On James Kavanagh

Can I just say that he seems like the kind of guy who air-quotes?(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quotes) We all know "that guy/girl" who feels the need to physically display his/her blatant sarcasm, despite the fact that his/her underlying satirical undertone is hardly obscured. Conversational air-quoting is a desperate cry for validation. It is as if one is screaming, "PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE MY SELF-PROCLAIMED WITTY PUN/EUPHEMISM/MISCELLANEOUS SARCASTIC VERBAL MORSEL. I DESPERATELY NEED TO DRAW ATTENTION TO MY PREDICTABLE, WITLESS HUMOR BY USING WORM-LIKE FINGER GESTURES AS A LURE TO MENTALLY CAPTURE LISTENERS WHO CAN POTENTIALLY RECOGNIZE HOW FUNNY I THINK I AM."

In spite of my strong feelings toward the air-quote, I feel that Kavanagh's sarcasm is justified. It is not an attempt to be humorous, it's just mighty tricky to project sarcasm into one's writings. It simply reminded me of how much I hate air-quotes, which got my panties bunched enough for me to make a post concerning the topic.

For those of you who haven't read the essay, this is what i’m yammering about:

"In this sense, Ideology is a distinctly pejorative term, usually identifying someone who wishes to impose an abstract, extremist, intellectual-political obsession on a "moderate" mainstream political system. Thus, there are a few people on the right and left( like Robert Bork or Fidel Castro) who "have" an ideology, and who are *therefore*(asterisks=I have no idea how to italicize) likely to mess things up,and there are the great majority of sensible people(and politicians) who get along quite well because they do not "have" one. "Ideology", in this language , works as the opposite of "pragmatism", "common sense", or even of "reality."

Murry-UH

Lear quotes and themes

Human Decomposition:

Thou changèd and self-covered thing, for shame!
Bemonster not thy feature. Were 't my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones. Howe'er thou art a fiend,
A woman's shape doth shield thee.
(Act 4, Scene II, Page 102)

This quote is taken from Albany, who is appalled by Goneril’s treatment of her aging father. He recognizes that her facial features are developing into a physical manifestation of her personality. Her decomposition is corporeal as well as moral, for as she continues to do terrible deeds, her morals decay and so does her aesthetic.


Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,
To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage
And frustrate his proud will.
(Act 4, Scene 6, Page 112)

At this point, Gloucester believes he as fallen from what he presumes to be a large cliff. Though Edgar, disguised as a common man, expressed his “astonishment” at the fall Gloucester had taken and had attempted to convince Gloucester that his miraculous survival was fated Gloucester still longs for death. This marks Gloucester’s emotional decomposition. Gloucester, having been recently blinded and having gained the information that he has penalized his only loyal son, is in emotional turmoil. This is a radical character change from the bold and self-assured man in Act 3 Scene III, who stated that “We must incline to the king. I will look him and privily relieve/him. Go you and maintain talk with the duke, that my/charity be not of him perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and/gone to bed. Though I die for it—as no less is threatened/me—the king my old master must be relieved.” Gloucester is willing to boldly risk his life in this scene, but after his blinding he wishes to flee from life in cowardice.

Nature's above art in that respect. There's your press-
money. That fellow handles his bow like a crowkeeper.
Draw me a clothier's yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace,
peace, this piece of toasted cheese will do 't. There's my
gauntlet. I'll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills.
O, well flown, bird. I' th' clout, i' th' clout. Hewgh! Give
the word.
(Act 4, Scene VI, Page 113)

It is in this scene where Gloucester and Edgar come across a maddened Lear. Lear is still moderately sentient. The first line in his speech is a direct response to A comment muttered under Edgar’s breath, “O thou side-piercing sight!”. Which essentially translates to an exclamation of “How heartbreaking to see such a thing!” Act 4, Scene VI is a reflection of he mental decomposition, as Lear is unable to string together a comprehensible, relevant statement. This breakdown is , of course, a byproduct of the emotional trauma of being neglected by his daughters.

