Word Picture

Word Picture

Hi, I’m Chiam Robinsky, a Jew from Eastern Europe, who has snuck out of my shtetl for a day to dress-up like an abbot in order to participate in the city’s Carnival. It’s my one day in the year that I can express how I really feel with impunity about those ecclesiastical hypocrites. Life for Jew, even a Torah scholar such as me, is even lower on the social scale than a Christian peasant from the city. But on this day, we all unite in our rebelliousness in making fun of the church and the royalty. As you can see, I’m sticking my tongue out and making a weird face to show self-mockery and disdain for the aristocratic and ecclesiastical order in today’s society.

Analysis: Formalism

Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1895-1975), a literary theorist and dissident Russian during the Stalinist regime of repression and censorship, arguably contributed to the Formalism Literary Theory, which was a “Russian literary movement of the 1920’s and 1930s…emphasized theoretical considerations of FORM as they sought to develop a science of poetics of literature” (Frye 209). His writing on the “carnivalesque—an idea  first introduced in Rabelais and His World (written in the 1930s and 1940s, published 1965)—is Bakhtin’s term for those forms of unofficial culture (the early novel among them) that resist official culture, political oppression, and totalitarian order through laughter, parody, and ‘grotesque realism’”(Leitch 1073). Bakhtin’s  research and dissertation of Rabelias’s discourse on carnival intrigued him because he evidently related its lack of Rabelias’s carnivalesque laughter to his modern day Russia.

            Anatoly Lunacharsky, a Russian critic “who presided over the foundation of Soviet culture, the Commissar of Enlightenment … basic argument that carnival was a kind of safety valve for passions the common people might otherwise direct to revolution” coincided with Bakhtin’s premise, who was writing his dissertation at the time (Bakhtin Michail Prologue xviii). Bakhtin was keenly aware of the intolerance the Stalinist regime held for political satire and parody so he tried to do a balancing act when the censors questioned him. The Introduction of Rabelais and His World states that “all were considered equal during carnival” (10). Furthermore, it “is the laughter of all the people. Second, it is universal in Scope; it is directed at all and everyone, including the carnival’s participants. Third, this laughter is ambivalent: It is gay, triumphant, and at the same time mocking, deriding” (11, 12). Bakhtin’s interpretation of the carnival relates to Victor Shklovsky’s—another Russian formalist (1893-1984)—salient points in his discourse on “Art as Technique.”

            For example, the pantomime of the carnival correlates with the “defamiliarization” technique that Shklovsky describes as making “the familiar seem strange by not naming the familiar object. He [Leo Tolstoy] describes an object as if he were seeing it for the first time, an event as if it were happening for the first time. In describing something, he avoids the accepted names of its parts and instead names corresponding parts of the object” (Shklovsky Online 2). The dress, costume, and pantomime of these carnival participants conveyed hilarious satire and parody without declarative sentences, of their political, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical targets. On a typical carnival day, one would probably see heteroglassia—Bakhtin’s term for speaking differently to different people—at work, depending who the performer’s audience is at that specific instance. Thus Bakhtin tries to revitalize and infuse the carnivalesque freedom into intellectual formalist theory and Russian literary life, and furthermore, we see the incorporation of Shklovsky’s defamiliarization technique reflected in these carnivals during the Middle Ages/Early Renaissance periods in Europe as well.

Work Cited

Bakhtin, Mikail. Rabelias and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana      

University Press, 1984. Print

Frye, Northrop, et al. Ed. The Harper Handbook to Literature. New York: Longman, 1997. Print

Kuiper, Kathleen. Ed. Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, Mass.: 

Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1995. Print

Leitch, Vincent B. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2^nd ed. New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, 2010. Print

Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Technique.” Online: http://www.vahidnab.com/defam.html

Reflection #4 2-15-11 through 2-20-11 Enlightenment

English 436 Reflection #4, Covering 2-14-11 through 2-20-11

Yesterday, I caught up on all the reading from last week: The works that I was most able to follow were Alexander Pope’s, An Essay on Criticism; Edmund Burke’s, Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s, Phenomenology of Spirit, Dr. Wexler’s handouts of Immanuel Kant’s, “What is Enlightenment?” and the six-page summary (Dr. Wexler’s) of all our readings. I had a particularly rough time reading Kant’s From Critique of Power of Judgment and Hegel’s From Lectures on Fine Art.

