Literature, Class 7: Period 3, Thursday, October 23

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Miss Bennet was in a particularly bright mood as she sorted papers into three piles on her desk.

"Today," she said, "I am a particularly cruel Literature teacher; I am going to make you read. Fear not, there is a purpose to it, although as your literature teacher, I am honor-bound to inform you that there is always a purpose to reading. Rest assured that I do not wish to harm your minds so soon after we've all had a quite refreshing break. The reading today is light, but moving nonetheless."

"We've touched briefly on the concept of influence, within a work; that is what I wish to discuss, today. No work exists in a vacuum. We have, in the past, talked of how a work cannot be separated from its particular place within society; I would argue it could not be separated from its place within the living process of literature. Every writer is influenced by what he or she has read. What comes before does not dictate what will come after, but we would be remiss to say it does not shape its successors. For it does."

She picked up the first stack and began passing the pages out. "This," she stated, "is Canto Twenty-Seven of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. The Inferno is part one of a trilogy known as the Divine Comedy, and I should stress that that is not the modern usage of the term 'comedy.' Dante's Divine Comedy was a journey through Hell, then Purgatory, then Heaven itself. Strikingly, it is Hell receives the most attention." There was a bemused smile to go with this.

"In Hell, Dante is taken through each circle, meets sinners, and hears of their crimes. Each ring held those guilty of specific sins, with similar transgressions clustered together. Canto Twenty-Seven is the story of Guido da Montefeltro, an advisor to Pope Boniface VIII, who was asked how to best conquer a particular land. Boniface assured his advisor that he was absolved of any guilt should the advice prove wrong, before it was even offered. Da Montefeltro's counsel was disastrous, and the losses were great. Upon his death, he reminded the eternal powers that he had been forgiven before he had transgressed. A devil laughed and informed him that forgiveness must be sought with atonement. One cannot atone before one sins; therefore, one cannot be absolved in advance."

She reached for the next stack as she continued speaking. "What I would like to call your attention to -- aside from the usual: the tone, the structure, the meaning of the piece -- would be da Montefeltro's opening lines to Dante. He presumes Dante is another of the damned, and will never leave Hell, which means it is safe to give his name and tell his story. These lines are quoted, in their original Italian, as the introduction to this next work."

"T.S. Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock nearly one hundred years ago, which places it six hundred years after Dante's work. It is not a story of a voyage through hell; it is a lyrical poem of a man looking back upon his life, and realizing that he has been more observer than actor for a great deal of it. He feels much of it has been the same, hauntingly so. He longs for the ability to change what is around him; he wishes to reach that which is just out of his grasp. He notes, sadly, that even if he opened his arms to that which he desires, it would refuse him. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me."

"Our last work today," she said, taking the third and final sheaf of papers, "is very different from the previous two, and yet perhaps not so very. This is Octavio Paz's Blue Bouquet. Octavio Paz came later than either Eliot or Dante, though only a few decades from the former, who he considered a major influence. He was a surrealist more so than a modernist. The story is prose, but briefer still than either Dante or Eliot's poems. The unnamed narrator wakes in a vivid, sensory-filled small room in the middle of the night and takes a walk, finding it far too hot to sleep. He has a brief, surreal and violent encounter with a stranger, and flees town the next day. To say more would ruin the tale, I fear."

"Three works. Dante influenced Eliot, who influenced Paz. Can you find a common thread between the first two, or the last two, or possibly all three?"

Miss Elizabeth Bennet leaned back against her desk, smiling. "On an extremely unrelated subject, I should like to note that I will be holding office hours on Saturday, should any of my students wish to bring loved ones by for a chat. I promise to be on my best behavior. I shall even make tea."

Comments

Sign In [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

With vivid blue eyes, drowning, or trapped in Hell.

Re: Sign In [LIT-7]

[thankgoditsme.livejournal.com]

Friday Next

Re: Sign In [LIT-7]

[spiritandsword]

Annja Creed

During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Take notes. Pass them, briefly, with your fellow students. Tread carefully if you hope to avoid detention.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[spiritandsword]

Annja was taking detailed notes... and decided she was in no way subjecting the nice Miss Bennett to attention from Roux this weekend.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[bad-nose-job.livejournal.com]

Penelope quietly took notes.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka scribbled notes like a madman, and whooped with delight at seeing Prufrock, one of his most favorite poems.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Anemone was reading through all the handouts, slowly, trying to wrap her brain around the way the words worked.

They all felt very pretty, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she lacked the context to actually understand half the things the authors were talking about.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[pyroliz.livejournal.com]

Liz took down detailed notes.

Re: During the Lecture [LIT-7]

[senor-chado.livejournal.com]

As usual, Chad was jotting down as many notes as he could. Unlike physics class, where all he did was write, write, write, he understood these ones better.

Kind of.

Mostly.

Discussion #1 - The Three Works, Separately [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

For any or all of the works: what moves you about this piece, or does not? What do you make of Dante's verdict? Do you sympathize with Prufrock's lament? How does the dream-like quality of Paz's narrative affect the impact of the assault? For any or all: what phrases do you find especially compelling, and why?

Re: Discussion #1 - The Three Works, Separately [LIT-7]

[raspberryturk]

Reno had kind of stared stupidly at the first two works. But the third was written down in nice, normal English, so he managed to get through reading it with only a minimal amount of squinting and freaking out.

So he was gonna contribute today, dammit, even if it just meant picking on one of the works.

