Winterson, class notes

"Art and Lies" - the title makes me think of a famous sibling relationship - that of Lisa and Bart Simpson. Lisa is the artist, and Bart is prone to manipulation. Ta-da!

- Art (Objects) - objects, noun, or objects, verb
- Postmodernist in style - collage-like, juxtaposes passages without explaining the relationship between them
- Prof. Mandell's Winterson nut shell: the genre, 18 C. - people argue about who is the first novelist in Britain - the short story comes about in the Romantic era

- Can one abandon great art? Cultural studies want to eradicate the concept - would it be true eradication of art, or substituting one form of art for another?

- Definition of greatness - too narrowly defined?

- "What people see in great writers when they read - they see their own alienated majesty," - Emerson - yow! Great quote!

- PROJECTION

- (The sculpture to the right: Coffee Kiss, by Hong Kong artist Tsang Cheung-shing).

- Anthologies, etc, are a guide through that "mountain of stuff" - with time and concentration on art, everyone could create art - but there are very real, unavoidable limitations, especially that on people's attention. Art is an investment now - "it's gone out of control... but you can see how it came into existence."

- CONSIDER EVERYTHING GREAT ART - TRY GIVING ALL THINGS THAT KIND OF ATTENTION (if just for the semester)

- Close reading of Art and Lies text - come in ready to ask lots of questions. Check out her website,

Jeanette Winterson, "Art and Lies"

Describe the two key terms in this title:

I've heard this argument previously: art is a lie told to reveal truth. A painting, for example, is not a completely-true representation of its subject. It is influenced by the artist's mind, style, eye sight, and methods. Further, one person's point of view of a single object, even the same object, can vary widely from another person's point of view of that object. In view of this, isn't art a kind of methodical, thought-out lie? Than again, no one looks at the apples in a Cezanne still life thinking those apples are up for eating - it's obvious the apples are part of a two-dimensional representation of apples using paint. Also, the painting was not intended to deceive people - it was meant to represent the subject and whatever meaning the artist endowed it with. Is it a lie if the art being questioned does not try to be anything other than what it is?

Strictly, in terms of representing apples that are not real, physical, bite-into-and-eat-them apples, the painting above is a lie. That table cloth is not up for sale, you can't eat those apples, and that bottle of wine is available to no one. But Cezanne never started out with that in mind - this is a classic composition, an artistic meditation on space, texture, objects, whether art can be something like an apple on a table cloth, and use of a specific medium. When the intent of the artist matches the product, is it still a lie? To say Yes to that seems horribly shortsighted.

Is it okay to use lies to get to a position where one can create art, then? In Virginia Woolfe's A Room of One's Own, she uses the imaginary existence of Shakespeare's sister to demonstrate how life would have gone for a women with Shakespeare's genius. She theorized that woman's life would end early and very unhappily. This woman would have had to use deception to make opportunities available to her - she would have had to run away, and she would have had to compromise herself and her safety in the attempt. Here, a female Picasso is faced with a similar challenge - that of using her genius to its fullest extent, developing it past the threshold normally left to women. Is it alright for her to go beyond what her family and community thinks is decent and just to achieve the same rights and sphere as a man? - even though she has more than enough talent to do so? A lie looks like a tool, like a paint brush or bucket, when the question is poised this way.

Felicia Heman's poem

Group work on Felicia Herman's poem "The Child and Flowers":

("For a day..." to "...each human heart." Pages 2 and 3.)

"For a day is coming to quell the tone
That rings in thy laughter, thou joyous one!
And to dim thy brow with a touch of care,
Under the gloss of its clustering hair;
And to tame the clash of thy cloudless eyes
Into the stillness of autumn skies;
And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part,
Midst the hidden things of each human heart!"

1) Is the meaning of the poem the same in all three versions? Does the format affect the meaning?

- the meaning is the same, but the text gives a different feeling: the TEI version made some of us indifferent, because the code was so distracting - it didn't add to the poem's overall meaning or our understanding of it. The form affects the meaning, not the way its processed. To me, the image version of the poem gave me a context to read the poem in: the older paper, the type of font chosen, influenced me.

2) What difference, if any, will digitizing make to our understanding of poems?

