An update

Hello everyone. This is certainly a message I never anticipated posting. Unfortunately, I have just recently found out that I will be needing some surgery as soon as possible. Because of the lenghty recovery period anticipated, I will most likely not be returning to KU this semester. On a positive note, Dr. Janice Chernekoff, herself no slouch when it comes to Rhetoric and Lit., has agreed to take over the class, beginning on Weds. Wednesday's assignment will stay the same.

I invite all of you to stay in touch; I'd love to hear from you. I also hope that you all still walk for CF on April 5 (go Team Rhet of Lit!) as we had planned and take lots of pictures!

Take care of yourselves and have a great rest of the semester.
LC

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all beginning to relax and enjoy your break. But remember that in the midst of all that enjoyment, you might want to start thinking about your final projects. If you've got something in mind, please tell us all about it here. We may be able to offer suggestions and support!

More poetry

A former student (and current teacher) just sent this to me. Thought you might enjoy it.

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"
by Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk.
Leave your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap one is best,
with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space
where more than three people are wearing turtlenecks.
Beware any snow-covered chalet
with deer tracks across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library
is near an aisle where a child a year or two old is playing
as his mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo on the flap
mean nothing.
Red book on black, gray book on brown, he builds a tower.
And the higher it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen:
When the tower falls, be like that child.
Laugh so loud everybody in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

from Fever, 2006 Red Hen Press

Preview of Final Project

If you'd like to plan ahead, here is a sketch of your final project that I promised to give you on Weds., had class not been cancelled. We'll go over this next week, but feel free to offer any comments on the blog before then. Enjoy!

Final Paper: Transforming Rhetoric

I believe that one of the most interesting aspects of studying rhetoric and literature is examining the ways in which language can undergo a transformation to reflect the culture, the genre, the writer’s motives, the anticipated reader/ listener/ viewer, and so on. For this final project, I would like each of you to identify some literary transformation and trace it as completely as possible. I have many suggestions, some of which are listed below, and we will brainstorm a list of possibilities in class as well. This will be an analytical paper that involves close readings of the various texts. Suggested length is a minimum of 6 pages; the paper should include some secondary research but the extent of that is up to you.

Myth into poetry and/or fiction
Daedalus and Icarus; Daphne and Apollo; Narcissus; Persephone, and many
others.
(see Nina Kossman’s Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths)

Fiction into Film
A useful website for this is called Based on the Book.

Play into film
Versions of Hamlet
Macbeth and Throne of Blood

Perspective changes in fiction
Jane Eyre and Rhys’ The Wide Sargasso Sea
Beowulf and Gardner’s Grendel
The Odyssey and Atwood’s Penelopiad

Fairy Tales through the ages
Various versions of Cinderella
Anne Sexton’s Transformations
Rapunzel and Donna Jo Napoli’s Zel

Music and Poetry
Anne Sexton’s poetry and the music of Her Kind
Joy Harjo’s poetry and the music of Poetic Justice

Representations of the trickster, vampires, you name it, in word, art, film

Any literary theme or historical event in word, art, film

Great poems

Thanks for all of these wonderful poems, but they're no substitute for three great hours spent with all of you on Wednesday afternoons ;-) Here is the poem I was going to give out today if the weather hadn't intervened. What do you think?

I ask the impossible

I ask the impossible: love me forever.
Love me when all desire is gone.
Love me with the single-mindedness of a monk.
When the world in its entirety,
And all that you hold sacred, advise you
Against it: love me still more.
When rage fills you and has no name: love me.
When each step from your door to your mob tires you
Love me: and from job to home again.

Love me when you’re bored
When every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,
Or more pathetic, love me as you always have:
Not as admirer or judge, but with
The compassion you save for yourself
In your solitude.

Love me as you relish your loneliness,
The anticipation of your death,
Mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.
Love me as your most treasured childhood Memory
And if there is none to recall
Imagine one, place me there with you.
Love me withered as you loved me new.

Love me as if I were forever
And I will make the impossible
A simple act,
By loving you, loving you as I do.