Heartbreak:

But who comes here?
My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.
(Act 4, Scene I, Page 95)

Here Edgar sees his blinded father for the first time since he was banished. When he exclaims “ World, world, O world!” Edgar is lamenting the cruel fate the world has placed upon his father. He feels that if the world and it’s tragedies corrodes man, breaking his heart and aging him to his death.


Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of “father”
Pantingly forth as if it pressed her heart,
Cried, “Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies, sisters!
Kent, father, sisters! What, i' th' storm, i' th' night?
Let pity not be believed.” There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamor moistened. Then away she started
To deal with grief alone.
(Act 4, Scene III, Page 105)

This is an except from Act 4, Scene III in which A gentleman who delivered letters to Cordelia pertaining to her father’s condition, is describing her reaction to Kent. Cordelia is shocked at the vile treatment of her father, whom she still loves despite being shunned by him. She cried as she read the letter and eventually left to grieve alone, utterly distraught.


And my poor fool is hanged.—No, no, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.—
Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips.
Look there, look there. O, O, O, O.
(Act 5, Scene III, Page 145)

This is perhaps the most obvious example of heartbreak in “King Lear”. Lear and Cordelia have finally been reunited and have reconciled. Unfortunately, Edmund had ordered Cordelia killed. Lear managed, even in his old age, to kill the man hanging her, but could not save Cordelia. The reader is left with the tragic image of an old, senile man mourning over the body of his daughter, thinking that perhaps she still breathes, then dying of shock.

Grief Without Relief

  O you mighty gods, (kneels)
This world I do renounce, and in your sights
Shake patiently my great affliction off.
If I could bear it longer and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathèd part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!—
Now, fellow, fare thee well.
(Act 4, Scene VI, Page 111)

In this scene, Gloucester grieves for himself. He is about to attempt his own suicide and his reason for doing so is the fact that he has recently been blinded. Gloucester grieves for his vision. He knows that there is no cure for his blindness, therefore if he chooses to live, he will face much adversity.

 EDGAR
 
                        This would have seemed a period
To such as love not sorrow, but another
To amplify too much would make much more
And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamor came there in a man
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunned my abhorred society, but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endured, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out
As he'd burst heaven, threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received—which in recounting
His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,
And there I left him tranced
 

ALBANY
 
                                        But who was this?

EDGAR
 
Kent, sir, the banished Kent, who in disguise
Followed his enemy king and did him service
Improper for a slave.
(Act 5, Scene III,Page 140)

In this exchange, Gloucester’s death is revealed. Edgar tells Albany of Kent’s reaction to the grievous circumstances. Kent had apparently seen Edgar sobbing, realized that the man he’d thought was a beggar was actually Edgar, and thrown himself on Gloucester in grief. Kent’s character throughout the play has been a tragic one. He was a former Noble, banished by Lear. Kent was still loyal after his banishment and disguised himself as a servant, doing him “service improper for a slave” in order to keep in Lear’s company. He is driven to near madness by his grief, even grabbing Edgar’s throat.

Howl, howl, howl, howl! Oh, you are men of stones.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever.
(Act 5, Scene III, Page 142)

Cordelia has recently been killed and Lear is mourning her loss. He had only been reunited with her for a short while. He spoke of how they would live happily together, but his chimerical dream has been shattered by her death. He has been shunned and neglected by his two oldest daughters and has grieved over his unjust treatment for most of the play. Now that he’s realized that it was only Cordelia’s love that was true, she has been lost as well.

-Murry-uh

Who thought writing about yourself could be so difficult?

