1) The document discusses the history and development of concrete poetry since its origins in the 1950s. It argues that concrete poetry has expanded beyond the strictly modernist forms of its early period and proposes that it can be understood through rhizomatic and non-signifying readings that reject close reading and the search for hidden meanings.
2) It proposes a view of concrete poetry that embodies flows of non-verbal energy and oppositional forces that struggle against the constraints of grammar and representation. This movement in concrete poetry rejects representing in favor of ambiguity and brief eruptions of non-meaning.
3) It suggests concrete poetry can articulate a poetics that troubles the capitalist narrative by prioritizing excesses and
Representations of Complexity - Interactive Digital Narratives Enabling Disco...HartmutKoenitz
Interactive digital narratives (IDNs) are a new type of narrative that differs from traditional forms like novels, films, and games. IDNs represent complexity through computational systems experienced interactively. They encompass a range of forms including narrative games, interactive documentaries, and AR/VR experiences. Some debates have positioned IDNs as deficient versions of other forms, but they are neither deficient movies nor games. IDNs are new narrative structures enabled by digital technology and interactivity. Research is needed to develop new understanding of narrative beyond traditional models and explore IDNs' potential for representing complexity through participation.
An Objective Evaluation of Shakespeare’s Universal Appealpaperpublications3
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance; that you o‟verstep not the modesty of
nature. For anything so o‟erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first, and now, was and is, to hold
as „twere the mirror up to nature, to show Virtue her own feature, scorn her own Image, and the very age and body of the
time his form and pressure.
- Hamlet: III.ii.17-24
The performative basis of modern literary theory, by henry mc donaldMariane Farias
This document provides an overview of the concept of "performative" language and how it relates to modern literary theory. It discusses how the term has taken on different meanings over time, from Austin's original notion of language performing actions to Derrida's view that language performs but does not determine meaning. It argues that modern literary theory valorizes language by giving it an "ontological" role as an ungrounded mode of being, rather than a "metaphysical" role of reflecting reality. This shift was driven by modern aesthetics' anti-mimetic view of art as based in language rather than representation.
The document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on poetry and poems. It notes that Coleridge believed poetry of the highest kind can exist without meter. It also explains that for Coleridge, a poem is a work that conveys feelings through rhyme and takes the form of a "golden shield." Additionally, the document outlines that Coleridge saw poetry as a product of the poetic genius that sustains and modifies the poet's own mind.
The document analyzes Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" using a formalistic approach. It examines the poem's iambic meter, rhyme scheme, and use of figurative language like metaphor, personification, and anaphora. The analysis finds that these formal elements are crucial to understanding the deeper meaning of the poem, such as its metaphors comparing death to a carriage ride and the final destination as a grave. A formalistic approach unravels how the poem conveys the narrator's experience of dying through its form and language.
This document provides a summary of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. It discusses Coleridge's new approach of "appreciative criticism" and how he sought to interpret works of art rather than judge them. It outlines Coleridge's views on the two cardinal points of poetry: fidelity to nature and the power of imagination. Coleridge also distinguishes between poetry and prose, defines what makes a legitimate poem, and discusses the difference between a poem and poetry itself.
“ 'The other city, the city of dreams': Literary utopias and literary utopian...Caroline Edwards
This keynote lecture was delivered at the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick in December 2019. It examined the relationship between the urban and the utopian – specifically, the question of the knowability and unknowability of city spaces within literary texts (primarily London, but also other smaller British cities). It focussed on an emerging caucus of twenty-first-century British fictions that use urban settings, as well as real and imagined escapes from the city (in pastoral or temporal terms) to blend mimetic topographical detail and the locatedness of an identifiable city space with a more formally dislocating sense of ambiguity.
Representations of Complexity - Interactive Digital Narratives Enabling Disco...HartmutKoenitz
Interactive digital narratives (IDNs) are a new type of narrative that differs from traditional forms like novels, films, and games. IDNs represent complexity through computational systems experienced interactively. They encompass a range of forms including narrative games, interactive documentaries, and AR/VR experiences. Some debates have positioned IDNs as deficient versions of other forms, but they are neither deficient movies nor games. IDNs are new narrative structures enabled by digital technology and interactivity. Research is needed to develop new understanding of narrative beyond traditional models and explore IDNs' potential for representing complexity through participation.
An Objective Evaluation of Shakespeare’s Universal Appealpaperpublications3
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance; that you o‟verstep not the modesty of
nature. For anything so o‟erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first, and now, was and is, to hold
as „twere the mirror up to nature, to show Virtue her own feature, scorn her own Image, and the very age and body of the
time his form and pressure.
- Hamlet: III.ii.17-24
The performative basis of modern literary theory, by henry mc donaldMariane Farias
This document provides an overview of the concept of "performative" language and how it relates to modern literary theory. It discusses how the term has taken on different meanings over time, from Austin's original notion of language performing actions to Derrida's view that language performs but does not determine meaning. It argues that modern literary theory valorizes language by giving it an "ontological" role as an ungrounded mode of being, rather than a "metaphysical" role of reflecting reality. This shift was driven by modern aesthetics' anti-mimetic view of art as based in language rather than representation.
The document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on poetry and poems. It notes that Coleridge believed poetry of the highest kind can exist without meter. It also explains that for Coleridge, a poem is a work that conveys feelings through rhyme and takes the form of a "golden shield." Additionally, the document outlines that Coleridge saw poetry as a product of the poetic genius that sustains and modifies the poet's own mind.
The document analyzes Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" using a formalistic approach. It examines the poem's iambic meter, rhyme scheme, and use of figurative language like metaphor, personification, and anaphora. The analysis finds that these formal elements are crucial to understanding the deeper meaning of the poem, such as its metaphors comparing death to a carriage ride and the final destination as a grave. A formalistic approach unravels how the poem conveys the narrator's experience of dying through its form and language.
This document provides a summary of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. It discusses Coleridge's new approach of "appreciative criticism" and how he sought to interpret works of art rather than judge them. It outlines Coleridge's views on the two cardinal points of poetry: fidelity to nature and the power of imagination. Coleridge also distinguishes between poetry and prose, defines what makes a legitimate poem, and discusses the difference between a poem and poetry itself.
“ 'The other city, the city of dreams': Literary utopias and literary utopian...Caroline Edwards
This keynote lecture was delivered at the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick in December 2019. It examined the relationship between the urban and the utopian – specifically, the question of the knowability and unknowability of city spaces within literary texts (primarily London, but also other smaller British cities). It focussed on an emerging caucus of twenty-first-century British fictions that use urban settings, as well as real and imagined escapes from the city (in pastoral or temporal terms) to blend mimetic topographical detail and the locatedness of an identifiable city space with a more formally dislocating sense of ambiguity.
Landscape of the mind presentation finalIrbaz Khan
Salman Tarik Kureshi is a Pakistani English poet. His collection "Landscapes of the Mind" portrays the experience of postcolonial displacement and personal betrayal through intimate connections between inner and outer landscapes. Kureshi seeks to establish these connections through jagged yet melodic poetry that both moves and disturbs readers. The collection contains 37 poems with many having geographical titles that reflect Kureshi's affinity for nature. Symbols like rivers and rain are used to represent unpredictability and the need for prosperity. Kureshi shows influence from Western poets like Browning, Hughes, and Eliot but establishes his own voice in depicting the landscapes of his mind.
This document discusses the concept of organic form in Romantic poetry. The key points are:
1) Romantic poets believed that the language of a poem should evolve naturally from its content, rather than being imposed from outside. Each feeling was thought to have its own natural form of expression.
2) Coleridge explained this as an "organic" relationship where the content and form grow together like a living organism. He cited Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" as exemplifying this organic unity.
3) Keats struggled early in his career to achieve organic form, borrowing styles from other poets. His later odes were praised for their successful embodiment of thought and language evolving together spontaneously.