- Metadata! Metadata makes a big difference. To the uneducated-in-html-type, the site of all that coding looks like a headache waiting to develop. On the other hand, it will also make poems widely available - no more hunting them down in obscure literary magazines or catching snippets on the web. In XML, the context of the poem - where this text would have originally appeared, and therefore who it was meant for, and when it was read (traveling, or in a library) - disappears.

Ironically, the page most people preferred and got the most out of, the image version, was the most expensive to come by. Very expensive equipment is needed to take such detailed pictures of things without hurting the (old, old, old) books and paper-sources they're from. The HTML poem, meanwhile, streamlines the poem - it makes it easy to access, since it's in a form and font most contemporary computer-users are familiar with.

3) How are each of these versions made (doesn't have to be a techy answer)? Versus how a book/pamphlet is made?

- Typos are very possible, among a host of problems with virtually-visualized text. A book and pamphlet have a more physical presence - the internet poems have a kind of intangibility to them that anything on paper does not.

Problems with audience - who is the audience? It's too mature for children, but it's about children. Is the poet writing to one's inner child? Ekphrastic - a poem written about something visual, or something visual using text as inspiration.

Appreciation of the aesthetic: "Nature has mines of such wealth..."

Frankenstein + JUXTA

No class Wednesday!

Friday: BB - Course Document - Poetess Archive - look at 3 version of the Bijou poem - do a close reading of the poem in the HTML version - Answer the following: Is the poem the same in these three versions? - What difference will digitizing make to our understanding of poems? - Bonus: Apply the poem's theme about art to the poem itself: does digitizing contribute to Heman's aim in writing this poem?

http://sarahoims390.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/tag-clouds/

1 - Create a tag cloud for your assigned Frankenstein passage (using above link)
2 - Compare textual versions using JUXTA
3 - Blog

Comparing the three texts:

There were significant differences in the texts. For example, the original 1818 version's tag cloud tagged the word "friend" more than anything else; the 1831 version tagged "converse", "creature", "friend", "man", and "spoke". In addition, the 1831 version's tag cloud contained a lot of adjectives: excited, unhappy. Others included dark, despair, mind, noble, misery. Beyond the interesting differences between the texts without analysis, I suppose Shelley's focus in writing Frankenstein changed when she edited the book later. The later version, maybe, concentrated more on the psychology and the individual.

Because the word that appeared most in the 1831 text was "creature", I googled "creature" and here is one of the images that popped up - a Frilled Shark!


Did Mary Shelley write three different novels? What is the difference in what the stranger agrees to in these three passages? Why does visualizing matter? How does it matter?

While the three novels have significant changes, and can be said to mean different things, the story is essentially the same one. The three texts contain the same characters, plot, plot twists, and ending. It's a story that, for all its cult fame, is really a meaningful story debating issues relevant to any human being. Shelley's editing to her own work might have broadened or altered the story's focus in its three forms, but I think it's still the same novel even when the text differs between editions.

The 1831 version goes into more detail of what a best friend should be to a person - that this person should challenge and complete the other. This sounds a lot like what people talk about when they talk about soul mates.

Visualizing the texts the way we did in class helps reminds us of details we might otherwise have overlooked. Without sharp reading of the 1831 text I might not have noticed which words popped up most often. It offers another angle to analyze a text by.

- Kirstyn Leuner (King Arthur meets Lady Guinevere)

- Poetess archive

- Epic art in modern life, book V of Aurora Leigh:
1) Define epic art and modern life
2) Can there be heroes in modern life? - according to the poem? to you?
3) Who are the modern day equivalents of the poets that A.L. is writing about? (in YOUR opinion)

1) Lines 221-2: an epic "... is living art,/ Which thus presents and thus records true life." In A.L.'s opinion, epic art and modern life are, by necessity, closely related. Modern life is contemporary existence, having to do with everyone alive; epic art records a living, true presentation of it.

2) According to A.L., heroes can exist: "Nay, if there's room for poets in this world/ A little overgrown (I think there is),..." (Lines 200-1). She describes poets as being heroic, for dedicating their life's work to the history and existence of the people around them.

I think most heroes are unsung, anonymous people. They are also not called heroes so much as "role-models".

