Class Notes 5-2

Class Notes

March 7^th – March 18^th

Topic 1 Modernism (WW1-WW2)

• Disillusionment following WW1—many expatriates

             -Stein “Lost Generation”

             -New narrative techniques

• “Make it new!!!”—comes from the feeling of betrayal

• New forms of narrative

             -unreliable narrators

             -multiple narrators

             -minor characters as 1^st person narrators

             -non-linear narrative

             -stream of consciousness

Topic 2 Post-modernism (In States: End of WW2 / In Britain: Early 20’s)

• Television jump starts post-modernism. “All truth is local.”

• Post-modernism = Modernism – Universal truth + Irony

• Blending of high and low culture

• Self-reference

• The simulacrum

Topic 3 Surrealism

• A movement in the arts(visual, musical, dramatic, and literary) b/t WW1 and WW2

• Uses unexpected juxtapositions in ways intended to activate subconscious associations that highlight truths hidden from us when we are trapped in linear, “logical” patterns of thoughts.

• Uses juxtapositions—of images, works, etc—determined by psychological “thought processes” rather than logical thought processes.

• Attempts to join the words of dreams and fantasy to “reality” to create a larger reality—a “surreality.”

• dreamlike, playful, sometimes eerie or bizarre

• influenced by the work of Freud and Jung

Outside Reading 5-3

Date: Mar 21st

Title: Oprah Magazine's Adventures in Poetry

Author: David Orr

Type of reading: Reflective essay

The author of the article has adopted a tone that is informal and natural but at the same time pretty sarcastic and witty. And by using different dictions, syntax and details the author indicates his sarcasm towards the Oprah magazine’s celebration of National Poetry Month.

In the first paragraph, there is a line like this: ““Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.” Yes. Spring Fashion. Modeled. By rising young poets.” The unique and grammatically incorrect syntax shows the sarcasm of the writer. Even though the sentence says “yes,” which is usually used to show an agreement, the line is delivering more of disbelief and doubt. And the gap between the actual meaning of the word and the author’s intended use of it created the sarcastic and comic effect.

Also some diction makes the author sound sarcastic. There are some lines like these: “……including interviews with “all-star readers” like Bono, Ashton Kutcher, the gossip columnist Liz Smith and someone named James Franco, who is apparently an actor……,” and ““Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.” The words are heart-sinking.” In the first line, it was the ironic contrast between “all-star readers” and “someone” made the author sound slightly sarcastic and in the second line, it was the use of the term “heart-sinking” evidenced that the author does not like the idea of Oprah magazine’s idea.

By the end of the essay, the author has quoted the ending part of Anna Moschovakis’ poem “Untitled.” And the author has put somethings in brackets from time to time like this: “All poets and their readers can do is stare half-longingly, half-fearfully across that great divide at the golden palace of mass culture(portcullis, Fendi, $4,500)and sigh. Oh, Oprah. Oh, poetry.” These two details have amplified the effect of sarcasm and also have made the essay for witty.

As I said in the beginning, the tone of voice of the writer is too informal and too witty. Therefore it does not seem very appropriate for an AP essay because AP essays are required to be academic and concise.

Outside Reading 5-2

Date: Mar 21st

Title: A Love Triangle From Brazil to Brooklyn

Author: Leland de la Durantaye

Type of reading: Book review

             Leland de la Durantaye’s review for Thomas Pletzinger’s Funeral for Dog has made me want to read the book within the first paragraph. The syntax of the very first line “Thomas Pletzinger’s first novel, “Funeral for a Dog” is about sex, love, Brazil, a form of ménage-a-trois, children’s books, Finland, dogs, Ping-Pong, New York—in short, the good things” was very interesting first of all, it listed all the words that are related to the book and in the last it condenses into two simple but attractive words: good things. And the following line has a parallelism: “a Brazilian police dog loses a leg, a German-Finnish love triangle loses a member, a boy loses his friend, a woman loses her baby, an ethnologist loses his calling, a journalist loses his way.” These paralleled sentences do not only sound interesting but also clearly indicates the contents of the novel. There was another obvious parallelism appeared in the following paragraph: “It is relatively rare for contemporary German fiction to be translated into English, and unreservedly rare for a novel by a young and largely unknown German writer to be published with such fanfare.” The term “rare” is repetitively used twice in this sentence, and the use has clearly shown how rare such case is and that amplifies the readers’ curiosity towards the actual novel. Also, by using diction like “unreservedly,” the reviewer triggers the readers’ curiosity even more. Talking about diction, in the third paragraph the author talks about the overall plot of the novel, which is “strange but realistic” and says “after a thoroughly confusing first few pages.” The use of diction “thoroughly” has shown the degree of the strangeness of the novel well and also triggers more curiosity about how could a story be so strange and realistic at the same time.