This document provides an outline and summary of Sidney's arguments for defending poetry. Sidney argues that poetry is a superior means of communication and moral teaching compared to other arts like history and philosophy. Poetry instructs through allegory and fictional narratives while still conveying deeper truths. While it may not depict reality directly, it presents an "alternative reality" that can impart wisdom to readers. The poet creates rather than just imitates, drawing on their own creative abilities and insights.
This document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems "Kubla Khan" and "Dejection: An Ode" in the context of his aesthetic and spiritual idealism and postmodern criticism like Deconstruction. It argues that Coleridge's works demonstrate a "poetics of becoming" through their portrayal of the transforming creative self, rather than poetic or imaginative failure. The document defines key terms and discusses different critical perspectives on Coleridge to support its view that his poems show progress towards ideals through contradiction and irony, rather than total impossibility.
Coleridge viewed poetry as a mental process of the poet's mind that involves imagination and the modification of images, thoughts, and emotions. For Coleridge, poetry is a wider category than just poems in meter and can exist without the distinguishing form of a poem. True poetry results from the poetic genius through a mental process that connects ideas with images, the general with the concrete, and brings a sense of novelty to familiar objects through secondary imagination and a balance of emotion and order.
biography of s.t coleridge
introduction to biographia literaria
synopsis of chap 14
critical analysis
literary devices
objections and defence
fancy and imagination
primary and secondary imagination
This document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on the nature and function of poetry. It summarizes that Coleridge was an ideal man by nature and a great poet of nature, though the quality of his poetic genius suggested he may not be able to write a large number of finer poems due to a potentially shorter life. It also discusses Coleridge's views that poetry should involve meter, rhyme, diction, theme, and harmony, and that it should provide a pleasurable experience for the reader by exciting the mind through the journey of reading rather than just curiosity about the final solution.
The document summarizes Amitav Ghosh's novel "The Shadow Lines". It provides background on the author, publication details of the novel, and discusses key themes like nationalism. It also summarizes the plot, which follows a young narrator and his memories of his cousin Ila. The novel examines how political boundaries are created and can divide societies, as seen in the division of India. It analyzes memories and connections between people and places across borders.
Coleridge provides a summary and critique of Wordsworth's views on poetic diction as expressed in the preface to Lyrical Ballads. He objects that not all of Wordsworth's characters are truly from low and rustic life, and their language cannot be attributed solely to their environment. Additionally, the language of rustics is too limited to form the basis of poetic language, as it lacks ideas, thoughts, and vocabulary derived from reflection. While Wordsworth aimed to use natural language, Coleridge argues the best parts of language come from thinking on noble concepts, not the direct expressions of rustics. Their views thus differ on the proper sources and qualities of language suitable for poetic works.
The document analyzes the poem "The Falling Leaves" by Margareth Postgate Cole. It finds the poem uses extensive metaphor to depict soldiers dying in World War I as autumn leaves falling from trees. The falling leaves represent the vast numbers of young men killed in battle, their lives cut short unexpectedly. Through metaphor and simile, the poem vividly conveys the senseless waste of human life during the war in just 12 lines. It concludes the poem is a moving tribute to soldiers who lost their lives, using natural imagery to reflect on the tragedy of death in conflict.
This document provides an overview of a PhD thesis that examines three novels by Indian author Amitav Ghosh from a deconstructionist perspective. The thesis includes chapters that [1] introduce Ghosh and deconstructionism, [2] define deconstructionist principles, [3] analyze Ghosh's narrative style, [4] discuss the themes of migration and identity in The Circle of Reason, [5] link The Shadow Lines to ideas of national and cultural identity, and [6] examine the themes of diaspora and cultural displacement in The Glass Palace. The concluding chapter summarizes the analysis of how Ghosh's writings adhere to deconstructionist concepts of multiple meanings and binaries.
The document discusses the concept of "suspension of disbelief" which refers to a reader's willingness to accept fantastical elements in a story. It was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge who said readers would suspend judgement of implausible narratives if the writer infused human interest and truth. In the 20th century, the phrase was used more loosely to imply it was the reader's responsibility. Coleridge introduced the concept to explain how modern audiences could enjoy stories involving the supernatural.
The concept of imagination in biographia literariaDayamani Surya
Coleridge's Biographia Literaria discusses his concepts of imagination and fancy. He divides the mind into two faculties: primary imagination, which is a creative power that mimics the divine principle of creation; and secondary imagination, which relies on the will to recreate primary imagination. Coleridge coined the term "esemplastic" to describe imagination's ability to shape multiple ideas into a unified whole. In contrast, fancy is a mechanical, passive faculty that accumulates facts but cannot create anything new. Coleridge viewed imagination as the primary creative force in writing.
Ginsberg's poem "Howl" was a radical departure from traditional poetry that pushed boundaries of expression. It reclaimed the poet's singing voice and power of performance over print. The chaotic and free-flowing form was meant to build rhythmic energy and stimulate the mind like haiku. Parts 1 and 2 build toward climaxes through repetition and exclamations, while Part 3 provides tranquility through affirming phrases. The poem collapses distinctions between high and low culture and fragments the self through descriptive images rather than a centered narrator.
Coleridge refined the supernatural in poetry, making it more subjective and psychological rather than objective and sensational. In works like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the supernatural is a subtle, slowly revealed atmosphere rather than sudden shocking events. Coleridge presented the supernatural as a psychic phenomenon experienced through the mind, conveying horror through the reactions it causes rather than directly depicting supernatural sights. He also humanized supernatural incidents and characters to make them more realistic and convincing. Overall, Coleridge revolutionized the use of the supernatural in poetry by presenting it as a subtle, mysterious influence on the mind rather than a source of crude thrills.
Recharting the Narrative of Subalternity in Amitav Ghosh’ Sea of PoppiesIJLP
This article analyses explores the transformation of the discourse of the novel to narrate the story of indenture.
It shows how from the double insider-outsider perspective as a researcher-mic Amitav Ghosh uses anthropological and historical perspectives to renegotiate discourses of subalternity from the perspective of the indenture diaspora
This document is a term paper for an English literature class discussing the emergence of rhyme in English poetry during the 14th century. It summarizes the key debates in rhyme theory about the functions of rhyme, including mnemonic, schematic, musical, and semantic functions. It then discusses the transition from alliterative to rhyming verse in Middle English, examining historical, linguistic, and literary influences like Geoffrey Chaucer. The paper will analyze this transition through surviving manuscripts, language changes after the Norman Conquest, and rhyme theory concepts to better understand the complex causes behind rhyme's adoption in English poetry.
The Teller & The Tales: A Study of The Novels of Amitav GhoshQUESTJOURNAL
ABSTRACT: The paper re-visit the plot and setting of the novels of Amitav Ghosh. The paper has two parts – (i)The Teller & (ii) The Tales. In the first section the text tries to give a brief sketch of the life of Amitav Ghosh to chornicle the life of the visionary commentator of life and the social anthroplogist , the most prominent among the Indian writers of English. In the second part the theme and storyline of the novels were revisted along with characters and narrative technique. The first section has been introduced to give an overview of the prolificness of the author and the second part is the testimony of his logocentricism. The paper aims to present the plot and theme of all Ghosh’s novels
This document provides an overview of the short story genre. It defines a short story and discusses its key components such as plot, character, setting, point of view, conflict and theme. The document also traces the evolution of the short story and examines some famous short story writers like O. Henry, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe and their well-known works. It emphasizes that a short story should have integrity, economy and an epiphany or twist to engage the reader.
