personify their wolves. Lobo is first referred to as a “king” (15). His story is laid out like that of an outlaw of the Old West - “well-known to the cowboys” (17), wreaking havoc throughout the land with his “remarkable pack” (15) and dodging all who go after his “royal scalp” (23). He is intelligent enough to outsmart all but one man; the story progresses as a battle of wits between Lobo and the narrator as he tries to kill the wolf. At the end of the story, as a “lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom or a dove bereft of his mate” (43), Lobo is said to die “of a broken heart” (43) Interestingly, while these similes compare the wolf to various other animals, the sentiments expressed therein – hopelessness, apathy, love, and despair – are human emotions. Thus Seton implies that these qualities, conventionally considered exclusively human, are inherent across the animal kingdom.

Mowat also emphasizes the humanness of the wolves he studies. In “Good Old Uncle Albert,” he describes the “individual personalities” of the wolves: the father wolf, “conscientious…thoughtful…and affectionate,” reminds him of a man he once worked for; the mother is described as nurturing, despite being “devilish.” The pups play familiar games such as tag. There is one essential factor, however, in the way Mowat describes George, Angelina, Albert and the pups that is lacking in Seton’s narrative – he actually describes them as better. George is the “idealized image” of a father that might appear in human stories “but whose real prototype has seldom paced the earth upon two legs;” Angelina is “the epitome of motherhood” and, “unlike dogs, who have adopted many of the habits of their human owners,” faithful to her mate, as is her nature. Thus, Mowat’s rendition of the wild is much more exalting than Seton’s. Seton conveys that wolves are as intelligent, heroic, and unique as humans, but not necessarily better.

Therefore, although the motivation of both works is the advocacy of animal rights, the theme of “Lobo” is the kinship between man and wolf, while the central concept of Never Cry Wolf, realized at the very end of the novel, is the “alien role” of humans who have exiled themselves from a world naturally more peaceful and ethical than their own.


Romance and Romanticism in Anne of Green Gables

Romance and Romanticism are motifs which run through L.M. Montgomery’s beloved tale Anne of Green Gables. Countless times, the protagonist herself brings up romance, often praising or denouncing a thing for how romantic (or unromantic) it is. Thus, in understanding Anne of Green Gables, one must explore the role played by these motifs within the novel.

Romanticism provides an encompassing tone and prospect for the novel. The glorification of nature, a defining aspect of Romanticism, is evident in the novel in the many positive descriptions of nature given by both the narrator and the protagonist. Anne herself is particularly depicted as having a very close connection to nature: she names and speaks to the tree outside her window, ponders the feelings of geraniums, and has a deep appreciation for the surrounding environment. In general, Romanticism honoured the child. The movement grew, in part, in reaction to rationalism, and therefore the child, being uncorrupted by the reason of adults, was seen as innocent and pure (Cooper). Above all, the Romantic movement had a preoccupation with a simpler past, “an idyllic time” (Cooper) – and this too is a component of Anne of Green Gables. Written in the early 1900s but placed in a setting some fifty years prior, the novel has always had the nostalgic quality that has greatly influenced its popularity (Fiamengo).

The romance that Anne exalts draws its primary inspiration from the Arthurian legends (Fiamengo). These medieval stories speak of heroes and quests, passionate loyalty, and perhaps above all, self-sacrifice and the trials that love could endure (Fiamengo). Anne’s infatuation with this melodramatic genre, however, leads her to insensible worries and continuous trouble: she detests her name and yearns for a more extravagant title such as “the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald” (64); she dyes her hair (with disastrous results) in hopes of acquiring “beautiful raven black” (201) locks and later laments that she should lose her hair in such a non-noble fashion. As these events show, romance, in the medieval sense of the word, though “probably easy enough in towered Camelot hundreds of years ago” (211), was unrealistic in a place like Avonlea. Realizing this, Anne chooses to renounce romance.

Though there is no doubt that Anne does greatly relinquish her desire for romance, Montgomery returns to the motif at the end of the novel when Anne chooses to sacrifice her intended plans of going to Redmond in order to save Green Gables and keep Marilla company. In this act, we see the loyalty, love and noble self-sacrifice which are of utmost value in medieval romances (Fiamengo). Thus Montgomery conveys the possibility of romance in the real world, and implies, further, that Anne’s romantic tendencies have not diminished – merely ripened.


Tom Wilson and Brian the Still-Hunter

In her introduction to Roughing It in the Bush, Susanna Moodie explains that the aim of her book is to describe “what the Backwoods of Canada are…to the refined and accomplished gentleman” (5). The various sketches she presents throughout of characters such as Tom Wilson and Brian the Still-Hunter conform to this purpose, offering an unappealing portrayal of a land that is unfit for the gentry.

In “Tom Wilson’s Emigration,” the eccentric Mr. Wilson tells Mr. Moodie that he believed their “qualifications” for prospering in Canada were “pretty equal” (66). This invites readers to consider the possible similarities between the two, and whether or not, in fact, Mr. Moodie isn’t quite as “helpless [and] whimsical” (64) as Mr. Wilson. The author explains that Mr. Wilson comes from an “old but impoverished” (1) family which, despite its financial circumstances, still “held a certain rank and standing” (59) – this is identical to the background of any gentlemen who chose to immigrate to Canada, as outlined in the Introduction. He is portrayed as “dressed with…neatness and care” (61), having a “slight, elegant” (59) figure, and often seen bowing to “pretty girls” (59) or going hunting “with a brown spaniel dodging at his heels” (59). At the same time, he is excessively distracted and impractical. Therefore Wilson is both the portrait of an average Englishman and a device of humour. Thus, while leading her readers to laugh at Wilson and his hopeless “scheme” (66) to immigrate, Susanna Moodie implies that Mr. Moodie will be just as unsuccessful in the New World, being from precisely the same sort of background. She uses Wilson’s speech in “Tom Wilson’s Emigration” to both highlight her feelings of apprehension and foreshadow imminent failure: “’Gentlemen can’t work like labourers…,” says Mr. Wilson to the Moodies, “you will find that out” (66).

“Brian the Still-Hunter” further conveys the futility of gentlemen immigrating to Canada by presenting a disenchanting portrait of a gentleman immersed in the Canadian wilderness. Brian describes himself as “respectably born and educated” (187). Traces of his background are evident through the chapter: he generously provides milk for the baby, shows an interest in art, runs an errand for Mrs. Moodie, and so on. However, it is very clear that twenty years in Canada has taken its toll on him. Layton, who gives Brian’s history, relates that, over time, Brian became a drunk; he says “when the liquor was in, and the wit was out, [Brian became] as savage and as quarrelsome as a bear” (183). This analogy associates wilderness, as embodied by the bear, with lack of “wit” or reason. After three suicide attempts, Brian gives up drinking and chooses to isolate himself in the forest instead – but as he himself states, hunting is merely a replacement to supply “the stimulant which [he] lost when [he] renounced the cursed whiskey bottle” (188). He makes a fourth attempt at suicide – this time succeeding – proving that the Canadian wilderness is no more a solution than drinking is for a gentleman.

The sketches of Tom Wilson and Brian the Still-Hunter both attest to Susanna Moodie’s ultimate conclusion regarding the backwoods of Canada: “To the poor industrious working man, it provides many advantageous; to the poor gentleman, none!” (538).


Satire in Leacock's Sunshine Sketches

Stephen Leacock’s novel, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, mocks small-town life as represented in the fictional town of Mariposa. Leacock exposes the townspeople as petty, hypocritical, and prone to folly. At the same time, however, he leads readers to identify with the characters. Thus his satire is of a gentle sort. While it ridicules the subject of Mariposa, it also sympathizes with it – and ultimately provides a complex, derisive yet nostalgic view of small-town living.

An excellent example of the complex, satiric yet endearing, viewpoint Leacock takes in his narrative is provided through the character of the Rev. Dean Drone. Although a reverend, Drone is described as being just as self-important as the rest of the Mariposans: in order to impress and appear studious, he pretends to read and understand Greek, but as the narrator says, “when Dean Drone said that he simply couldn’t translate it,…he was perfectly sincere” (69). He has a “liking for machinery” (71) (more enthusiastic, perhaps, than his liking for Christianity, as the fact that his best sermon was one on airplanes might indicate), and makes “kites and boats and clockwork steamboats for [children]” (70) – despite never actually letting the children themselves play with the toys. Thus, Dean Drone is initially depicted as a vain and at least partially dishonest (to others and to himself) person. But from the introduction of his aim of twenty-five years to “kindle a Brighter Beacon” (75), Leacock begins to describe Drone from within the character himself, referring to his dreams, worries, and hurts. When someone refers to Drone as a “mugwump” (81), Leacock details the Reverend’s ensuing anxiety, which is both laughable in its portrayal of a cleric looking up “mugwump” in the encyclopedia, and extremely pitiful. Thus, while Dean Drone is portrayed satirically as a man of many faults, Leacock also provides an inside look at the thoughts and feelings of the reverend, thus allowing the readers to see him not merely as a subject of laughter, but as uniquely human.

