"Virginia Woolf and James Joyce: Ariadne and the Labyrinth" --1982
See 68 & 69
See 73
"The greatness of Ulysses would have established itself, but Joyce felt compelled to accelerate its recognition whenever, wherever he could. .... continued on 74.
"Moreover, his characters were unaware of the ancient text against which they spoke: Bloom is not conscious of the classical forbears in whose steps he treads." (75)
"We can now see that Joyce was Daedalus...(see 76 continued quote)...Woolf's task was to remember Ariadne"
See onto 77 through 80
"Theseus betrayed Ariadne, leaving her to the world of female myth and female possibility." (81)
"Woman for Joyce, beyond her sexual hungers, is nature, earth, as man is culture and civilization. She is what continues as man goes about his human concerns." (81)
"Joyce, in the same years, wanted a new way to say the same things, being no longer disposed to say them in the old way. Joycean critics agree that his three novels are the same pattern re-created" (85-86)
"Their tasks were done. Joyce had written, in the new and ultimate language, the old cosmology, elegantly configured. Woolf had suggested how a new cosmology might be created. Woolf went in search of Ariadne, and Joyce threaded again the old labyrinth. Between them lay all the literary possibilities of the next age." (86)
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Cathedral by Ramond Carver
"She wrote a poem or two every year, usually after something really important had happened to her." --210
"I don't have any blind friends," I said.
"You don't have any friends," she said.--212
"They'd married, lived and worked together, slept together--had sex, sure--and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like." --213
"I feel like we've already met," he boomed --214
"I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn't smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn't see the smoke they exhaled." --217
"For the most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn't want him to think I'd left the room, and I didn't want her to think I was feeling left out." --218
The blind man said, "My dear, I have two TVs... --218
"Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep." --222
"...I know generations of the same families worked on a cathedral. I heard him say that, too. The men who began their life's work on the them, they never lived to see the completion of their work. In that wise, bub, they're no different from the rest of us, right?" --224
"In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God." --225
"He closed his hand over my hand. "Go ahead, bub, draw," he said, "Draw. You'll see. I'll follow along with you. It'll be okay... --227
"It's all right," he said to her. "Close your eyes now," the blind man said to me. --228
"Take a look. What do you think?"
But I had my eye closed. I thought I'd keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do. --228
"I don't have any blind friends," I said.
"You don't have any friends," she said.--212
"They'd married, lived and worked together, slept together--had sex, sure--and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like." --213
"I feel like we've already met," he boomed --214
"I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn't smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn't see the smoke they exhaled." --217
"For the most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn't want him to think I'd left the room, and I didn't want her to think I was feeling left out." --218
The blind man said, "My dear, I have two TVs... --218
"Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep." --222
"...I know generations of the same families worked on a cathedral. I heard him say that, too. The men who began their life's work on the them, they never lived to see the completion of their work. In that wise, bub, they're no different from the rest of us, right?" --224
"In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God." --225
"He closed his hand over my hand. "Go ahead, bub, draw," he said, "Draw. You'll see. I'll follow along with you. It'll be okay... --227
"It's all right," he said to her. "Close your eyes now," the blind man said to me. --228
"Take a look. What do you think?"