"In that Blue Bouquet one," he noted, "it kinda hit that the place this guy was in wasn't one of the better-off sorta neighborhoods. I mean, it's the sorta place you don't wanna be out alone after dark in, you know? Hot nights with no AC, no street lights out there. This place is... kinda slummy. Not like the parts of Mexico the school visited a while back. Dirty. Maybe kinda more real, 'cause of that."

He took a deep breath. Okay. He was talking. In Lit class. He could do this.

"What I wanna know is, why blue eyes? I mean, I know there ain't a wealth of blue eyes in Mexico, right? So, this narrator guy is probably American or somethin'? He can get out and travel somewhere else the next day, so that probably means he's got money. Does this chick who wants that nasty handful of eyeballs think, like, if she has the blue ones, she'll be gettin' somethin' richer out of it? 'Cause they're more a rich upscale sorta eyeball, or what?"

Re: Discussion #1 - The Three Works, Separately [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Eliza smiled, very encouragingly, at Reno. "Very real," she agreed. "There's an almost surreal quality to the immediacy of it. Every color is sharp, every detail magnified. It's so real that it seems that it could still be part of his nightmare."

She leaned back against her desk. "The work never specifies. The randomness goes along well with the nightmare aspects. The narrator's done nothing wrong; he will be maimed or unharmed based on something set at his birth, his eye color." She tilted her head. "I hadn't considered that. In Mexico, he's very clearly Other. He's foreign, possibly wealthy, or at least, enough so that he seems rich to the residents. Do you feel there's a resentment, there? Towards the strangers in their midst?"

Re: Discussion #1 - The Three Works, Separately [LIT-7]

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka considered them all, thinking.

"I'm not sure I really 'get' the Dante one," he began, "and the poetry's kind of off. And the bouquet one is very... staccato? It, like, doesn't flow very well. On purpose, I know, but still. Now, Prufrock, that's what I call a masterpiece! It's... elegant, and tragic, and hollow, and singing, and it's just beautiful -- not just the words, but how you aren't really sure whether to pity the poor guy or spit on him."

Discussion #2 - The Three Works, Together [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

What do Dante and Eliot's works have in common? Are there shared themes, use of metaphor, language, similar topic choices? What about Eliot and Paz? Are there shared elements between all three? Can you see facets of the former works appearing in the latter?

Re: Discussion #2 - The Three Works, Together [LIT-7]

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"They're all three... full of emptiness, and hopelessness? Sort of elegant tragedy? It's very poetic. I mean... Okay. This guy" -- Sokka pointed at the Inferno canto -- "I can't figure out whether or not he's stuck there unfairly. I mean, all he did was give bad advice, right? Plus, this high priest guy -- a PRIEST! -- tricked him into thinking it was okay. Now, that's sort of a direct metaphor for Mr. Prufrock, who's stuck in a different sort of Hell, mostly by his own fault, and kind of not. And the bouquet one -- it's more subtle, but BOTH the guy and the other guy fit the pattern, locked into hopelessness, both by their own fault and also not."

He bit his lip.

"...And stuff."

Discussion #3 - Influences

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Have you read works which call to mind other authors, or other literary movements? If you write, have you found your writings to be influenced by what you read? How is literature, as an art form, evolving? And how are poems and stories in and of themselves changing as time progresses?

Re: Discussion #3 - Influences

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"Well, everything people write is going to be influenced by what they've read, isn't it? And also watched on TV and stuff? Whether you mean it to or not. That's why so many things seem so similar.

Speak with the TAs [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Ask if they are influenced by one another.

Re: Speak with the TAs [LIT-7]

[thankgoditsme.livejournal.com]

Friday probably wasn't influenced by Lucas, what with being from different mediums and genres and all, but it was very hard to tell where strange Welsh authors got their ideas from, so anything was possible.

Friday was here, minding his own business again by the way.

Re: Speak with the TAs [LIT-7]

[wanna-be-lucas.livejournal.com]

Lucas was avoiding being influenced by things. Especially bright blue eyes.

Speak with Miss Bennet [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

She is quite delighted about this Parents' Weekend, for what are admittedly selfish reasons.

Re: Speak with Miss Bennet [LIT-7]

[raspberryturk]

Reno stepped up to Eliza after class. And he was fidgeting again.

"I, uh. Okay. I'm not gonna try and quit or whatever, 'cause you're not gonna let me and I'm tryin', here. But those first two stories... poems? Those things? I kinda didn't... get 'em. They were all..."

He waved a hand, trying to find a word.

"Musicy."

Wrong word. Dammit.

OOC [LIT-7]

[clevermsbennet.livejournal.com]

Special thanks to raspberryturk who linked me to Blue Bouquet and insisted I read it. I fangirl Prufrock, and seeing that Paz was influenced by Eliot's work, the class sort of all came together.

Eliza will indeed be holding office hours on Saturday, though I'm going to be AFK for a large chunk of Saturday afternoon/evening EST so please, have patience with me and be one with the SP.

Re: OOC [LIT-7]

[thankgoditsme.livejournal.com]

LET US GO THEN YOU AND I
WHEN THE EVENING IS SPREAD OUT ACROSS THE SKY
LIKE A PATIENT ETHERISED UPON A TABLE.

I have a recording of Eliot reading aloud Prufrock and I haven't played it, for fear of not liking it as much after hearing him. ILU Prufrock.