29/9/06 - English Literature - The Role of the Reader 2

• Passive
• Active
• Reciprocal.

Wolgang Iser, The Implied Reader. Regarded as foundation writer on literary theory. Follows reciprocal theory. Two people looking at stars may see different constellations. "The 'stars' in a literary text are fixed; the lines that join them are variable."

Annotating texts makes you a co-writer, changing the meaning of the text.

Iser's Interaction between Text and Reader. Two Poles: artistic pole the author's text, aesthetic pole the reader's interpretation.

E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Meaning. Any text can be made to mean anything. Plurality of meanings. Criticised fellow critics for using particular texts to 'prove' their literary theories because any text can be made to mean anything. To try to understand what the author 'means' by reading other works, autobiography, etc. but this also involves reading and interpretation, therefore circular.

Paradise Lost. "To justify the ways of God to man." God informs author, reader reads, and reader also knows the ways of God.

C. S. Lewis. 1) What poet says; 2) The thing he makes. Both are ways in which poems can be considered.

Shelley, A Defense of Poetry, 1821. Beleived Satan was the hero of the epic, not God. Blake thought this also. Civil disobedience at height of this time may explain this view.

Was Milton on God's or Satan's side?

Fish, 1967. Two groups: One believed Satan hero (due to style of poem); other believed God hero (thought this Milton's purpose).

Ambiguity in Paradise Lost (Fish) so that it leaves open this decision to each reader.

Intentional and affective fallacy.

Roland Barthes, Death of the Author.

The Open Text. Barthes: writerly texts and readerly texts, e.g. Paradise Lost open to all kinds of interpretation.

Writerly texts - plurality of reading. Infinite connections can be made in the text. Universality.

Berthold Brecht, alienation effect. Dramatic theatre: "I weep when they weep; I laugh when they laugh." Identifying. Agreeing with someone's view of the world. Epic theatre: "I weep when they laugh; I laugh when they weep." Notion of new ideas, changes someone's view of the world.

A Brief History of Reading. Disappearance of textual meaning, in Confessions. Detective novel with no conclusion. Unanswered questions.

Devout readers, early readers. St Augustine's Confessions.

Jerome saw a new method of reading in Milan. St Augustine reading without speaking! Never seen before!

Texts written for affluent female readers. Authors rarely signed these works. Lavish covers. Private reading. Illustration of female individual on front.

Canterbury Tales, Middle England. At that time, scribes wrote each book and signed them. Relates to Chaucer so each scribe influenced the text as he wrote it.

Seventeenth to eighteenth century. Rise of polite readership, e.g. Henry Raeburn's Dr Hamilton. Books for nobility, sign of status. Walter Scott's library showed him a gentleman and status. Not to read, just for show.

Cheap fiction, new technology. Popular literature - violence, crime, etc. Sweeney Todd, e.g. Satirised by members of polite press. Taxes on books and newpapers to stop people reading 'bad' texts.

Pickwick Papers. New serialised fiction. (1836-37) Low investment, loyal readers, suspense, publicity, new market.

Magazines, published serial fiction, e.g. Middlemarch.

End of nineteenth century. Intellects dismayed by popularity of fiction. Ulysses expensive so only gentility afforded it. Returned to pre-industrial methods of publishing.

The cult of the author.

Marketers nowadays hire authors, rather than authors looking for publishers. Authors have little to do with overall conception of books. So why are we preoccupied with authorial purpose?

W. B. Yeats, 1939.

28/9/06 - History of Art - The Artist

E Fernie, Rebels and Martyrs: The Changing Status of the Artist.
www.groveart.co.uk

1. Historical concept of individual artist: Medieval craftsman to Romantic genius.
2. Emphasis of art history on individual artist.
3. Market value of the artist.
4. Problems and alternatives.

Van Gogh. Self-portrait. Detroit: Van Gogh conforms to artist as 'outsider'; curator's explanation for success of Van Gogh's exhibition. Individual creator is a modern perception, used to be a 'humble craftsman'.

Phidias, famous classical Greek sculptor.
Also, by Polyclitus. Interested in symmetry of human body.
The Doryphorus. Both famous for successful workshops. Regarded as artisans; alongside barbers, blacksmiths, cooks, etc.

Stoics always acknowledged artists able to experience great inspiration.

1300s - books published about biographical side of artists.

Artists generally placed in guilds, workshops. Working for church or nobility. Sculptors put in workshops with carpenters, jewellers, etc., depending on city. Each city had own style. Florence first challenged artistic laws. Brunelleschi (designed Cupola of Duoma, Florence). He had a new consciousness of perception of artists. Albeti published first book stating artists should be elevated above craftsmen. Intellectual, polished, virtuous. Renaissance artists - long periods of work alone.

Later writer stressed biography of artists as separate from everyday craftsmen.

Vasari enhanced visions of artists. Character traits. Prolonged periods of reflection.

Leonardo worked dawn to dusk, forgetting to eat and for many days standing round in deep thought doing nothing.