Last week’s class was somewhat of a self-inflicted disappointment because I had not finished most of our required reading, and as a result did not follow Dr. Wexler’s lecture very closely. In addition, the apprehension regarding my involvement in our group project lived out to my worst fears as I blew my best opportunity for some constructive dialogue when I did not respond adequately to classmate Janet Smith’s compliment that she thought my clip—"James Farmer Jr.’s speech was the most sublime.”

I’ll try to articulate the most salient points from last week’s reading:

• Alexander Pope is a witty, pithy, and clever poet whose verse in An Essay on Criticism expounds on critics’ talents and lack of. He is a neoclassic poet and critic, who values the classic adherence to strict rules.

• Immanuel Kant implores us to be enlightened and value our minds to think courageously and freely. He differentiated between public freedom as a scholar and writer, with less private freedom as a worker in civic post or office, which has less latitude. Although he believes in mature and independent thinking, Kant is far from being an anarchist. He influenced other great writers, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson—particularly, I would assume, in his Self Reliance essay.

• Edmund Burke, in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful expounds on affection, pain, pleasure, joy, grief, self-preservation, the sublime, and the beautiful. He states that “curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections,” (Leitch 454) and basically once you find out or discover what you are curious about the “novelty” lessens. I would agree with most of that; however, I can visualize Albert Einstein still enamored all the time. He also makes a point to the effect that the removal of pain or danger does not produce “pleasure” but does produce “delight.” He feels not even grief has any resemblance to positive pain. He believes we endure grief and somehow willingly accept it; however, we try to shake off absolute pain quickly. Self-preservation from pain and danger is the “most powerful of all the passions” (458). Burke vehemently turned against the French Revolution probably because of the ugly turn of events, viz., "The Reign of Terror.” Finally, he related Sublime with danger, e.g., nature’s capacity for violence; and Beauty “should be light and delicate.” (460).

• Hegel, who was German like Kant, was to me perhaps to most controversial,yet his philosophy has influences in the Psychoanalysis and Marxism theories. He believes that philosophy’s goal is to realize the “absolute knowledge.” (537) I look forward to re-read his essays for a firmer grasp. He expostulates on the Master/Slave(Bondsman) relationship in stark terms: Generally, as humans, we have to have another human in our world to feel our “self-conscious,” which initiates the lord and bondsman relationship. Besides influencing the Psychoanalysis and Marxism theories, he also influenced the rise of fascism.

Reflection on my Contribution to Group Presentation 2-15-11

English 436: Reflection of my contribution to Group Led Discussion on Classical Criticism and Theory

Tomorrow we will give our Group Presentation for Discussion and I’m somewhat apprehensive because we haven’t gotten together for a dry run yet. The first night that we formed our group, I wrote out the five members' emails and phone numbers and then emailed the list to everyone in the group. Although there are five of us, only three of us have shared our film clips with each other. In the meantime, I chose a speech clip from the film, The Great Debaters, and tried to relate it to Aristotle’s and Longinus’s tenants. I am not ecstatic with my finished product, but I know that as a result of working hard on it I have been able to learn more of classical criticism and theory. Tonight, I called all our members and was able to get a commitment from Brian to meet before class. He also gave me a neat website to get the text from the actors’ speeches, which I will try to obtain after I submit this reflection.

As far as the film that I’m focusing on, when I had seen it at a theatre a few years ago, I knew that I was experiencing something special, especially the segment I’m showing. Since that time, I have shown it numerous times to my high school English classes, and now that I have woven Aristotle’s rhetoric and Longinus’s sublimity through and around it, perhaps I can share that with my students. However, the important business at hand is how I can involve my fellow classmates tomorrow in a discussion while contributing some salient points myself.

Analysis #1 Classical Literary Criticism

English 436, Analysis #1, Classical Criticism and Theory

The focus of my analysis deals with James Farmer Jr.’s dramatically charged culminating speech at Harvard University during a debating contest in 1935, as depicted in the 2007 film, The Great Debaters. This debating contest actually takes place between Wiley College, a small Negro university from rural Texas, and Harvard University. It is the first time a Negro College debates at the renowned Harvard University. Farmer’s culminating speech perseveres and transcends the others’ because it embodies the classical Greek elements of Aristotle’s great Rhetoric and Longinus’s Sublimity.