Applied Learning in Virtual Worlds: Loyalist College Border SimulationKen Hudson
Loyalist College in Second Life used virtual simulations to provide applied training strategies for its students. Trainees spent 4 hours in training and 12 hours practicing skills in a Second Life simulation of the Canadian border crossing process at the Thousand Islands, which allowed them to experience identification checks, vehicle searches, and travel document reviews in an immersive virtual environment. Students reported that the simulation felt more realistic than traditional role plays and improved their performance by 28%, as they were able to learn from watching classmates and experience the border crossing process as if they were truly there.
Wat is er nodig om het vernieuwend vermogen in de wetenschap te ondersteunen? Deze vraag stelden wij aan academische vernieuwers en verbinders op 5 oktober 2015.
Landscape of the mind presentation finalIrbaz Khan
Salman Tarik Kureshi is a Pakistani English poet. His collection "Landscapes of the Mind" portrays the experience of postcolonial displacement and personal betrayal through intimate connections between inner and outer landscapes. Kureshi seeks to establish these connections through jagged yet melodic poetry that both moves and disturbs readers. The collection contains 37 poems with many having geographical titles that reflect Kureshi's affinity for nature. Symbols like rivers and rain are used to represent unpredictability and the need for prosperity. Kureshi shows influence from Western poets like Browning, Hughes, and Eliot but establishes his own voice in depicting the landscapes of his mind.
This document discusses the concept of organic form in Romantic poetry. The key points are:
1) Romantic poets believed that the language of a poem should evolve naturally from its content, rather than being imposed from outside. Each feeling was thought to have its own natural form of expression.
2) Coleridge explained this as an "organic" relationship where the content and form grow together like a living organism. He cited Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" as exemplifying this organic unity.
3) Keats struggled early in his career to achieve organic form, borrowing styles from other poets. His later odes were praised for their successful embodiment of thought and language evolving together spontaneously.
This document provides an outline and summary of Sidney's arguments for defending poetry. Sidney argues that poetry is a superior means of communication and moral teaching compared to other arts like history and philosophy. Poetry instructs through allegory and fictional narratives while still conveying deeper truths. While it may not depict reality directly, it presents an "alternative reality" that can impart wisdom to readers. The poet creates rather than just imitates, drawing on their own creative abilities and insights.
This document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems "Kubla Khan" and "Dejection: An Ode" in the context of his aesthetic and spiritual idealism and postmodern criticism like Deconstruction. It argues that Coleridge's works demonstrate a "poetics of becoming" through their portrayal of the transforming creative self, rather than poetic or imaginative failure. The document defines key terms and discusses different critical perspectives on Coleridge to support its view that his poems show progress towards ideals through contradiction and irony, rather than total impossibility.
Coleridge viewed poetry as a mental process of the poet's mind that involves imagination and the modification of images, thoughts, and emotions. For Coleridge, poetry is a wider category than just poems in meter and can exist without the distinguishing form of a poem. True poetry results from the poetic genius through a mental process that connects ideas with images, the general with the concrete, and brings a sense of novelty to familiar objects through secondary imagination and a balance of emotion and order.
biography of s.t coleridge
introduction to biographia literaria
synopsis of chap 14
critical analysis
literary devices
objections and defence
fancy and imagination
primary and secondary imagination
This document discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on the nature and function of poetry. It summarizes that Coleridge was an ideal man by nature and a great poet of nature, though the quality of his poetic genius suggested he may not be able to write a large number of finer poems due to a potentially shorter life. It also discusses Coleridge's views that poetry should involve meter, rhyme, diction, theme, and harmony, and that it should provide a pleasurable experience for the reader by exciting the mind through the journey of reading rather than just curiosity about the final solution.
The document summarizes Amitav Ghosh's novel "The Shadow Lines". It provides background on the author, publication details of the novel, and discusses key themes like nationalism. It also summarizes the plot, which follows a young narrator and his memories of his cousin Ila. The novel examines how political boundaries are created and can divide societies, as seen in the division of India. It analyzes memories and connections between people and places across borders.
Coleridge provides a summary and critique of Wordsworth's views on poetic diction as expressed in the preface to Lyrical Ballads. He objects that not all of Wordsworth's characters are truly from low and rustic life, and their language cannot be attributed solely to their environment. Additionally, the language of rustics is too limited to form the basis of poetic language, as it lacks ideas, thoughts, and vocabulary derived from reflection. While Wordsworth aimed to use natural language, Coleridge argues the best parts of language come from thinking on noble concepts, not the direct expressions of rustics. Their views thus differ on the proper sources and qualities of language suitable for poetic works.
The document analyzes the poem "The Falling Leaves" by Margareth Postgate Cole. It finds the poem uses extensive metaphor to depict soldiers dying in World War I as autumn leaves falling from trees. The falling leaves represent the vast numbers of young men killed in battle, their lives cut short unexpectedly. Through metaphor and simile, the poem vividly conveys the senseless waste of human life during the war in just 12 lines. It concludes the poem is a moving tribute to soldiers who lost their lives, using natural imagery to reflect on the tragedy of death in conflict.
This document provides an overview of a PhD thesis that examines three novels by Indian author Amitav Ghosh from a deconstructionist perspective. The thesis includes chapters that [1] introduce Ghosh and deconstructionism, [2] define deconstructionist principles, [3] analyze Ghosh's narrative style, [4] discuss the themes of migration and identity in The Circle of Reason, [5] link The Shadow Lines to ideas of national and cultural identity, and [6] examine the themes of diaspora and cultural displacement in The Glass Palace. The concluding chapter summarizes the analysis of how Ghosh's writings adhere to deconstructionist concepts of multiple meanings and binaries.
The document discusses the concept of "suspension of disbelief" which refers to a reader's willingness to accept fantastical elements in a story. It was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge who said readers would suspend judgement of implausible narratives if the writer infused human interest and truth. In the 20th century, the phrase was used more loosely to imply it was the reader's responsibility. Coleridge introduced the concept to explain how modern audiences could enjoy stories involving the supernatural.
The concept of imagination in biographia literariaDayamani Surya
Coleridge's Biographia Literaria discusses his concepts of imagination and fancy. He divides the mind into two faculties: primary imagination, which is a creative power that mimics the divine principle of creation; and secondary imagination, which relies on the will to recreate primary imagination. Coleridge coined the term "esemplastic" to describe imagination's ability to shape multiple ideas into a unified whole. In contrast, fancy is a mechanical, passive faculty that accumulates facts but cannot create anything new. Coleridge viewed imagination as the primary creative force in writing.
Ginsberg's poem "Howl" was a radical departure from traditional poetry that pushed boundaries of expression. It reclaimed the poet's singing voice and power of performance over print. The chaotic and free-flowing form was meant to build rhythmic energy and stimulate the mind like haiku. Parts 1 and 2 build toward climaxes through repetition and exclamations, while Part 3 provides tranquility through affirming phrases. The poem collapses distinctions between high and low culture and fragments the self through descriptive images rather than a centered narrator.
Coleridge refined the supernatural in poetry, making it more subjective and psychological rather than objective and sensational. In works like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the supernatural is a subtle, slowly revealed atmosphere rather than sudden shocking events. Coleridge presented the supernatural as a psychic phenomenon experienced through the mind, conveying horror through the reactions it causes rather than directly depicting supernatural sights. He also humanized supernatural incidents and characters to make them more realistic and convincing. Overall, Coleridge revolutionized the use of the supernatural in poetry by presenting it as a subtle, mysterious influence on the mind rather than a source of crude thrills.
Recharting the Narrative of Subalternity in Amitav Ghosh’ Sea of PoppiesIJLP
This article analyses explores the transformation of the discourse of the novel to narrate the story of indenture.