Vasari believed artists should blend into society. Admired Raphael in terms of dignity, beauty, etc.

Mid 1500s. Adopted rational, elevated view of artists. Artists placed amongst nobility. Artists' self-portraits show them as successful worldly men, e.g. Rubens, Bernini. Sir Joshua Reynolds (first president, Royal Academy). Knighted for contribution to art. Self-portrait: proud, bust of Michelangelo, associated with Rembrandt. Celebrity status, shown by funeral.

Romantic artists struggled for freedom from Royal Academy. Break from rational artist to fantasy painting, e.g. Blake. Ancient of Days and Glad Day.

Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818.
Henry Wallis, Death of Chatterton, 1856.
Romantic notions of suicide.
Leonardo Alenza y Nieto, Satire on Romantic Suicide, 1839.
Delacroix, Michelangelo in his Studio. Solitary, melancholic.
Courbet, Man with a Pipe. Realism. But Romantic view, rebel.
Gauguin, Christ in the Garden of Olives, 1889. Solitary genius. Represents himself as Christ, a loner.
Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, Bandaged Ear, 1889. Tortured genius.
Pollock, Drip Painting. Isolation, self-awareness. "When I'm in my painting I'm not aware of what I'm doing."

Emphasis of art history on individual artists.

Books study artists' biography and works in-depth.

A move towards formalism.

Catalogue raisonne. Detailed chronological catalogue of works.

Monographic exhibition catalogue. These are more popular than mixed exhibitions.

Awarding of prizes places emphasis on individual artists.

Films celebrate lives of individual artists. Pollock. Surviving Picasso. I Shot Andy Warhol.

Market value.
$82.5 million for Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr Gachet, 1890. Year he shot himself, his psychiatric doctor.

In 2004, $104.17 million. Picasso, Garcon a la Pipe, 1905. Picasso regarded as significant figure in twentieth-century art.

$135 million, Klimt's Portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907. Popular, accessible. Court case, belonged to Jewish family, publicity.

Pollock, Warhol, etc. valuable work.

$11.65 million, Pollock.

Raphael Madonna and the Pinks. Concluded genuine according to style, scientific examination.

Zandomeneghi, In Bed, 1878.

Celebrating avant-garde too much?
What about artists that were contemporarily popular, e.g. Bouguereau, Art and Literature. Zandomeneghi, etc.

Chicago led group of artists, proclaimed art as group activity.
Feminist art. Lipstick bathroom.
The Dinner Party. Thirty-nine mythical female figures set in triangle (female shape). Emily Dickinson.

28/9/06 - Classical Literature - Iliad: Books 2-6

Gap between Gods and men is impassable in Iliad. Homer maintains this division. 18:117-119. Even Hercules is sated. In Odyssey there is a place equatable to heaven. But Homer is not 'strict', there may have been different beliefs at the time. What were the beliefs of Homer's audience? By 'confusing' Gods and heroes and maintaining division, Homer gives poignance to Iliad. Unbending heroes; they sometimes refuse to accept their mortality, greater distance to fall. Raised stakes.

Poets considered 'masters of truth', as people did believe in the Gods. More dramatic to contemporary audience. Gods sometimes give favours, but they do not have to grant the wishes of people who pray to them.

Meat considered valuable. Offered to Gods, but eaten afterwards at a feast; not wasted. Meat difficult to come by; rare, expensive.

Dramatic element to presence of Gods. When Achilleus weeps and his mother asks what's wrong, he states that she already knows; she is a goddess. He tells her anyway for the purpose of the story. Gods spectators of human life.

In book 2 Agamemnon 'tests' the army. Says he wants to go home, soldiers agree rather than disagreeing as he had purposed. For Agamemnon everything goes wrong. He cannot manipulate others yet he believes Zeus is on his side. Not self-aware.

2:211-222. Ugly people presented as base, primitive. Heroes are beautiful, graceful, etc. Homer parallels Thersites to Achilleus (abuse of Agamemnon) to emphasise Achilleus's greatness. Thersites is rebuked by Odysseus.

There is no clear chain of command between princes/kings and others. They contest each other's authority. Iliad deals with highest elements; tradition of stories about great people only. Written for nobility? Court poetry. Could explain Thersites' treatment.

Only low person who gives a speech. Is he noble in some way? Demonstrates crude and primitive society of Homer's. At same time, gives comical relief to story.

End of book 2, catalogue of ships. Why ships? Convenience of groups. Introduction to battle; could be a kind of domesday register.

Book 3, introduction to heroes. Helen tells Priam. Gives magnitude and grandeur to story. Paris and Menelaos duel. Homer 'telescopes' - takes sections from story of Troy that do not normally appear in this section and puts them in his story for dramatic effect. One magical section; Aphrodite saves Paris and 'makes' Helen want to make love with him. Again, juxtaposition of different parts of the story.

Pandorus breaks truce by firing an arrow. Homer points out that 'the Tojans started it'.