Gorgias of Leontini, ca. 483-376 B.C.E., values sophistry and rhetoric for its ability to persuade, regardless of what position the rhetor takes—the ends justifies the means. However, Plato, ca. 427—ca. 347 B.C.E., maintains that The Republic’s Ideal State must be founded in justice and reason; hence, justice is the most desirable, refuting Gorgias’s sophistry. From the outset Farmer’s persona establishes Aristtotle’s ethos, a term for character—knowing who you are. As an impressionable, innocent, but highly intelligent fourteen-year-old, he brings eunola, goodwill and good mindedness. Even at his young age he establishes sophrosyne, reflecting that he knows his way around. He satisfies any remaining doubters later in his argument when he relates “witnessing a white lynch mob in the Jim Crow South, string-up, hang, and burn a Negro.” (YouTube) Thus he establishes Aristotle’s logos, reason, and certainly pathos, emotion when describing this gut wrenching scene.

Prior to Farmer’s final argument, when his Harvard opponent describes his father’s partner dying in the line of duty as a police officer and exclaims, “Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral, no matter what name we give it [ i.e.; civil disobedience]” (YouTube) he puts the Wiley team on the defensive in their position as proponents of Gandhi’s civil disobedience. Farmer counters and eloquently responds with a quote from Saint Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all,” (YouTube) which helps establish logos, or justice. He escalates the stakes and establishes a deciding and extremely poignant appeal with his pathos emotionally driven evocation of the lynch mob in the unjust Jim Crow South of the 1930’s. Farmer then raises the stakes and culminates his speech with, “I have a right to resist with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter,” (YouTube) which successfully evokes both fear and compassion in the audience. However, it is Farmer’s prior epideictic part of his speech—an eulogistic description of the Negro victim that particularly helps evoke this emotion—pathos—that establishes his humanity and gives the victim a real face and life that the audience can visualize: “Was he a sharecropper, a preacher? Were his children waiting up for him?” (Youtube)

Farmer’s hyperbaton, which is Longinus’s term for “an arrangement of words or thought which differs from the normal sequence” (Leitch 146) strikes a chord in the audience’s heart. His plain use of diction, avoiding magniloquence, helps create visualization, or as Longinus terms it, phantasia, “in which enthusiasm and emotion make the speaker see what he is saying and bring it visually before his audience” (143). Longinus advocates for the speaker/writer to take chances in their rhetoric just like Farmer does when he states African American violence as a real possibility. He does not, as Longinus puts it, maintain generally at a correct and safe level “and take no risks and do not aim at the heights, whereas greatness, just because it is greatness, incurs danger” (149). Indeed, James Farmer Jr. speech engenders an aura of sublimity and his audience responds accordingly, accepting the rights for civil disobedience for the unjustly oppressed.

Works Cited

Washington, Denzel, The Great Debaters, “Ending Speeches” 2007, Web, 10 Feb. 2011 Youtube http://www.youtube.com/

Washington, Denzel, The Great Debaters, “James Farmer Jr.’s Ending Speech” 2007 YouTube Web 10 Feb. 2011 http://www.youtube.com

Leitch, Vincent B., Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print

Reflection #3

English 436 Reflection #3 Covering 2-7-11 through 2-11-11

It is a minute past midnight, Saturday morning, and I finally feel comfortable enough to do some writing, at least, on my reflection for the week. This is the first installment of a few other pieces due this week: next, the analysis #1 for classical criticism/theory, which I finally feel better prepared for after having reread Longinus “On Sublimity” real slowly tonight, and then on my contribution for the group project that we will be presenting this coming Tuesday. As Dr. Wexler suggested we should give our presentation from more of a Longinus perspective, I needed to get a more tangible grasp on his discourse. Also, Professor O’Neill's and Dr. Wexler's excellent reviews reinforced my reading of Plato, and particularly, Aristotle this week; I finally feel the sensation of standing on firmer ground.

