Reflection of a Formal[ist] Presentation

I must admit that I don’t think the presentation went as well as it could have. For starters, Structuralism and Formalism are, at least for me, very complex and I had a difficult time understanding how to present to the class what they comprised without making it sound too much like a lecture (which I also regret to admit that it did take that course). Honestly, I feel like our presentation could have been more in-depth and organized. Because of my illness and hospital stay, and because of some technical issues with my group members, we weren’t able to stay in close conversation, and I don’t think we were able to really pin down our presentation to what it should have been.

When we originally discussed our presentation, we decided to break it up into smaller parts so each of us could have something to present or talk about. I felt at the time that I understood how we could incorporate a class activity into the presentation so that’s what I choose to do, along with help from Danielle. When it came down to it, I think we had some good ideas (trying to get the class to look at symbols and consider their meanings, as well as trying to show the class how to connect structuralism/formalism to literary analysis - i.e. the practical usage of the theories) but I don’t think it went so smoothly in class.

I wasn’t able to see what the rest of the group was going to present about the theories itself, and I felt that we could have incorporated more discussion into the presentation, rather than just lecture. I do understand that what was expected of us was not a simple PowerPoint presentation, which now, looking back, I realize that’s what it became. I did try to get discussion going at the end of the presentation, but I know now I could have also tried harder (or planned better) to get the rest of the group involved in asking questions and generating discussion as well. 

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Two Students, One Text.

Yes, I know that the title of this blog post sounds like the beginning of a horrible, possibly degrading literary joke, but I do think that the activity in class was useful in helping me understand reader-response theory and phenomenology. Attempting to convey in words where the meaning of a text was between two individuals was a great deal harder than it first sounds to be. For example, I came up with multiple interpretations: the meaning is in the text itself; the meaning is in each individual; the meaning is in each individual and the text itself. Additionally, I noted at the time of the activity that perhaps the text’s *true* meaning was if the two individuals – with different backgrounds, personalities and intellects – could agree, more or less, on one solidified meaning in the one text that they both read. “Would that make the text’s meaning universal?” I wrote, thinking at the time that it is the universal meaning that is most important. 

The more the class delved into discussion, the more I began to realize that perhaps the universal meaning isn’t the most crucial thing in a text. Just as each member of the class had a different opinion or thought about the activity, each individual would have a different interpretation or feeling about a text and thus to each person, that meaning would mean the most to him/her.

I think that we tend to only consider our own personal feelings about a particular text when analyzing literature instead of keeping in mind that there are multiple interpretations, and possibly something to learn from what other people think. I find that through communication, discussion and debate with others, I can better develop my own personal ideas about a text. A prime example of this is our class discussions: reading the text at home is much different than when I can listen to a number of other people speak about the same text. I find it helps me understand the readings more than just taking notes by myself (I think Wolfgang Iser is correct when he titles his essay “Interaction between Text and Reader”, but I also think we could expand this into something a little better: “Interactions between Text and Reader, and Other Readers”).

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We'll pretend that it meant something so much more...

   It was rather sweet of him to hold her umbrella, although it had stopped raining a while ago.

   For a moment, she considered telling him this, least his arm get tired, but decided against it. It was cold out, and she had purchased this dress specifically for this date with no concern for the weather. How disappointed she had been when he came to pick her up and it was pouring rain. Hours spend curling her hair appeared to have been wasted in vain. But, he had graciously held the umbrella as she got into the car, and when they arrived at the restaurant.

   At dinner, she was pleased to notice she looked the best out of any of the other women in the room. Dressed in heavy coats and thick stockings, they had looked more suited to be going skiing than on a romantic date. Bare-legged and deliciously swathed in silk, warmed by the wine and her handsome prince across from her, she had anxiously chattered her way through three courses, dessert and coffee.

   And now, as they walked through the park, she clutched his arm closer, snuggling into him. How romantic, how perfect this night had been!

   He had noticed it had stopped raining.