In book 4, second review of army by Agamemnon. Diomedes introduced. Equates to Achilleus, but second to him because he is not as dynamically interested. Agamemnon tells Diomedes he isn't as great as his father - another sign of bad ruling. Diomedes doesn't stoop to this level, does not 'fall for the bait'.

Pandorus killed by Diomedes and Diomedes' aristeia (his shining moment, his peak performance). Diomedes given gift of seeing Gods, wounds Aphrodite.

Diomedes wounded in heel - similar to Achilleus. Significant.

Homer chooses realism over magical (in general).

Book 6, Achaians there for money, women, etc. Balance agaisnt Trojans who are fighting for their lives. Glaukos (Trojan) and Diomedes exchange armour. 6:145. A bad trade of armour? Gold for bronze. BUT he got away with his life.

At end of book 6 Hektor wants to go back to battle.
Hecuba offers him wine. He looks for Paris, so refuses the wine.
Helen often said to be flirting. Unlikely.

Andromache. 6:396, she wants him to stay, believes he will die.

These try to detain him from battle. 288-295. Paris's guilt.
Hektor a 'fuller' character than Achilleus. Hektor fights for his brother, because of his folly.
In scene with baby. A kind of farewell. Hektor sees that it is the doom of Troy but he fights on. He remains hopeful.
Reread. How book 6 is coordinated.

28/9/06 - English Literature - The Role of the Reader

The term 'reader' is a loose term. But what does this concept mean? Identity of reader? Relationship to text, author, the world, etc?

Structuralists and poststructuralists. Counter-intuitive texts.

The House was Quiet and the World was Calm by Wallace Stevens (1947). The text, the reader's mind and the world beyond. No boundaries between them. Intimate and mystical process of reading. The Mirror and the Lamp (about Romantic poetry). M. H. Abrams.

Universe
Artist - WORK - Audience

Each element can be put into centre.
E.g. Work - objective meaning. It is an art in itself. What does the text mean?
Artist - expressive theory. What did the author purpose?
Universe - memetic theory. Mirrors social values. Outside reader's mind.
Audience - pragmatic theory. How readers bring assumptions to text.

Freund: "Such a model always places text in the middle of the diagram.

Shannon-Weaver model.
Source -> Encoder -(channel)> Decoder -> Receiver (meaning)
So, Author -(writes)>Text -(reads)> Reader

What did the author mean? How does the reader interpret?

Validity of linear model. Reverse arrows?
Mediation of meaning through text/discourse.

New criticism.
Two fallacies:
1) Intentional (author's thoughts and aims)
2) Affective (reader's response)
Internal structure (objective) has nothing to do with anything outside itself. Not dynamic.

1) Intentional. E.g. Wordsworth. have to read his other works, biography, etc. to understand the meaning of one poem.

2) Affective. All meanings are legitimate. subjective. "In that direction lies madness." Irrelevant fallacy?

Wimsatt and Beardsley, The Affective Fallacy, 1954.
Intentional fallacy ends in biographical relativism.
Affective fallacy ends in impressionism and relativism.

T.S. Eliot, The Function of Criticism, 1923.
Critic = reader.
No subjectivity in criticism, just a search for scientific objectivity.

Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1968.
Intentionality is false. Locus of meaning is with reader. Thus 'death of the author'. Author's intention irrelevant. Originality and genius are impossibilities. All texts are fabrics of other texts. Extreme?

Where does literary meanings lie? The mind of the reader? Inscribed in text? Consciousness and phemonemology world outside.

To what extent is a reader the agent of meaning in a text? Or is he passive?

Kinds of reading:
Passive
Active
Intended
Reciprocal

Intended
J. Hawthorn, Unlocking the Text, 1987.
Intended reader... the author must have a notion of who his audience is before he can write. Problematic; exclusively a reader int he text. Extension of new critic formula?

Atwood imagined a masculine audience. Later maintained her reader was a woman. This idea of intended reader has some validity but also limitations.

But canonical texts have been read by non-contemporary people.

Passive
Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, 1969.
Interpolation, a process occurring as a reader reads a text. Reader is a 'subject' to the text. Act of reading only gives 'illusion' of freedom. Pessimistic view of reading. Reader never active.

Georges Poulet, Criticism and the Experience of Interiority.
Gives meaning to phrase "I got lost in a book". New relationship between subject and object. Paradox, states text is hypnotic, draws you in. Advocate of passive reader... "[the reader] becomes the prey of language..."
But does this theory apply to reading a manual? He refers mostly to novels and poetry.

Active
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, 1993.
Should see texts suspiciously. Look for gaps in text - what it doesn't tell us rather than what it does. No fixed/intentional meaning. Various manifestations at different times.

Reciprocal
Margaret Atwood, Second Words, 1982.
Reading changes the reader. Instability of consciousness in reader. Made into a different person. Everything in flux, dynamic, changing, fluid.

Back to Wallace Stevens's poem. Identifies with Poulet. Getting lost in reading. Ranges freely over many theories related above. Intellectually challenging.

