Negative Capability

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Here's an ezine on Negative Capability

Stuff to Do for Wednesday

1.  For class:
Bring in a poem (or section of a poem) by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, or Shelley, that appeals to you--and be prepared to say why.  Don't hesitate to post your poem on the blog as well!
2.  For your blog:
Post one interesting biographical fact or quote from a Romantic poet on your blog
Write about one aspect of your conversation today that you found particularly interesting.  What were important ideas that you left undiscussed?

Spring Break is almost over....

and it has really felt like Spring. It is a weird experience to read Jane Eyre again this week, since the "atmosphere" of the novel is so bleak compared to the beautiful sunshine we have been having lately.  Reflecting back to the coffeehouse that we had prior to break on "Chick Lit" I have to say that Bronte's version of a novel for a female readership seems radically different from the items that we talked about that day.  Jane is such an idiosyncratic character, and although she is sensitive, there is nothing "romantic" about her character, and certainly nothing that feels sentimental.  Clearly the stakes were higher at that time, and I think Bronte knew it.  Do you agree?  In what way does Jane feel like a character written for women?

Something to think (and write) about....

What do you think of the narrator of the story of Oroonoko? Is she trying to convey a message or specific agenda? If so, what, and how does she do so?

Coffeehouse Friday

Don't forget we are having a coffeehouse on Friday, and you should bring in something that really makes you angry--preferably from a newspaper, periodical, the web, etc.

I'll bring the java!

Commonplace Assignment for Wednesday 2/10

Think of (or find!) a real idea or proposal that seems as ridiculous as Swift's "Modest Proposal" and discuss why you chose it. Do you think that it is possible that anyone in Swift's time could or would have taken his proposal seriously? Why/Why not?

Commonplace Assignment for Wednesday 2/3

Post your thoughts about "The Country Wife." Why might Wycherely have used gambling and shopping as metaphors for sex?

Commonplace Assignment for Friday 1/29

Make sure you post your example of satire on your Commonplace, and talk a bit about why you chose it. Also, don't forget to check out the Commonplace of your group members!

Definition of Satire

"Satire can be described as the literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking towards it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation. It differs from the comic in that comedy evokes laughter mainly as an end in itself, while satire "derides"; that is, it uses laughter as a weapon, and against a butt that exists outside the work itself"

It is important to remember that satire can be similar to or even employ parody, irony, or sarcasm, but it is its own mode. Also remember that the object of a satire can be specific or general. One can satirize a specific person or a kind of person, a particular vice or political belief, or even, in the case of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, all of humanity.

Don't forget to bring in your own examples of satire for the coffeehouse on Friday!

Satire Article

Here is the link to the Satire article I passed out in class today http://mtcullinane@comcast.net

Commonplace Assignment for Monday, 1/25

Commonplace Assignment for Monday:

1.     Start your Commonplace blog and send me an e-mail with the URL

2.     Send the URL to your group members

3.     Post your observations on the reading assignment on the Commonplace.  Make sure you include at least three significant observations about the reading and at least three probing questions.

Syllabus

Here is the syllabus for the course...just in case you have not memorized it!

"[L]et us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning. Most of the pages are blank, it is true; but at the beginning we shall find a certain number very beautifully covered with a strikingly legible hand-writing. Here we have written down the names of great writers in their order of merit; here we have copied out fine passages from the classics; here are lists of books to be read; and here, most interesting of all, lists of books that have actually been read, as the reader testifies with some youthful vanity by a dash of red ink." Virginia Woolf, “Hours in a Library,” Granite and Rainbow: Essays by Virginia Woolf (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1958), p. 25.

The Internet in A Cup

You clearly don't have to be Fellini to figure out how blogging relates to the coffeehouses of the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries in Paris and London.  And it didn't take long for me to find a cool article about it: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_NNRTSPG

The article talks about how lively coffeehouses were, and I can clearly make the link between the Internet and coffeehouses, but not so much between the coffeehouses of yore and something like Starbucks, or even a local, independently owned place.   The description of coffeehouses as places to socialize in a broad sense is what is interesting to me, since I think that today's actual coffee shops are places were people largely go to be alone, together.  And, of course, to surf the web.

And I loved the little poem about coffee.  I am clearly biased, but coffee is truly one of man's (or God's) greatest inventions:

..that Grave and Wholesome Liquor,
that heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker,
Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad,
and cheers the Spirits, without making Mad.


I think the rule that anyone who starts a quarrel has to buy coffee for everyone else is a good one, although we need to be clear that a lively intellectual debate differs greatly from a "quarrel."

All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment shall be under the Article of White's Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; Learning, under...Grecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St James's Coffee-house.

I think we may need to come up with a name for our coffeehouse.

Another great quote from the article:

The more literary-minded, meanwhile, congregated at Will's coffee-house in Covent Garden, where for three decades the poet John Dryden and his circle reviewed and discussed the latest poems and plays. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary on December 3rd 1663 that he had looked in at Will's and seen Dryden and “all the wits of the town” engaged in “very witty and pleasant discourse”. After Dryden's death many of the literatured shifted to Button's, which was frequented by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, among others. Pope's poem “The Rape of the Lock” was based on coffee-house gossip, and discussions in coffee-houses inspired a new, more colloquial and less ponderous prose style, conversational in tone and clearly visible in the journalism of the day.

Again, although I can quite clearly see the functional link between the internet and coffeehouses, the atmosphere described in the article produces a quite different effect, I think, than that of sitting alone at home (or even in the midst of a crowd) blogging on the net.  It will be interesting to see how both of these conventions work over the course of the semester....

..

Here is how you do the Google blog

http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/

Other interesting links relating to Commonplace Books

http://www1.assumption.edu:80/users/lknoles/commonplacebook.html
http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/

The second link is to a strange Commonplace Book about medieval society and arms (?!)

And so it begins....

So I decided to have everyone in English Lit II do an electronic "scrapbook" -- not sure where I came up with the idea, but I am pretty excited. I did find some good basic information on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book