It shows how from the double insider-outsider perspective as a researcher-mic Amitav Ghosh uses anthropological and historical perspectives to renegotiate discourses of subalternity from the perspective of the indenture diaspora
This document is a term paper for an English literature class discussing the emergence of rhyme in English poetry during the 14th century. It summarizes the key debates in rhyme theory about the functions of rhyme, including mnemonic, schematic, musical, and semantic functions. It then discusses the transition from alliterative to rhyming verse in Middle English, examining historical, linguistic, and literary influences like Geoffrey Chaucer. The paper will analyze this transition through surviving manuscripts, language changes after the Norman Conquest, and rhyme theory concepts to better understand the complex causes behind rhyme's adoption in English poetry.
The Teller & The Tales: A Study of The Novels of Amitav GhoshQUESTJOURNAL
ABSTRACT: The paper re-visit the plot and setting of the novels of Amitav Ghosh. The paper has two parts – (i)The Teller & (ii) The Tales. In the first section the text tries to give a brief sketch of the life of Amitav Ghosh to chornicle the life of the visionary commentator of life and the social anthroplogist , the most prominent among the Indian writers of English. In the second part the theme and storyline of the novels were revisted along with characters and narrative technique. The first section has been introduced to give an overview of the prolificness of the author and the second part is the testimony of his logocentricism. The paper aims to present the plot and theme of all Ghosh’s novels
This document provides an overview of the short story genre. It defines a short story and discusses its key components such as plot, character, setting, point of view, conflict and theme. The document also traces the evolution of the short story and examines some famous short story writers like O. Henry, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe and their well-known works. It emphasizes that a short story should have integrity, economy and an epiphany or twist to engage the reader.
Applied Learning in Virtual Worlds: Loyalist College Border SimulationKen Hudson
Loyalist College in Second Life used virtual simulations to provide applied training strategies for its students. Trainees spent 4 hours in training and 12 hours practicing skills in a Second Life simulation of the Canadian border crossing process at the Thousand Islands, which allowed them to experience identification checks, vehicle searches, and travel document reviews in an immersive virtual environment. Students reported that the simulation felt more realistic than traditional role plays and improved their performance by 28%, as they were able to learn from watching classmates and experience the border crossing process as if they were truly there.
Wat is er nodig om het vernieuwend vermogen in de wetenschap te ondersteunen? Deze vraag stelden wij aan academische vernieuwers en verbinders op 5 oktober 2015.
The document discusses cloud computing and the State of Utah's plans to implement a private cloud. It describes the different types of cloud models and outlines Utah's progress in virtualization and consolidation of data centers. The vision is for a hybrid cloud that leverages internally-hosted and public cloud services to provide on-demand, elastic, scalable computing capabilities to users.
The document appears to be a list of URLs related to a website called American Street located at http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/. It includes the main American Street homepage URL and URLs for sections like feeds, archives dating back to 2004, CSS files, and XML-RPC. It also lists URLs from other liberal blogs, news sites, and organizations. The document seems to provide an inventory of online locations and resources related to the American Street site and broader liberal/progressive media.
The document summarizes a review of migrating the state of Utah's file and print services from Netware to Open Enterprise Server (OES). It finds that migrating 367 Netware servers to OES could reduce costs through server consolidation and redirecting personnel. It recommends designating teams to plan an OES migration and test the process with some agencies, documenting results to inform other agencies. The best option is to migrate all Netware servers to OES to reduce costs and complexity over time.
My Second Life didn't turn out the way I thought it would: Managing expectati...Ken Hudson
This document summarizes Ken Hudson's presentation on managing expectations for teaching and learning in virtual worlds. Some key points from virtual worlds include the sense of self, the death of distance, and the power of presence. Studies show that behaviors in virtual worlds can transfer to real life. Loyalist College piloted virtual world simulations for the Canadian Border Services Agency that led to improved grades and testing success compared to traditional teaching methods. Other organizations are also using virtual worlds for training purposes.
The document discusses application servers used by Utah government agencies and provides recommendations for standardizing their use. It finds that many different application servers are currently used. It recommends reducing this number by migrating most to use GlassFish as the standard Java EE5 application server platform and integrating it with other state services. It also recommends minimizing new development on older platforms and specifying approved IDEs to use with GlassFish.
This short document lists common farm animals such as pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep, goats, cows, and horses. It then asks questions about favorite animals and whether the reader likes cats and pigs, concluding with a note about listening to sounds to make guesses.
The document summarizes a PowerPoint presentation about the southern region of the United States in the late 18th/early 19th century. It notes that the South was primarily an agricultural society where people lived in small villages and farms/plantations. It includes three images - one of southern generals to represent the South, one of a large plantation home common in the region, and one showing how family photography has changed over time.
This document contains an essay titled "Articulating Space: Short Essays on Poetry" by Jessica Smith. The essay collection contains 12 short essays on various topics related to poetry, including objectivism in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetics, ruptured lines as minor uprisings against patriarchal language, and secret passageways in multilinear poetry. It includes acknowledgments thanking various poets and scholars who provided feedback on the essays. The table of contents lists the 12 essays included in the collection.
Alterity And Tragic Sensation In Shakespeare And Fitzgerald From Macbeth To ...Robin Beregovska
This document provides a comparative analysis of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It argues that both works explore the themes of alterity (otherness) and tragic sensation through their protagonists' struggles with time and other human beings. Specifically, it suggests that Macbeth is preoccupied with his imagined future and tries to eliminate anyone threatening it, while Gatsby is preoccupied with his lost past and tries to regain his lost love Daisy. Both ultimately fail in their attempts to overcome the alterity of time and other people, resulting in tragedy. The document examines passages from both works to support this thematic reading.
This document discusses various concepts and terms used in literary criticism, including:
- Affective fallacy and intentional fallacy, which were concepts introduced by Wimsatt and Beardsley regarding separating a work from reader response and authorial intent.
- Pathetic fallacy, allegory, allusion, ambiguity, and other concepts related to interpreting and analyzing literature.
- Archetype, binary opposition, carnival theory, conventions, contradiction, and other terms used in structuralist and post-structuralist criticism to examine cultural and linguistic patterns.
This document discusses the concept of "historiographic metafiction", a type of postmodern fiction that is both metafictional and historical in its references to past texts and contexts. It argues that postmodern fiction engages with both literary and historical intertexts through parody and intertextuality. By embedding these intertextual pasts, postmodern fiction both asserts and questions notions of history and literature as human constructs. This doubles as a formal marking of historicity. The document provides examples of novels that exemplify historiographic metafiction, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Dialogical Odes by John Keats: Mythologically RevisitedBahram Kazemian
This paper, using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism tries to investigate the indications of dialogic voice in Odes by John Keats. Indeed this study goes through the dialogic reading of ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, ‘Ode to Psyche’, and ‘Ode on Melancholy’, considering mythological outlooks. Analyzing Keats’s odes through dialogical perspective may reveal that Keats plays a role of an involved and social poet of his own time. Moreover, Keats embraces the world of fancy and imagination to free himself from sufferings of his society. Keats’ odes are influenced by expression of pain-joy reality by which he builds up a dialogue with readers trying to display his own political and social engagement. Applying various kinds of mythological elements and figures within the odes may disclose Keats’s historical response and reaction toward a conflicted society and human grieves in general.
Decoding the Significance of the Title 'Foe' in Coetzee's Novel.pptxAvaniJani1
This document provides an analysis of J.M. Coetzee's novel "Foe" as a work of metafiction. It defines metafiction as fiction that draws attention to its own narrative structures and fictional nature. "Foe" is a postmodern reimagining of Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" that challenges colonial narratives and marginalized voices. Through techniques like self-reflexivity and parody, Coetzee invites readers to reconsider traditional storytelling conventions and the relationship between literature and reality. The document examines how "Foe" reshapes the Robinsonade tradition in a postcolonial context.