26/9/06 - History of Art - What is Romanticism?: Issues of Identity and Difference

Romanticism a broad term. Seen as different polarity.
Vibrant, passionate, personal, feelings.

Bonaparte Crossing the Saint-Bernarde Pass. Dramatic, larger-than-life. But can also be considered neo-classical so there is overlap. David's pupil Girodet also paints in a cross-over of the styles. Ingres. Frieze-like, marble-like 'dream', neo-classical. But depicts irrationality; therefore romantic also. So styles are flexible - art historians should not stick to rigid guidelines. Illucid.

Classicism related to imperial Rome and Napoleon. The mood in French society changed, thus Romanticism.

Ingres's Roger and Angelica. Dramatic lighting, eroticism - suggests romanticism but supposed to be neoclassicist. Drawn from ancient history, controlled, frieze-like, figures of grandeur. Neoclassicist?

Gericault. The Charging Chasseur. Depicting great hero, dynamism, baroque diagonal, virility. In contrast, Wounded Cuirassier. At time of political opposition. Pathetic fallacy, doom. The Raft of the 'Medusa' used to attack monarchical regime. Baroque diagonal. Used dead models from morgue for skin tone, and used friends as models for dead. Catastrophe. Anxiety, anticipation. Moment before climax. Gericault deliberated about which moment in the tale he would paint (seen in sketches). Left, despair; right, hope. Emotionally and politically charged.

Romanticism derived from French for 'story'. Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus. Bright colours, complementary (red/green), sense of conflict, drama. Image of sex and violence. Inspired by Byron's work. In 1840 he painted crusaders at war in the east. Emotion, gesture, traditional western painting. Inspiration from classical literature and the Bible. Death of Ophelia, Abduction of Rebecca. Scott and Byron encompassed modern sensibility. Medea and her Children, from Jason and the Golden Fleece. Triangular composition reminiscent of Virgin Mary, but contorted into scene of violence.

Romanticism and workings of the inner mind. Gericault painted portraits of people suffering mental problems. Kleptomaniac. Delacroix painted Michelangelo procrastinating. Romanticism expressing anxiety of changing world.

Landscape perviously depicted harmony, idealism, particularly Italy's landscape. During Romanticism this was rejected. Nationhood was heightened in importance, e.g. Constable in Britain.

Corot changed from painting French landscape to medieval architecture. Romantic painters concentrated on conflicting, dramatic landscapes. Rousseau's pantheistic view led him to paint trees, overlapping Romanticism with Realism.

Orientalism, the Middle East. Napoleon invaded Egypt and now Christian Europe confronted Middle East, not necessarily in a violent way. Exotic influences enter paintings. Ingres's Odalisque and Slave and Delacroix's Women of Algiers. Sensuous, languorous. Establishes difference in cultures. William Holman Hunt, Egyptian themes. Painters depicted customs, culture, architecture as a record for Europe. New use - getting the setting for Biblical scenes accurate while availability allowed. Orientalism was adapted for the painter's purpose, for politics, style, artifice, etc.

Delacroix respected Arabs above Europeans. Graceful, orderly, politeness, style of dress, as shown in his watercolour Young Arab in His Room. Vernet depicted order, system. Arab Story-Teller. Again, shows respect.

But other Delacroix paintings depict the difference between Middle East and Europe. Fanatics of Tangier. Political. Dismissive. Inaccurate depictions, due to artist's purpose. Ingres's Turkish Bath. Gerome depicts harem, Grand Bath at Bursa. These are fantasies, not allowed to be painted in France but acceptable in Middle East.

Romanticism benefited from Enlightenment. Accentuates mood, emotion. Individuality. Modern. But also dwelled in past, did not reject classicism. Showed anxiety about change in society. Art is interlocked in broad social issues. Diversity.

26/9/06 - Classical Literature - Iliad: Books 1-2

Sing. First word, sets theme.
In Greek, menis - rage, wrath.
So, theme is Achilleus's wrath.

Muses - goddesses, daughters of Memory. (9)
For Iliad they are also daughters of Zeus.
Homer believed in Muses, goddesses of poetry. And traditional. So in the first line he entreats them to sing a traditional song about the wrath of Achilleus. They are also the gateway between Gods and men so Homer can write about the activities of both. Also, as daughters of Memory they can relate to Homer events of the past. As they are Muses, this entreaty also encompasses asking them to give him inspiration for the tale he is about to embark on.

2:484. Introduction to catalogue of ships, entreating the Muses.

Evidence for performance. Speaker would speak to the Muses before performance to tell the audience what to expect from it.

Achilleus is ambiguous because he is the greatest hero but he is too angry, short-tempered, etc.

Patronymic, stating the name of father of person being referred to. E.g. Achilleus, son of Peleus; Zeus, son of Kronos; etc.

NOTE: Names ending in os/us are Latinate, e.g. Achilleus/Achilles. Unresolved, Paris/Alexandros.