            

Outside Reading 5-1

Date: Mar 21st

Title: How to Combat Senioritis

Type of reading: Newspaper piece

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191831,00.html

As I was reading through the article, I wasn’t sure if the author was intended to be serious or funny. No matter what the author’s intention was, I found the article very amusing in its way of using dictions. First of all, the author called senioritis a “disease.” The diction has shown the seriousness of the phenomenon, but also has made people laugh by making it sound a little too serious. The very first part of the first paragraph goes like this: “Early symptoms of the disease--lethargy, lack of focus, difficulty making decisions--often appear in the fall. By spring the average, healthy high school senior may have completely succumbed. Senioritis attacks high-achieving, average and struggling students alike.” Some dictions like “symptom,” “succumbed” and “attack” make senioritis sound like a disease that “average, healthy high school seniors” are most likely get by the time of fall. Later in the article, the author says “the best cure for some cases of senioritis is a strong dose of reality,” and by using two dictions “cure” and “dose” the author has made senioritis sounds like a disease once again.

Even though I had to laugh while reading it, the message was strong. The author has well used many realistic details to alert the readers of senioritis. For example, the author has written a line like this: “……high schools and colleges have begun experimenting with ways to keep students more engaged during the period between homecoming weekend and the senior prom.” In this line, the author has made it specific when the high school seniors usually get affected from senioritis and caused readers to pay more attention.

Moreover, the author has compared the senior year as a “stepping stone.” By using this simile, the author has well developed the argument that the senior year is the connection between the high school and the college and therefore students should try to take the advantage of the last year in high school and train themselves into a college student.

             The author has a voice that is quite formal and clear. I believe the voice would be appropriate for AP essays, however in AP essays I think it would be better to avoid the amusing elements this article has.

Class Notes 5-1

Class Notes

Feb 21^st – March 4^th

Topic 1 Humor and Comedy!

1.   “Theories of Humor and Comedy”

• Comedy causes people to express the spirit of carnival that is a time of pleasure subverting the normal social rules of the hegemony through laughter and chaos.

• Comedy is not always funny; its real view of life is not optimistic

• Comedy and Tragedy: In tragedy the individual retains integrity even in death; in comedy the individual is made to conform.

• Six elements that are required for something to be humorous (all six of them should be fulfilled at one time):

1)      It must appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions;

2)      It must be mechanical;

3)      It must be inherently human, with the capacity of reminding us of humanity;

4)      There must be a set of established societal norms with which the observer is familiar, either through everyday life or through the author providing it in expository material, or both;

5)      The situation and its component parts(the actions performed and the dialogue spoken) must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surrounding or associations(i.e., the societal norms);

6)      It must be perceived by the observer as harmless or painless to the participants.

• Five theories of humor:

1)      Intellectual theories

• Think of ethnic humor

2)      Superiority theories

• Humor derives from our feeling of superiority over those we laugh at. According to this view, all humor is derisive.

• Thomas Hobbes: “Laughter, is a kind of sudden glory.”

• Alexander Bain: “All humor involves the degradation of something.” Bain expands Hobbes in two main directions—one, we need not be directly conscious of our own superiority (i.e. we may laugh sympathetically with another who scores off an adversary); two, it need not be a person that is derided.

• Aristotle: “distorted but painless (i.e. it is funny when someone slips on the ice and falls: people laugh—until they realize that the person broke his leg)”

• One important criterion for comedy would be mechanical and inherently human.

• Henri Bergson: “The typical comic character is someone with an obsession or idée fixe.” That type of comic character would not adapt to the change in situation and continues to sit in a mechanical fashion.

• An extension of Bergson’s theory: Comedy is inherently human. The audience may laugh at the antics of an animal, such as chimpanzees, but only direct proportion to the animal’s capability of reminding the audience of something human.

• The criticism of the superiority theory is that, by itself, it is also too narrow to cover every type of humor. It leaves out one very important element in humor: incongruity.

