Journals
(please click on journal of your choice)
ÒA university is the place to which a
thousand schools make contributions; in which the intellect may safely range
and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity, and its
judge in the tribunal of truthÓ(180). As I read this, I automatically though
about one of the defining features of this particular university, namely the
activist nature of so many of its students. Looking for example at the past
election, where is the Òtribunal of truth?Ó Yes, there were multiple sides all
given their day in court, but who judges the correctness? Does the winner
define that?
My question is more particularly applied to academics when one thinks about the well known adage about history always being written by the victors. Perhaps that is why, as liberal artists, our courses have such a great emphasis on critical reading, on teaching us not to take anything at face value. But then how do we move forward then, if we spend all our time merely analyzing the veracity of pre-existing literature/philosophy/teachings?
Perhaps that last paragraph is in itself
an illustration of what learning ought to be. Indeed perhaps we are simply to
learn to question, as Robin Varnum expresses: ÒIf by inadvertence he[the
teacher] should ever chance to tell you something, you should immediately turn
the questioning on himÓ(191A). Thereby we may eventually figure things out for
ourselves. Which of course begs yet another question: if college is merely to
teach us that we should answer our own questions, why go to college at all?
The simple
answer is that we gain so much outside from the structured learning aspects. By
meeting people, seeing new places, and encountering a wealth of diversity, we
expand our own thinking and reasoning.
Being a double major in government and english,
Cardinal Newman's statement that "All branches of knowledge are connected
together; therefore, to give undue prominence to one is to be unjust to
another" (191B) appealed very personally to me. I started out with just
the government major, and as much as I enjoyed it, I realized it had such a
narrow, specific purpose, and could be applied in very specific ways. I needed
a way to get tools to help me in other ways, most specifically writing, so I
added the English major.
As many of us have already posted, writing is so
heavily underrated. I've heard many engineers complain about the complete
inability of new engineering students to write simple operational briefs. The
skill is essential, because it really forces you to organize your thoughts, and
being able to do that is crucial for really any field.
More importantly, doing a double major has been instrumental in teaching me how to think in such different ways. Government is very geared to the existing, to the real, to the concrete, while English allows for the abstract, for real creativity. Everyone is allowed their own interpretation, their own thoughts.
When Matthew Arnold says about authors that
"they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive
power, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern
science to our need for conduct, our need for beauty," (200) he sums up
very easily the attraction of any liberal arts education. How interesting could
life possibly be if consisted solely of the cut and dry? I have always found
solace in seeing things that aren't there, because that's what helps to escape
dreary reality.
That's
really the main point about my dichotomy of classes this semester. Reality vs.
imagination. They are both utterly necessary, but life would be soulless
without the latter, for that is where humanity comes from, the rest is simply
nature.
"Well, ordinarily we never mention SAT scores
here at the school, first, because that's confidential information, and second,
because we don't like to put that much emphasis on SAT's in the first
place,"(14) said Charlotte's high school principal. In American university
applications, it's almost ludicrous how much relevance is placed on one little
test that doesn't do a thorough job anyways. Once you get to college, SAT
scores most definitely don't account for anything. Having good scores doesn't
guarantee that you'll be able to face trials such as the ones Charlotte does
and be able to maintain a certain academic standard.
One comes to college to expand one's knowledge, not
merely to coast through with prior knowledge, or so we believe now. We
repeatedly discuss how many early English colleges weren't really meant to be
vocational, or even educational, merely that they were to teach how to become
good citizens. So, when she observed in her modern college setting that there
were "dust balls...more dust balls than Charlotte had ever seen in her
life...everywhere dust balls,"(64) I chose to interpret it metaphorically,
and hence I was amused. One comes to college to clear the mind of dust balls,
so it's ironic when she arrives at her dorms and sees nothing but dust balls.
Her expectation was of a place full of maturity and brilliance, and here she is
greeted with dirt and naked boys. That is college, to a freshman, sadly.
I
think most of us were like Charlotte, expecting to come to a campus rife with
intellectual discussions, and ruminations on life, and all that sort of thing.
I think that's there, but we can't ignore the other sides either. The kind that
some of the stuffier colleges may choose to deny, like the partying, and the
madness of a freshman dormitory.
"One might argue instead that recollections of
the inner life have to be validated by art in their representative historical
character," writes Donald Fleming. He's right in a certain respect. When
we picture certain historical occurrences or people, like Napolean for example,
are we more likely to remember the traditional description of him, or the
famous painting by David? Certainly the latter provides us with an image that
is much more real, much more tangible.
