ANALYSIS #2 EGGS - actly!

EGGS-actly WHAT DID YOU DO?

I haven't flipped. I just thought the egg pix would inspire Amy to have fun with the words for the game Alex inspired for our presentation on Structuralism .

I liked how abstract and subjective the thinking could get with a mere egg – the inside and outside; to incite or urge, egg on one's face, humiliation or embarrassment, walk on eggs, or a good old goose egg.

I also liked how abstract, interchangeable, associative words and images got with the word bill. There’s Bill Clinton, the Bill of Rights, the invoice, statement, bulletin, handbill, poster and the beak.

I believe I was most helpful by emailing the key points along with the work cited information that I found most interesting concerning the theory’s historical context, cultural importance and practical uses . That way the one who orchestrated our power point could simply cut and paste what she needed. I then emboldened what I felt was the bottom-line so our coordinator didn’t need to spend too much time wading through the information.

Example:
Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss, early 20th Century linguist argued:
Study language as if frozen in time and cut transversely (in a cross direction; road that cuts through a park or other area of light traffic; shortcut) like a leaf.
The result: vision of entire language system – implied or unconscious in any utterance. Utterances are merely manifestation of rules of the system that lend order to the heterogeneity (composition from dissimilar parts) of language. (IMPLIED ORDER central to Stucturalist; derives historically and logically from Formalism; adducing the internal system or order of linguistic, cultural and literary phenomena - a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed)

Other favorite facts were:

“During the early and middle sixties, structuralism so dominated the French Intelectual life that Bernard Pinguad could write in a 1966 issue of L’Arc devoted to Sartre: ‘1945 1960: In order to measure the distance covered between these two dates, it is enough to open a newspaper or periodical and to read a few book reviews. Not only are the same names no longer quoted and the same references no longer invoked but the same words are no longer pronounced. The language of reflection has changed. Philosophy, which was triumphant fifteen years age, today gives way to the human sciences, and this is accompanied by the appearance of a new vocabulary. One no longer speaks of “consciousness” or “subject” but of “rules,” “codes,” “systems”; one no longer is an existentialist but a structuralist” [L’arc, PP 30-31]. In his elegant and entertaining Structuralism in Literature, Robert Scholes defines structuralism as a movement of mind and as a method.”
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One of the many reasons why a typology of forms might have more impact on practice in architecture than in the other arts is the inherent reproducibility of architecture and its dependence on prototype. In the past, all the arts depended, to a greater or a lesser extent, on the faithful reproduction of prototypical elements. In classical artistic theory this use of prototypes was, so to speak, sublimated into the theory of mimesis, insofar as this applied to the imitation of models of classical art. The romantic movement condemned this concept as a denial of the absolute originality of each artwork; though the process was not destroyed, after romanticism it ceased to be a de jure practice and went underground. But in architecture the concept of reproducibility persisted . . .Once and idea has been established in architecture it tends to be repeated in countless examples . . . humble buildings like houses are often identical . . . partly because such buildings are intended to satisfy basic and continuing human needs, and partly because to translate an idea into material form requires the mediation of a number of agents, which in turn demands a certain degree of standardization.
In architecture and urban planning evolved around the middle of the 20th century. It was a reaction to CIAM-Functionalism which had led to a lifeless expression of urban planning that ignored the identity of the inhabitants and urban forms. . . The organization was hugely influential. It was not only engaged in formalizing the architectural principles of the Modern Movement, but also saw architecture as an economic and political tool that could be used to improve the world through the design of buildings and through urban planning.
CIAM's conferences consisted of:
• 1928, CIAM I, La Sarraz, Switzerland, Foundation of CIAM
• 1929, CIAM II, Frankfurt, Germany, on The Minimum Dwelling
• 1930, CIAM III, Brussels, Belgium, on Rational Land Development (Rationelle Bebauungsweisen)
• 1937, CIAM V, Paris, France, on Dwelling and Recovery
[Note the Swiss and French influence, as with literary thinkers]
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I’ve noticed in other readings Robert Scholes defined “Structuralism is a reaction to ‘modernist’ alienation and despair,” the way the following article does . . .

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I enjoyed this project and those I got to work with VERY much :)

BABY CHICK

BABY CHICK

"Awe, Mom! Not again! We’ve only been gone a few minutes and look at you," said Squirt, the baby chick. "Dad won't like this. Yesterday, when he said we kids could explore the other side of the coop without you; you cackled so long and loud we had to cut our adventure short. We promised we wouldn’t be long, and the others are right behind me. What are we going to do with you, Mom?”
“Now Squirt, she needed me. She was all alone and so sad. She needed a hug she could rest in.”
“Pah-leez, Mom! I wasn’t born yesterday. She was sound asleep when you saw her. You needed the snuggle. I knew you would, so I hurried back to cuddle, but now there’s no room for me. Awe, Mom!”

PART II

Literary Theory: An Analogy says, "Studying myths Levi-Strauss noticed as Russian critic, Vladimir Propp that folk tales myths tell the same 'kernel narratives' tending to work to resolve contradictions in the culture" (P 53). The baby chick standing outside its mother's protection while a puppy enjoys the baby chick's place is a contradiction, and could easily signify a contradiction in our culture.