The narrative voice with which Leacock writes greatly aids him in establishing his dualistic viewpoint which sees characters both from within and without. As he is detailing the events of the story, the narrator is merely a spectator, seeing each character as the outside world would – that is, as objects of ridicule, ripe with folly. However, the narrator himself appears to be just as foolish as the Mariposans. He often speaks with the same pride in Mariposa and their petty lifestyle as the other citizens; for instance, in the first chapter, he defends the Mariposan opinion that the town, with its “dentists and lawyers…ready to work at any minute” (3) and its four (at the most) “sausage machine” (3) workers, is a “perfect hive of activity” (3). Thus, he is an Mariposan insider as well.

Inasmuch as this is true, Leacock also allows his narrator to be a point of satire. He is as naïve, contradictory, and trivial as the inhabitants of Mariposa. In the self-deprecation of the narrator, as well as the intimate involvement of the reader in the details of the characters’ lives, Leacock assuages the hostility of his satire.


Sources

Cooper, Susan. “Children’s Literature: History of the Child.” ENG2110: Children's Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 30 Jan 2010.

Fiamengo, Janice. Class Lectures on Anne of Green Gables. ENG2400B: Canadian Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 2 Nov 2010-9 Nov 2010.

Leacock, Stephen. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010.

Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables & Anne of Avonlea. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2008.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing It in the Bush. Toronto: McClelland and Steward, 2007.

Moway, Farley. Never Cry Wolf. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973. eBook.

Seton, Ernest Thompson. Wild Animals I Have Known. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 7- 44.

Notes on Nominalization

-As is probably already clear, there are certain similarities between...sentences, on the one hand, and their nominalizations on the other. These similarities are found in terms of morphological form, semantic interpretation and the selectional features of verbs and their nominals.

Once these similarities were noted, the question then became, how can these similarities be accounted for within a grammar of English? It became necessary for the study of nominalization to precisely define what this relationship was - because obviously there was a relationship.

-overtime, two solutions emerged, what are called the transformationalist and lexicalist approaches.

-The transformationalist approach theorizes that sentences and their nominals are all derived from one sentence-like underlying structure, essentially a deep structure. Thus the morphological, semantic and syntactic similarities are due to the fact that sentences and their nominalizations are all transformed out of virtually the same base structure.

-Lexicalist approach, on the other hand, states that the relationship between sentence and derived nominal is specified in the lexicon rather than through transformations. Now the essential difference between the two approaches concerns the status of derived nominals. The transformationalist approach argues that they are "transforms" - that is to say, they are derived from the same base structure as their corresponding sentences. The lexicalist approach, however, states that derived nominals are nouns in the base component.

-in "Remarks on Nominalization", Chomsky outlines three arguments against the transformationalist approach, and for the lexicalist approach.

-Productivity
-consider the sentence "John is certain to win the prize"
-gerundive nominal: "John's being certain to win the prize."
-derived nominal: "John's certainty to win the prize"
-same kind of difficulty arises with words like "easy" and "amuse."
-for every sentence, there is a corresponding gerundive nominal and vice versa; this is not so with derived nominals
-according to transformationalist approach, derived nominals should be formed as easily as gerundive nominals but this is not so
-lexicalist approach proposes that such words as "amuse" and "certain" appear in the lexicon with "strict subcategorization features" indicating what kinds of complements may be taken by each; thus ungrammatical forms can not be derived

-Internal Structure
-Consider a sentence like "John has failed the exam," - present perfect aspect
-the gerundive nominal for this is "John's having failed the exam" - the nominalization
still carries aspect, still retains the internal structure of the verb from which it is transformed
-no equivalent derived nominal; derived nominals can't carry aspect
-derived nominals can pluralize, take determiners, appear in any noun phrase structure; in fact they resemble nouns in every way
-the transformationalist hypothesis would expect that a derived nominal reflects the internal structure of its corresponding sentence
-lexicalist approach specifies that derived nominals are nouns in the base component and thus have the structure of noun phrases

-Idiosyncrasy
-laughter, marriage, construction, actions, activities, revolution, belief, doubt, conversion, permutation, trial, residence, qualifications, specifications, etc.
-such derived nominals exhibit a range of meaning and extremely varied semantic relations to their corresponding base forms. To accommodate this in the transformationalist approach, we would need to assign a range of meanings to the base form as well.

Chomsky opted for the lexicalist approach over the transformationalist approach, despite noting that a "compromise solution" may be possible, concluding that the lexicalist approach more clearly accounted for the internal structure, semantic idiosyncrasy and syntactic irregularity of derived nominals.

SOURCE

Chomsky, Noam. "Remarks on Nominalization." 1970.

Simplicity, Sublimity, Divinity: The Romantic Notion of Nature

The unappreciative reader of works spanning from 1785 to 1830 might be tempted to call the Romantic poets a bunch of self-absorbed, sentimental pansies, on account of those attributes which are among the most characteristic of them: namely, an emphasis on emotion and the individualism of each man. However, there is one concept many times more essential to the Romantic Age than those above mentioned: nature. So inherent is it in the works of the Romantic period, that many refer to the poems of the age simply as "nature poetry." Whereas before the 1780s, nature served as a backdrop to the poem at best, the Romantic age witnessed its transformation into a central theme or otherwise recurring motif. A thorough understanding of the circumstances which gave rise to Romanticism helps in understanding the period's pronounced focus on nature. Furthermore, analysis of the works of major poets, such as Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge and Shelley, and artists of the age, including Turner and Constable, indicate that there were two major qualities alternately ascribed to nature - simplicity and sublimity - and that both, furthermore, relate to a discernible trend during the Romantic age of associating nature with the divine.

To understand the Romantic preoccupation with nature, one must first understand the two conditions which influenced it. The first of these is the Enlightenment. As Isaiah Berlin details in his book The Roots of Romanticism, men of the Enlightenment, encouraged by the scientific discoveries of figures such as Newton and Galileo, abandoned as faulty previously held sources of knowledge - revelations, traditions, dogma, and so forth - and turned to human reason as the one thing capable of attaining truth (22). Popular belief held that the application of reason could bring order to the chaotic realms of morals, politics and aesthetics - in brief, the human world - in the same way that Newton had brought order to the physical universe (Berlin 24). Thus arose an era of strict rationalism, which attempted to explain, predict and control human nature. The philosophies of the Romantic era were born in opposition to this rationalism. These were formulated by men such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote in his Émile, "The one thing we do not know, is the limit of the knowable" (Rousseau). Romantic thinkers, sharing Rousseau's view, placed emphasis on the mysteries of the world, and particularly those concentrated in the depths of nature, in opposition, as Mark Micale notes, to salons, the symbol of the intellectual Enlightenment, which were concentrated in large Parisian cities (2029). The words in "The Tables Turned" by William Wordsworth - "Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;/Our meddling intellect/Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things" (25-27) - and the encouragement therein given to "quit...books" (1) may be thus understood in the context of the division between Romanticism and the Enlightenment.

The other condition which led to the Romantic absorption in nature was the industrialization taking place across Europe, and the shift from the rural to the urban. The Romantics saw industrialization as unnatural, yet another instance of man taking "nothing as nature made it" (Rousseau). In his poem "And did those feet," William Blake represents the industrialization with the term "those dark Satanic Mills" (8) indicating the level of corruption the Romantics associated with urbanization. Furthermore, in the preface to his Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth outlines a number of reasons for preferring "humble and rustic life" over city life, among them that "in [rural life] the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." As with the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution played an important role in the rise of Romanticism.

