Literary Criticism: Introduction Nature and Gender, Text and Context
2003F 9/18
Literary Criticism: Introduction Nature and Gender, Text and Context
2003F 9/18
Outline
Themes: Nature & Gender; Starting Questions
Methods: Text and Context
Three Literary Examples of 19th Century England
Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”
C. Rossetti’s “Song”
About Literary Criticism and our Course
Starting Questions 2
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Approaches;
Framework
What we have done today
Starting Questions (1) What do YOU think?
What do you think
About the following images and music?
(1) Earth + “Sedona Spirit” (Sedona in Arizona: features the wonder of what Native Americans consider the spiritual vortex of the Southwest and absolutely sublime red rock formations )
(2) Lotus + “To The Rising Sun”
(Sources: ppt files, unknown, from email circulation; music from Heat: Summer Nights –’a relaxation sampler with nature sounds’)
What do you think --
自然就是美
蕾黛絲-真水胸罩：我愛大自然 大自然篇(阿雅)
貴夫人-生機調理-自然飲食篇 – 和自然越MATCH, 生機就會VERY MUCH.
LP333優酪乳 可調整體質，輕鬆面對大自然
About the following statements?
Human nature is part of “Nature.”
In Wilderness lies the preservation of the world.
Nature . . .
As Signs: “Nature,” “wilderness” and the “natural” have always been human constructions. We tend to romanticize nature so that “the natural” become the signs that sell.
As Commodities: Nature is not landscape, definitely not picaresque landscapes which get to be sold to us as commodities. (In Taiwan, unless you are very strong and experienced mountaineers, it takes money to get close to ‘nature’ as beautiful landscapes.)
As Products: Anthropocentric views of nature, in a sense, are inevitable. In arts, as in business and industrial worlds, we use and exploit nature, but the difference is that what we produce is ‘usu.’ our ideas and ideals.
Nature . . . (2)
How literature and culture ‘codify’ nature and relate humans to nature is one of the focuses of our class.
As our living environment: There is, indeed, ‘nature’ beyond human language. How we approach, know, ‘preserve’ and live with it is a never ending lesson to learn.
What do you think --
About the following statements?
Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.
「女性大腦中聯繫左半腦和右半腦的胼胝體(note:橫向連絡兩個大腦半球的主要神經束)﹐不但體積比男性的大﹐結構也比較紮實﹐亦即女性左半腦和右半腦的溝通比男性『更容易、也更頻繁．』」（source: 《誰》245﹚
Marriage and children kill creativity in men(in science, arts and even in crime.)
Psychological factor: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone.
Biological: After a man settles down, the testosterone (睪丸酮 ) level falls, as does his creative output. (source: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s900147.htm; http://www.ftwr.net/archives/000170.html )
What do you think --
About the following statements?
女性在網路使用上的行為已越男性! 根據創市際研究報告顯示，台灣 7月份網友的男女比例是54比46，女性網友的使用行為無論是在停留時間、使用次數及瀏覽網頁數方面都比男性為高。
女性網友最喜歡造訪購物中心類型網站，其次為時尚美容類型網站、旅遊觀光類及生活購物類等。
男性喜好的順序則分別是購物中心類型網站、旅遊觀光類、時尚美容類型網站及生活購物類等。
創市際總經理朱怡靜表示，男女在消費行為上無論是在實體或虛擬世界中，都有一定的差異性。
(source: http://news.yam.com/cna/fn/news/200309/200309170135.html )
Gender Differences are . . .
social constructs or natural? For me, they are social constructs. Moreover, these social constructs can be limiting to a lot of women now and in history. (As you will see in the examples of 19th women and female artists.)
Indeed physically males and females are different, but their differences are only in degree but not in kind. (Even physical differences can be changed.) For instance, women also have testosterone in them.
The study of corpus callosum (胼胝體) turned out to be based on only 9 males and five females (in 1982; 《誰》245).
“Biologism” – to use biological differences to justify social inequalities in race, gender and class.
What do you think -- About this painting?
And this
What do you think -- About this painting? And this
And this …
Artist:Samuel Tindall Title:Ophelia on the Cam River Composed: July 1997 Identifying Data: Dr. Tindall snapped this shot of Ophelia from the intersection of Carlyle and Chesterton Streets, next to the Cam River, in front of Jesus Green, Cambridge.
Text and Context Or intrinsic and extrinsic approaches: In our class, we both examine the texts closely, and contextualize them in different ways.
Text Example I: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
Meter – iambic mostly, except
Repetition of soft explosives (e.g. ‘t’ ‘p’), which alternates with hard explosives (d, g);
Repetion of words –daffodils, they, saw, dance, gaze, etc. Questions for close reading:
What’s the poem about? Pay attention to the change of tenses.
How does the speaker convey his ideas? Look for ‘patterns’ and variation.
Text Example I: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
Possible interpretation:
Thesis statement: The poem describes and embodies the working of a poet’s imagination, which first describes his action and the daffodils metaphorically, and then presents his ‘mental’ dancing with the flowers. The description is actually all an embodiment of the poet’s imagination, since we don’t really get to see the flowers described physically, and, at the end, their appearance in the poet’s mind is actually a disappearance.
Text & Context Example I: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
1. Wordsworth in history –revolutionary spirits; setting up a poetic tradition and discipline in the age of capitalism; his emphasis on nature, ordinary language and poetic imagination.
W. Wordsworth & his sister Dorothy.
"daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing"
Text & Context Example I: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
Stop bothering us! 3. The parodies – what do they convey?
“The Wordsworths” –
Their toiling through the countryside revealed;
Wordsworth’s appropriation of the flowers;
Daffodil Poems
The bliss of solitude or romance “The New, Fast, Automatic Daffodils”
Lines from the original poem juxtaposed with commercial language, so that “the free spirits” of the original gets to be made possible only by the machine and money.
e.g. vacant and pensive mood calculative;
Text --Example II: “She Walks in Beauty”
Questions for close analysis:
1. What are the similes and images used to describe this lady?
2. How is the lady characterized and described? How do the sound effects (e.g. open vowels, "r" "l" and "m" sounds) help convey the meanings?
3. Does the fact that the actual lady is in mourning and is Byron's cousin affect your picture of her?
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