After all, there's nothing a person knows more about than him- or herself, right? I'm writing an essay about myself, my interests and so on for an organization that I will not name, and I'm having trouble coming up with things to say. This is the most frustrating case of writer's block EVAR, because this should be so easy. When I do find things to say they're all boring and cliche and don't flow well. Perhaps I should bring in what I have of this paper to The Poem Ruiner tomorrow, I'm sure he won't have any problems with pointing out everything I could do better. Hate to say it, but I'd rather be reading Shakespearean sonnets than doing this.
--Little Red

Sparknotes

I really love Sparknotes. Having finished "King Lear", I realized that I didn't know who most of the characters were or where they came from, or how they ended up where they did. I seemed to be having exactly the reverse of the problem that most people have with Shakespeare: I could understand his language, but not the actual plot. Sparknotes completely fixed that. Obviously I don't think it's acceptable to read Sparknotes in place of the play, but it is a hugely helpful resource to use after. http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear
--Little Red

And Another Thing...

Does anyone know how to indent? This blasted contraption won't seem to let me.

A mind lost and a mind changed

“What is madness but nobility of soul . At odds with Circumstance?”
-Theodore Roethke.

Theodore Roethke, being that he is The Messiah, has inadvertently seized the central message of Act 4, Scene VI. It is at this point where Lear has supposedly lost his senile mind, mumbling things that are completely irrelevant to the situation. Yet, I found myself enthralled in every word he said. His words were entirely comprehensible,(in that I was able to understand them due to the language, and able to understand the points he was making and the reasons behind those points) reasonable. They were simply misplaced. It was not the content of his mind that was askew, it was simply not in accord with the circumstances.
This act changed my mind about “King Lear”. In previous posts, I expressed a mild distaste for his diction and declared myself detached from the plot line because of it. (I give myself 25 alliteration points.)I am still ambivalent to the play itself, but I enjoyed this segment so much that it made the entire play worthwhile.
A few of my favorite lines:

* What was thy cause?

Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No. The
 
wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my
 
sight. Let copulation thrive...

That one is brilliant for the last line, which essentially means “Long live sex!” He feels that it should be embraced, and people should look to nature to see that their own conceptions of sex are artificial. In nature, there is no shame around instinct. I see a critique of the societal assumption that an intrinsic human behavior is disgusting or ignominious.

*Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
 
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
 
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.

Lear is speaking of sinners punishing sinners. He notes that policemen may whip whores, but it does not redeem them for the fact that they use them to satisfy their own lust. Going along with sin and retribution, another of my favorite quotes from the same monologue:

*Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
 
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.

This statement struck me in particular because it is so true. Lear is stating,( from what I can interpret, contemptuously) that money can buy one out of guilt. The poor are punished more severely for their sins, because they are powerless. Money drives everything, and if one has enough of it he/she can bribe people into silence.

Methinks I like Shakespeare more now.
 

Suck it up

After hearing many of my classmates whining about Shakespeare's... interesting use of the English language today, I have something to say to all these complaints : SUCK IT UP. Yes, maybe it makes your brain hurt in a horrible way, but after a little while it starts to make some sense and you can sort of figure out what he means before you look to the bottom of the page to see what in the world he's talking about. In a way it's really amazing, the way he uses language. He sees connections between words that a lot of other people never would. It's bending the rules of English as we know it, using words in a way that they were probably never meant to be used but somehow it works, and it's a humbling experience to read something this prodigy of English came up with. Yes, as Murry_Uh said, many people will never see beyond the novelty of the words to the meaning of the story. But if you can try to understand what he's saying and what he means, and soak up as much of his odd diction as possible, you'll be a much better writer for it. This is like math: it gives you a pounding headache and you hate it and it makes you cry when you don't get it, but when it finally clicks, it's astounding how good it feels to understand it. So try to make the most of this, paying attention to his word choice can be amusing; constantly griping about can't. C'mon, guys, this is FUN.
--Little Red