3) The modern day equivalents of the poets A.L. is talking about are everyday people. Lines 151-2: "All actual heroes are essential men,/ And all men possible heroes..." She's very frank, even blunt, when she wants to be - an excellent mouthpiece, on occasion, for the author herself.

Speaker notes

Bess Calhoun on Aurora Leigh

- Life of Elizabeth Barret Browning

- Group Work:
1) It'd be a lie to say "yes" and become Romney's wife, and she considers herself an honest person.
2) She is appealing to G-d for what she wants, not what anyone else wants; thanking G-d that she said "no" instead of "yes" to Romney; defends her decision by saying her will was given to her by G-d, so it is G-d's will.
3) She doesn't need things to be happy; her soul's life is not bound up in material things, it depends on her for happiness and fulfillment. Wants to rise above her mortal state through the soul, into heaven.
4) Convinced that Aurora will starve without a man to support her; disappointed in Aurora's rebellious attitude towards her demands, including her wish that she marry Romney.

Woman's work - Book 1, lines 455 on
Response to what Romney says - Book 2, lines 356 on

- Aurora is "caught between two binaries of what a woman should be"

- Romney's speech, Book 2, lines 218-25 - self-contradictory!! An obviously-flawed ideology!! Christ sacrificed himself, and women can't produce a female Christ, though they can be Saints? Saints are people who had to sacrifice themselves just to be sainted - they were martyrs. In that line of logic, there certainly could be a female Christ. Eat your words, Romney Leigh!!

- Aurora uses language to further her cause - Book 2, lines 400-6: she acts and sounds subservient and deferential, but in being so she refuses to do or be what he wants.

- Important to recognize that Aurora does not exactly what she wants - her life as self-supported artist is hard, lonely, and without relief.

Class notes, "Aurora Leigh"

TO THE RIGHT:
Victorian swimwear! (Haha).


- Hopkins sonnet, "To Christ My Lord"

On Elizabeth Barret Browning:

- 1850: Elizabeth Barret Browning considered for position of Poet Laureate.
- She was radical in her politics and very outspoken
- Her father: an enormous personality who didn't want any of his children to marry; he cloistered her, and she developed a dependence on morphine.
- 1845: Met Robert Browing through letter, and they fell in love. A year later they eloped to Italy.

On Aurora Leigh:

- To "live" - it has two uses: to be alive spiritually and physically
- Acculturated - habituated to what society says (ie, when Aurora moves inland, in Britain)
- Aurora is left with a sense of having been adored by her parents while very young, especially by her mother, "the mother's rapture slew her" - she thinks, if her mother had lived longer, Aurora might have had an easier time fitting into society
- She says she looks for the kind of deep, unconditional love that her life lacks after her mother dies
- The words you use to describe the world also describe, to an extent, how you think and feel about that world; words and the possibilities they open for a person are beautiful and infinite
- Passage from Book 1:

"They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words;
Which things are corals to cut life upon,..." - cutting - like teething, but on words, etc.

Describe Aurora from "Aurora Leigh"

I think this doll, to the right, is the perfect representation of Aurora - the blowsy hair, the blue eyes, the moody/affected disinterest, and the pose is perfect. Like a Tim Burton, Nightmare Before Christmas-version of the character.

Aurora is smart, idealistic, naive, rebellious, and reflective. She has to be quiet in front of others, like the vicar and her aunt's friends, but she has a very lively mind that finds expression through poetry (her father's, by the way: since the books and poetry belonged to her father, it's another way of identifying herself as his daughter and tying herself closer to him).

She has an active, playful side that clearly makes her aunt very uneasy because, to her, it's an unfeminine, wild quality. Any wildness or expression of liveliness must be tempered to something more acceptable; anything not English must be ironed smooth within Aurora, though the niece makes this kind of work hard for the aunt. Ultimately, it doesn't appear to be very successful work.

Aurora also feels very much like an outsider, even though she never belonged anywhere in the first place. Born to a grieving father who never recovers the shock of losing his wife, she spent most of her childhood in solitude with said sad father, then with her aunt in England as the obedient niece.

And here's a LINK to a great Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry skit (related because it is a skit about the Brownings).