"The will of Zeus was accomplished" - unclear, but could refer to the Gods' plan to create a war to reduce the population of the earth.

Agamemnon presented as a bad king.

First sign that they are in conflict - it is Achilleus who calls the assembly; promises to protect Kalchas from Agamemnon. E.g. 1:106, 122... they argue, insulting each other one after another. Nestor mediator - dignified.

Zeus owes Thetis a favour for saving him against the other gods. So Zeus is obliged to assent to her wishes. Elevated tone of story - divine intervention. Nobility. When Zeus nods he shakes Olympus. He asserts his authority over Hera. Dignity. Heaven still idealised, arguments resolved. Comic relief in final book.

Achilleus points out that the war is over a 'mere' woman. Gods do not succumb to this folly, although Zeus and Hera often disagree. His superiority overrules; he keeps his wife in order.

Heroes likened to Gods. Gods likewise have human qualities; pettiness, whims, brutality.

How do the Gods intervene? The Gods are made rational - when Athene pulls at Achilleus's hair he is said to have second thoughts, because Athene is the goddess of wisdom.

Human weakness: thinking themselves gods, immortal.

26/9/06 - English Literature - Larkin and Prynne

Reflect on what literature is, how it should be read, etc. etc.

Reading brings assumptions implicitly.

E.g. Mansfield Park was not at first read in post-colonial context until Said put it into that context.

'Pure' or 'just reading' isn't possible.

Similar backgrounds, Larkin and Prynne: both Oxbridge graduates born in same generation. So should be similar poems?

Prynne: no public profile until recently. First published 1999 by bigger publisher.

Larkin: larger public profile.

High Windows, by Larkin
What do we bring to bear on this poem?

Assumptions about language; coherent, sentences, colloquial style, internal monologue, makes sense, communicates an idea, grammar and syntax, vernacular, literal statement mixed with figurative language, e.g. similes, metaphors ('long slide').

'High windows' symbolise something else. Carries meaning of the poem. Idea of 'thought' surpassing words. More obscure than similies or metaphors.

Therefore, these assumptions influence our reading. If there is communication, someone must be doing the communicating. 'I' represents a speaker, assumption is someone is speaking to the reader. Telling a story of what happens in his consciousness: seeing something which made him think of something. Reflecting on his position in the world.

Ideas about literature. Allusions to past literary figures. Stanzas half- or full-rhymes, e.g. Hardy, Yeats (movement about mundane life, bigger than related moment). Generic indicators - lyric poem. What is a lyric? Spontaneous expression of powerful feelings. Reflecting on such feelings. Resort to feeling, sensation, thoughts. Symbolic illumination at end. Therefore, genre gives us expectations as to how to read something, and we read it accordingly.

Poem requires assumptions also within it. Still difficult to master the poem, wrong assumptions. Assumptions may not add up entirely, or fit together very well.

Last stanza, paradox. Words inferior, can't expolain. But the poet does put it into words. So not true to its premises. Some literal, some figurative language - must correctly read these. Irony; "I know this is paradise," but he may mean "hell". Is it good to "push aside bonds and gestures"? Does the speaker agree? Are we supposed to regard the speaker as an ironic figure rather than honourable? Are we supposed to agree, or are we supposed to be cynical? Where does the irony stop? So irony has complicated our understanding.

Our assumptions may hinder, then, our reading of the poem. It brings our assumptions to the surface only to make us question them.

Of Movement Towards a Natural Place, by Prynne
Language as a communication is gone. The sentences make no sense: "What mean square error." Disjointed syntax, conflicting, juxtaposition of words with syntax that makes no sense. Everything is incongruous: which parts are similes, metaphors? Confusion between literal and figurative. No grasp of either.

Questions about the speaker. No psychological conclusion about speaker: Larkin could be embittered, nostalgic. But Prynne is indiscernable. Is there more than one speaker? No speech marks. Quotations from Dickens, medical language, inverted commas. Disrupting syntax, or putting it in syntactically sound place but still makes no sense.

General agreement of 'uprising' in last stanza but no more. Nothing conclusive as in Larkin.

So is it a poem? Is it a joke?Linguistic key? A code? Neither gobbledegook nor sensical. Fragmented quotes. There is rhythmic regularity. Stanzas. There is no sense of internal or external world being communicated. Subjective to objective. Experimental language of science. Different assumptions to Larkin.

Deploy expectations differently. Different assumptions to account for it. More reading, more assumptions come to bear.

25/9/06 - History of Art - Jaques-Louis David: Style and the State

David, 1748-1825.

1. Stylistic change. Rococo mid-18th to neo-classical Europe 1780-1830. Importance in style.

2. French revolution, 1789. Radical politics. Republican. Napoleon. To what extent did David develop his own style, or shape it on politics?

Relationship between artist and society.

Mars and Minerva - a Rococo painting. Soft, sensual forms. Rich colour. History painting (top of hierarchy of genres). Conventionally classical mythology, history and Bible. Moralistic - "an example of virtue". Must be intelligent to understand the painting. Composition is complicated, lots of figures, telling a story. Next in hierarchy, portraiture. Portraits of kings, noble. Genre painting (everyday life). Then still life. Vulcan and Venus.

