Is A Cigar Just A Cigar, Tuesday, Period 3

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

A stack of papers sat on Cindy's desk today; as soon as everyone was seated, she nodded at Jaime if he was there to begin passing them out. "This is your syllabus for this semester. Be warned, items may move on a whim--specifically mine--because I feel like teaching something different that day. Everything listed here will be covered and possibly more besides, but the when isn't set in stone, okay?"

"Today, however, we will be following it and discussing where symbols come from. Now, because this is a high school survey course, we're mostly going to be sticking with works that use Western symbolism and sources. This is not to say that there aren't plenty of amazing works from other cultures, and I heartily encourage you all to read some, but working from the Western canon means at least a higher likelihood that you'll already have some passing familiarity with the works in question and I can make broad sweeping generalizations about certain symbols and aspects without adding a whole mess of qualifiers."

She reached into her desk and pulled out four heavy books: the Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and a brightly-colored book titles Fairy Tales for Children. "The first broad sweeping generalization I get to make is this: When in doubt, the symbol you're looking at probably came from one of these four sources. There are very few other works that come close to the cultural embedding we see from these. Many students reading Amleth for the first time are astonished to find line after line of quotes they recognize, and even people who do not follow the Bible or the Christian religion can recognize certain repeating themes from within its pages. For centuries, knowledge of the Greek and Roman myths were required to be considered an educated individual, and many of us were told bedtime stories from from the pages of the Grimm Brothers or Hand Christian Anderson. The tales themselves may have been abridged and adapted, but enough remains for them to be recognizable. Anytime you read a story about a girl with a hard home life who gets a bit of supernatural assistance to go to a party where she meets a cute boy, but she has to flee, leaving behind only a trinket for him to find her by, you're reading a version of Cinderella, even if no fairy godmother, wicked stepmother, or glass shoe makes an appearance."

She managed to say that with no irony at all. Cindy was very proud of herself.

"Folktales to mythology to religion to the Bard, all of these have seeped deeply into our collective consciousness. If there's a garden in the book, there are some pretty good odds that the author is trying to evoke the Garden, Eden, from the Book of Genesis. A young man with conflicted, possibly sexual feelings for his mother? Well, that's Amleth--from Shakespeare--who himself was reaching back to meta for-Oedipus, by Sophicles. Then question them becomes, 'why.' Why is the author trying to get you to make these connections? What is he or she trying to do with them? The answer is this: by invoking these symbols, the author is letting you do more of the work. When you read a symbol, even if you don't fully recognize it for what it is, it informs your reading of the rest of the work. It makes things easier to grasp and understand. When we read about two brothers with an uneasy, possibly even antagonistic relationship, the echoes back to Cain and Abel situate the story beyond just the pages of the text. No author wants to give you a book that you cannot latch onto. They all want their texts to connect with things you already know, to resonate with you. By drawing on these cultural contexts in their works, they're letting the knowledge that you bring with you ground their novel into other aspects of your life. It also lets their stories offer a deeper meaning without hitting you over the head with it."

[Wait for OCD is up. NOW you can start pinging.]

Comments

Sign in #2

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

With your favorite myth or fairy tale.

Re: Sign in #2

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Dana Scully - Thurber's version of Little Red Riding Hood

(And then she pulled out a gun and shot the wolf, because little girls aren't as gullible as they used to be)

Re: Sign in #2

[furnaceface]

Jonothon Starsmore - Beauty and the Beast

(What's sad is that I played a character from the Disney version, and still don't know if I should meta it.)

Re: Sign in #2

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

Gabrielle -- what's a fairy tale? I don't invent those until season 5 AND THEN I'M YOU, CINDY.

Also are we talking about ones I've lived, or ones I've only heard about? Because if it's the former then I'll have to go with -- hey, if I've lived it it's not a myth!

Listen to the Lecture

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

Pass notes, look at your syllabus, decide to read ALL THE THINGS she referenced...

