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Word Rogues |
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On English and Writing: Leon Lanzbom |
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 The Supple Mind  instructor: Leon Lanzbom email: lanzbom@yahoo.com Cuyamaca College 0785 English 122, Introduction to Literature intersession 2006: January 2-January 18 class time: 8am-11:15am F614 _____________________________________ Why "The Supple Mind"? We are a group of wily students dedicated to the written word and the insight that springs forth from human thought. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition gives us the following definitions: Supple: Yielding or changing readily; complian or adaptable. Mind: The human  consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. It's our collective consciousness--thinking, reasoning, applying knowledge. The Supple Mind--a group of open-minded men and women, who go beyond the ordinary, drifting through life with a common purpose: to plunge our calloused hands deep into the chest of literature and yank out its heart still beating. Regardless of our pasts, we're not afraid to yield a little and open ourselves to new ideas and sensations. In this class, for three straight weeks, we're going to search for our state of equilibrium through the words and the pictures of those who searched before us. We're going to cancel all opposing forces and listen to that little voice inside our heads. It's that same little voice that every one of the writers we’ll study heard, the voice that let's us know anything is possible if only we decide it is. We're going to realize that all art begins with a thought. We're going to take our thoughts and coax them out of our acetycholine junctions and solidify them on paper and hold them up, transparent and quivering, to the world. And we're going to realize that we are all artists of worth. And, if we really get the BIG IDEA, we're going to help each other find the still point of a moving world for at least one interim semester.________________________________________ _____________________________________________  The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as long as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon pass when you can be satisfied to live like timorous deer concealed in the forests. Knowledge will finally stretch out her hand for that which belongs to her - she means to rule and possess, and you with her!" Book IV,Fröhliche Wissenschaft Friedrich Nietzsche
The Assignments three Inspirational Critiques, one to one and a half pages (300 words absolute maximum) each. two in-class Cataclysmic, Shake-Down Exams unnanounced startle-response quizzes class participation _______________________________________________ GRADING OF ASSIGNMENTS four Inspirational Critiques: (33 pts. each = 99 pts.) two Cataclysmic Shakedowns: (75 pts. Each = 150 pts.) participation and Startle-Response quizzes: (50 pts.) Quixotic Grit (moxie!) ( 1pt) (Percentages are approximations): 100.0% = 300 pts. _______________________________________________ Writing and examinations  You will be asked to write three (3) brief papers, no longer than 300 words, double-spaced and typed. All of your written projects should be formatted according to the protocol of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Beyond that, please have fun! I will never compel you to write about something you absolutely hate. Lastly there will be an Examination Fiesta on our Last day of class, June 18, 2007. If you do the work, the final will be putty in your hands, a game. If you slack off, it will be as tough as lying on a bed of nails.Due Dates: I do not accept late work. Missing an assignment will result in zero points for that assignment and may result in your failing the course. No quizzes or other in-class journal assignments may be made up without prior arrangements made with me. To receive full credit for an assignment it must be on my desk beginning of class. Assignments not handed in at the beginning (within the first 5 minutes) of class are late. Absence is not an excuse for lateness. If you can’t make it to class, give your paper to a fellow student to turn in for you. Late is late is late, and I do not accept assignments late. But if you believe ligitimate circumstance exists, you must get hold of me BEFORE an assignment is due. Send me an E-mail, so I will have it dated: lanzbom@yahoo.com. (Examples of legitimate reasons include medical and family emergencies with appropriate documentation. Excuses such as “I had to take xyz to the airport,” “I had a computer malfunction,” “I had a doctor/dentist appointment,” “My priniter broke,” or “I had a game,” will not be accepted. It is your responsibility to schedule, within reason, all of your activities that are unrelated to this class outside of our regularly scheduled meeting time. Again, when you walk into class, place your assignment on my desk. Ten points will be lost if your essay is handed in after the first five minutes; then,even with arrangements, ten points will be subtracted for every