Roland Barthes, a French literary theorist, philosopher and critic says: "A work of literature [is]. . . nothing but an assemblage of signs that function in certain ways to create meaning. . . films, commodities, events and images are lent meaning by their association with certain signs” (p 54).
An on line article on semiotics from Heriot Watt University’s Black Run titled “Advanced Semiotics” articulates:
Throughout the mid-1950's, Barthes wrote a series of brief articles for a French newspaper on the subject of myth . . . Saussure suggested that signifiers (sounds) and signifieds (concepts) are connected together by the process of signification. Barthes suggested that this process does not necessarily end at this point, as a sign can take part in a new level of signification where it becomes the signifier to a new signified at another level. For example, at the most basic level of signification which Barthes refers to as denotation, a photograph or bodyshell may suggest the sign "car". The sign "car" can in turn become a signifier for a further signified. For example one type of bodyshell can conjure up the sign "Jaguar XJS", another sign "LADA". To Barthes, this second level of meaning at the level of denotation is "mythical". He argues that we tend to see such associations as natural and given (XJS = "luxury", LADA = "basic") when in fact they are arbitrary constructions.

The sign of the plump healthy looking hen could signify contentment but could also conjure up a second level of meaning. Where a hen cuddling a baby chick would be “natural,” mothering the pup would be “weird,” or “humorous". Barthes might argue “natural” and “weird / humorous” are arbitrary constructions. However, with no sign of the pup's mother, the hen looking so comfortable, and the baby chick left out, I doubt that “natural” and “weird / humorous” are all that arbitrary.

Analysis: Classical Literary Criticism

“Survivor’s Glee” is the first poem in Jeffrey McDaniel’s book The Forgiveness Parade, and it is the first poem I ever read by this genius. McDaniel wrote, “I strapped on an oxygen tank and dove into the past / paddling back through the years / emerging from a manhole on memory lane.” I scrawled, “Wow.” I circled, “My parents welcomed me with open elbows.” I drew a giant smiley face next to “A pipe burst behind my eyes.” And I scrawled on the blank page across from the poem,
“I WANT TO WRITE LIKE THIS!”

So, I ache to communicate as effectively and simply as Jeffrey McDaniel and his strange, creative imagery, recognizable yet skewed and surreal, marrying abstract images to concrete so that they shock thoughts and emotions to life. What could this have to do with Classical Literary Criticism? By observing McDaniel through Plato Specs, Aristotle Spectacles, and Longinus Spectacles I expect to be able to let you know if I agree with Penelope Murray that, “Attitudes to literature have been profoundly shaped by the great writers and thinkers of classical antiquity” (vii).
First, wearing my Plato Specs I observe the same frustration with violence, corruption and politics in 2010 that disgusted Plato in antiquity. “For Plato the poet has no knowledge, and the imitations which he produces are mere reflections of the external world, at third remove from the reality of the Forms” (Murray xxx). Jeffery McDaniel has knowledge of world where an oxygen tank is needed to dive into the past. Although his metaphors appears more removed than three times from reality with or without my Plato Specs the artist moves from his heart to mine as if we were one.


Changing to my Aristotle eyeglasses I am surprised that what I see is remarkably different from my Plato perspectives, because according to Classical Literary Criticism Aristotle studied at the Athens Academy of Plato for twenty years. Murray says, “Whereas Plato views poetry as an inspired, and therefore irrational activity, Aristotle treats it as the product of skill or art which is based on rational and intelligible principles” (xxx). In my Aristotle spectacles I can see the skill and art abounding in Jeffrey McDaniel’s work, but the rational intelligible principles seem to be missing. But to communicate as effectively as McDaniel does, they must be there.

I found looking at Jeffrey McDaniel wearing my Longinus spectacles that McDaniel did not have the appearance of the sublime . Murray says, “The study of literature continued to be an important part of the curriculum in the training of the orator throughout antiquity, and the purpose of such study was to enable the student to acquire verbal facility” (xiv). In the video that follows the verbal facility of Jeffrey McDaniel appears to lack strength, vitality and creativeness.


Murray says, “Higher education in the Graeco-Roman world . . . included the art of writing as well as the art of speaking” (xlv). One does not have to be wearing antiquity spectacles to know that both are still important today. Some tried to transform the “Bard” McDaniel’s on line readings with cartoon artwork, but it did not enhance his presentation. However, using Murray’s definition, “Sublimity is characterized by its ability to amaze and transport an audience, overwhelming them with its irresistible power” (xivi), Jeffrey McDaniel’s writings do not require him to be an eloquent speaker to move his audiences. His poetry moves from his heart to his public's satisfying as an intravenous feeding.

This ability of McDaniel’s reminds me of another of Loginus’ way of cultivating . . . sublimity . . . through phantasia . . . when the speaker imagines the speaker imagines the scene he describes so vividly that he can bring it before the eyes of his audience. However in McDaniel’s case “the poet aims to astonish us by the depiction of scenes which can exceed the bounds of credibility” but the orator’s goal is not “vividness and realistic description” and yet he succeeds “to overwhelm the audience with . . . powerful and inspired emotion” (Murray xlvii). I aim to astonish readers with powerful and inspired emotion as McDaniel does.

In conclusion, “Although greatness of mind is a natural capacity, the sublimity that results from it can be inspired by the imitation or emulation of previous writers who have shown themselves capable of achieving sublimity” (Murray xlvii), and Jeffrey McDaniel doe.