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully was fairly familiar with all of those named source material, but was now considering heading to the library to get copies of Shakespeare to brush up on her metaphors.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[ostianbelle.livejournal.com]

Asuna continued to listen to the lesson with a sinking feeling that carried over from the last class.

This class really isn't for her! She barely even understood half the things the Perrault-sensei said!

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

After the lecture and video were over, Cindy made her way over to Asuna's desk. "You look like you had a few questions," she suggested.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[mania-endless.livejournal.com]

Del wanted the Fairy Tales one. She had already read the others, really! Maybe it was time to venture herself into the library again...

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall glared at the books, particularly at how thick they were. If she thought he was going to read those for this class, she was sadly mistaken.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[didntchewgrass.livejournal.com]

Elphaba was lost. All these names and stories and some of them sounded familiarish but none of them rang completely true to what she knew from Ozian literature and stories.

It was all so confusing.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[ashockingbitch]

Jenny was definitely not going to read all the things she'd referenced. She'd read some of them before, and besides, she was lazy.

Class Activity

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

"First, this is a short video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDkJNlJ9qlI&feature=related) based on the myth of Icarus," Cindy said, hitting the power button on the DVD player. "Please watch it if you're unfamiliar with the myth already."

After the video, Cindy had more papers for Jaime to handout. "In 1558, Brueghel painted a picture Landscape with Fall of Icarus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bruegel,_Pieter_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_icarus_-_hi_res.jpg) and then in 1962, William Carlos Williams wrote a poem based on the painting:

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

Why do both the poem and the painting evoke Icarus? What are they trying to get across? What other symbols can you see in either? Pair up and discuss."

Re: Class Activity

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully frowned at the poem, already familiar with the painting, and looked around for someone to discuss them with. The messages here made her cranky.

Re: Class Activity

[furnaceface]

Well, it wasn't as though Jono was in the greatest of moods ever. Might as well sit down across from the cranky one.

Cranky tended to be safer, that was all.

//Need a partner?//

Re: Class Activity

[mania-endless.livejournal.com]

Delirium giggled a little when she found poor Icarus drowning unnoticed, and then looked around to see if someone else found that amusing.

Re: Class Activity

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

Squall looked at both the painting and the poem and wondered what the point was supposed to be. Hopefully, his partner would have some idea.

Re: Class Activity

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Okay, that weird-colored-hair girl was giggling, and George wasn't sure what that was about, but it was kind of freaking her out, because ... the poem seemed tragic and sad and weird, somehow. So instead she was going to talk to .... great. It was that grumpy guy from the common room.

"I think ... it's making a point about life," she said. "And death. Where tragedy is just ... this everyday thing that nobody even notices because it happens all the time, all around you."

If he said something smart-ass about that, she was going to hit him.

Re: Class Activity

[ostianbelle.livejournal.com]

Asuna tried the activity, watching the video, read the poem (thank goodness for all her English classes growing-up!) and look at the paintings.

"...I don't get it."

Talk to the TA

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

When he pings in.

Re: Talk to the TA

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime was there on time with a notebook and everything. He didn't know what he was going to do with it, but it helped him feel all official and such.

Talk to "Professor Perrault"

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

She's interested in what you all see.

Re: Talk to "Professor Perrault"

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George had no idea why she was doing this. None. At all.

But she found herself lingering back, after class.

And once everyone else had filtered off, and she could pretend she was mostly talking to herself, forced casual and not minding much if the teacher was even listening ...

"It reminds me of shooting stars."

Re: Talk to "Professor Perrault"

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

Cindy looked up from where she was packing up her books. "Shooting stars? Go on."

This was interesting--it wasn't an answer she'd heard before.

OOC

[steel-not-glass.livejournal.com]

1. The cut text is raspberryturk's awesome at work.

2. If you're watching the video, feel free to stop it at 7:00.

3. If LJ stopped sucking, I'd buy Cindy more paid time, dammit.