While both these preconditions gave way to Romantic thought, they contributed two different characteristics to the Romantic conception of nature. The Enlightenment, by focusing on strict order and control of nature, led the Romantics to revolt with a view of nature as something wild, mysterious and irrepressible. This view of nature can be seen in artwork such as J.M.W. Turner's watercolour, Interior of Tintern Abbey and John Martin's Manfred on the Jungfrau, both of which show the superiority of nature to man and man-made things. The alternate view of nature, as influenced by an industrialization which the Romantics felt distanced men from their natural, "humble" beginnings, was that nature was a place of simplicity. The Hay Wain, a painting by John Constable where he "captured soothing, arcadian scenes of the English summertime...across a rustic landscape," demonstrates this view (Micale). These two characteristics may seem mutually exclusive; we tend to think of simple as small, and as such have difficulty imagining how a simple and calm nature may be associated with the exhilarating, breath-taking nature of sublimity. Yet these two ideas did merge into one notion of nature; this fusion of the two is what allowed William Wordsworth to write both "Lines...," in which he describes the "sense sublime....deeply interfused" (96-97) in nature, as well as "I wandered lonely as a cloud," wherein he commemorates the simple joy brought on by a "host of golden daffodils" (4). Clearly then, these two views did not result in a division within the collective Romantic conscious whereby a few of the Romantics saw nature in one way, while the rest saw it in the other.

Perhaps what helped in fusing them in the Romantic conscious was the way both of these alternate attributes - simplicity and sublimity - relate nature to divinity in a complex way. In the Romantic view of nature as sublime, it's superiority to mankind demonstrates that nature is an aspect of God: bigger, better and beyond humanity. Wordsworth's "Lines..." which takes place at an abbey which is never mentioned, implying that nature itself is the abbey, the very home of religion, strongly implies this relation between God and sublime nature. Another strong case in point is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In this poem, the all-encompassing force of nature, consisting of "a hot and copper sky" (111), the "broad bright Sun" (174), a "wide wide sea" (232), and
the elements rain, wind and snow, serve to either punish or reward the ancient mariner in accordance with his sins or good deeds; in other words, nature in the poem is Providence, the manifestation of God's will on earth.

The relation between divinity and the simplicity of nature, on the other hand, has to do with the fact that nature is the creation, the masterpiece, of God. It needs no improvements, such as those prescribed by industrialization and rationalism, to complicate it, because it is God's work, and therefore already perfect. This concept is conveyed very clearly in the work "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. In this modern fairy tale, a boy named Kay gets in his eyes a shard of glass from a mirror which has the power to distort reality, making "the most beautiful landscapes [look] like boiled spinach." The mirror is the product of a demon, and in the story symbolizes the rationalism of the Enlightenment (Cooper): after Kay is taken over by it, he recites mathematics in place of prayers and seeks perfection with a magnifying glass. Most significantly to the understanding of Romantic ideas, he rejects roses, a symbol of divine love in the story, because they are flawed, being "cankered [and]...quite crooked." The protagonist of the story, a little girl named Gerda, on the other hand, untainted by the demon's glass, continues to love roses as ever despite their imperfection. As such, as she journeys to save Kay, robbers and royalty alike strive to help her, and angels form out of the steam of her breath as she prays! The story is a dense metaphor which conveys the Romantic notion that a simple approach to nature, such as that assumed by a child, which doesn't seek flaws in nature to be fixed, as the Enlightenment does, brings one closer to God.

There is another key element in the linking of the simplicity of nature with divinity, and it can be seen in the cover illustration of William Blake's Songs of Innocence. It takes merely a glance at the illustration - which includes the pastoral image of a piper, branches laden with fruit winding across the page, and the concealment of a snake in the shadow of the tree - to ascertain that the simplicity of nature was also connected to the Garden of Eden, an idealized past in a natural setting, closer to God. Thus, analogous to how Blake sets up a dichotomy between experience and innocence, Romantics in general set up the dichotomy between the city life as spiritually impure and the simple, rustic life as divine. As Jeffrey Foss states in his work, Beyond Environmentalism: a Philosophy of Nature, the Romantics had a sense of mankind having lost their hold on perfection (211). We had achieved this loss by way of knowledge - by defiance and impatience towards the natural ways - as manifest in the science behind industrialization and rationalism; therefore the only way to repent, and regain that ideal state of happiness of earlier times, was to reject technology, and return, as Foss described "to our state of original innocence" (211), which included living the rural life. Nature, in its purest form, then, was a paradise akin to the "ancient trees" (Blake 5) of Eden described in "And did those feet." This analogy between nature and the Garden of Eden is clearly spiritual in nature; it directly refers to Christian beliefs, and therefore further explains the connection made between the simplicity of nature and God.

Consider the way the world was heading until the Romantics came along: understanding nature by system of reason, manipulating and controlling it by way of science - these were generally unquestioned objectives throughout Europe. Romantics rose up against these trends in a movement that would later be termed "return to nature." In nature, they saw the sublimity of an essence that was far greater than humanity, and that would assert its force upon the hubris of mankind, as in Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias." They also saw in nature the peace of uncrowded paths and smokeless skies, the purity of a time before the application of reason had blasted human life into a thousand complications. Above all, however, they felt nature as something sacred. We can try to understand this by analyzing the preconditions that birthed Romanticism and picking out the details in the poems which might give a clue as to why the writers felt a divine connection with nature, but perhaps there is a better way: "behold/A rainbow in the sky" (1-2) as William Wordsworth wrote in "My heart leaps up," and you may sense that "natural piety" (9) which was at the heart of Romanticism.

PRIMARY SOURCES

Andersen, Hans Christian. "The Snow Queen." Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Project Gutenberg. Web. 10 Apr 2010.

Blake, William. "And did those feet." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 123-124. --- "Introduction." Songs of Experience. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 87. --- Title page for Songs of Innocence. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 82.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 430-446.

Martin, John. Manfred on the Jungfrau. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: C6

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Émile.1762. Project Gutenberg. Web. 10 Apr 2010.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Ozymandias." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 768.

Turner, J.M.W. Interior of Tintern Abbey. Victoria & Albert Museum. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: C4

Wordsworth, William. "I wandered lonely as a cloud." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 305-306. --- "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey..." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 258-262. --- "My heart leaps up." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D:306. --- "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 263-274. --- "The Tables Turned." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, et. al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. D: 251-252.


SECONDARY SOURCES

Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Ed. Henry Hardy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Google Books. 10 Apr 2010 .

Cooper, Susan. Class Lecture on Modern Fairytales. ENG2110: Children's Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 30 Jan 2010.

Foss, Jeffrey E. Beyond Environmentalism: a philosophy of nature. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2006. Google Books. 10 Apr 2010 .

Micale, Mark S. "Romanticism." Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire. Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. Vol. 4. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 2026-2033. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Notes on René Descartes

Rene Descartes
-most important figure in modernity/modern era of philosophy
-17th century: 1596-1650
-Descartes considered founder of new scientific, modern philosophic method
-Jesuit

Descartes ambition was to replace Aristotle
-Aristotle’s ideas were adopted by church, became scholastics, prevented expansion
-wanted to write a new manual, new method, etc etc
-to replace logic of schools, petrified (?), scholastics, etc
-”Descartes Conqueror of Aristotle” painting where he’s standing on an Aristotle book

-obsessed with method; believed that is what really mattered
-”Discourse on the Method”
-first philosophical book written in national language, French; before this all learned people wrote in Greek/Latin
-”Meditation of First Philosophy” - proto philosophia, Aristotelean term, metaphysics
-”Principles of Philosophy”

-his philo is also called “philosophy of doubt”
-doubt: a central feeling throughout modernity
-not doubt that leads into skepticism (ie. Never the kind that leads into believing that we never can know)
-cf. Greeks, main sentiment was amazement, astonishment at cosmos

-all sciences like a tree - tree representing all of human knowledge
-roots are metaphysics
-metaphysics - something that comes after physics
-came from Aristotle’s book which came after Physica
-interrogation of first causes, principle things
-”principles of knowledge”
-God, Soul
-the basics, the roots, absolute things
-trunk is physics
-true principles of material things
-branches are the other sciences - medicine, mechanics, morals

-random dream, malicious demon appears, he has an encyclopedia
-another one, he’s reading a poem “What Road in Life Should I follow”
-realized that his mission was to find a new scientific method
-Sciencia Mirabilis (?)