The document discusses post-colonial literature and its relationship to imperialism and European discourse. It argues that post-colonial writing interrogates and subverts European codes and narratives through techniques like appropriating and dismantling European literary forms, rereading historical works from a post-colonial perspective, and using language to undermine colonial authority. However, it also notes a paradox where post-colonial literature utilizes European novel forms to challenge colonialism while potentially perpetuating some colonial institutions.
This document provides an overview of postmodernism and related concepts. It defines postmodernity as a historical period beginning in the 1960s, and postmodernism as both a style in culture and thought. Postmodernism emerged from modernism and is characterized by deconstructing concepts like truth, language, history and reality. A key aspect is metafiction, which draws attention to itself as an artifact and examines the relationship between fiction and reality. Historiographic metafiction further blurs the lines between fiction and history.
AN ECLECTIC OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE AS AN ACT OF LANGUAGE AND THE LANGUAGE OF ARTDustin Pytko
This document provides an overview of different perspectives on the relationship between literature and language, including Plato's idealism, Aristotle's realism, and post-structuralist thought. It discusses how Plato viewed literature as an imitation of ideal forms and criticized representations that lacked accurate likenesses. It also explains how Aristotle viewed language as matter that is given actuality and distinction through its form. The document uses axiomatic semantics to diagram how different art forms relate to their defining features, with literature defined by its use of language alone.
This document provides an agenda and background information for an ELIT 48C class. The agenda includes a discussion of various modernist manifestos and their defining texts. It also introduces the students to author Susan Glaspell and provides a brief biography of her life and work. The biography notes that Glaspell was a pioneering female author who often featured strong female protagonists and focused on women's experiences. Students are assigned to read and discuss her play Trifles and identify any important symbols used to convey deeper meaning.
This summary analyzes a passage discussing Steven Greenblatt's analysis of Hans Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors" and its use of anamorphic techniques. It discusses how Greenblatt sees the distorted skull in the painting as undermining concepts of reality and sign systems. It then examines how the concept of anamorphosis has been used in psychoanalytic theory to study symbolic orders and conceptual schemes. The document aims to investigate how useful the concept of anamorphosis is for analyzing tensions in depictions of cosmic harmony in early modern French texts.
- Jameson analyzes the threat posed by understanding history solely from a synchronic perspective, which views situations statically without considering their development over time. Focusing only on structures risks naturalizing them and eliminating the possibility of change.
- The document discusses the concepts of defamiliarization, how habitual perceptions can be disrupted to see things in a new light, and Orwell's arguments that political language can corrupt thought and that conscious effort is needed to improve writing.
- Key terms are introduced, such as synchronic vs. diachronic perspectives, ostranenie or defamiliarization, and how concepts from different thinkers relate to questions of language, perception, and politics.
This summary provides the key points from the document in 3 sentences:
The document discusses Nietzsche's views on art and criticism, arguing that art cannot be separated from its historical and cultural context, and that attempts to establish objective criteria for art are misguided. It analyzes articles by critics Roger Kimball and Jerry Saltz dealing with political correctness in art and exposes how both conservatives and liberals constrain artistic expression through imposed moral frameworks. The document concludes by arguing against the idea of discovering eternal truths in art and instead sees art and criticism as reflective of the perspectives and values of their historical time period.
This document presents a thesis that originated in work on a dissertation within theframework of the ComparativeLiterature Program of the University of Texas at Austin. I could not convince the chairman of my committee that the word Wanderer in German and English literature was more than a flat conventional metaphor or conceit. I hope this document makes a good case for drawing another conclusion
Derrida's Deconstruction Imprisoned in Performance Poetryshafieyan
This document summarizes and analyzes the relationship between Derrida's concept of deconstruction and performance poetry. It argues that performance poetry diverges from deconstruction in several ways. Performance poetry emphasizes orality over writing, giving importance to the poet's physical presence and the timing of the performance. It also references specific works to show how poets like Amiri Baraka prioritize the performance over the written text. The document examines issues of referentiality and how concrete poetry maintains references within the text rather than referring to something outside the text, as Derrida claimed. Overall, it concludes that performance poetry in many ways differs from deconstructive stances due to its focus on presence, sound, and the experience of live
New Criticism was a major literary theory movement of the mid-20th century that advocated for close reading of texts and rejection of biographical or historical context. Key concepts of New Criticism included ambiguity, the intentional fallacy which rejected authorial intent, and the affective fallacy which rejected reader reaction. Prominent figures included I.A. Richards, William K. Wimsatt, Monroe Beardsley, T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis, William Empson, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth Brooks. New Criticism was criticized for being ahistorical and for isolating texts from their contexts.
Here are some examples of key literary terms found in poetry and their definitions:
Imagery- Language that appeals to one or more of the five senses to create a vivid picture in the reader's mind. For example, describing the "sweet scent of roses" creates an olfactory image.
Tone- The attitude of the writer towards the subject matter. Tone can be serious, playful, sarcastic, solemn, etc.
Theme- The underlying message or big idea explored in a literary work. The theme is not directly stated but revealed through events and characters.
Symbolism- When an object or idea represents or stands for something else, especially something abstract. Symbols often represent complex ideas or concepts.
In our secular age literary critics tend to deny that literary texts reveal 'truth' in a religious sense even though great authors like Milton and Robert Browning saw themselves as divine messengers. Even poets such as Shelley imbued their works with a spiritual quality in defiance of tendencies to regard poetry as outmoded and alien to progressive and rationalit thought. Perhaps it is time to rise to poetry's defence as Shelley did.
Romanticism arose in the late 18th century as a response to Enlightenment ideals. It valued human subjectivity, emotion, nature, imagination and the sublime. Two of its main figures were William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth found inspiration in nature and the imagination. His Lyrical Ballads used everyday language. Coleridge distinguished imagination from fancy and viewed imagination as a power that completes understanding. Both poets emphasized the difference between poetic and prose language.
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This document summarizes and analyzes the artwork "Green Line" by artist Francis Alÿs. It discusses how Alÿs walked the 1949 boundary, or "green line", that divided East and West Jerusalem, reinscribing it with green paint. The document examines how this work addresses the question of how art can be political without engaging in politics directly. It discusses the work in the context of debates around the relationship between the aesthetic and the political, drawing on thinkers like Rancière, Sartre, and Bourdieu. The document analyzes the work's title and argues it suggests three "theorems" about how the poetic and political can intersect in artworks in a way that challenges traditional views
Este documento discute a relação entre a identidade homossexual e a biologia. Afirma que muitos homossexuais acreditam que nasceram assim, ao contrário das feministas que rejeitaram a ideia de destino biológico. No entanto, a identidade biológica homossexual exerce uma dupla violência, sendo uma diferença psicológica e não biológica. O documento também descreve a história do conceito de identidade biológica homossexual desde o século XIX e como estudos cientí
1. O documento discute a relação entre homossexualidade e discursos biológicos, notando que enquanto os movimentos feministas rejeitaram explicações biológicas, os movimentos gay adotaram explicações de "nascer assim".
2. Isso levou a noções como "cérebro gay" e "gene gay" que são bem aceitos pelo público, apesar de usos anteriores desse tipo de explicação para fins racistas e sexistas.
3. Há debates sobre se a aceitação do "inatismo gay" se deve mais a sentiment
How hormones affect behavioral and neural developmentTeresa Levy
This document provides an introduction to a special issue journal on how gonadal hormones affect behavioral and neural development. It summarizes several studies showing that hormones like testosterone and estrogen influence behaviors in humans and other species. For example, females exposed to high testosterone levels prenatally tend to show more male-typical behaviors. The introduction discusses themes across the special issue articles, such as how hormones have both organizational effects during development and activational effects in adulthood. It also provides background on the range of methods used to study hormone-behavior relationships.