   What he didn’t know was how he had been able to get through this night. He had tried to keep up with the usual conventions of being a gentleman, opening doors and paying the check, those sort of things. The conversation at dinner had been stifled, he thought, or perhaps that was because of the wine. And now, the glossy surface of the river and harsh lighting of the streetlamps only made the night feel even more apocalyptic, like he was treading the line between heaven and hell.

   He felt her tighten her grasp.

   And from somewhere far off, he heard the lyrics to the song that had been playing in his head all day. This is the moment that you know that you told her that you loved her, but you don’t. You touch her skin, and then you think. She is beautiful, but she don’t mean a thing to me.

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When discussing the visual arts - such as paintings and photographs - the lack of concrete words that have been put down on paper to describe what is occurring in the frame often make for interesting interpretations by the viewer. We often lack the knowledge of the specific painter or photographer, the historical or social context in which the art was created or captured, or the personal emotions that went into the creation. Certainly, artists incorporate elements of their own lives or feelings into their works, but when a spectator views a painting or photograph – which is quite a different experience than reading words on a paper – it is up to the viewer to decide what the narrative is.

Formalism and structuralism work in much the same way. Disregarding the facts of who (author), when (historical context), and why (personal feelings), critics who use formalism and structuralism attempt to look at just the work itself and what is trying to get across. They look at symbols, signs, syntax, sentence construction, and style in order to mold an interpretation. They even ignore their own feelings on the work - quite an opposite of reader-response theory! I honestly found it hard to separate my feelings from this assignment. Truthfully, I choose the painting and constructed the narrative in the way that I did for purely personal reasons. I can see myself and a situation I am currently in within the narrative that I wrote above. I understand that formalism and structuralism attempt to separate these personal interpretations to a more solidified interpretation of the work as a whole, and I think I have tried to include some of the elements of these theories in my narrative.

First, I sat and thought about the painting for a while, really looking at what is depicted. I found the picture through a simple Google search, and I have yet to find the name of the artist, so my interpretation is truly one without the knowledge of the author or context. Second, the somewhat cliché, romanticized images of a man and woman walking through the park, hand-in-hand in the rain instantly conjured up the idea of the archetype of the love story. Fyre states in The Archetypes of Literature that it is “pre-literary categories such as ritual, myth and folk tale… [that we] find… reappearing in the greatest classics – in fact there seems to be a general tendency on the part of great classics to revert to them” (1309). What better archetype than the love story between a man and a woman? History has certainly seem an infinite number of stories on this relationship, from Adam and Eve, to Cleopatra and Anthony, to Romeo and Juliet. And third, I looked at the painting itself. I thought that the colors used in the painting, the clashing of the harsh yellow from the lights and mellow blues of the river, symbolized a sort of balance between happiness and despair. Additionally, the use of scattered, almost Impressionist-style brushstrokes conveyed to me a sense of emotional upheaval and panic, which then turned me back to looking at the figure of the man and woman. Their surroundings seem to speak for their emotions and relationship, and so that formed the basis of my interpretation.

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Sublime Dreams

"Sublimity... produced at the right moment, tears everything up like a whirlwind, and exhibits the orator's whole power in a single blow." 

Longinus, On Sublimity  

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I must admit, this week’s discussion on the sublime, as well as the first group presentation using YouTube clips of examples of sublimity, was not only the most interesting class session so far, but also the one that made the greatest impact on me personally.

What I thought was the greatest point of discussion this week was the idea of something being sublime having vastly different explanations or set of examples for each individual person. For example, during our class discussion, one student mentioned that he couldn’t really see the sublimity in the clip from Akira Kurosawa’s film Dreams. Now, I’ve watched this movie before for a Introduction to Film class I took a few years ago, for which I did my final research paper on the New Wave moment in Japanese cinema, so I knew the context of just that short piece we watched during the presentation. Dreams is a series of eight short vignettes, which are based on stories and pictures actually dreamt by Kurosawa. Each shorter piece of the film incorporates particular New Wave elements – such as unresolved endings, little to no dialogue, and a focus on “showing” aspects of plot and character rather than “telling” – so there’s a greater emphasis on the “painterly” moments rather than a complex storyline.