-distinguished four levels of wisdom
1) notions clear in themselves
2) sensory evidence
3) conversing with others
4) reading books
5) Philosophy

-task of philosophy is to search for the first causes

Meditations:
-starts by doubting; radical doubt; looking for something that is absolutely certain
-everything that has ever deceived him just once, he’s going to consider it absolutely wrong
-senses, sensory evidence - but senses don’t deceive us about things that are closer
-madmen? Even madmen aren’t deceived in every single aspect of life
-dreams; in dreams even those things close to us are in doubt - eg we might imagine ourselves clothed when we’re asleep nekkid; in dreams, all sensory evidence is doubtable
-exaggerated metaphysical doubt
-but even in dreams, there are elements of true things - colours for example, those colours are true; something that resists doubt
-all sensory “facts” are false but mathematical truths resist this means of doubt, dreams
-Malicious Demon hypothesis
-omnipotent but evil so that he is always deceiving, even with math
-everything is a lie. 2+3=18, but we think it’s 5 because of the malicious demon
-thus even mathematical truths are doubtful
-”Hyperbolical Doubt”
-at this point, everything is put into doubt
-point of Adhevities (?)
-I am, I exist - Ego sum, ego existo
-who is this I?!
=Cogito - a thing that thinks
-a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, is (un)willing, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions
-thing - res = substance, an essence
-> I think therefore I am.
-immediacy. As soon as one thinks, one knows one exists; ceases once
We no longer think
=> human being, cogito, reason, individual mind becomes the subject, takes on the central role, becomes the root of knowledge; in ancient Greece it was the cosmos = this is what is basically called modernity
-so now there’s Cogito (immaterial) - but there’s also “res extensa” - material world
-God is the third substance

SOURCE

Jankovic, Zoran. Class Lecture on Descartes. University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 26 Mar 2010.

Notes on Epicurus

-his philosophy is a complete, independent system consisting of ...
-view of the human life's goal (happiness, no physical pain or mental disturbance)
-empiricist theory of knowledge (sensations, perception of pleasure/pain, is truth)
-theory of nature based on atomistic materialism
-dispensed transcendent entities like Forms, disproving the possibility of soul's survival
and punishment in afterlife
-naturalistic account of evolution, from formation of world to human societies
-his philosophy was everything; you don't need much knowledge
-regarded unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as cause of anxiety, which caused irrational desires
-elimination of fears left person free to physical and mental pleasures and to enjoy peace of mind and satisfaction
-account of social evolution helped explain where irrational fears came from
-proposed exercises to assist novice in throwing off habitual thoughts
-advice on things like
-politics (avoid when possible)
-gods (they're not concerned with humans; shouldn't be a problem)
-the role of sex (dubious)
-marriage (also dubious)
-friendship (essential)


Life:
-son of Neocles and Chaerestrata
-moved to Athens in 323
-after death of Alexander, when Athenians were expelled from Samos, he rejoined his father in Colophon (321)
-here, studied philosophy under Nausiphanes, who had skeptical learnings
-in ethics, Nausiphanes had something called "akataplexia" (undauntability), sorta like
Epicurus' "ataraxia" (imperturbability)
-ten years later, moved to Mytilene and then Lampascus, teaching and gathering followers
-returned to Athens in 307/306
-remained there till death in 270, at 70 years age
-in Athens, purchased property that became known as the "Garden" (later used as a name for his school) and began to develop his own school
-number of slanderous stories spread by opponents, but most hold he had a extraordinarily humane disposition
-in will, among other things, he provides for friends' children etc.


Physical Theory:
-atomist: elementary constituents of nature is undifferentiated matter: discrete, solid, indivisible particles - atoms - below perception, and empty space
-four kinds of atoms: breath, heat, air, unnamed
-sensations come from Animus (mind, will, emotions - rational) and anima (sensations - irrational)


Psychology and Ethics:
-everything is made of atoms and void; an incorporeal entity could neither act on or be acted on and moved by bodies (as the soul is seen to do)
-soul atoms are fine and distributed throughout body
-through them, we have sensations, and the experience of pain/pleasure (called "pathe" - a term
used by Aristotle to mean feelings)
-body without soul atoms is unconscious/inert; when body atoms are disarranged so it can no longer contain conscious life, soul atoms are scattered and can not provide sensations
-a part of the soul is concentrated in the chest, seat of higher intellectual power
-in the rational part, error in judgement enter
-sensation is incorrigible because it is a function of the non-rational part which does not modify a perception with opinion of belief
-corporeal nature of soul has two important consequence:
1)soul does not survive death of body
-texture is too delicate to exist independently; connection with body is necessary for
sensation to occur
-therefore, no punishment after death, or regret for lost life
2)soul is responsive to physical impressions from without or within body
-no phenomena are purely mental, disembodied states of objects of pure consciousness
-elementary sensations of pleasure/pain, rather than abstract principles, are the best guides for good and bad
-function of human mind (the part in the chest) is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain = entire objective
-substantial risk is that it might miscalculate, subject to false beliefs
-beliefs occur when certain atoms of something are fine enough to penetrate straight to mind
-misunderstanding is always an incorrect inference of something
-egs centaurs: fine particles of horses and men mixed up getting into our minds
-one barrier to correct thinking is language
-eg. by having a word for "death" may suggest that "death" is something that one can "experience"
-beliefs must be tested against knowledge of world
-hêdonê, algêdôn = pleasure, pain
-death is nothing to fear: while we exist, death does not, and when death comes, we do not exist
-as there is pain, there is also negative mental states: eg. fear, anxiety
-positive mental states as well, also depend on belief (whether true or false
-classification of desires into three parts
-natural desires
-two parts: some unnecessary, and those htat are merely natural
-empty desires
-natural and necessary look to life itself (happiness, physical well-being)
-natural but unnecessary: good things, nice odors, tasty foods, etc.
-empty desires have as their objects things which are empty - eg. immortality which cannot
exist for humans; wealth and fame, etc.
-based on empty belief, therefore can't be satisfied in same way empty fears (eg. of death) can't be alleviated
-atoms move according to fixed laws; what gives us liberty in a mechanistic universe is a minute swerve in the motions of atoms
-met a lot of critique
-offers a breach in any strict predestination


Tetrapharmacos: four-fold antidote for fear, one for each major fear (death, gods, pain, desires)
1) Divine beings have no concerns of its own, and none for others
-Gods are in a state of perfection, ataraxia; therefore, they won't disturb our world, they
don't need anything!
-we should imitate, not fear
2) Death means nothing
-broken down into atoms after death; no body, no soul, no hell
-traditionally, death is separation of body/soul
-for Epicurus: privation of sensation
-death/person can't exist at same time, so how can we possibly fear it?
-man who fears death does not live and enjoy present
-greed, desire for fame, all springs from our fear of death
-fear of death is not for what happens after, but for leaving everyone behind
-main argument against Epicurus, no answer
3) Regulation of Desires
-three types of desires:
1)natural/necessary: (survival) food and drink, (body) shelter, happiness (philo)
2) natural, not necessary: sex, love, friendship
4) Capacity to tolerate severe pain
-either pain is going to finish in a while, or you'll die

-children can't be happy cuz they're not rational; to be happy, you have to be conscious of it

Happiness/Ataraxia VS Cura/Anxiety

Social Theory:
-in beginning, humans were solitary: reproduced randomly, no verbal communication, no social institutions, survived cuz they were strong
-overtime, race softened, partly cuz of discovery of fire, partly cuz of emergence of family, which created gentler people
-put human beings in a position to gather to fend of natural dangers => development of language, agriculture and other technical skills
-alliances and friendships further contributed to collective security
-advantages of early social life:
-scarcity of goods prevented excessive competition (sharing = survival), setting limits on those
unnatural desires which later would give ways to wars etc
-before language developed further, words more accurately conformed to their actual thing; was
less a source of confusion
-gradual accumulation of money => struggle over goods infected social relations => tyrants and autocrats
-tyrants eventually overthrown => state of anarchy till people realized the wisdom of the rule of law
-with law came generalized fear of punishment which is a taint
-religious ideas are brought in; thunder and lightning considered to be wrath of gods; primitive humans may have been odd, but would not have considered it punishment till now
-if not law, what is the motive for living justly?
-where there is law, its best to follow, even in secret affairs, since otherwise you'll be anxious
over detection etc, disturbing mental state
-someone who is incapable of living prudently, honorably and justly cannot live happily, and vice versa
-thus, justice seems pragmatic and selfish
-doesn't go about it the way Plato does, considering, what if there was no possibility of punishment; would there be a reason to be just?
-perhaps a person who knows what is desirable would have no need to accumulate wealth, or hurt other people, cuz he knows how to reason correctly about his needs


The Epicurean Life:
-extremely high value on friendship, or love
-held that a wise man would feel the torture of a friend no less than his own
-would die for a friend rather than betray him; if he did so, his own life would be screwed
-these seem highly altruistic for a philosophy whose objective is to live without
physical pain and mental disturbance
-Epicurus justifies it in the same way he justifies living justly
-only by treating loyalty as a consummate value will one feel secure in ones friends, thus living happily
-his followers thought of themselves as friends
-Epicureans encouraged to form communities, observe certain rituals
-Epicureans paid attention to pedagogy also, trying to think of ways to teach newcomers without discouraging them
-Epicurus understood philosophy first as a therapy for life - philosophy that does not heal the soul is no better than medicine that does not cure the body
-life free of mental anxiety and open to pleasure was a life like the gods'

SOURCES

Jankovic, Zoran. Class Lecture on Epicurus. University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 2010.