Homosexuality, birth order, and evolutionTeresa Levy
This article proposes that homosexuality can be explained by a polygenetic trait influenced by multiple genes. During development, these genes shift male brain development in a more feminine direction. While single alleles may produce homosexuality, carriers of these alleles who are heterosexual tend to be better fathers and more attractive mates. This balanced polymorphism allows alleles that contribute to homosexuality to survive by offsetting their negative reproductive impacts through positively impacting heterosexual carriers. A similar effect is proposed to exist for genes that could produce lesbianism in females.
Homosexuality, birth order, and evolution (2)Teresa Levy
This journal article proposes that homosexuality can be explained by a polygenetic trait influenced by multiple genes. During development, these genes shift male brain development in a more feminine direction. While single alleles may produce homosexuality, carriers of these alleles who are heterosexual tend to be better fathers and more attractive mates. There is a balanced polymorphism where the feminizing effects in heterosexuals offsets the reproductive disadvantages of these alleles contributing to homosexuality. The birth order effect on homosexuality may be a byproduct of a mechanism that shifts later-born sons' personalities more femininely, reducing competition with brothers.
The document discusses research into the biological basis of homosexuality from the perspective of psychiatry and neurobiology. Early research treated homosexuality as a mental illness for psychiatry to treat. Later, neurobiology framed it as a natural variation in behavior and studied anatomical differences between the brains of straight and gay men using standard experimental designs to identify significant differences. However, the research approaches did not question predefined categories of what is considered "natural" and often objectified the people studied.
The document summarizes the current scientific research into the biological factors that influence sexual orientation. It notes that biology has begun to study what causes homosexuality and has provided some early answers, though the findings are still tentative. It also acknowledges that researching sexuality and the brain is challenging given our limited understanding of neurobiology. Some fear the quest to find biological explanations could lead to hype or be an intellectual dead end. The document concludes by saying the topic is politically charged, which has led to professional rivalries among researchers, some of whom have personal motivations as they themselves are gay.
Handedness, sexual orientation and genderTeresa Levy
This journal article examines the relationship between handedness, sexual orientation, and gender-related personality traits. The introduction summarizes previous research finding associations between non-right handedness and homosexuality in both men and women, as well as gender identity disorder. Specifically, homosexual men were 34% more likely to be non-right handed than heterosexual men, and homosexual women were 91% more likely to be non-right handed than heterosexual women. The article also reviews evidence of slightly higher rates of left-handedness in males compared to females. Finally, a few studies found that non-right handed women tended to score higher on instrumentality and lower on expressiveness, exhibiting more male-typical personality traits.
Hand preference, sexual preference and transsexualismTeresa Levy
This journal article examines the relationship between hand preference, sexual preference, and transsexualism. The authors studied 443 male-to-female and 93 female-to-male transsexuals and found they were more often non-right handed compared to male and female controls. This suggests an altered pattern of cerebral hemispheric organization in transsexuals. Prenatal androgen levels may influence both handedness and psychosexual development. Elevated testosterone in utero could affect brain development and increase non-right handedness.
This document summarizes a journal article about genes and human behavior. The article reviews research on the genetic influences of cognitive abilities, personality traits, health habits, and psychopathology. It discusses studies on conditions like reading disabilities, Fragile-X syndrome, alcoholism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease. The article also examines new molecular genetics approaches and debates around behavioral genetics research.
This document provides an introduction to the book "Gay Science: The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research" by Timothy F. Murphy. The introduction outlines the ongoing scientific and social debate around the origins and meaning of sexual orientations like homosexuality. It notes that while past research often assumed homosexuality was a psychological disorder, more recent research takes a neutral stance on causation but still has social implications. The introduction previews the book's aim to provide an ethical analysis of sexual orientation research and its potential impacts, both positive and negative, on gay people. It does not intend to argue for any particular causal theory but rather map out the relevant issues for discussion.
Finger length ratios in female monozygotic twinsTeresa Levy
This study examines finger length ratios in female monozygotic twins who are discordant for sexual orientation. Previous research has found that lesbian women tend to have lower finger length ratios, suggesting higher prenatal androgen exposure. The study aims to determine if differences in prenatal environment contribute to differences in sexual orientation for these twins by examining their finger length ratios. If finger length ratios differ between twins discordant for sexual orientation, it would provide evidence that prenatal environment, not just genetics, impacts development of sexual orientation.
Female sexual orientation and pubertal onsetTeresa Levy
This article examines the relationship between female sexual orientation and pubertal onset. The researchers hypothesized that lesbians would have a later, more masculine age of pubertal onset compared to heterosexual women based on theories that both sexual orientation and pubertal timing are influenced by prenatal androgens. They studied samples of community volunteers and discordant twins but found no significant differences in pubertal onset between homosexual and heterosexual women, contrary to their hypothesis.
Evolutionary perspective of sex typed toy preferencesTeresa Levy
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Empowerment and medicalization of homosexualityTeresa Levy
This article summarizes the origins of the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants, formed in 1935 to study homosexuality. It involved collaboration between the homosexual community, represented by activist Jan Gay, and the medical community, led by Dr. Robert Latou Dickinson. However, their interests conflicted, as physicians sought to medicalize and pathologize homosexuality rather than empower the community. The committee's study, while well-intentioned, undermined Gay's goals and served to further subjugate homosexuals under the medical gaze. The collaboration nonetheless anticipated later efforts to establish a more equitable relationship between researchers and their subjects.
Evolutionary psychology holds that human behaviors, like mate selection and aggression, evolved through natural selection to promote survival and reproduction. According to this view, humans look for symmetry, averageness, and signs of fertility like hormone levels in mates. Some evolutionary psychologists have proposed that rape tendencies could have evolved as a reproductive strategy for socially unsuccessful males to pass on their genes. However, others argue this does not justify such behavior today. Evolutionary psychology remains controversial as some view it as suggesting unequal chances for success.
Differences in finger length ratios between butch and femineTeresa Levy
This journal article examines differences in finger length ratios between self-identified "butch" and "femme" lesbians. Prior research has found that auditory evoked potentials and otoacoustic emissions, markers of prenatal androgen exposure, are more masculine in lesbians compared to heterosexual women. This study explores whether the ratio of the length of the index finger to the ring finger (2D:4D), another purported marker of prenatal androgen exposure, differs between "butch" and "femme" lesbians.
Dermatoglyphics, handedness sex, and sexual orientationTeresa Levy
This journal article examines the relationship between dermatoglyphics (fingerprint patterns), handedness, sex, and sexual orientation. It suggests that examining characteristics like dermatoglyphics and handedness, whose timing of formation is known, can help localize when sexual orientation is programmed during development. The article notes that fingerprint patterns are determined between 8-16 weeks of fetal life, while handedness appears to depend on prenatal genetic and environmental factors. It aims to replicate and expand on prior research examining theoretical associations between dermatoglyphic asymmetry, handedness, and sexual orientation.
This article discusses three brain systems related to human mating and reproduction: lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. Lust evolved to initiate mating with any appropriate partner for sexual gratification. Attraction evolved to help individuals choose and prefer specific mating partners to conserve time and energy. Attachment evolved to enable individuals to cooperate with a reproductive mate until parental duties are completed. The article defines these three systems and discusses an ongoing study using fMRI to investigate the neural circuits associated with romantic attraction.