day that passes without the assignment being handed in. I do not accept emailed assignments. No assignments may be submitted by email. You must arrange to get your assignment to me by giving it to another student or leaving it in my mailbox. Quizzes You can expect several unannounced quizzes. These quizzes are to make sure we act like dynamic college students and all readings are done. They will be given first thing in the morning, so make sure you have not only done the readings, but you also arrive to class on time. Attendance and Participation As a group we will convert what could be a terribly boring classroom into an exciting, unpredictable screaming marketplace of literature. Should you miss class, you will still be responsible for the material  we covered that day. Actually, you can’t really afford to miss any classes. We will be going over vital details during each class, details which will show up on exams. But if you must miss, try to miss no more than one class, and make sure you get the notes from a classmate.Also, please remember the college attendance policy states that if you miss more than twice the number of times a class meets in week, you may be dropped. For this course it means you may be dropped when you have been absent three times. If you miss more than 20 minutes of a given class, you will be marked absent for that class. Additionally, be aware that two tardies equals one absence. I view attendance in this way: If you are in class, you are in class; if you miss, you miss. That is all. I have no desire to make judgments about what is a legitimate excuse for not being in class. As a result, there is no point calling or e-mailing me to report an “excused” absence. I do understand, though, that compelling issues or even crises do arise during a semester. If you have a critical problem, contact me, so we can work toward a solution together. However, PLEASE DO NOT COME UP TO ME AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS TO ASK ABOUT WHAT YOU MISSED. Contact someone else in the class or talk to me during office hours to get the information you missed. Remember: Twenty minutes late is considered an absence. Every two times you walk in late you will receive one class absence. Please see our hard-copy handout for the rest of our classroom policies such as plagiarism, classroom behavior, student responsibilities, etc. All this will be reviewed on day one. If you miss day one, I may not allow you to attend our class. Daily Menu _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer: You may find the language, or the sexual or violent content of some of the material submitted or assigned in this class offensive. I generally do not censor class reading material. Please see me if you feel offended. I will offer alternatives for any assignment. _________________________________________________________________________________________________  For the next three days or so, we're going to take a peek at a gathering of marvelous warhorses of poetry: Yeats, Frost, Dickinson, Whitman, Bishop, Plath, Hughes, and more. We will read their works as if we were part research scientists and part street poets, examining the subjective and the objective, piecing together what makes these lines tick yet timeless, discovering what spark yields life, life, LIFE to each of these poems. Please participate. Ask questions. Get involved. Don't wonder why your participation score is so low. BUT to break up the poetic monotony, somewhere during our stanzic foray, we're going to view the perfect perceptual vehicle for our journey into the world of semiotic decoding, Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up. _______________________________________________ Week 01 January 02-04 Wednesday January 2: intro, rules, hellos, what is expected  Reading a Poem 423; Yeats, "The Lake Ise of Innisfree" 425; LYRIC POETRY 427; Lawrence, "Piano" 428; NARRATIVE POETRY 429; Frost, "Out, Out--" 431; TONE 438; Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz" 438; Cullen, "For a Lady I know" 439; Whitman, "To a Locomotive in Winter" 441; Dickinson, "I Like to See It Lap the Miles" 442; THE PERSON IN THE POEM 444: Wordsworth. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" 449; Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow" 451; Critique 1 DUE Friday: Un Chien (see Un Chien box below with assignment)Thursday, January 3: IRONY 484; Creely, "Oh No" 452; Auden, "The Unknown Citizen" 453; Olds, "Rites of Passage" 454; Hardy, "The Workbox" 456; LITERAL MEANING; WHAT A POEM SAYS FIRST 467; Williams,"This Is Just to Say" 468; Moore "Silence" 469; Donne, "Batter My Heart. . ." 470; VALUE... 471 Sandburg, "Grass"; Cummings, "Anyone Lived in a. . ." 481; Carroll, Jabberwocky" 484; IMAGERY Pound, "In a Station of the Metro" 501; Collins, "Embrace," 514; WHY SPEAK FIGURATIVELY? 523; Shakespeare, "Shall I Compare Thee. . ." 524 & Moss, "Shall I Compare Thee. . ." 525; METAPHOR 525; Blake, "To See a World in a Grain of Sand" 528; Burns, "Oh, My Love is Like. . ." 570; Wallace Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar" 636.