Of
course, Mill does not seem to harbour the same thought. "The enjoyments of
life are sufficient enough to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en
passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are
immediately felt to be insufficent. They will not bear a scrutinizing
examination," writes Mill, deep into his identity crisis. Perhaps this is
because art could be considered a finished product, by many accounts, and
throughout his essay Mill's main idea is that he's terrified of the finished
product, that the journey is what truly matters.
We all suffer through crises of faith. All that
changes is what "faith" entails. For Arnold, faith can be found in
love of another, and nature enhances that love. For Tennyson's Lotos Eaters,
this faith is in work, and putting your nose to the grindstone.
"They which touch thee are unmating
things--oceans and clouds and night and day; lorn autumns and triumphant
springs,"(788) Arnold opines in his ode To Marguerite. Other comments seem
to say that this poem is implicitly devaluing love. I think the opposite. I
think the narrator wishes to deny it as important, and tries really hard to,
but his argument falls when he sees how closely the beauty of the world is tied
to the beauty of his love.
Tennyson
instead presents a very negatively biased piece about work, discussing whether
doing good, lasting work can really fill the vacancy inside of the human heart.
"There is confusion worse than death," he complains, and that is
"Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, long labour unto aged breath, sore task
to hearts worn out by many wars, and eyes grown dim with gazing on the
pilot-stars." Even the stars have lost their beauty, merely symbolizing
work, work, work.
Perhaps I am alone in this idea, but it seems to me,
having read the entire novel, that what we term as Jude's "idealism,"
is actually a cover for simple hope. It may truly have been idealism in his
youth, before Arabella, but after his marriage, Christminster seems to have
simply taken on the form of a hope for something better, rather than an ideal
he wished to attain. As he himself notes, "The tall tower, tall belfry
windows, and tall pinnacles of the college by the bridge he could also get a
glimpse of by going to the staircase. These objects he used as stimulants when
his faith in the future was dim" (134).
I
find further evidence in the jealousy he often expresses of the students of the
college, as when he opines, "It was next to impossible that a man reading
on his own system, however widely and thoroughly, even over the prolonged
period of ten years, should be able to compete with those who had passed their
lives under trained teachers and had worked to ordained lines"(165). If it
were truly an ideal he strove for, why would he feel it necessary to measure
his own worth against peers? Why would he search for "ordained"
lines, when surely an ideal implies something that does not already exist.
According to Max Beerbohm in Zuleika, the Emperors
are Àexposed eternally and inexorably to hear and frost, to the four winds that
lash them and the rains that wear them awayÀ (Beerbohm 5). What this implies to
me however, to a certain extent, is something that we discussed briefly in
class in our discussion of Jude: that what lasts forever are often the things
that might be termed "distractions," like the arts. For Jude, his job
as a stone mason is a "distraction," not a legitimate occupation that
will have more concrete(forgive the pun) results than many of the studies
undertaken by the students he envies so terribly.
To
a certain extent, it seems that creations like the emperors, and the stone
carvings found in Christminster in Jude, serve as a way of uniting the common
man and the upper classes. They are a point of common reference, since they are
generally carved by common men and appreciated by all. However, perhaps that
point is lost on some of the students that Jude detests. In their arrogance,
they probably believe that their hallowed halls were built solely upon their
own brilliance, not on the hard work of their underlings. They may recognize
the "ghostly presences with which the nooks were hauntedÀ (Hardy 82), but
lose sight entirely of the physical reality. Jude, however, in his thirst for
knowledge, gets to understand both, yet he persists in devaluing his manual
labor.
Many people of course cite Zuleika as a distraction.
At the same time though, we really have to wonder if the word
"distraction" used by some of these wealthy Oxford types really just
means "excuse." Take, for example, on p. 66, the Duke's description
of one of his ancestors. "I know not whether it was that her bonny mien
fanned in him some embers of his youth, or that he was loth to be outdone in
gracious eccentricity..."(66). Eccentricity was accepted, and even
encouraged in wealthy British circles. So in a certain sense, Zuleika maybe
just provides a scapegoat for the Duke and his inevitable indiscretions.
Additionally, perhaps the point Beerbohm tries to
make is that this "distraction" is a good thing. Note this exchange
on p. 100:
"You have never dipped into the Greek pastoral
poets, nor sampled the Elizabethan sonneteers!" -Duke.