1. an afterword after words: notes towards a concrete poetic
Despite over a century of poetic innovation since Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un
Coup de Dès Jamais n’Abolira le Hasard”1 (1896) & almost 50 years since the
publication of Eugen Gomringer’s manifesto “Concrete Poetry” (1956), there is still
no accepted critical vocabulary for concrete poetry2. Concrete poetry is often
contextualized historically & is categorized as a subgenre of radicalized praxis from
its predominantly modernist period in the 1950s through to the present. By
reiterating this historical precedent – a stridently modernist activity – criticism on
concrete poetry more often than not reifies the idea that this form is still in its
infancy, requiring a citation of poetic precedent in order to justify its existence. Brion
Gysin remarked that “writing is fifty years behind painting,” (Gysin np), an assertion
evident in the cultural & critical reception for concrete poetry. Readings based upon
libidinal economies, political structures (& the refusal to reinforce these structures) &
rhizomatic readings (such as those fore-grounded below) are as valid to concrete
poetry — if not more so because of its attempt to shatter the chain of signification —
as they are in other forms of post-modern poetry. I suggest that concrete poetry can
also be closely read in conjunction with Sianne Ngai’s idea of a poetics of disgust as
a ‘inarticulate mark’ that
deliberately interferes with close reading, a practice based on the principle
that what is at stake in every textual encounter is a hidden or buried object, a
concept of symbolic meaning that can be discovered by the reader only if she
or he reads ‘deeply’ enough. (Ngai 116)
1
Translated by Christopher Mulrooney as “One Toss of the Dice will never Abolish Chance.”
2
Using the term “concrete poetry” (as opposed to the more accepted term “visual poetry”) is also quite
problematic, & is further discussed in a pair of interviews I conducted with Paul Dutton & Darren
Wershler-Henry in filling Station magazine (see the bibliography for more details).
2. Concrete poetry momentarily rejects the idea of the readerly reward for close
reading, the idea of the ‘hidden or buried object,’ interferes with signification &
momentarily interrupts the capitalist structure of language.
*
Concrete poetry has expanded beyond the tightly modernist “clean concrete”
poems of the 1950s — typified by Eugen Gomringer & Mary Ellen Solt. Gomringer &
Solt sought simplicity & clarity in their materialist use of semantic particles
(Gomringer’s “Silencio” & Solt’s “Flowers in Concrete” are examples). Gomringer
argues that concrete poetry is an essentially modernist gesture that “realize[s] the
idea of a universal poetry” & can “unite the view of the world expressed in the
mother tongue with physical reality” (“Concrete Poetry” np). Created by a dictatorial
author-function, the modernist concrete poem limits & sanctions the role of the
reader according to strict formulations; the reading space is “ordered by the poet
[…h]e determines the play-area, the field or force & suggests its possibilities” (“From
Line to Constellation” np). Writing in 1954, Gomringer argued for a poetic which both
reflects & augments commercial advertisements & graphic design:
[h]eadlines, slogans, groups of sounds & letters give rise to forms which could
be models of a new poetry just waiting to be taken up for meaningful use […]
So the new poem is simple & can be perceived visually as a whole as well as
in its parts. (“From Line to Constellation” np).
Gomringer proposes that “languages are on the road to formal simplification;
abbreviated, restricted forms of language are emerging” (“From Line to
Constellation” np). This reduction & “simplification” of language — this attempt to
create a universal poetic based on headlines & slogans — is now completely
submerged into contemporary graphic design & advertising. As Marjorie Perloff
states, this
3. call for what Eugen Gomringer has characterized as ‘reduced language’ for
‘poems […] as easily understood as signs in airports & traffic signs,’ runs the
risk of producing poems ‘poems’ that are airport & traffic signs.
(120, original emphasis)
The form of the modernist concrete poem today is no more than an advertisement;
completely co-opted by the ‘golden arches’, the Nike ‘swoosh’, & the Dell logo. By
aping slogans & corporate logos as poetic forms, modernist concrete directly &
unquestioningly underwrites Capitalist exchange, & “[t]he question remains […]
whether the conflation of concrete poetry & advertising isn’t a kind of dead end for
the former” (Perloff 119).
*
The concrete poetry which I endorse here — & which stylistically is of most
influence on my own work — is a poetic without direct one-to-one signification. It is
rhizomatic in composition, pointing both to & away from multiple shifting clouds of
meanings & construction, where writing “has nothing to do with signifying […] it has
to do with surveying [&] mapping” (Deleuze & Guattari 7). A rhizome is a non-
centered, supportive system (think of the growth patterns of mushrooms & peanuts)
— an “antigeneology” (7) resistant to the type of the modernist situating within a
historical framework to which concrete poetry is so often subjected. Instead of a
single, arborescent (think of branches forming around a monolithic centre) historical
& critical framework, rhizomatic writing is “a map not a tracing”; & as a map it has
multiple entryways, as opposed to the tracing, which always comes back to
the ‘same’. The map has to do with performance, whereas the tracing always
involved an alleged ‘competence’. (Deleuze & Guattari 12)
The writing I foreground in these “multiple entryways” is that which focuses on
excess — the leftovers, the refuse, the waste. Writing which overflows the container
of the hegemony.
4. *
Concrete poetry, as Steve McCaffery argues in regard to bill bissett’s writing,
embodies an “interplay of forces & intensities, both through & yet quite frequently
despite, language” in a flow of “non-verbal energy” (93). This flow, McCaffery
argues, is composed of “forces oppositionally related to the signifying graphism of
writing” (94) which struggle against the “constraint mechanisms of grammar” (93).
This oppositionality in bissett’s writing is not only seen in his letter-based work, but
also in his body of concrete poetry — & is indicative of a larger movement in
concrete poetry. I believe that this movement rejects the “valorization of the
representational” (McCaffery “Writing as a General Economy” 202) in favour of an
economic interplay of meaning & eruption. I propose a poetic where the author-
function is fulfilled both by the biological ‘author’ of the text, & the technology by
which it is created. Business machines & tools — the printer, photocopier, shredder,
scanner, 3-hole punch, letraset (dry-transfer) — move beyond the role of device in
concrete poetry through a poetics of waste & refuse — into a role closer to that of
author/reader. If “Capitalism begins when you / open the Dictionary” (McCaffery
“Lyric’s Larnyx” 178), then concrete poetry is a means of political & economic
critique upon both reading & writing practice & the Capitalist means of exchange.
I recognize that theorizing a language outside of Capitalist exchange is
problematic, but what I am concerned with proposing is a writing that articulates a
poetics troubling that economic master narrative. Because “[a]ll that signifies can be
sold” (bpNichol “Catalogue of the ’Pataphysical Hardware Company” 161), I am
intrigued by the possibility of a (briefly) non-signifying poetic. The 26-letter alphabet
has been completely co-opted by the Capitalist hegemony as a system of materialist
exchange. As “a rule of grammar is a power marker before it is a syntactic marker”
(Deleuze & Guattari 76) syntax & grammar both reinforce the master narrative. Any
movement to refuse or oppose Capitalism in writing only serves to reify it as the
5. other, reinforcing its grip on representational language. The best we can strive for
are momentary eruptions of non-meaning which are then co-opted back into
representation by the very act of identification, pointing & naming. These brief
eruptions
disengage with the idea of transmission of meaning through heavily codified &
linear language in favour of ambiguity […] disrupt[ing] the possibility of a
transferal of Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of Capitalist ideology through text as
regulated by grammar & syntax. (Christie 4)
However brief these eruptions of ambiguity are, they still work as an opposition to
narrative & meaning politically & economically.
Writing that works within a general economy “transgresses the prohibition of
semantic operation & risks the loss of meaning” — meaning written in the terms of a
restricted economy. In concrete poetry, the excesses & eruptions of a general
economy are prioritized as “a return to the material base of language […] as a
method of losing meaning, holding on to graphicism” (McCaffery “Writing as a
General Economy” 214). The “presupposed stasis” (201) of the restricted economy is
troubled through ongoing general economic eruptions — much like the spread of
acne on previously smooth faced pubescent. In concrete poetry the restricted
economic meaning “complicate[d] & unsettle[d]” (209) by libidinal eruptions spreads
both micro- & macro-scopically to include systems of exchange from the graphic
symbols of language (letters, punctuation, etc) through to the containers of this
communication (the page, book, etc.). The matter of the restricted economy shifts
from an investment in communication through the visual mark (the grapheme) to an
investment in the mark itself, the grapheme & the container of communication. The
economic relationship of restricted to general is one of flux as;
6. often we will detect a rupture made & instantly appropriated by the
restrictive. The meaningless, for example, will be ascribed a meaning; loss
will be rendered profitable by its being assigned a value
(McCaffery “Writing as a General Economy” 203).