Ana Castillo, 2000

When We Two Parted

George Gordon, Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.

Love Poems?

So...I don't often find myself reading Love poems. I don't know why, it's not that I'm against love or showing one's emotion, it's just not my thing. However, I adore love songs of any shape and size, especially ones that aren't terribly serious. Anyway, I recently saw the movie Juno in theaters(LOVED it.) and this was the opening song. I'm pretty sure it's by the Moldy Peaches, but I'm not 100% sure. I just thought it was a very simple way of telling someone about love.

If I was a flower growing wild and free,
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green,
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves.

All I want is you, will you be my bride?
Take me by the hand and stand by my side.
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow.
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow.

All I want is you, will you be my bride?
Take me by the hand and stand by my side.
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod.
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug.
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug.

Edna St.Vincent Millay (1892-1951)
Recuerdo
WE were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

lovey dovey stuff

Camomile Tea
by Katherine Mansfield

Outside the sky is light with stars;
There's a hollow roaring from the sea. And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.

How little I thought, a year ago,
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of camomile tea.

Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.

Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.

Love Poem

Rabbi Ben Ezra
GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, ``A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''
...
Robert Browning

Stu

My Favorite Love Poem

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours-
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Ahhh, so beautiful.

The Best Love Poem Ever.

In the spirit of posting Valentine's Day poems early, here's one of my favorites:

She Walks in Beauty
By Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

A favorite, and three oft' heard sonnets

When You are Old
(by W.B. Yeats)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Sonnet 14
(by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Sonnet 43
(by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnet 116
(by William Shakespeare)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Love poems

Hi all! Had we but world enough and time, we could wait 'til next week to gather our love poems. But for those of you in a hurry to start your collections, let's use this space to post either favorite poems or at the least some authors and titles so we can track them down on our own. I'll start with one of my favorites:

"The Wild Rose" ~ Wendell Berry

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only a shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

Biblical Rhetoric, The Westboro Baptist Church, and Heath Ledger--oh my!

Hi everyone! I found this link over the weekend, and I thought I would share it so that we could deconstruct it's use of rhetoric. The saddest part of the link is that it isn't a joke. It was published by the Westboro Baptist Church, a group that makes "Repent America" look tame (these are the same people that protest at soldiers' funerals).

One of the many interesting things about this tract is that Heath Ledger wasn't even gay (to my knowledge, and I could be wrong because my knowledge of celebrities is severely lacking). Yes, he was in Brokeback Mountain, but as an actor. Hmm.

So, before I go into my deconstruction, any comments from the class?

Medea: the Movie

Now that we've watched (and snickered at parts of) Medea, I can't wait a whole week to hear what you thought of it. So please add your two cents here: what did you like, what was annoying, upsetting, off the mark, etc. etc. I'll start by asking the burning question: what was up with that kiss? And what did you think about Zoe Caldwell's (over)acting, for which she got a Tony. As always, we'll look forward to reading your comments.

Medea

Hi everyone. I hope you're enjoying Medea, although enjoying may not be exactly the right word.... maybe appreciating? If anyone has a pre-class question, comment, observation, etc. please let us all know. Be sure to review the "extras" in our edition, including the discussion of the "commonplace" notions about women that the ancient Greek audiences would have held. A few of the questions we'll be addressing on Weds. include:
1. Medea's motives
2. Medea's use of rhetoric (there is a reason why this play is known as a "tragedy of rhetoric"
3. What would Aristotle say?
4. How ultimatley do we view Medea? Jason? How do the gods see them?

I'm looking forward to our discussion on Weds!

Room change

Hello all! As promised, our class will now meet in Lytle 207. I'll see you all there tomorrow at 3. Bring your Aristotle and a craving for some hummus and pita bread.

Welcome to English 335!

Hello everyone. I will be using this blog to give you new information, answer questions, address problems, add my two cents to any exciting discussions that emerge (and I hope there will be many), and so on. I am looking forward to meeting or seeing you again on Weds., January 16!
In the meantime, I hope everyone is making a smooth transition back to class.
Linda