"Epicurus." Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.
<>

Notes on Plato

-Athenian high-status citizen
-displays an absorption of political and intellectual movements of the time
-educated readers of every following age have in some way been influenced by him
-"All philosophy is but a footnote to Plato" - Whitehead, 19th century philosopher
-in almost every age, there are philosophers who consider themselves Platonists
-Socrates had no writings of his own, so we're dealing with the first instance of preserved philosophical writings
-25-27 books accredited to him with certainty; among them:
-Apology of Socrates, Phaedo (Immortality of the Soul), Meno, Gorgias, Sophist, Republic (Justice)
-had a school called 'Academy', was open for centuries

central doctrines:
-associated with a few central doctrines he advocated in writings
-the world that appears to our senses is erroneous and flawed; there is a more real and perfect
realm of "forms" (entities eternal, changeless, and paradigmatic for things in our world)
-egs. goodness, beauty, equality, bigness, likeness unity, being, sameness, difference, change, and changelessness (often capitalized)
-nearly all his works work on the distinction between what is beautiful (just, good, etc)
and what is truly beautiful (just, good, etc.) and from which that which we call beautiful
gets its name and characteristics
-many explore ethical and practical consequences of us conceiving the world
in this twofold way
-urged to transform our values, realize the defectiveness of the observable world
-soul is different object from the body, can exist without it; can grasp the nature of the Forms when it is more detached from the corpus
-many works assert that philosophers - those who can distinguish what is good
(right, beautiful, equal etc) from things that are called good (etc.) - are in a
state to be ethically superior
-to understand what is good and why (and if we're not interested in such questions, how can we become good?) we must investigate the Form of Good

Plato's Puzzles
-often his works exhibit some degree of uncertainty, even towards the Forms
-Forms = "Hypotheses" in Phaedo for example
-in The Republic he says that the Form of Good is a mystery whose nature is elusive and
unknown
-puzzles raised about how any of the Forms can be known and talked about without falling into
contradiction, or about what it is to know anything, or to name anything
=this exploratory approach is what sets him apart from others ranked with him (Aquinas, Kant,
Aristotle) and often makes him the introduction into philosophy
-instead of presenting a set of doctrines, fully developed, he presents a few key ideas
with suggestions and problems about how they are to be interrogated
-readers of Platonic dialogue are drawn into thinking for themselves

Dialogue, Setting, Character
-nearly everything he wrote takes form of dialogue (again, distinguishes him from other philosophers) - one striking acception: his Apology, Socrates speaks in his defense
-philosophical discussions, debates, among a small number of interlocutors, many identified as
historical figures
-often begin with a depiction of the setting - visit to a prison, wealthy man's house, celebration
over drinks, a festival, visit to gym, stroll outside city walls, etc.
-as a group, they form a portrait of a social world - not purely intellectual exchanges between
characterless or socially unmarked speakers
-some exceptions where the speakers are quite characterless
-in many (though not all), he not only makes a philosophical discussion, but comments on social
world and specific characters

Socrates
-features in practically all his dialogues, except one Laws (his role is also small in others)
-appears in other peoples' works as well: Aristophanes' Cloud; Xenophon also wrote an
Apology, an account of the trial, and other works; fragment of other writers' works
-so when Plato wrote, he was contributing to a genre; also taking part in a literary debate on the kind of person Socrates was and the value of his intellectual debates
-Aristophanes' comedy is a bitter critique of Socrates and other leading figures, but from the rest of the "Socratic Discourses" (Aristotle's word for it), we get positive portrayals
-evidently Socrates inspired people, but the portraits by Plato, Aristophanes and Xenophon must
play the part of telling us today what he was like
-Clouds has the least value: not intended as a philosophical work; may contain a few lines of
characterization of features unique to Soc, for the most part, its an attack on the philosophical
type: long-haired, unwashed, amoral investigator into empirical issues
-Xenophon's works generally thought to lack the philosophical subtlety of Plato's; no one really
considers Xenophon a philosophical person
-not easy to see where he drew the line between himself and his teacher
-his use of "Socrates" in his dialogues should not be taken to mean that he is merely preserving
his teacher's words

Plato's Indirectness
-he never speaks through his own voice;
-while he writes speeches, discussions, etc, they are all made by other characters; therefore he himself never affirms, doubt, etc.
-never engaged in the popular genre of philosophical treatises
-can we attribute any philosophical doctrine to him?
-do we violate what he intended with his dialogues in associating him with philosophical doctrines?
-other important questions: ie. the importance of Socrates? why does he play such a large role
in some dialogues, but such a small role, or none, in others?
-we are tempted to read cautiously; eg. Plato's Republic; what is justice? ends with others agreeing with Socrates' view. - perhaps we should end there and not inquire further - minimalist approach; we don't attempt to delve into the mind of the author, and read only for the philosophical value
-but then we fail to understand what Plato intended. does he mean for us to agree with a character, or to see what he says as foolish; Plato wrote, therefore he is reaching out to a readership, what is he trying to convey?
-dialogues have certain characteristics that make them seem like they are trying to convince of
something (Forms, Immortality of Soul, etc.); eg. oen speaker may dominate and perservere with an idea, often meeting resistance at first, but finally convincing on the basis of arguments
-in one work Laws main speaker - visitor from Athens - proposes that laws are accompanied by "preludes" explaining their philosophical basis - ie. advocating for written texts as an educative tool
-does not mean he expects the works themselves to make people wise; they're intended to spur conversation and debate; in one of his works, Socrates warns against relying solely on books

Socrates as the Dominant Speaker
-if we take it that Plato is attempting to persuade us of the conclusions arrived at by his principal interlocuters, its easy to see why he chooses Socrates
-presumably, his readership consisted of many Soc-admirers; therefore would be predisposed to
believe that a character thus named has all the intellectual brilliance and moral passion of real Soc
-Plato makes efforts to make Socrates life-like (references to his trial and famous traits)
-aura of Socrates would give his words persuasive power
-perhaps also, Plato felt indebted to Soc for his own philosophical ideas and techniques
-shows that he shares in some ideas on important topics: presocratics all about nature; soc and
Plato all about politics, people, ethics

Links between the Dialogues
-continuity seen
-ie. sometimes some dialogue refers to another
-sometimes, the works build on eachother; Plato expects that his readers have referred to other
works
-eg. Socrates continually brings up Forms
-suggests that Plato is endorsing a doctrine

Plato and Politics
-he is essentially a political philosopher
-although he expresses the desire to shed one's body and live in the incorporeal world of forms
he devotes a lot of his works as well to practical matters, understanding our world, appreciating
its limited beauty and improving it
-Socrates, in Apology, appears to be a man not with his head in the clouds (cf. Aristophanes' Clouds); does not want to escape from everyday world but make it better; true art of politics
-Socrates in Republic devotes talk to ordinary social institutions: family, private property, etc.
-Laws all about voting, punishment, education, legislation, etc etc.
-in Republic he shows an antipathy to rule by the many; in Laws, he seems to advocate putting
power in the hands of people who aren't philosophers - has he changed his mind?

