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fandomhigh2008-10-23 03:16 am
clevermsbennet.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2008-10-23 03:16 am
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Literature, Class 7: Period 3, Thursday, October 23
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."
"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."
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