Granted, I don’t think that movies were what Longius had it mind when he discussed sublime moments. Most of his arguments are based around aspects that have to do with spoken performance – i.e. great speeches and oratory moments that inspire and provoke the listener – or the great literature that moves the reader. For example, in On Sublimity, he raises the example of Sappho’s description of love, in which she says that “When I see you only for a moment, I cannot speak; my tongue is broken, a subtle fire runs under my skin; my eyes cannot see, my ears hum…. I am paler than grass; I seem near to dying; but all must be endured” (140). Longius points to this as a sublime moment because she “brings everything together – mind and body, hearing and tongue, eyes and skin” (140). She is using the written word to appeal to more than one facet of a reader/listener’s emotions, as well as invoking a number of different emotions rather than just a single one. Love is complex; it may make the sufferer giddy with joy, or burdened with longing, or depressed with heartbreak. Sappho, in just a short span, works to reference all these different feelings in order to describe to the reader the gut-wrenching, physical ache of being in love, and I agree that this is a sublime moment. Love is the disease that affects all men and women. Sublimity contains “much food for reflection… [it is] difficult or rather impossible to resist, and makes a strong and ineffaceable impression on the memory” (138) much in the same way that we could describe love.  

Returning briefly to Kurosawa’s Dreams and the clip with the little boy: within the right context (i.e. seeing the whole film rather than just the short section shown in class), I think it is a perfect example of a sublime moment. The other student in class claimed that the ending of the vignette “Sunshine Through the Rain” where the little boy walks off through a field of flowers to the rainbow couldn’t really be considered sublime because it didn’t really elicit any emotion for him. True, flowers, rainbows and an innocent in awe of nature are all cliché aspects of film meant to try to conjure up emotional responses from the audience members and I agree that just seeing that short piece perhaps isn’t enough to create such a moment that would be “sublime”. However, the little boy has been sent to that field in order to beg forgiveness from the fox spirits of the woods, after disobeying his mother’s orders not to watch their ceremony. She claims that he either must kill himself or seek out the foxes, and the last image of this small boy, laden by the fear he must feel on going out in the woods alone, walking off to rectify his impulsive actions is troubling, emotional and – dare I say it – sublime because it shows us the power of forces larger than our individual selves. I see the rainbow and I don’t immediately think “cliché” – I like to think “redemption, rejuvenation and restoration of honor”. And I think those actions say something about being human and making mistakes. To see a little figure in that great field walking towards the unknown – whether it’s his death or salvation – extorts strong emotional responses that are impossible to ignore.  

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Avarice is rectitudinous?

Or perhaps, simply, greed is good?

After attending Kevin O'Neill's disquisition on classical rhetoric in the age of Aristotle, it was much easier for me to appreciate why Plato and Aristotle wrote so eloquently and precisely on the art of rhetoric. More specifically, it helped that O'Neill began the lecture with historical context on why rhetoric was so important to all the citizens of Greece at that time. Because the city-states of Greece were self-contained and agriculture-based in nature, small communities flourished, while the larger complex central hubs of exchange like Athens were important for the overall growth of the country as a whole. Thus the average citizen (or perhaps I should more pointedly say, average MALE citizen) played a huge role in creating and maintaining the status of the community through dialogues and constructive criticism in the town square – the Facebook news feed of our time. 

Surprisingly, most Athenians could read and write, but their written discourses were burdened by the large sheets of parchment that made up the books of day. It was not so easy to walk around with heavy sheets of paper and so there was a greater emphasis and reliance on speech as the modes of discussion and information. Speech requires shorter, more precise lines of explanation and reasoning, and thus in order to participant in important dialogues like a good citizen, each individual had to be a good orator, well-versed in the languages and styles of rhetoric and persuasion. 