3)      Incongruity theories

• Incongruity: the unexpected with the expected, the unusual with the usual, the misfit.

• Immanuel Kant: Humor arises “from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.” Incongruity theory is often identified with “frustrated expectation.”

• Internal norms are those that the author has provided in the text. External norms are those which exist in the society for shich the text was written.

• Three aspects of incongruity

① Literalization: In literalization the joke comes form taking a figure of speech and then performing it literally.

② Reversal: Reversal is simply reversing the normal, taking what is normal and expected and doing or saying the people.

③ Exaggeration: An exaggeration is taking what is normal and blowing it out of proportion.

• The greatest incongruity is the violating of societal taboos.

4)      Relief theories

• The central element in humor is neither a feeling of intelligence, superiority, nor the awareness of incongruity, but, instead, the feeling of relief that comes from the removal of restraint.

• Sigmund Freud

5)      Humor is ambivalence

2.   Comedy

• Types of Comedy

1)      Low Comedy: lacks seriousness and intellectual appeal

2)      High Comedy: pure or serious comedy

3)      Burlesque: form of comedy characterized by ridiculous exaggeration and distortion.

4)      Farce: A light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot, exaggerated character, and often slapstick elements are used for humorous effect.

5)      Lampoon: satirical piece used to ridicule people

6)      Parody: A composition imitating or burlesquing another, usually serious, piece of work.

7)      Satire

8)      Slapstick: characterized by chases, collisions, and crude practical jokes

9)      Travesty: presents a serious (often religion) subject frivolously—reduces everything to its lowest level.

**Note—Travesty, Burlesque and Parody are similar, but travesty always makes a mockery of a serious subject, whereas burlesque and parody may do the reverse.

             • “The Comedy Ladder”

1)      Comedy of Ideas

2)      Comedy of Manners

3)      Farce

4)      Low Comedy

Class Notes 4-2

Class Notes

Feb 7^th – Feb 17^th

HOD discussions + Apocalypse Now

• The jungle is the Garden of Eden that is corrupted

• The river is Stix, which flows through the hell

• As Marlow was going into the jungle, he was going through the different levels of hell; that was a reference to Dante’s Inferno

• Crone(?) Figure is the knitting old women; wool was called African hair, and the old women knitting wool in the office of the company symbolized that the company was trying to rule over the fate of the world by controlling the African people

• The multi-colored coat of the Russian guy was an allusion of Joseph in Bible, who received a colorful coat from his father

• Kurtz could be an allusion to Pharaoh

• Anima figure, which is a personified spirit, is the African woman; she is the Congo itself.

Outside Reading 4-3

Date: Feb 19^th

Title: Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service

Author: Matt Richtel

Type of reading: Newspaper piece

You can find the actual article I read from the web site below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cutoff.html

I believe that a very important point of the newspaper articles is to inform the readers about the recent happenings around the nation and the world in the most clear, most concise and the most unbiased writings. And some of the dictions in this article, I believe, have increased the clarity of the information. For example, the words “only,” “handful” and “a few” from the line “Egypt has only a handful of major Internet access providers, so it would take just a few phone calls to get them to stop the flow of traffic.” None of those three dictions is a big vocabulary. Rather, all three of them are the most basic terms ever. However, by using those terms in the sentence, the sentence most clearly carried out its meaning that the autocratic government in Egypt did not have any difficulty violating people’s rights to access the Internet. The Internet, however, is more than just an Internet; it is the global network in this society, and it is the only window for free speech of people who are oppressed and trampled.

The overall organization of information and the transitions between different interviews, which should be categorized as a detail of this article, are very clear. As a newspaper article, I believe that is a very nice thing, because not only the information would be more easily understood by the readers but also the readers would be more easily persuaded by the article for the article would appear more formal. For example, proper use of transitions such as “As a result” and “By contrast” made the idea to flow more smoothly and especially “by contrast” well clarified which side the following point lies upon.

The author creates a strong voice by listing out facts, such as interviews and numerical data. Those details not only strengthen the voice, but also increase the reality of the article and therefore make the article far more persuasive to the readers. In AP essays, it would not be a bad idea to have a stronger voice for a point of AP essays is to analyze the literature from individuals’ points of view, however, it would not be very useful to list out numbers and facts in AP essays. Also, few test-takers would have enough knowledge to do that.