In response

I do agree with Little Red in that obsolete Elizabethan jargon can be quite giggle-worthy, but in-between such occurrences it’s simply difficult to follow. I’m not trying to depreciate Billy’s work, but am saying that Shakespearean lingo is virtually extinct. Present society has forsaken formality and 16th century English is now foreign. (10 alliteration points for that sentence) The themes present in King Lear , such as family love and betrayal, are essentially immortal, which isone of the reasons why the play has survived so many years.
Unfortunately, the way the play is written makes it irrelevant to me. My main issue is that the ornate, ostentatious language obscures the core meaning of the piece.(10 more alliteration point s) I can appreciate an amusing archaic phrase as much as, if not more than, anyone else.(Except for Red, she’s loving this) However, it’s different when it seems silly when the writer is intending to be gravely serious. The change s made to the English language over time have gradually debased the piece until it is nothing more to people than a conglomeration of phrases that are amusing for the sheer novelty. Personally, I’m indifferent to this process. I feel that as society changes, what is relevant to them changes as well. People certainly have to be motivated to read Shakespeare. The question does arise, would his name still be as known if his works hadn’t been required by school curriculums for countless years?

-Murry-Uh?

Thoughts on Shakespeare

This is probably the only time I will ever say this, but I love him. A lot. Reading King Lear makes me think that there wouldn't be any fun words in the English language if not for Shakespeare. For example: "An admirable evasion of the whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star. My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's Tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing..." Not only is this guy blaming his creepiness on the positions of stars at the time he was conceived, he's using words like "maidenliest" and "the whoremaster man" while he's at it. Genuis, Shakespeare; I applaud you. "Fut" all the people that think that your greatest claim to fame was poncing around in a codpiece while writing incomprehensible drivel.
Little Red

A Scientific Approach to Poetry

I've always had trouble finding meaning in literature because it seems so abstract to me. I understand what the words themselves mean but I can't draw conclusions and connections from what's given to me. Yesterday, while reading Adam Zagajewski's "Try to Praise the Mutilated World", I discovered that some poetry can be dissected (or "disentangled" as our Yoda of literature likes to say) in a scientific manner and analyzed that way very effectively to find possibly an even deeper meaning than just puzzling out what metaphors are embedded in the work. For example, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" has four sections that start with these words: "Try to praise the mutilated world", "You must praise the mutilated world", "You should praise the mutilated world", and "Praise the mutilated world". This poem consists of good and bad memories, such as "Remember June's long days,/and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew" and "You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,/you've heard the executioners sing joyfully". Each section has a different number of lines containing good memories and bad. I think the word choice preceding "mutilated world" corresponds to the number of good and bad things mentioned in the poem-- the section that says "You must praise the mutilated world" contains 2 good lines and 3 bad lines, meaning that when more things go wrong than right, to stay sane you must remember what's good. I was excited for having stumbled upon this new method. I think a numerical, scientific-type analysis will help me understand literature a lot better than I have in the past. I'm looking forward to applying this throughout the year if I can.
--Little Red

Poetry in (slow) motion

Poetry escapes me. It seems as if as soon as words form verses and stanzas I lose the ability to fully comprehend them. I absorb myself so fully in the imagery and what it means to me that it seems to become concrete , so opaque that I can’t see through it to find the greater meaning in the poem. My lack of ability to find depth is infuriating . I continue to repetitively speak out in class during our lovely sessions of poetic vivisection, hoping for some sort of validation. Each time i do, however, I find I’m not quite correct. I’d imagine it’s the same sensation a fly gets as it iteratively flies into a window, hoping to get outside but every time feeling the anticlimactic impact of exoskeleton on glass.
However, this is not to say that I don’t enjoy reading it, I simply don’t like the inability to conjure enough understanding to make a decent statement. In fact, I was rather fond of Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias . The relic of an ancient King, with “a wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command” is a luridly beautiful image. It seems to say that although he was powerful and arrogant while he ruled his kingdom, in his death he is ruler of nothing, just a rock in a vast expanse of desert. All in all, I just hope to be able to grasp poetic concept so I can further enojy poetry.

_Murry-Uh