Friday January 4:  RHYTHM/STRESSES AND PAUSES 575; Brooks, "We Real Cool" 579; Gwendolyn Brooks, Hearing "We Real Cool" 589; CLOSED FORM (FORMAL PATTERN) 592-3; Keats, "This Living Hand. . . 593; SONNET 598; Addonizio, "First Poem
forYou" 601; SYMBOL 627; Frost, "The Road Not
Taken" 633; Hughes, "Theme for English B" 764-5; Blake, "The Tiger" 787; Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California" 776; Shakespeare, "That Time of Year. . ."810; "My Mistress' Eyes. . ." 811;Lowell, "Skunk Hour" 791; Plath, "Daddy." OPEN FORM 611; Crane, "The Heart," 615; SYMBOL 667-8; PERSONAL IDENTITY 699-700; 834; RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE 685; Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art" 696; Shelley, "Ozymandias" 728. And while we're on the subjects of Imagery and Metaphor, if things go as planned, we'll view our first in-class film in Teatro E112: Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up this week. We'll turn down the lights androll the cameras and watch as a photographer named Thomas (David Hemmings) goes through the hermeneutical process, his own textual decoding of signs, trying to read the true meaning of events that happened in a park while he was taking photographs. ___________________________________ Critique 1 DUE 1/8 You work for The Supple Mind Literary/ Film Agency, and you are presently reviewing poems for possible publication (by coincidence, these happen to be the poems we’re doing). One morning Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up sits on your desk for review. There's a note on it. The note says, "Please find a poem or several poems that we might use as symbols for this film." You view the film, and you need to make recommendations to the owner of the agency.  You should write a carefully considered compare-or-contrast analysis of what is memorable, complex, significant, or even problematic about the film and a poem or poems. (note: you must compare or contrast, not both.) Here’s a hint: Our photographer Thomas finds something in the park that he never expected to find. Are there any poems that offer the same sort of discovery? Or think about how Thomas must deconstruct his photo; what poems offer their own deconstruction. Good Luck! Week 02 January 7-11: PART II: FICTION  We now enter PHASE TWO of our Supple Mind literature extravaganza: FICTION! The short story. The short story is one of the more difficult writing forms in the literary landscape. These stories may be short in length, but many of them are constructed with judicious, penetrating, systematic precision. The short story artist doesn't have the luxury of pages or even chapters to set up his/her setting, theme, character, plot, and point of view. S/he must do it within the confines of a page, a paragraph, or even a sentence. We're talking about prose works so close to poetics, you'd swear they were the illicit offspring of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Kim Addonizio's "First Poem for You." So don your Supple Retina monocles, pull out your dusty old prescriptive copy of Webster's Second, lock your secret clubhouse doors, and get set for the ride of your lives. _____________________________________________ Monday January 7 READING A STORY, including Fable, Parable, and Tale 4; Maugham "The Appointment in Samarra," (4), Aesop's "The North Wind and the Sun," (5), Chung Tzu "Independence," (8), and the Grimm's "Godfather Death," (9). Make sure you also read "Plot," starting on page 11, and "The Short Story," starting on Page 123. John Updike "A&P" 14; Joyce "Araby" 359
 Tuesday January 8Point of View23 Setting 113 Faulkner "A Rose for Emily" 28. Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper" 290. Kincaid "Girl," 365. Walker "Everyday Use," 64 Chopin "The Storm" 116 __________________________________________________ Wednesday January 9
Irony 163  Boyle "Greasy Lake," 120. Hawthorne "Young Goodman Brown," 341 Gabriel Garcia Marquez "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" 329 Catch up __________________________________________________ Thursday January 10 Tone and Style 144 Hemingway "A clean, Well-Lighted Place," 147 Hemingway "The Direct Style" 177 Vonnegut "Harrison Bergeron," 198 Jackson "The Lottery," 216 O’Brien "The Things They Carried," 389 __________________________________________________ Friday January 11 Carver "Cathedral," 99 Carver: "Commonplace but Precise Language" 110 O'Connor "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," 238 O'Connor "Excerpt. . ." 263 Oates "Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been," 377 Critique 3 Due today
Fiction catch up and review Week 3: January 14-18 Part III: DRAMA We now enter the last phase of our Supple Mind mission: drama. The word "drama" is derived from the Greek word dran, "to do." To do? To do what? To perform damn it, perform! The play is the thing! Drama is literature premeditated for performance. Drama inovolves the reader. From an inanimate piece of paper with little black squiggles on it, drama barks its orders--roles are played; actions are assumed; dialogue is spoken. How in God's little green acres does drama wield such power, such force? For the next week we're going to find out. We're going to force drama's hands to the wall and frisk down this fun-loving-criminal of literature. And if all goes according to plan, we'll uncover, discover, and understand the calculating, clever, and sometimes sordid mind of the prose and verse of performance. Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman  Death of a Salesman made Arthur Miller. The play was first performed on Broadway on February 10, 1949, directed by Elia Kazan, with Lee J. Cobb cast as Willy Loman. Miller had wanted to call the play The Inside of a Head, planning to offer a huge head on stage that would open up, so the audience could view its white and gray matter. But someone must have talked some sense into the man, and he settled on what we have today. Death of a Salesman is about that awful moment of self-awareness, that moment when a man looks back over his life and realizes that the book of life he meant to write for himself turned out differently. And to make up for it, he then rises to the call and offers the ultimate sacrifice. Miller Death of a Salesman 1211. We will begin on Tuesday 1/16. 1/18: The second Cataclysmic Shakedown Final Exam!  This is it! The biggy. The last round up. The final go round. The end my only friend.  William Shakespeare  Now we're in for a real treat--the one, the only William Shakespeare or "Shakey" as the critical theorists are fond of calling him. William Shakespeare, the man, the enigma, his writing so perfect that certain academics in need of recognition have claimed that Shakespeare didn't exist. But we know better, don't we? Mr. "inductive reasoning" himself, Sir Francis Bacon, had nothing on Shakespeare. Born 26 April 1564, died 25 April 1616, Shakespeare was one of those human beings who mentally dwelt somewhere in the ether, like Mozart, like Emily, like Blind Willie Johnson. One of the few writers of our species to bridge the masculine-feminine nether zone, Shakespeare had enough passion, grace, and strength to write like a woman or a man. He was a radical, a wildman, and a good father. So don't let the language of Shakespeare scare you (it's actually considered modern English). Open your mind and give one of our greatest writers a chance. Let his subtle technique of counterpoint and juxtaposition, his strands of plot, his illusion, his wonder, his strangeness, and most of all, his passion for life, death, and love take hold, and you just might find yourself another notch on Shakespeare's fan belt. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark We are about to embark on a journey into the world of divergent elements, indecision,  hesitation, endless reasoning, madness, murder, a play within a play, and finally, action! All the power that is William Shakespeare. Something was rotten in the State of Denmark! Hamlet is the heir apparent to the throne when his father, King Hamlet, dies suspiciously, and his mother, the Queen, excludes Hamlet from the throne by marrying Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, the uncle who murdered Hamlet's father! Convoluted enough for you? How about the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father returns to assure Hamlet that he, the King, was poisoned by his own brother? Not sure what to do, Hamlet feigns madness until he can devise a plan, a trap to catch the scoundrel that killed his father. In an 1813 lecture on Hamlet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writes:In Hamlet I conceive [Shakespeare] to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to outward objects and our meditation on inward thoughts--a due balance between the real and the imaginary world. In Hamlet this balance does not exist--his thoughts, images, and fancy [being] far more vivid than his perceptions instantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, and acquiring as they pass a form and color not naturally their own. Hence great, enormous, intellectual activity, and a consequent proportionate aversion to real action, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities Hamlet must act. But people like Hamlet, an intellectual, a deep thinker, an astute observer of life, do not act on impulse.  Yet he sees his mother, who was devoted to his father, in less than two months, become devoted to his father's opposite. Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, who should play the role of virgin queen, is anything but. All lies dashed as Hamlet stares humanity's ruin in the face and says of his mother,"O most pernicious woman!/ O villain, villain, smilling damned villain" (Hamlet 1.5 145-6)! Will he act on impulse now? You'll have to read to find out. We will devote our last week of this class to this great tragedy. I hope that someday, when you find yourself working for the marketing department of Proctor and Gamble, you'll think back to these days of studenthood and glorious freedom. You'll think back to when you were afforded the privilege of learning about Hamlet and Claudius, Gertrude and Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and you'll realize how fortunate you were. But better yet, why wait? Luxuriate in your good fortune now!  Shakespeare Hamlet. _________________________________________________________ In this, your extra credit Supple Mind critique, you're going to finally be able to show the world the stuff you're made of. You're going to write your own drama or short story. Your choice. In this paper, you're going to come up with your own stage directions, characters, plot, foreshadowing, point-of-view, conflict, climax, epiphany, etc. You may want to base your "style" of writing on one of your favorite Supple Mind authors. You may want to get into detail, like Hemingway, or family issues, like Alice Walker, or use the commonplace but precise language of Carver, or strands of plot and subplot like Shakespeare. For this paper the chickens are going to be let loose from the hen house. The minimum length will be the same as always, approximately 300 words, but if you find yourself going over that limit, it'll be fine. Any illustrations or pictures you decide to use as part of your paper will be joyfully accepted. This is your last paper for the The Supple Retina. Go for it! Stay tuned. There will be more to come in the days ahead. |
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