Watching and analyzing the speeches from Wall Street helped ground and prepare me for what is expected in my first analysis, and although I will try to incorporate Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle, Longinus’s “ On Sublimity” will actually dominate. When I first read Longinus last weekend I had the impression he discoursed in very general terms; however, upon rereading his essay tonight, I realized he has a lot of very substantive and eloquent discourse. Of course, we may never know for sure who actually wrote “On Sublimity,” similar to the controversy regarding Shakespeare’s (?) works.

This has been a particularly hectic couple of weeks for me: my five-week progress report for my high school students was due today, and in addition, I am in the middle of teaching several six-hour Saturdays for CAHSEE preparation. Therefore,I will resume my writing later in the afternoon, and will certainly feel better when everything, including our group presentation, goes well.

Reflection #2 2/1/11 through 2/6/11

English 436 Reflection #2 by Bernie Sapir for the dates 2-1/11through 2-6-11

By now I thought I would already have read this week’s reading but instead I reread all of last week’s Gorgias and Plato, getting a better understanding, plus, watched “Allegory of the Cave” again on YouTube. I also looked at a few classmates’ Blogs, gleaning some valuable ideas, and went over Dr. Wexler’s computer notes, which helped me see things clearer and more in perspective. After reviewing over last week’s class and material, I have less dogmatic views of both Gorgias and Plato. I want to believe that if I was adept at rhetoric and sophistry, then I would use my talents ethically. Of course, Gorgias of Leontini did not have that as a priority; however, he was ethical, or at least truthful, in acknowledging arêtē, excellence in virtue, was not his priority, which Plato gave him credit for. Actually, quite often rhetoric saves one from humiliation. Plato, in his Phaedrus, actually condemns writing and extols speaking because it is more authentic (Leitch 43-44). I would like to have it both ways: be articulate and persuasive in both.

I read somewhere that the Socrates in Plato’s Republic is not his teacher but an entirely different character, which has created some question marks for me. Nevertheless, it is clear that Plato would sacrifice censoring Poetry that may have had a deleterious impact on the city community. As Dr. Wexler mentioned something to the effect that there is a balancing act in society over too much freedom and keeping a stable community. What is actually good for the whole?

Getting back to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” I need to replay the last couple of minutes, which confused me a bit. The audio is lacking somewhat on that clip. The very ending was clearer to me, however, in that the enlightened one should go back to the cave for the betterment of the unenlightened slaves and try to altruistically help them, even though it may be dangerous.  I’m looking forward to reading Aristotle, Longinus, delving into my Analysis#1, and working on my Group Project.

Reflection: Week#1, 1/25/11-2/1/11

English 436 Reflection Week #1 1/26/11-2/1/11, by Bernie Sapir

Last Tuesday’s class helped me realize that I had a lot of studying to do: My response to Dr. Wexler’s clip was limited compared to other students’ responses. The ones most indelible to me were the critiques from the Feminism point of view, reflecting the restrictions and the lack of freedom of the female puppet.  After reading our Anthology’s Introduction, the ensuing discussion is clearer to me now, and I deliberate whether to put a Marxism critique’s slant on the clip, as the characters reflect the class disparity between the performers and the royalty, perpetuating an absurdity.

Over the weekend I read our Anthology’s Introduction followed by Gorgias and Plato; however, it clicked more for me after rereading  the Introduction’s “Classical Theory and Criticism” a second time, being that I then realized more that Gorgias’ and Plato’s discourse was from a critique’s point of view; thus, the objective of this course became clearer to me. As far as their content, Gorgias of Leontini appreciates excellence in language as a tool for rhetorical and persuasive matters. His philosophy is compatible with Sophistry as he makes a great lawyer’s case for Helen.

 On the other hand, Plato criticizes sophistry; he is more interested in truth and protecting Greek society,which may be a contradiction, as occasionally they are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, Plato’s advocating censoring parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey because of the negative images of the Gods is troubling to me. Actually, he seems more concerned with the state of the city and the corrupting influence on society than with creative freedom of poets and playwrights. In addition, Plato’s disapproval of poets mimicking nature—mimesis—appears inflexible. He seems intolerant at times for creative expressionism as just a copy. The Introduction to The Norton Anthology of  Theory & Criticism expresses that Aristotle has even less toleration for sophistry than Plato, which to me is positive position and stimulates my interest in reading Aristotle this week.