Classical art of ancient Greece in 18th century. Looking back on the classical arts. Authoritative architecture. Classical content. 1775-1780 studying at Rome. David's Belsarus shows a new image of painting. No sentiment. Poussin's work is very orderly and is deep.

David was commissioned to paint The Oath of the Horatii, a typical neo-classical piece. Background harks to a theatrical stage. Clear stage. Dramatic lighting. Architecture, repetition and order. Depicts Roman republican family. Gender differences. It set a new stylistic tone. Revived. Idealised awareness of classical. David's favourite pupil adopted his style.

Death of Socrates. About sacrifice. Socrates about to drink hemlock. Similarity to Poussin.

Rococo portrait. Elegant, virility, grace. Le Voissier and his Wife. Neo-classic. Bougoire. Shows devotion of woman, work of the man.

Paris and Helen contains some Rococo style.

Brutus' Sons Returned. Stern, austere. Shallow space. Dramatic poses. Gaze drawn to grieving women, then to feet of corpse, then to Brutus. A successful painting, popular.

David turned against Royal Academy. Elected member of National Convention. Politics, depicted Marat murdered in his bath (studied medicine at Edinburgh). Marat at work, no scabs (he had a skin disease), David implies religious similarities. David painted this at height of political career as republican.

Arrested due to connection with convicted Robespierre. Painted self-portrait in prison.

After prison, he painted Intervention of the Sabine Women depicting women preventing Sabines taking them back as wives; they want to stay with their kidnappers the Romans. Muted tones, controlled figures. Could depict the political battle between republicans and royalists. Post-revolutionary painting.

Ingres, a pupil of David's, took his neo-classic style from Greek vases. So his pupils personalised and developed his style.

David became painter of Napoleon. Neo-classical Bonaparte Crossing the Saint-Bernarde Pass. Napoleon strong but calm against muscular horse, dramatic mountain in background. Adapted art for political propaganda.

David's painting of Napoleon being crowned. Propaganda.

Leonada's painting. David returns to history painting of classical period. At time of painting, Napoleon was under attack from Britain, Russia, etc.

David lived in exile in Brussels as revolution quashed. He had signed death warrant of king and self-imposed this exile.

Ambitious. Opportunist. Gave dominant messages through his paintings. Public - needed to be seen. Their response. Societal response.

Art inseparate from history.

25/9/06 - Classical Literature - Iliad: An Introduction

Composed for a performance.

Story of war. Whoever wins takes wives and children of opponent as slaves or kills them. Brutality. Primitive perception of women. Ironic undertones. Celebrates nobility and grandeur of warriors. Larger-than-life heroes.

Pay special attention to books 1, 6, 9, 19, 22, 24.

Two ages: age in which Iliad was written; age in which it was set.

Debate: did Trojan war really happen?

There is a Troy. Poems that talked about a great war. Homer's version of the story surpassed others; thus it survives.

We know more than original audience of Iliad. They believed in the story, but archaeology has given us evidence. But they know more about the myths, Gods, etc.

Epic: genre. Probably not invented by Greeks. Long narrative in verse involving gods and wars. Gilgamech, hero of myth.

Gods
Zeus - King of Gods. Son of Kronos and Rheia (also known as the Titans).
Poseidon - God of Sea. Brother of Zeus.
Hades - God of underworld. Greedy.
Apollo - Archer God. Pro-Trojan. Potent, youthful.
Hera - Sister and wife of Zeus. Goddess of marriage. Pro-Achaian.
Athene - Sprang fully formed from Zeus's head. No mother. Warlike. Crafty.
Aphrodite - Goddess of sex and love.

In art, Gods portrayed naked to show their perfection.

Trojan cycle
Iliad only spans 40 days of story.

Achilleus, Agamemnon; main heroes of Iliad. Other stories of Trojan cycle mentioned in Iliad, e.g. Hercules, book 8; Seven Against Thebes, one generation before Iliad, Thebes attacked by Argives, Diomedes (son of Tydeus); Jason and the Argonauts, one generation before Iliad; Meleger and the Calydonian Boar (book 9:529-549).

In medias res. In the middle of the story. Homer selective. Intro: 12-13. Background touched on, but it's significant. Skill of poet makes Iliad great, not the content or telling great war.

22/9/06 - English Literature - John Milton and James Hogg

Milton and Hogg's texts come from unknown, alien world. Must be familiarised with history.

Grand openings in both.

Milton: long, witty, archaic, forbidding, strange literary conventions. Experience of demons, book 1 and 2. Talking, dilemmas, discussions. Must be considered a poem, not a novel. Reason, free will; key concepts in Milton. Grandeur, magnitude. Enterprise of poem set out from first lines. Style: dynamic, subtle. Explains nature of humans in terms of christianity.

