Michel Foucault

Her I am, Michel Foucault... Good lookin' guy ;)



I am a french philospher, historian and critic who studied social interaction in everyday life and focused within the prison system, as well as human sexuality. Some would describe me as a postmodernist critic, but I personally do not like labels.

More to come... =)

Abrams Theories in Key West

One assignment from Friday was to discuss how "The Idea of Order at Key West" incorporates M.A. Abram's four elements of literary theory.

The Universe: The world is in the poem is the sea. Steven illustrates a lack of importance of the sea, calling it "inhuman" and describing the fact that it cannot form a voice like the singer's. "But it was she and not the sea we heard."
The Artist: The artist, obviously, is the singer. By singing, she becomes the creator, underlining the creation myth present throughout the poem. "It was her voice that made/ The sky acutest at its vanishing." By being an artist, she is, by default, also a creator.
The Work: The work of the poem is the song itself that she sings, the world that she was able to create with such a song. "Knew that there was never a world for her/ Except the one she sang and, singing, made."
The Audience: The last element would be the audience which is us, the readers. Wallace turns the I(me) into a "we". We are all together listening to the creation of the song by the sea. "Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew. . ."

Tragic Low Mimetic

I chose to take the joyous mode of tragic low mimetic to town. The most simple explanation of this mode would be pathos, which by bleak defintion means evoking of an emotion of pity, sorrow and compassion.

It refers to the death and downfall of the common man, perhaps a man like your high school teacher or neighbor growing up. The hero of the tragic mimetic mode possesses weaknesses that we, as humans can often relate to. Frye says that "Pathos presents its hero as isolated by a weakness which appeals to our sympathy because it is on our own level of experience" (38). My personal favorite example of this would be Hamlet, with his oh so relatable flaws of pride and immaturity, among others.

Tragic low mimetic can also present a person isolated from from a group or type of people to which they desire to belong. Some low mimetic study will explore the mind and its obsession with such groups. Frye describes it as "a mania or obsession about rising in the world, this being the central low mimetic counterpart of the fiction of the fall of the leader" (39).

The perspective of the sufferer in low mimetic tragedy does not always have to be through the perspective of that sufferer. In some tragedies, it is illustrated as a cruel ruler/employer, etc. who exploits those who are weak and in his power, like Ebineezar Scrooge and Tiny Tim.

Frye isn't so Ferocious

As I am reading Theory of Modes, I can't help but think of one of the first thoughts I had when I began "Archetypes of Literature": This isn't so bad after all. After everything Dr. Sexson said about this book being so horribly tedious and necessary of a hand-hold throughout the semester, I was a little intimidated and frightened to begin. I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading and realized that it was conquerable at worst. With words like "we" instead of "I" as personal pronouns, I often find myself feeling that I am simply sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture by Frye. I have learned that he is not verbose, but instead vastly thorough in his explanations and examples, which only serves to allow the reader an even better understanding of what he is saying. I am now less frightened of my time with "Anatomy of Criticism".

Northrop Frye, I may actually start to like you after all.

What Constitutes Waste?

As I picked up "Archetypes of Literature" tonight, I noticed one quote out of context that jumped at me: "Criticism, like nature, prefers a waste space to an empty one." As I tend to take things out of context frequently and I have been thinking about this topic from time to time, this quote got some of my gears turning. By Frye's defintion, all words are literature, so does that include literature that we will not be studying in a Literary Criticism class anytime soon? Would he rather it exist than not? perehaps the existence of bad literature serves the purpose of highlighting the quality of great literature. Or Mayb no literature can really be defined as bad. Have these past years of studying the classics just made me jaded toward literature? All summer, I was almost embarrassed to admit the books I was reading for fun, because some were far from Faulkner. They were all good enough to get published and become bestsellers in most cases, but not good enough for me to consider them great. Most of them I considered a waste of my time, though everything I read was very entertaining. lately I have been operating under the assumption that if i understand it on the first try, it must not be "good literature". But as I thought more deeply about my concept of good literature, I relized that my defintion is not nearly concrete enough to classify anything as good or bad. First I must decide what good or bad is. I would consider myself a slight critic of literature, hopefully this semester I will be able to hone those skills. Perhaps I will be able to stop reading books that embarrass me. Maybe I will just learn to stop being embarrassed about what i read for. Hmmm... this post makes little sense, exhausted ramblings.