But I had my eye closed. I thought I'd keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do. --228
Monday, February 11, 2013
Edith Hamilton--Mythology
The Fates--49
Dionysus--67, w/ Ariadne
Cupid & Psyche--121-34
Baucis & Philemon--150-53
Theseus--209-23, 260 concerning his murderer
Hercules--228, 230 w/ Theseus, 232-34
Orion & The Pleiades--437 & 438
The House of Thebes--372-... & 470
Dionysus--67, w/ Ariadne
Cupid & Psyche--121-34
Baucis & Philemon--150-53
Theseus--209-23, 260 concerning his murderer
Hercules--228, 230 w/ Theseus, 232-34
Orion & The Pleiades--437 & 438
The House of Thebes--372-... & 470
Monday, January 28, 2013
Aristotle's Poetics
"Comedy is (as we have said) an imitation of inferior people - not, however, with respect to every kind of defect: the laughable is a species of what is disgraceful" 9
"good poets do so on account of the actors - in writing pieces for competitive display they draw out the plot beyond its potential" 17
"Of simple [defective] plots and actions, the episodic ones are the worst" 17
"a well formed plot will be simple" 21
"The best recognition of all is that which arises out of the actual course of events, where the emotional impact is achieved through events that are probable" 27
"Many poets are good at complication but hand the resolution badly" 30
"epic - by which I mean one that contains a multiplicity of stories" 30
"The most important quality in diction is clarity...The clearest diction is that based on current words" 36
"In tragedy it is not possible to imitate many parts of the action being carried on simultaneously, but only the one on stage involving the actors. But in epic, because it is narrative, it is possible to treat many parts being carried on simultaneously" 39-40
"the irrational (which is the most important source of astonishment) is more feasible in epic" 41
"excessively brilliant diction overshadows character and reasoning" 42
"good poets do so on account of the actors - in writing pieces for competitive display they draw out the plot beyond its potential" 17
"Of simple [defective] plots and actions, the episodic ones are the worst" 17
"a well formed plot will be simple" 21
"The best recognition of all is that which arises out of the actual course of events, where the emotional impact is achieved through events that are probable" 27
"Many poets are good at complication but hand the resolution badly" 30
"epic - by which I mean one that contains a multiplicity of stories" 30
"The most important quality in diction is clarity...The clearest diction is that based on current words" 36
"In tragedy it is not possible to imitate many parts of the action being carried on simultaneously, but only the one on stage involving the actors. But in epic, because it is narrative, it is possible to treat many parts being carried on simultaneously" 39-40
"the irrational (which is the most important source of astonishment) is more feasible in epic" 41
"excessively brilliant diction overshadows character and reasoning" 42
Frye on Shakespeare
"Drama is particularly an anonymous medium, where collaboration and compromises with actors, directors, theatre managers and censors complicate the picture" 3
"In every play Shakespeare wrote, the hero or central character is the theatre itself" 4
"The trouble is that we don't know the extent of our own minds, or what's in that mental world that we half create and half perceive, in Wordsworth's phrase" 44
"Shakespeare is not interested in what we would normally think of as history. What is really happening in history is extremely difficult to dramatize. Shakespeare is interested in chronicle, the personal actions and interactions of the people at the top of the social order" 59
"successful action and successful timing are much the same thing" 65
"two forms of mask: the hypocrite and the person...there's always a lot of truth in hypocrisy" 66
"The tragic action normally cuts into time, and anyone who, like Hamlet, feels that there is no right time for him" 77
"The first remark Falstaff makes in this play is to ask Prince Hal what time it is, and he is told that such people as Falstaff, who sleep all day and drink all night, don't need to know the time" 77
"a king cannot afford real friends" 78
see pps:
1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 35, 37-39, 41, 45, 47-50, 56-57, 60-63, 68, 71, 72-76, 78-81
"In every play Shakespeare wrote, the hero or central character is the theatre itself" 4
"The trouble is that we don't know the extent of our own minds, or what's in that mental world that we half create and half perceive, in Wordsworth's phrase" 44
"Shakespeare is not interested in what we would normally think of as history. What is really happening in history is extremely difficult to dramatize. Shakespeare is interested in chronicle, the personal actions and interactions of the people at the top of the social order" 59
"successful action and successful timing are much the same thing" 65
"two forms of mask: the hypocrite and the person...there's always a lot of truth in hypocrisy" 66