"Justify the ways of God to men." 1:26. Sets out to explain the ways of humans; why are we this way? Epic; compare to Virgil/Homer.

Line 15, Milton's inspiration comes from christianity and epic. "Th' Aonian mount." Human race, not just one hero. Satan his hero? Antagonism towards authority and tradition.

Complex syntax. One sentence = 16 lines. Iambic pentameter, blank verse. Stress on important words using rhythm of poetry. "MAN'S FIRST diso-BED-ience, and the FRUIT," line 1. Emphasis, stressing.

Use of pause in line. Metrical irregularity, pause not in middle. Multi-branching. Sentences unpredictable, flow onto next lines. Control of rhythm.

Authoritative poem. Dogmatic. However, style can question this. Unpredictable. Reader has to find own meaning in various double meanings. Milton asks why. Profoundly religious. Critical, reflexive, subtle questioning of religion. Paradise Lost must be imperfect, fractured, because it is written by a 'fallen' man. Paradox.

PL composed 1658-1665. Published 1667. At a tumultuous time. Fall of republic, restoration of monarchy, Charles II. Underpins context of poem. Milton republican under Cromwell. Political, defends policies of republic. 1660 arrested. Blind. Meditation on defeat of republic? "Why did God spit in the face of the republicans?" Erring human decisions.

Free will. History can change things, but things can be intervened, changed back (see first lines). Not predestined.

Reason, e.g. demons, book 1 and 2. How do people exercise free will? Milton's concerns. Narrative technique unpredictable. Voices of characters try to reason. Truth is not self-eminent. Must be worked at. Milton illicits reason, but does not answer. Cultivate decisions, learn. Moral ambiguity.

Hogg interested in city - physically, historically. Geographical meaning. Edinburgh. Issue of authorship.

Narrative technique. Relationship to reader. Experience of writing book - "without star and compass". Abandoned direction. It took its own course. Strange, unresolved. "What can this work be?" Enigmatic. Milton begins with authorial presence. Tells purpose. Hogg - author appears at end, not beginning. First letter purposes excavation with preserved body. True letter, placed into a work of fiction. Hogg appears as character in own novel. Readers read it, wanted to find Hogg. He refused to tell anything about grave or person. Author playful. Refusal to give anything away.

Milton's expectations are clear.

Hogg's appears to be historical novel. Second part spiritual autobiography. Satire of religious fundamentalism? No clear-cut answer. Book changes composition. Unreliable.

Setting out to create a new convention. Dissolution of boundaries; compelling. Narratives collide. Truth v. fiction. Supernatural presence v. human mind. Shapeshifting.

Structure. 1. Triptych. Editor's narrative like Walter Scott. Present, easy flow. 2. Sinner's confession, R. Wringhim. 3. Editor, how he managed to get confession published. Hogg - different understandings side by side.

Irrational and subjective both appear. Superseded. Editor turns out not to be objective - subject to prejudice/bias. Confident, male, anglicised voice. Account of marriage coloured by editor's narrative. In part 2, RW loses credibility - fantacist, deluded. Narratives converge, collide. RW's interpretation of writing.

Question assumptions of both narrators. Relationship between them. Show the limits. Alongside 'visitation' is RW's imagination. Hogg's equivocal position in Scotland. From rural oral culture. City dispassionate, logical.

21/9/06 - History of Art - Introduction: Terms of Art History

Who?
Who created the art object? Modern idea of artists' works chronicled together rather than all grouped together. Idea that artists are lone people in society. Outsiders. E.g. Van Gogh (supposedly had bipolar disorder). Andy Warhol, TraceyEmin. Exhibitions focus on individual artists (most popular kind of gallery*). But Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party was a piece created by a collection of women.

What?
Artists distorted reality in Renaissance. More problems in Symbolism, when they tried to imitate dreamlike ideas. Abstraction - all reality deleted from art. Photography. Marcel Duchamp took useful object (urinal) and gave it a new meaning, creating art (in theory).

How does medium affect our assessment of the work? Greuze's Girl With Dead Canary, oil painting. Why does this medium hold authority?

Disegno or colore. Venetians thought colore more emotional.

Fine arts. Painting, sculpture, print making, etc. Supposed to be superior until challenged by Impressionists. Horrified artists by exhibiting quick sketches done outdoors as finished works.

What? Genre
Subject matter put into hierarchy, e.g. Lady Jane Grey's Execution, Paul Delaroche, 1833. Held highest. Historical paintings. Next, portraiture. Historical landscape, i.e. mythological. Genre painting, originating in Holland, domestic scenes. Development of this, painting of everyday (but not domestic) life.

When? Period/style
E.g. Caravaggio's Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Baroque period. Realist.
Fragonard, The Swing. Romantic. Detailed, bright, beauty.
Turner/Constable. Can they be grouped as Romantic artists?

Or grouped by schools, e.g. countries.