So, when later in class we watched the clip of Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” speech from Wall Street, it made me think that this character’s dialogue was written in such a way that a man in Aristotle’s time might speak. Regarding the speech that Gekko makes in the movie, his knowledge and understanding – or at least the inspiration – of Aristotle’s ideas of rhetorics are clear. Aristotle “operates through analysis… [replacing] the literary approach with systematic expositions.” Like Aristotle, Gekko also identifies that there should be more than just labor, the concept of the dispensing of energy without employment of body and soul – like the 33 vice presidents who are doing little more than collecting a paycheck – and more of the action and speech that “turns the human body into a instrument of self-expression”, as O’Neill stated in his lecture. Additionally, Gekko speaks in a clear, precise form of delivery. He employs words and phrases that speak to the emotional part of the human condition. He is using forensic rhetoric, as it is a defense of not only his actions, but is attempting to persuade the listeners (the angry stockholders that make up the audience) to change their thinking by speaking to the pathos of each individual. He also makes sure that his presentation is clear, well-spoken and stylized in such a manner that nobody has a difficult time understanding him, or realizing that he is serious about what he is speaking about. He walks through the crowd, amongst the people, in comparison with the president and vice presidents who sit behind the podium, removed from the masses. He is not just a speaker lecturing; he presents himself as a normal individual, somebody just like his listeners.

O’Neill, Kevin. The Origins and Uses of Rhetoric in Classical Athens: Plato, Aristotle, and the Craft of Persuasion. California State University Northridge. Manzanita Hall, Northridge, CA. 8 Feb. 2011. Lecture.

In defense of Howard Roark...

“…truth above all things and against all men.”

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“For a city the finest adornment is a good citizenry, for a body beauty, for a soul wisdom, for an action arête, and for a speech truth…”

Gorgias, Encomium of Helen

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Published in 1943, The Fountainhead positions author Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism in a fictional world, following the trials of architect Howard Roark – Rand’s “ideal” man” - as he battles against those who seek to usurp and manipulate the products of his own creation and willpower. Although it was originally rejected by a handful of publishers, The Fountainhead succeeded in becoming a literary bestseller, and continues to this day to be a site of battle in the discourse between the struggle of the individual’s right to create and do as they see fit for themselves against the benefits of the collective whole. The film adaptation, released in 1949, is unique for its inclusion of the one of the longest filmed speech in cinema history, an oratory justification given by Roark to a courtroom after he has destroyed a building project from which his original design was altered without his consent. Even at over six minutes on film, it still does not rival the full speech as written in the book at close to 4,000 words.

                                                                                                                                      

The fact that the delivery of the speech is given in a courtroom in front of Roark’s peers and critics gives some credence to the idea that his speech would fall under Aristotle’s forensic rhetoric, where rhetoric is used to provide logical defense while flirting with the pathos of the listener. However, the case can be made that it appears to be closer to the demonstrative (epideictic) form of rhetoric, as the main point of the speech surrounds the “exclusively epideictic subject of virtue and vice” (Gibbs 2). Roark is speaking candidly and pointedly to those who would judge him for his destructive actions against society, but he is doing it in a way that is both persuasion and performance, much in the style that Gorgias employed throughout his writings like Encomium of Helen. Even the substance is strikingly similar; compare:

“For by nature the stronger is not restrained by the weaker but the weaker is ruled and led by the stronger; the stronger leads, the weaker follows.” to

“The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks. The parasite copies.” (KameradKonrad 2:28-2:39)

Often the consensus in the rhetoric community is that the “epideictic [form] does not seem to have [a] viable, legitimizing purpose” like the forensic or deliberative forms have (Carter 209), for the content and style of the epideictic is looser and more speculation than fact, employing spectacle and style rather than hard logic. Additionally, epideictic is considered to be the “entertaining” line of rhetoric, used most often in funeral orations and other public ceremonies in which speech or writing is needed, by giving praise or lying blame. Although both Gorgias and Rand are presenting pointed antitheses and following a more-or-less rigid line of reasoning to provide defenses for an individual -

– Gorgias absolving Helen’s blame for her arrangement in history and Rand giving her idyllic Roark his ideal allocution – the two authors are doing so in a manner that unveils the “radiance or luminosity of noble acts and thoughts” (Carter 210).