First half of "The Lifted Veil"

After looking at two images of women:

Lady on right: "... and this camera, try to keep shoulders back, lift my chin a little, mouth closed - should have gotten my teeth whitened before this, why didn't that appointment get made, I could have called, why didn't I call? Wish there was a better background behind me, it's kind of blah, make the smile reach to your eyes, hope it's working, shoulders down and back shoulders down and back shoulders down and back, I wonder if I'll look washed out, when can I move on, what's going on up ahead?"

- Mandell: "So, I'm channeling AIRHEADS!"

- "When you look at someone, you can (or can you?) imagine what you're thinking through all kinds of clues - it's a way of understanding the person in front of you."

- Does Latimer really have the supernatural powers he thinks he does? (Group work - get specific pages if possible):

We didn't question it at first - considered the possibility of Latimer's being very, very good at reading nonverbal cues, and he has a very good imagination - Romeo complex - he never sees anyone outside of a handful of people, and later in life he sees even fewer people, so the possibility of testing this possible power diminishes, and it gets harder to judge whether it's real or not - in fact, this discounts the alleged truth of it. His visions are bizarre, though.

- Why can't he read Bertha's mind? He's projecting what he wants of her onto her.

- What makes her such a great screen to project on?

- Goes to Geneva (Frankenstein's home), and imitates Rousseau by lying around in a boat.

- To the Right: How I imagine Bertha and Latimer look.

Class Notes, the last on "Frankenstein"

- About the ending - was this to be expected? Was it boring? It was a little expected, if not boring. I didn't expect Walton would talk to the monster - clearly, the monster didn't think so, either. Since this is a dramatic novel, what could be more dramatic than Victor dying, and the monster exiling himself to the far North where he might die? This is what I imagine would have happened if this story were more realistic: Walton's ship gets thoroughly stuck, and Victor dies because of the cold. Rumors of cannibalism drift through the crew as its members weaken. The story never leaves the area, and the ship rots in the ice. The end.

- Does Victor contradict himself when, after refusing to tell Walton how to create a monster like he did, he instructs the crew to persevere in the expedition? Victor believes in ACCOMPLISHMENT and HUMAN WILL; this is not in opposition to not telling Walton the recipe for "Frankenstein Monsters a la mode." Victor does not want his mistake repeated by someone else making a monster, but he does want civilization and human ability to reach its limits and beyond.

- Tomorrow: "The Lifted Veil" - an attack on the Romantic hero.


- On the 'hero' I created on HeroMachine:

I created a version of Elizabeth. She was all that was still good and decent about Victor: she was the focus and the source of unconditional love and companionship, towards Victor and his family; she was a protective, guarding presence in his life, to whom he intended to trust the horrible secret of the monster after they were married, and who, I think, has a hidden reservoir of heroism and determination. The lantern in her left hand represents that kind of light, a power of insight and goodness. The shield in her right hand indicates her protectiveness. The lynx I think might be the secret daring and aggression she has within, but who, as a genteel woman, she has to hide.

Does Latimer resemble Victor?

Frankenstein v. The Lifted Veil

Latimer and Victor are not too similar. They are both self-centered and trapped within their own heads. The former is passive and weak in character, a very self-pitying excuse for an adult; Victor, at least, owns up to his mistakes, even though he shifts the blame more towards Fate than himself. Victor is far more active and assertive. He is less insipid, though this might be because Latimer's education was such a bad fit, and Victor was spoiled with a very expensive, suitable education. Latimer's mind, for want of the kind of structure and application it needs, deteriorates a little in adulthood - he is fanciful, and his family does not take him too seriously in the beginning. Victor is always seen as his father's immediate successor, and he certainly never questions it. He knows it is his legal right to take his place as head of the household on his father's death. I think Latimer would waffle on the subject, if presented with it.

Does Victor's advice to Walton change by the end of the novel?

Well, let's see:

The story begins when Walton rescues Victor, tells him about the purpose of the expedition, and Victor tells Walton about manufacturing a monster in order to curb Walton's grandiose ideals.

The story ends with Victor berating Walton's crew for quitting the expedition out of fear for their lives.