Why? Patronage, intention
Commission? Botticelli, Birth of Venus. Commissioned by cousin.
Michelangelo, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo.
Is it possible to discuss art in terms of artists' intentions? Monet, Ice Floes on the Seine. Stated all his paintings were done outdoors, but he often 'touched up' his paintings indoors. Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon, 1888. People interpret this as religious but Gauguin never intended this.

The object in the wider world... museum/exhibition, canon/reproduction
Exhibiting. Origin? What kind of collection? Victorian? How is the painting affected? Modern art displayed in modern building? Older paintings in imposing buildings? How is it displayed? Eye level a 60s habit. Natural or artificial light? How are people protected? Symmetry. Figures look TOWARDS each other. Colour of wall changes perception of painting.

Canon of art. Unknown artists brought into known in modern art history, e.g. Bougliereau, Tissot. Academic artists. Gentileschi, Caillebotte - The Unkown Impressionist was the name of his exhibition. Western art more popular in the past, e.g. Chinese art.

Reproduction. E.g. Monet bags, postcards. Our perception may become jaded. Changing size of reproduction alters perception. Attacking conventions by distorting the picture.

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* In terms of number of visitors.

21/9/06 - Classical Literature - The Age of Iliad

Homer's contemporaries believed such stories were fact.

The Bronze Age (Middle Age). Between 1300 - 1180 BC. Evidence comes from pottery, AKA Late Palace.

Pelopennese palaces linked by roads. Palaces inside citadels - walled cities.

Cyclopean buildings. Huge cities built by supposedly 'primitive' people, 1600 BC. Myth is that they were built by giants.

Each city state sees itself as pre-eminent and separate, e.g. Atheneans, Spartans, etc. Only linkage is religion and language. No concept of Greek-ness.

Greek tradition in art. Women painted with white skin, men with dark skin.

From Greek pottery (Warrior Vase), soldiers went to war with spears. Uniform also discovered. Iliad 10:261-265. Was at first thought to be fiction, but archaeologists found remnants of boar tusks. These helmets represent status as men were considered higher the more boars they killed.

Iliad 16:130-135. Achilleus dressed in bronze. Bronze swords, symbols of status. Skilled workmanship.

Funeral prizes given to guests of Patroklos's funeral, e.g. gold cups.

In societies of wall paintings, jewellery, pottery, etc. it indicates great wealth and surplus food. In wars, the manpower must stop making these things. Wars were expensive.

Troy
A lot of valuable evidence was lost on the site due to bad archaeology. However, evidence of fires, skeletal remains from fires, slingshot stones indicative of siege on Troy. Such stones used to attack besiegers, and recollected afterwards. They had not been recollected.

Helen's abduction may be artistic licence, but a real war is likely. "We have to attack Troy because it is the richest city." Wealth = power.

Traditionally heroes were cremated rather than buried.

Homer wrote down an already existing story. He juxtaposes present with past events. Composed approximately 700 BC ?

Trade important in that age. Archaeological evidence found for this.

21/9/06 - English Literature - Literary Theory

A Million Little Pieces, by James Fray. Powerful style. In-your-face. Unconventional literary style. Memoir. Oprah Winfrey chose this book to recommend to her viewers. Emotional trauma.

However, researchers found Fray's claims were untrue. He had never been to prison. So Fray had embroidered his own story. It was not a true memoir.

Fray told publishers it was a 'novel'. Agent suggested it published as a memoir.

Relationship between truth, literature, etc.

It is a strongly communicative novel. Readers thought they had been lied to, were offered their money back.

Others believed it didn't matter. The message was the same. Personal communication unchanged.

Outlines two views of literature. Fiction can hold valuable messages v. memoirs can only give personal messages. Real world debates. Relation to history behind discussion.

Between 1700 - 1750: the rise of the novel in public.

Robinson Crusoe presented as novel at this time. How many of Defoe's readers believed it was a memoir?

What are the perameters of a debate?

Ideas about literature are historical. Changeable. Refer to NTC* (chronological). Can dispute ideas in NTC. Pay attention to introduction and how this refers to extract.

Main points of argument:

1. Literature as art. Post WW2. Literature not everyday life. Beautiful, complex, interesting. Object with own laws, in itself.

2. Communication. Not author's point of view. Indirect. Gives ideas.

3. Subjective to reader. Reader's response makes literature what it is.

4. Historical artifact.

How can literature be interpreted? Be sceptical.

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*NTC: Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

Official Opening of this Blog

Last night I went to the first Creative Writing society meeting. Creative writing used to be an unrepressible passion, but since maturing and going to college and now Edinburgh University, my outlook has changed. I'm still interested in writing, my problem seems to be finding the motivation to do it.

Blogs help. I may only be writing about myself and my daily activities and not particularly anything you would call 'creative', but yes it does help.

In this blog I intend to write up my lecture notes as a way of organising my thoughts, and reinforcing the ideas contained in the lectures, learning being another passion of mine. My other blogspot is swashbuckler_swotvostok, where my journal is kept, albeit inconsistently, and where I will post my creative work if I ever get round to it.

Kayleigh x