*
The libidinal excess typified in machine-based concrete poetry is not tied to a
biological author, but rather to the excess & waste caused in the production by
business machines of “correct” & legible documents. The shifting distinction between
general & restrictive economies in machine-based concrete poetry, revolves not only
around textual meaning, but also the categorization of text, & the role of writer in
book production & consumption:
Ink, as the amorphous liquid that the word & latter shape into visible
meaning, is shown to be of the order of a powerful, anti-semantic force,
perhaps the ‘instinctual’ linguistic ‘unconscious’ repressed within writing.
(McCaffery “Bill Bissett” 105)
These texts are the documentation of the waste & excess produced through non-
prescribed use of business machines. The documentation of this libidinal excess, of
this waste, categorizes “the letter not as phoneme but as ink, & further insist[s] on
that materiality” (McCaffery “Bill Bissett” 105). By using the machines for unintended
purpose “non-meaning” erupts in the creation of “meaningful” (business related)
documents.
A parallel can be drawn between business-machine based concrete poetry &
the poetry of RACTER — the “most highly developed artificial writer in the field of
prose synthesis” (Racter np) — has an implicit challenge to the role of the author in
the creation of poetry. Machine-based poetry, whether the work of RACTER,
photocopy degeneration, or the refuse created by shredders & 3-hole punches,
7. demonstrates the fundamental irrelevance of the writing subject in the
manufacture of the written product […]for the machine, the category of the
author has simply vanished, subsumed by a detached language that can
function perfectly well, despite the absence of poetic agency. (Bök 10-12)
Machine-based poetry questions both the author-function, but also the way that text
accumulates & is dispersed on the page. John Riddell’s “a shredded text” (1989) for
instance, provides a source text to the machine which then “reads” the text &
excretes the waste material of that consumption; “a tangle of page strips excreted
from the nether end of a paper shredder” (Wershler-Henry 124). The general
economic use of a machine created to be used in a restricted economy troubles not
only the “use-value” of the machines but also that of the writer.
Riddell, as author becomes implicit in a restricted economy acting as editor to
restrict the amount of waste that permitted to enter the manuscript of book. General
& restricted economies shift as the normally restrictive site of creation (the machine)
becomes creator of excess & non-meaning based writing. The author has become the
voice of restraint & reason attempting to limit the presentation of continuous waste
production as writing. The “cautious proceduralities” (McCaffery “Writing as a
General Economy” 203) of structural poetics are discarded in favour of the
documentation of a reading machine’s waste as textual production. The paper
shredder fractures the text through a “willing error” from a single united field of
meaning with accepted social value to a series of pieces increasing “the rate &
momentum of […]disposal” (McCaffery “Writing as a General Economy” 220)
spreading value across a larger field.
What radical concrete presents to the reader is a record of the w a s t e
produced by the consumption (reading) of a text by a machine. If “[t]o read […] is a
labour of language. To read is to find meanings” (Barthes 11), then the consumption
& expulsion of texts by machines such as photocopies & shredders also finds
8. meanings where meanings are not expected, fracturing the text at the level of the
seme. In a text where “everything signifies ceaselessly & several times, but without
being delegated to a great final ensemble, to an ultimate structure” (Barthes 12)
even waste becomes poetically charged.
To discuss mechanically-produced poetry libidinally in terms of “waste” &
“excess” is troubled, because to dismiss these works out-of-hand as unintentional
could be considered “anthropic prejudice” as “what we might dismiss as a technical
fault in a device, we might otherwise glorify as a stylistic quirk in a person” (Bök 10-
12). The machinistic impulse to create is beyond the frame of this paper, however
“because the machine derives pleasure from its function, it cannot, as yet, exceed
the stoic limit of its own fixed logic, except perhaps when an accident, like a […]
glitch, occurs” (Bök 16). By embracing the poetics of glitch — the mistake beyond
“human error” — we assign the generative space of the minimal swerve of error to a
process-based poetics, where the process & the product are controlled by the device,
& not the author:
the clinamen of such a disaster may in fact indicate the symptom of some
obscure passion in the machine — an ironic reflex, perhaps, not unlike the
apostasy of mischief (Bök 16).
Echoing Marshall McLuhan, bpNichol suggested that in photocopier degeneration
poetry “the machine is the message […t]he text itself ultimately disappears” (Sharp
Facts np).
*
The voicing of these texts, like the texts themselves, is “pulled off the page
even as [it] disintegrate[s], a double thrust of text into silence” (Nichol np). In my
own practice concrete poetry is not a score for oral performance & is not meant to be
articulated in sound. This “double thrust of text into silence” then becomes another
issue of the rejection of exchange in concrete poetry. While the concrete poet cannot
9. control how the reader will approach – or even perform a text – it is my aim to step
away from performance of these poems in order to further complicate the exchange
value of poetry. While ‘value’ & ‘commodity’ are never completely escaped, its
transferal can be troubled by the removal of the verbal from the communication
equation:
Communication ‘occurs’ by means of a sole instantaneous circuit, & for it to
be ‘good’ communication must take place fast – there is no time for silence.
Silence is banished from our screens; it has no place in communication. Media
images […] never fall silent: images & messages must follow one upon the
other without interruption. But silence is exactly that – a blip in the circuitry;
a minor catastrophe, a slip which […] becomes highly meaningful – a break
laden now with anxiety, now with jubilation. (Baudrillard 13)
The performative “minor catastrophe” operates as an economic clinamen; a minimal
swerve away from the normative creation of a spoken text.
This refusal to participate in the oral performance of concrete poetry by
rejecting the idea of the visual poem as score for orality — & the composition of
concrete poetry itself – relates to Sianne Ngai’s idea of a poetics where “disgust, &
not desire, is our most common effective response to capitalism & patriarchy” (Ngai
98). A poetic of disgust includes both the “the figure of the turn, or moment of
exclusion […t]he movement away from the object as if to shun it” & the “negative
utterance” (103). I extend Ngai’s formulation of the “inarticulate sound” to print-
based media as well as the ‘inarticulate mark’. Ngai suggests that one of the
articulations of disgust is the “inarticulate sound” where “[n]o words are used in the
expression of disgust & thus the question of what words ‘mean’ is simply irrelevant
to this particular type of utterance” (Ngai 103). Concrete poetry – the ‘inarticulate
mark’ – treats language as “raw matter” without a reinforced referent as a means to
briefly interrupt capitalist exchange-based signification by
10. insisting on the disappearance of the referent while at the same time refusing
to defer to other terms. It won’t coagulate into a unitary meaning & it also
won’t move; it can’t be displaced. (Ngai 114)
The ‘inarticulate mark’ of concrete poetry ultimately expresses a poetics of disgust &
exclusion, where its language “only covers a space; the reader cannot fix it
metaphorically, assign a concept to it, nor send it on a metonymic voyage along a
chain of other terms” (Ngai 114).
Concrete poetry as an ‘inarticulate mark’ is a formulation of a poetics of excess;
an excess which is not one of desire, but instead one of revulsion & rejection. Unlike
clean modernist concrete, contemporary concrete poetry distances itself from a
universal language of sloganeering & advertising. It actively attempts to interrupt
language’s making of capitalist value through the dis-assembly & re-assembly of the
mark & the grapheme. Concrete poetry as a momentarily non-signifying map is an
always impossible system of inarticulation, caught in the double-bind of the creation
of meaning.
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