Yes, the advice seems to have changed. In the telling, perhaps Victor became enamored with himself all over again through Walton's adoration. Maybe, despite his own failure, the warning he gave Walton did not read as, "Don't go through with this harebrained expedition to the North Pole, my friend," but as, "Do not do this looking greatness, but seek truth and honor for yourself." Victor's purpose in life was such a selfish one that, rather than curbing Walton's plans completely, maybe he just wanted to impose a bit of realism and self-awareness on them. They are big plans that have the potential to change the world and contribute to human knowledge - that is a worthy undertaking. To do it simply because a person wants to be well-known, never forgotten, makes the effort petty and silly. This way, the apparent change in Victor's message to Walton would make more sense.

How does the Monster's tale make you feel about him?

The monster's version of the story makes me think two things:

1) He has a point. Cruelty and the strictest isolation have led to his being monstrous.
2) He is very persuasive - more persuasive than I'm comfortable with. It makes me distrust him.

The monster is very pitiable. He is made of human parts, so it stands to reason that he would have human needs and wants. Even the loneliest person finds some kind of consolation or company; the kind of isolation the monster is subjected to, though, is complete. Worse, he has these needs and wants that are part of his nature, and he is never taught what to do with them - he is just left to figure it out on his own. For all his threats to be a scourge on humanity, out of hate and loneliness and pain, I don't think he would ever have gone through with it - he just wanted Victor Frankenstein's attention. When he extracts his revenge on Victor, and when Victor dies, the monster does not continue torturing innocents - he walks willingly towards his own death.

At the same time, he is incredibly good at rhetoric. There is a "Woe is me"-tone to his argument that reminds me a great deal of Victor. The monster sees his worst qualities as indicating that Fate wants him to be a monster, not just look like one. Especially when he talks about how his hate built up, slowly choking out his better feelings, he does it in a way that excuses himself. He is a monster, and his 'parent' neglected him in the most awful way, but he had opportunities to do something. He had a tendency to rush things and ruin them, though. He rushed Victor's decline in health by killing the people he loved, initially out of impulse, and later he sprung on old Delacey when he should have left a written note for the entire family as a way of slowly introducing himself into their circle.

I do feel sorry for the monster, and I think he was treated very harshly. At the same time, it takes a great deal of will power and energy to invest in the kind of long-term grudge the monster built up - it's an active, conscious, slow-burning fire that needs to be fed constantly. Instead of doing what he could for his own character and life, he lashed out. Maybe this was due to immaturity or a lack of experience - he had only been alive a few years by the end of the novel, and the maturity rate for a lab-originated monster is unknown. By the end of the novel, though, I trusted him as much as I trusted Victor - not a lot.

Is Walton like or unlike Victor? How?

YES. Yes, and yes again.

Victor is (as we have hashed over in class on multiple occasions) a self-involved, self-serving egotist intent on realizing his genius in a Great way - as in, he wants to be thought of as Great, on a level with Shakespeare and Julius Caesar. To do so, he is willing to put everything at risk - even the things and people he loves. He justifies this with monologues on Fate, Destiny, and a Tragic Flaw - the similarities between Prince Hamlet and himself are remarkable. While he does express enormous guilt and responsibility for the consequences of his reckless experiment, he terms that guilt and responsibility as things that were predestined for him. He was meant to suffer (like Jesus Christ). His enormous genius could only bring either greatness or destruction on him. To listen to him speak is to ignore all the times he had to pause and reflect on whether or not what he was doing was in his best interest. There were plenty of red flags, and even more opportunities to stop and consider what he was doing, but he ignored them. Even at the end of the novel he conducts himself, not like a man who failed because of plain human stupidity, but like a disgraced emperor.

Which brings me to the main point - not only does Victor behave like dethroned royalty, but Walton encourages and engages in supporting this fallacy. He, also, wants to be Great, an equal to Shakespeare, etc. He respects grand feats of intelligence and ability, and despite the horror of the experiment Victor's monster is a feat Walton respects. He is currently pursuing a hopeless, dangerous career of his own purely because he burns to do something big, something no one's attempted and succeeded at - he wants to clear the path first. And all during the telling of the story, Walton appears to worship Victor, as a close friend and like mind. Walton submits to a kind of hero worship. The two are like the much-repeated "two peas in a pod".