Why Dialogues?
-use of character and conversation enlivens work, awakes interest of readership, reaches further
-Dia (true) logos (reason)
-more dynamic, both sides presented, Plato likes being challenged, sees it as more enlightening
-prefers speech over writing - "written word is without father"
-when something is spoken, it can be responded to

What is Justice? (Republic)
-4 Virtues believed in in Greek times: Justice, temperance, wisdom, courage
-presents other stands on justice before his own
1) Simonides
-one must pay his debts; the traditional view
-Plato challenges it: suppose you let me borrow an AK-47, but then you get mad
at me; is it morally justified for me to give it back? you might harm someone!
=> leads to, we should help our friends and harm our enemies
2) Thrasymacus
-today we think he is a historical, rather than fictional, character, a sophist
-justice is the interest of the stronger; what is proclaimed by the law, since the stronger people make the laws
-in greek culture, laws = morality; laws set them apart from the animals
3) Glaucon
-also believed to exist
-injustice is the law of nature; to do injustice = good; to suffer it = bad
-"by nature" - as they should be
-human nature always inclines toward injustice; injustice is more free, and this
is how it should be
-tells Soc a myth: Gaias has a ring to make him invisible; soon becomes very
powerful, gets a good career, seduces queen
-we are all like Gaias, prefer to do injustice
-consider two people: perfectly just, perfectly unjust
-unjust guy will be happier
-now imagine every act according to nature; everyone is unjust; therefore there is
overall, more suffering than joy
=> creation of laws to prevent this situation
-law is nothing but convention/contract
4) Callicles
-justice should be a function of the strongest; strongest should rule
-but rules are made by the weak gathering to prevent domination by the strongest
-laws demanded by the weak
-all of these views are different faces of Greek social justice
-Socrates: to do injustice is more shameful than the suffer it.
-Glaucon asks Soc, "What's justice"; Socrates ensues to compare the justice of the state vs the justice in the individual soul
-method of answering = psychological method

State Justice vs Individual Justice
-Plato supposes the state is a big individual; psychological method explains
certain characteristics of the state as characteristics of the individual and vice
versa
-defines political justice as harmony in a structured political body
-ideal society has three main classes:
1) artisans (fishers, hunters, craftsmen, cultivators, producers)
2) Soldiers and guardians
-need courage and edu
3) Rulers (smallest class)
-society is just when relations between these three are right
-each class must perform its appropriate function and only that; each must be in
the right position of power in relation to the others
-Rulers rule, auxiliaries uphold rules, artisans must exercise nature-granted gifts
-chosen on basis of natural dispositions and education
-tries to show that the individual is like the state
-has three parts: rational part (seeks truth, responsible for philosophical
inclinations), spirited part (desires honour, is responsible for our anger and indignation), appetitive part (lusts after all sorts of things, money most of all)
-just individual is like a just society
-rational part rules, spirited part supports rule, appetitive part must
submit to rules
-in a just individual, entire soul aims at fulfilling desires of rationality
-relates to temperance: master of the better over the worse
-other similarities
-each of the state-class is dominated by each of the three parts of soul
-producers are spurred by their appetites, want for money;
warriors by their spirits, making them courageous,
rulers should be dominated by reason and wisdom
-in ideal state, rulers = philosophers
=three races: Bronze, silver, gold.

Three Analogies/Allegories (of the sun, the line, the cave)
-world is divided into two realms: visible (sensual) and intelligible (only grasped with minds)
-intelligible world consists of The Forms which exist in permanent relation to visible world,
and make it possible
-eg. Apple is red and sweet because of the existence of the invisible forms Redness and
Sweetness
-only philosophers, trained to grasp the Forms, can know anything (making them apt rulers); to be able rulers, they must know the Form of the Good (the source of all other forms)
-Plato can't describe Good directly, but says it is to the intelligible world, what the sun is to the visible world
-using cave allegory, Plato depicts philosopher's soul going through stages of cognition (represented by line) through visible into intelligible realm, finally grasping the Good-Form
-aim of edu is to put desire in the soul for truth, so that it aims to move into the intelligible world, to the Form of the Good

-philosophers = most able rulers since they, more than any other man, are ruled by their rationality; they have the most knowledge and are the most just
-cf the worst kind of ruler: tyrant, ruled entirely by non-rational appetite
-justice is worthwhile for its own sake
-presents a psychological portrait of the tyrant; argues that a just soul is happy and calm while
an unjust one is a tortured psyche
-also, while each of the three types (money-loving, honour-loving, truth-loving) believes his own life to be the more pleasant life, his own goals to be the most worthwhile, only philosopher can judge since he has experienced all three; therefore others should see that philosophical life is the best, more pleasurable and that therefore, to be just is most pleasurable

-end Republic with banning poets

-his political system is called "Utopia"
-merit-based monarchy/aristocracy, not based on genes; philosophers rule

-predicts that one day it will fall into "Themocracy" - guardians ruling, desire for honour rules
-Oligarchy: small group of rich people; desire for money rules
-Democracy: desire for freedom of choice rules
-to Plato, this means all desires are allowed and exist; a collection of all constitutions; chaos.
-political structure reflects on citizens
-if state is in chaos, man is in chaos.
-Tyranny: opposite of ideal state

-World of Forms
-eternal, immutable, immaterial, Only One.
-Greeks: if everything is changing, there can be no knowledge
-math is constant; Plato liked math for this reason

-Allegory of the Cave
-prisoners in a cave, everything chained, facing wall; fire behind them; have been seeing nothing but shadows since birth
-one day, one guy is released; he goes out, sees the fire, slowly starts to realize things, wanting
to go back; then goes out of the cave, starts to see other things; starts small; finally he sees things in moonlight, and then the sun!
-goes back to free and tell the other prisoners; they'll probably think he's crazy and kill him
-thought to be a reference to Socrates

SOURCES

Jankovic, Zoran. Class Lecture on Plato. PHI1104: Great Philosophers. University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

"Plato." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. <>

A Comparison Between Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan

While there is a depiction of religion at the heart of both H.C. Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and Ursula Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan, there are very few similarities between how each handles the theme. Andersen develops a Romantic, Christian view of religion, while Le Guin criticizes organized religion in general, focusing on negative aspects such as empty rituals and superstitions based in fear. Furthermore, Le Guin often praises the very things which Andersen, on the basis of religious belief, attacks in his fairy tale, including reason, knowledge and experience. That each of these two works develops a view of religion which is seemingly contradictory to the other, is an indication not only of the variation between Le Guin and Andersen concerning the issue of religion, but also a mark of the influence of the period in which each author wrote.

A general idea of each author's view of religion may be determined by the symbols used to represent religion in each story. In "The Snow Queen," the major symbol for divinity is roses, the love for which helps the protagonist Gerda find and save Kay. The link between the Christian God and roses has been made before - for example, by Dante in the depiction of heaven in his Paradiso as the "Rose Eternal" (Dante 30.124) - and may have been in Andersen's conscious when writing. Either way, he explicitly connects roses with Christianity by repeating a hymn, featuring roses, thrice in the story: "The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet/And angels descend there the children to greet" (Andersen). The connotations carried by roses are generally very positive: above all, they represent love; as flowers which bloom newly every summer, they also symbolize restoration (redemption, in Christian terms); through "The Snow Queen," where they feature prominently in Gerda and Kay's joyful childhood, they also come to represent innocence. As such, by linking religion with the rose, Andersen sets us up a positive view of religion. The case is quite the opposite in The Tombs of Atuan, where religion is linked to the tombs which feature in the title of the book, and the labyrinth, wherein exist the greatest gods of the Kargish religion, the Nameless Ones. The negative associations of these two symbols is quite clear: tombs represent death, and the labyrinth represents deepening confusion. Thus, the symbols used in each of these two works predispose the reader to see religion a certain way: positively, in the case of "The Snow Queen," and negatively in The Tombs of Atuan.

While these symbols hint at how each work portrays religion, the two plots touch on concrete events which further develop the two views of religion provided by "The Snow Queen" and The Tombs of Atuan. For example, each work incorporates the motif of separation and unity into its theme of religion. In The Tombs of Atuan, the Kargish religion itself is the greatest force of separation. It cruelly takes Tenar away from a loving family and places her in a Kargish convent; at five, she is made to sleep, in a "little alcove, partly separated from the...main room...where the [other] girls giggled and whispered...and plaited one another's hair" (Le Guin 13); at six, she is made to sleep in an entire house by herself. Worst of all, perhaps, Tenar's constant separation from others, enforced by her religion, results in her gradually accepting, and even embracing her loneliness with pride: her isolation as "the One Priestess" (Le Guin 21) becomes her identity. It takes Tenar's abandonment of the Kargish religion to finally free her from the two walls which had separated her for ten years from the rest of the world. In "The Snow Queen," on the other hand, religion is seen to bring people together, rather than to separate them. At the start of story, the image presented is one of absolute unity between two children who "cared for each other as much as if they were" (Andersen) brother and sister. After the "fine splinters" (Andersen) of the sprite's (ie. devil's) mirror get into Kay's eyes and heart, corrupting him spiritually, a rift occurs between the two, resulting in Kay's eventual isolation from everyone, depicted by the pathetic image of him "alone in the [Snow Queen's] empty halls of ice" (Andersen). Only when Gerda recites the childhood hymn about roses does Kay finally cry out the glass from his eye, enabling him to reunite with his loved ones. Remembering that roses represent divinity, then, "The Snow Queen" conveys the message that religion, and the divine love it inspires, brings people together; the lack of it will ultimately result in isolation.