Alas, one can only envision Gorgias giving potential Sophists his defense of Helen on the streets of Greece. However, happily, the modern age’s penchant for technology and visual representations give us Roark’s speech in the cinematic medium in order to converse and improved our understanding of the power of rhetoric.  

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Carter, Michael F. “The Ritual Functions of Epideictic Rhetoric: The Case of Socrates’ Funeral Oration. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 9.3 (Summer 1991): 209-210. JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

“The Fountainhead.” The Ayn Rand Institute. AynRand.org, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

“The Fountainhead – Roark’s Courtroom Speech.” Youtube.com. KameradKonrad. 21 April 2008. Web. 14 Feb. 2011. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkAz8rw8kqY>

Gibbs, Tori E. “Epideictic Oratory in Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’.” Student Pulse: Online Academic Student Journal 2.04. 11 April 2010. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.

The Power of Persuasion

"Shall we, then, casually allow our children to listen to any old stories, made up by just anyone, and to take into their minds views which, on the whole, contradict those we'll want them to have as adults?"

"No, we won't allow that at all."

Plato, Republic Book II

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Truth be told, upon seeing that Gorgias's "Encomium of Helen" and Plato's Republic were assigned readings for this week, I felt my head spin. I was afraid: What if I didn't understand anything? Made a fool of myself in class? Would it be a similar experience to when I tried taking Spanish in high school, where I couldn't comprehend anything because it was in a foreign language? All these large, looming frustrations and worries clouded my conscious. I guess I assumed, by signing up for a class titled "Major Critical Theories," that I'd instantly pour myself into all the -isms I've heard so much about (i.e. Feminism, Structuralism, Postmodernism, etc.), not try to slog my way through understanding Plato and the Socratic method. However, I am pleasantly surprised that I now understand why these readings were assigned, and didn't have too much of an issue relating them to the study of critical theory (although that cave video is still making me feel like I should be taking a shot each time the narrator says "and now suppose...")

"Encomium of Helen" turned out to actually be very easy to read and understand. I knew the story of Helen, and how she was the start of the Trojan war, but I’m surprised that it took so long in class for somebody to talk about the larger part of the myth, about Aphrodite’s promise to Paris that he would have the most beautiful woman in the world if he gave her the golden apple, as opposed to Hera or Athena, who promised him, respectively, a great king-ship or military prowess in battle(Atsma 1). Surely it seems strange to others beside myself that a great figure in Greek history would succumb so easily to the whims of the “fairer sex” rather than desiring great authority or unrivaled intellect? I know several students in the class protested that Helen knew what she was doing, but perhaps they cannot see past the stereotype that her beauty has oppressed her by, and cannot believe that she may not have gone willingly. Certainly there were forces at work who were stronger than one single individual; in Helen’s case, the will of blood-thirsty, libidinous men and vexation of cold-hearted gods drove her to her fate. For Gorgias to take up Helen’s honor, and defend her succinctly with powerful rhetoric was quite an accomplishment.

And as for Republic? Truthfully, it made my blood go cold. Some of my favorite books include dystopian fiction such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and to read the actions that are fictionally portrayed in those novels argued so with such subtle precision and abounding passion by Plato’s fictionalized Socrates made me shudder. Now I understand why reading such texts will assist in the study of critical theory when applied to literature. If one knows the tools in which to distinctly and accurately argue one’s position, then it works to strengthen one’s assessment and analysis of literature, as well as the means in which to debate one’s interpretation.

Atsma, Aaron J. “Judgement of Paris.” Theoi.com. Theoi Greek Mythology. 2000-2008. Web. 7 February 2011.