"The tragic action normally cuts into time, and anyone who, like Hamlet, feels that there is no right time for him" 77
"The first remark Falstaff makes in this play is to ask Prince Hal what time it is, and he is told that such people as Falstaff, who sleep all day and drink all night, don't need to know the time" 77
"a king cannot afford real friends" 78
see pps:
1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 35, 37-39, 41, 45, 47-50, 56-57, 60-63, 68, 71, 72-76, 78-81
Frye--Secular Scripture
"Romance is the structural core of all fiction: being directed descended from folktale" 15
"We said that in romance as a whole neither the waking world nor the dream world is the real one, but that reality and illusion are both mixtures of the two" 55
"One of the social is that a male-dominated society a man often assumes that he ought to get a virgin at marriage, otherwise he may feel that he has acquired a secondhand possession" 78
"At the beginning of a romance there is often a sharp descent in social status, from riches to poverty, from privilege to a struggle to survive, or even slavery" 104
"the hunter is seeking a false identity which is the same thing as his own destruction" 105
"Ovidian metamorphosis, the reducing of humanized beings to something subintelligent and subarticulate" 116
"a god-born devil's dung" (119)
"life that is a pure continuum, beginning with a birth that is a random beginning, ending with a death that is a random ending, nothing is more absurd than telling stories that do begin and end." (125)
"It is obvious however both that the happy ending exists only for readers who finish the book...[and] exist only for survivors" 135
"in descent narratives the central image is that of metamorphosis, the freezing of something human and conscious into an animal or plant or inanimate object" 140
"the study of literature should...help the student become aware of his own mythological conditioning, especially on the more passive and critically unexamined levels" 167
"violence becomes melodrama." (183)
longer quotes:
see pages...36, 77, 85-87, 97, 107, 129-131, 136-138, 151-153, 156-57, 167, 186-188
"We said that in romance as a whole neither the waking world nor the dream world is the real one, but that reality and illusion are both mixtures of the two" 55
"One of the social is that a male-dominated society a man often assumes that he ought to get a virgin at marriage, otherwise he may feel that he has acquired a secondhand possession" 78
"At the beginning of a romance there is often a sharp descent in social status, from riches to poverty, from privilege to a struggle to survive, or even slavery" 104
"the hunter is seeking a false identity which is the same thing as his own destruction" 105
"Ovidian metamorphosis, the reducing of humanized beings to something subintelligent and subarticulate" 116
"a god-born devil's dung" (119)
"life that is a pure continuum, beginning with a birth that is a random beginning, ending with a death that is a random ending, nothing is more absurd than telling stories that do begin and end." (125)
"It is obvious however both that the happy ending exists only for readers who finish the book...[and] exist only for survivors" 135
"in descent narratives the central image is that of metamorphosis, the freezing of something human and conscious into an animal or plant or inanimate object" 140
"the study of literature should...help the student become aware of his own mythological conditioning, especially on the more passive and critically unexamined levels" 167
"...heaven and hell have been written but the great poem of earth has still to be written." (171)
"William Blake once said 'imagination has nothing to do with memory.'" (175)
"...all memory is selective, and the fact that it is selective is the starting point of creation." (175)
"violence becomes melodrama." (183)
longer quotes:
see pages...36, 77, 85-87, 97, 107, 129-131, 136-138, 151-153, 156-57, 167, 186-188
Raleigh--Shakespeare
"Yet Shakespeare was a man, and a writer; there was no escape for him; when he wrote, it was himself that he related to paper, his own mind that he revealed" (5)
"He has made us acquainted with all that he sees and all that he feels, he has spread out before us the scroll that contains his interpretation of the world;--how dare we complain that he has hidden himself from our knowledge?" (8)
"Dramatic genius, which is sometimes treated as though it could dispense with experience, is in truth a capacity for experience, and for widening and applying experience by intelligence and sympathy" (9)
"He has made us acquainted with all that he sees and all that he feels, he has spread out before us the scroll that contains his interpretation of the world;--how dare we complain that he has hidden himself from our knowledge?" (8)
"Dramatic genius, which is sometimes treated as though it could dispense with experience, is in truth a capacity for experience, and for widening and applying experience by intelligence and sympathy" (9)
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