The symbolism of the devil's mirror is useful in further understanding Andersen's depiction of religion, and in contrasting it with that of Le Guin's. The fact that it is made by a demon who has a "school" (Andersen) indicates a connection between the mirror's corruption and education (Cooper). The changes it affects in Kay - including making him remember his multiplication table in place of prayers, denounce roses for being "cankered [and]...quite crooked" (Andersen) and seek perfection with a magnifying glass - further specify that what Andersen is criticizing is rationalism and the empirical, scientific method (Cooper). This is in line with the Romanticism of the early 1800s (during which time Andersen lived and wrote), which grew, in part, in reaction to the Enlightenment whose emphasis was on perfecting nature (both physical and human nature) by means of the application of reason. The mirror's fall from among the heavens, then, can be regarded as the fall of man: in the same way that Adam and Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge and "fell" from grace, spreading sin into the future of mankind, so too did the sprite's mirror, representative of the rational quest for knowledge, fall, spreading corruption among humans everywhere.

Thus, Andersen, as many Romantics before him, sets up the dichotomy between knowledge and (literally) blessed ignorance. This sense of the irreconcilability between knowledge and innocence is exemplified when the Finland woman says, "[Gerda] must not hear of her power" (Andersen). In other words, the power of Gerda's innocence (and it is, as Andersen portrays, a tremendous power) would be brought to nothing upon the very knowledge of it (Cooper).

The religion of Kargad also exhibits this conflict with knowledge. Tenar is not taught how to read because language "is one of the black arts" (Le Guin 137); this shows how religion uses superstition to limit knowledge. In fact, the entire religion is based on worship of the unknown: its greatest gods are "nameless" (Le Guin 3). In contrast to the Kargish religion, Ged's art, "wizardry, hangs...upon the knowledge - the relearning, the remembering - of [an] ancient language" (Le Guin 131). The followers of the Kargish religion are taught to disbelieve and denounce the powers of Mages - that is to say, the powers of knowledge, language, and names. Kossil states that wizards "think they are Gods themselves" (Le Guin 60) - an accusation which has been echoed throughout history in times of progression by those against it, including the Romantics who felt that industrialization and rationalism were acts of human defiance and impatience towards nature and, by extension, nature's Creator. Ultimately, however, Ged, because of his knowledge of the "ancient language" (Le Guin 131) is able to give back Tenar's name and sense of self, rescuing her from a religious system which had kept her from truth.

Implicitly linked to knowledge is experience, through which knowledge is gained; thus the Romantic knowledge/innocence dichotomy considers experience to be in opposition to spiritual purity as well. In "The Snow Queen," Gerda's quest begins when she leaves the safety of her home and enters into a world of experiences in her search for Kay; experiences are thus the dangers in the story, against which she must prevail without losing her innocence. In The Tombs of Atuan however, Tenar's troubles end once she leaves the religious grounds and enter into the world, to experience all that she has missed for ten years. In this way, Le Guin suggests that true danger lies in a life of repression.

In particular, we see that Tenar is repressed in terms of sexual experience due to the prescriptions of her religion. Only eunuchs, "half-men" (Le Guin 21), may enter the inner grounds of the Place of the Tombs and all other figures in the vicinity are girls or women. Sexual repression is also an element in "The Snow Queen," represented by Gerda casting away her shoes into the river. These shoes are red, the colour often associated with sexuality. Furthermore, Andersen has written another piece entitled "The Red Shoes," in which a girl who wears red shoes to church and can't keep her mind off them is punished severely for her vanity by losing her feet. As Andersen has Gerda cast away her red shoes, it is symbolic of her casting away any sexuality and vanity that may be associated with her girlhood. "The Snow Queen" looks favourably upon Gerda's choice. Readers are drawn to sympathize with her lack of shoes and admire the little girl for sacrificing "the most precious things she possessed" (Andersen) for the love of a friend. In The Tombs of Atuan however, sexual repression, particularly in the form of Manan - who's description as a "yellowish" man with "potato-eyes" and a voice "high as a woman's...but not a woman's voice" is quite sickly -, is shown to be perverse and unnatural.

There is one element in the representation of religion in The Tombs of Atuan which is absent from the concept of religion as presented in "The Snow Queen." The Kargish religion is one that is full of "sacred songs and...sacred dances" (Le Guin 13), rituals and chanting, while in "The Snow Queen" nothing stands out as ritualistic. However, through choosing to depict Kargad as a pre-industrial world that lacked the written word, Le Guin manages to remind readers of their own past in human history and religion. Furthermore, she sets up certain contrasts to current orthodox practices which force us to reconsider them: for example, the initiation of Tenar, wherein she undergoes a mock execution and loses her name, being a ceremony of death, reflects the present day's ceremony of life, the baptism (Cooper). By setting up this parallel, Le Guin forces us to regard the ritualistic aspects of even the most conventional religions, and thus, again, reminds us of the roots of religion in human history.

We can see, then, that while a concept of religion underlies both Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan, these two works, "The Snow Queen" and The Tombs of Atuan, diverge greatly in their approach to the development of the theme of religion. Andersen's fairy tale, written towards the end of the Romantic era and full of those ideas against rationalism and industrialization, presents a Christian view of innocence and experience, praising the ability of religion to unite children and "grown-up persons" (Andersen) alike in pure love. Le Guin, writing after two World Wars and during the Vietnam war, takes a much more cynical view towards organized religion; she sees in religion not the ability to unite, but to separate, and in its endless rituals before an "empty throne" (Le Guin 2), a tendency to pervert truth and the experiences of life. She also deals with the shaking experience of losing faith, which Andersen only alludes to symbolically in the form of Kay denouncing roses, and treats it as a rebirth, an opportunity to live. However, while there are profound differences between the respective views of Andersen and Le Guin, the fact that religion is a theme in both is a mark of its significance in human life over the past two centuries.


SOURCES

Alighieri, Dante. "Paradiso." The Divine Comedy of Dante's Alighieri. Trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887. Google Books. 14 Apr. 2010 .

Andersen, H.C. Andersen's Fairy Tales. Project Gutenberg. Web. 14 Apr 2010.

Cooper, Susan. Class Lecture on Modern Fairytales. ENG2110: Children's Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 30 Jan 2010. --- Class Lecture on The Tombs of Atuan. ENG2110: Children's Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 27 Mar 2010.

Le Guin, Ursula. The Tombs of Atuan. New York: Simon Pulse, 1970.

Gluck: The Typical Underdog

John Ruskin's "The King of the Golden River" is no exception to the generality that children's literature usually features an underdog. In this modern fairy tale, the protagonist Gluck perfectly fits the description of the typical underdog, the misfit who prevails against all odds. Like Cinderella before him, his home life is characterized by hardship: he has two loathsome older brothers, the "Black Brothers" Hans and Scwartz, who use Gluck for domestic chores and "educate" him with "dry blows." Gluck is not noted to have any parents, though "not above twelve years old," deepening the reader's impression of an impoverished youth. Despite this, Gluck is decidedly good, being "kind in temper to every living thing." He harbours a spirit of generosity, evidenced by his countless acts of self-sacrifice, including sheltering and sharing food with South West Wind, Esquire, despite that his "brothers would beat him to death" for it. His character is put to the test when he goes out to "try his fortune with the Golden River." His first obstacle is getting Holy Water. Unlike his brothers, Gluck passes this test by getting himself the water by the only means truly holy: honestly, from a good priest. He must next face the perilous glacier, which is "twenty times worse for him" than for his brothers who were big, strong, and experienced mountaineers, highlighting again Gluck's disadvantage as the underdog. However, the true test of his character is not the mountain, which would only test physical strength, but in the three figures he meets along the way: a feeble old man, a child crying out "piteously for water," and a dog "gasping for breath." These figures are derived from the three wise women of traditional fairy tales, who the protagonist meets along the way, and who act as judges of his or her virtue. The old man, the child and the dog - all guises of the King of the Golden River - test Gluck's kindness, and as he passes each test, the road gets easier, allowing him passage. The dying dog, Gluck's final test, is the hardest he faces. The river, five hundred yards away, is a tremendous temptation. In giving the dog his final drops of holy water, Gluck believes that he will not succeed in his quest; that he passes this test shows that he values life - even the life of a "beastie - above gold. Thus, like any underdog, Gluck ultimately triumphs because of that which sets him apart: his goodness.

