My Book and Heart

I must admit, after spending two hours of my life to get to and watch the film, I am at a loss as to what I actually gained. I didn't learn much about primers that I didn't already know or could have guessed (that they're didactic tools for children, which as a genre are sort of lost.)
My burning question remained: the film was appropriately cute and well-narrated, but so what?

So I peeked at my classmates' blogs to figure out if I should recant my previous paragraph: Gabryelle says that there is a certain way in which as children learn to read they simultaneously lose their innocence.
Claire agrees, as there is also an element of danger in certain tales and limericks. She also said that there's a certain fascination that all book lovers have with old books and that's magical.
And Rosanna says that once a book is read, that it's a part of the reader forever; Reading also instructs our world.

I think that I have trouble with the idea that through the process of learning to read that children lose their innocence. I would argue that the excitement and hunger to learn that books inspired in me prolonged my innocence far beyond when I was 5 or 6 and still learning to read. I voraciously sought out many books to immerse myself in and as a result, I cultivated many naive and imaginary ways of thinking about my own place in the world. I still thought that once I was in high school that I could have some adventures similar to those of the heroines of Sweet Valley High. I thought that I could become an Animorph if perchance I could meet an alien some day. I fancied that I too could become Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, which is why I chose Anthropology as my initial major. I still dream that one day I can use my college degree to do something world-changing, beyond becoming a teacher at Bozeman High (which is my fear as I haven't made any definite plans post-graduation).

I do agree that old books are magical and command a certain reverence and respect and also that once a book is read that it becomes a part of me. For me, books and reading are the closest thing to a religion that I have. Tearing pages out of books (shame on that one woman in my Brit Lit I class who would attempt to lighten her load by tearing out the sections of her book as we went along), using pen to notate textbooks or book burning all incite me to a religious violence and fervor.

Word of the day

Ha, I love the Thesaurus.com word of the day today.

I was a bit disappointed with my test score, as I blanked 3 out of the 4 Greek terms that I should have known. Plus, partial credit would have raised my score a bit more, but I do understand why some of the answers didn't work well that way.

I am attempting to make my way through more Don Quixote and Frye, though not as successfully as I should be at the moment. I did feel that even though I'm not making a more useful post, that I should at least indicate somehow that I'm engaged in the class and this blog at least minimally.

Totally Behind

I apologize for not keeping up the past few weeks, which is completely my own fault for taking on too many classes with too many hours at my job.
Currently, I have a severely painful ear infection, which is NOT helping me concentrate or feel up to studying yet. I'm gonna do what I can tonight and hopefully I won't miss classes this week for this.

No title yet.

Just because.

This too. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20228603,00.html

Abrams and Idea of Order Poem

My chart would be as follows (chart because the poem could function on more than one level, as mentioned in class already):


Ramon Fernandez is described here:
http://udgewink.blogspot.com/2004/11/ramon-fernandez.html

Another photo of bell hooks, my critic:

Don Q update

I just got to Chapter 10, page 70. I am 1) surprised by how much violence has occurred thus far and 2) the amount of meta-references to literature and criticism. Part of the latter is the frame narration, which I find confusing so far, at least inasmuch as to why it deepens Don Quixote's adventures.

I cannot fathom how the fact that Don Q and Pancho are repeatedly beaten the hell out of. I didn't realize how often this would happen, as they're basically 5 for 5 as far as I've read. That's a lot of beatings.

I got just past the windmill scene, which was as humorous as all the adaptations I've seen or read would suggest. I liked that.

Thematic ironic (pages 66-7)

Ezra Pound, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot, as the "direct opposite" of Wordsworth are part of the vast number of modernists who write in the thematic ironic style of Frye's. Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust are also in this group, who tend to "avoid direct statement" and who are "simply juxtaposing images without making any assertions about their relationship." These writers also regularly ignore conventional punctuation, such as the use of apostrophes. They are "an initiated group aware of a real meaning of behind an ironically baffling exterior." Their texts are fragmented and more difficult to follow than more conventional writers, because plots are thin or hidden, characters sometimes never reveal their inner thoughts, and sentences can often last for pages at a time without a pause or period. The narrator or observer of the text can be unreliable or confused, not actually aiding in telling the tale, but complicating it further.

The ironic writer often writes of a return, the reincarnations of old ideas. Rimbaud's recreation of Promethius or Yeat's Lead and the Swan replacing the dove and the virgin. The ideas concerning apocalypse seeming overwhelming, but at the same time hint at a future renewal. Modern texts, especially, are the most confusing and fragmented out of all of Frye's Modes, but they can also be the most fun for an English major to wade through, then to conquer.