SOURCE
Ruskin, John. "The King of the Golden River."Project Gutenberg. Web. 14 Apr 2010. <>

Thoughts on the Great great great Grandmother Irene

If you ask me, Irene's great grandmother puts the "god" in "fairy godmother." While her role in the basic plot of the novel, like any fairy godmother's, is to help the princess through physical danger, and she does so, following the trend, by giving the princess a magical object, she also serves an important thematic purpose.

To put it shortly, I find the grandmother to be rather a spiritual figure, not least because she has magic and appears only to those with faith. Her bedroom, as Zeinab has mentioned, is located in the highest point of the house, and appears to contain the heavens: "the blue walls and their silver stars" confuse Irene into believing that they are "in reality the sky." Furthermore, when Irene asks where her mother is, her King-papa says the Queen-Mamma has gone "where all those rings are made," insinuating that the ring given by the grandmother came from heaven. However the strongest connection between the grandmother and spirituality, as I see it, lies in her association with doves. Pigeons (which the grandmother lives off of) and doves are of the same bird family, and the bird seen to come out of the grandmother's globe is certainly a dove, for "it looked to [Curdie's mother] just like a white pigeon." I don't know much about Christianity, but I do believe the dove is a common symbol of the Holy Spirit; if so, then the grandmother is consequently associated with the Holy Spirit as well.

This all falls in line with the grandmother's lesson to Irene, which is that of having faith in that which can not be seen. That is why I say the grandmother puts the "god" in "fairy godmother" - for within the archetypal figure of the fairy godmother, Macdonald has imbued religious/spiritual ideas.

*****

I also noticed the moon imagery attributed to the grandmother which Zeinab outlined so thoroughly in her post "The Great Grandmother and the Moon." I thought at first that Macdonald was merely using the moon to represent the motherly role of the grandmother in the Princess Irene's life: she watches over Irene as the moon watches over the world, and gives light in dark times. However, at Zeinab's mention that the grandmother "waxes and wanes as does the moon," I went into the book and looked at each of the grandmother's appearances to see if there was anything more along those lines. What I found fascinating was that the grandmother appears in three separate forms throughout the novel.

The first two times, she is "dressed in black velvet with thick white heavy lace about it." Next, she appears in "the loveliest pale blue velvet" and her hair is no longer its initial "silver" but a "rich, golden colour." In her final form, she appears in a white dress and looks "more lovely than ever."

Think of all the things that come in three: birth, life, death; past, present, future; beginning, middle, end; and so on. Looking at the number in this way, we see that three represents completion (of the life cycle, of time, of a story, etc); perhaps the grandmother's three forms reflect the Princess Irene's growth as she completes the maturation process.

The number three also has religious connotations (ie. The Holy Trinity) and furthermore, mythological associations. When I think of the number three, I think of The Three Fates of Greek mythology, who spin, measure and cut the thread of all human lives. They are often depicted as wise, old women (very much like the wise, old women of fairy tales such as "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," of whom the grandmother is almost certainly a derivation), and I find it difficult to ignore the image of spinning shared between the Three Fates and the tri-formed grandmother.

In short, the character of the grandmother is certainly dense. She is a godmother figure in the novel, and I think there is plenty to link her with religion and mythology as well. This makes her an immensely mysterious and mystical character.

SOURCE
Macdonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. London: Puffin Books. 1996. Print.

Thoughts on Tragedy in Holes

The story of Katherine and Sam, tragic as it is, serves an important function in Sachar's novel: it reinforces a key theme - that of cruelty breeding cruelty in ongoing cycles.

I think it can be said that the entire plot of the novel is cyclic. Stanley's misfortune (or, as it might be called, fate's cruelty to him) is a result of his ancestor's neglect of Madame Zeroni. Similarly, all of Green Lake is cursed with a relentless drought in response to the townspeople's cruelty toward Kate and Sam. We even see the cycle of cruelty bearing on Stanley specifically: when at the Camp, "his heart...hardens" due to the harsh - and often abusive - conditions there; thus he coldly refuses to teach Zero to read when first asked, because "he needed to save his energy" - and kindness, apparently - "for the people who counted."

Kate and Sam's story is another element of the plot which enforces this prevalent theme of the cyclical nature of cruelty. In response to the town's cruelty to her and Sam, Katherine becomes Kissin' Kate Barlow - a murdering, thieving outlaw - and commits cruel atrocities in turn.

*****

In Sachar's novel "Holes," the flashbacks often relate to the events of the main storyline. For example, in chapter seven of the book, the series of flashbacks recounting how the curse of bad luck had come to the Yelnats family follows alongside Stanley's first arduous day digging, when he feels as though "he was digging his own grave" - ie. when he realizes that he is doomed as if cursed.

The flashback which relates the brutal murder of Sam and its aftermath wherein Katherine becomes a notorious murderer similarly serves to reflect events in the story. Just as Kate is pushed over into anger and recklessness by her townpeople's cruelty, Zero is pushed over the edge into a violent outburst against Pedanski when he is taunted and humiliated beyond his limits.

As such, I would say that another purpose served by the tragic characters is to foreshadow upcoming events.

SOURCE

Sachar, Louis. Holes. New York: Yearling, 1998. Print.

My Thoughts on Josephine March's "Conformity"

The reason for Jo March's non-conformity can be found in her description: she has the "uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it." Jo represents that age in a girl's life when she must give up her old ways, which "didn't matter so much when [she] was a little girl," and take up the ways of womanhood as prescribed by society. However, Jo refuses to place herself into that frame, feeling it to be a compromise of herself as she is still a "little girl" at heart, and strives to rebel. This rebellion comes in the form of assertion and intentional non-conformity. Thus, Jo obstinately lies on the rug, uses slang words, whistles - gets up to "boyish tricks," generally. She proclaims herself the "man of the house," "plays brother" to the sisters, and wishes she were a boy, a better fate than the one she believes herself resigned to, wherein she must "grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns and look as prim as a China Aster." That being said, I don't believe her every non-conforming act is merely a result of her not wanting to grow up into a proper "lady." She naturally exhibits some masculine qualities; for example, she often takes leadership in games, even when she is with Laurie, rather than submitting as a follower. Her defining trait is her temper, a rage suitable for any man. At the same time, she displays a touch of female domesticity, as evidenced in chapter five, when she "rights" Laurie's disorganized room. Thus, while Jo attempts to make herself as boyish as possible, she very realistically possesses both feminine and masculine traits. This duality is perfectly represented in her "one beauty," her hair, whose loss she - vain as any woman - mourns, though she keeps the locks "bundled...out of her way" as she goes about her "boyish tricks." The hair represents that, while she does act against conformity, there are aspects of her personality which naturally conform to the traditional view of a woman.

*****

I think the idea of Jo attempting to master her temper as an example of her conforming to a standard misses some key points of the story.

There is the point about her mother, to begin with. As the post to which I reply stated, she "works hard everyday to overcome" her temper. However, she doesn't do this to satisfy society's expectations. In the eighth chapter, Mrs. March says that it was her husband who helped her overcome impatience: "He never loses patience, never doubts or complains, but...works and waits so cheerfully that one is ashamed to do otherwise." Notice that patience is embodied in a male figure. Mrs. March does not model herself after some abstract perfect woman; rather, she strives to imitate the good behaviour she sees in a man, because she recognizes it as virtue.

Moving on, Jo does not attempt to overcome her temper because she is trying to live up to ideals - there is no evidence in the story for this. She attempts to do so because she realizes that the consequences of a hot head can be dire (ie. she realizes that a sister is a hefty price to pay for anger).

In the post to which I reply, it was said that, since Marmee still feels anger, her and Jo's "efforts are not to become better...but to seem to be such, as society wishes them to be." The story illustrates, however, that patience IS better than impatience. By mastering patience - the ability to not lash out in pride and anger with regrettable actions - one DOES become better, rather than merely seeming to do so.

Perhaps readers are inclined to believe Jo has conformed because her father states that she is no longer the "son Jo" of one year ago, but a "young lady." It is true that Jo has changed and, yes, the result of her changing has made her more tame, and therefore more "lady-like." However this does not mean that becoming lady-like is Jo's motive - far from it.

That one changes in life (as we all do) does not mean that one conforms.

SOURCE
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York: Signet Classic, 2004.