"No, never. You will think me lamentably crude:
my experience of life has been drawn from life itself." -Zuleika.
Basically,
we must remember the satiric elements of the novel. Beerbohm is making an
anti-establishment statement, so far as I can tell.
Alice
in Wonderland
On a personal level, I think there is no more apt
metaphor for the current state of my scholastic life than the very obvious
falling down the rabbit hole. At this time, it's midterms, and things are
effectively insane, between managing work, school, and a personal life.
I feel quite like Alice, never knowing which way to
go, and never knowing when it will stop.
Another sound metaphor is the poem about the
crocodile:
"How doth the little crocodile improve his
shining tail And pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale! How
cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws, and welcome little
fishes in, with gently smiling jaws." (p. 38).
Really,
I feel quite like the fish, and the University is the crocodile. I only wish
that like Alice, I had little friends who could lead me out of the madness,
even temporarily. Someone I could ask for guidance, just as Alice asks,
"Oh Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool?" I need to know the
way out, as I'm preparing to graduate in December, and I'm terribly afraid of
just being lost in the crowd after that
ÒOn the other hand, the ordinary belief that the
amount of possible variation is a strictly limited quantity is likewise a
simple assumption"(417), writes Darwin in his Origin of Species. Simply
look at the variety of creatures Alice find in Wonderland and Through The
Looking Glass. There are dodos and Jabberwocks, animated chess royals and
dormice.
A
culmination of the sheer variety of creatures found is probably the croquet
ground. Alice notes "the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes,
and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and
feet, to make the arches.(45)" When one thinks about it, the practicality
of the matter means that these creatures probably couldn't survive, because
they're far too silly. So the Darwinian answer to that would be variety. And
that is what Alice finds.
"Even when the water was out of my eyes, I was
still dazed, for I had never been in so large a space, nor seen such grass and
sunshine,(449)" says Forster in The Other Side of the Hedge.
That's how I often feel in the springtime as I walk
around campus. Considering our often bizarre weather, I am grateful for every
beautiful day, and often taken by surprise when one comes. It creates a sense of
openness in all the world around, making me feel like all the possibilities in
the world are available to me.
"The
hedge was green...but it was a barrier," he continues. This part I have
difficulty with. A hedge is, after all, just a hedge. If you consider it a
barrier, then you will make it so. But after all, once can overpower a hedge.
It can be climbed, or cut down. It's only as much of a problem as you make it
out to be
ÒShe cried, "Laura," up the garden,
Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices."
~p. 727
Where is the Victorian propriety here? Maybe that's
partially what's grotesque, that there seems to just be a blatant sexual
innuendo in the verse. Or it shows how the grotesque goblin has corrupted
Lizzie by making her aware of her sexuality, and wishing to assert it on the
person closest to her.
Perhaps
I read too much into the words. Perhaps I have denied William Rossetti's
"warning against a search for detailed symbolism,"(p.730), which
really makes me wonder about our roles as English majors. Is there anything
wrong in just accepting the tale's simple ideal as described by James Ashcroft
Noble: " a little spiritual drama of love's vicarious redemptioin, in which
the child redeemer goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, that by
her painful conquest she may succour and save the sister who has been
vanquished and all but slain"(p.730). Simply put, I think that as a modern
English major, that cannot be true. Although this isn't necessarily true about
our class, so many other classes place an emphasis on close-reading the actual
words, and ignoring the relevant philosophies and morals.
Bagehot says at one point that he chose the lines to
"illustrate, not the success of grotesque art, but the nature of grotesque
art"(791). I am forced to wonder how quoting lines would illustrate the
"success" of a particular work of art. Bagehot goes on to discuss why
the work may or may not have "failed," a distinction I'm not sure I
understand in context with the poem.'
Later,
Bagehot says that "he has not made it pleasant; that he has forced his art
to topics on which no one could charm, or on which he, at any rate, could
not"(792A). At this point it's just difficult to take Bagehot seriously,
because so much of his essay seems based on his subjective dislike of grotesque
and unpleasant subject matter. Either that or he has a personal grudge against
Browning.
Continuing with other posts, it's hard not to read
this information and not think about our own Union. It's a building most of us
walk through almost every day, whether to get food, or use the bathroom, or
whatever, cause it's close to Parlin. But do we ever stop to look at the
artwork? We certainly do see it, but do we notice it? Now that I think about
it, I can note the magnificent ornamentation of some of the doors on the 2nd
and 3rd floors, and can appreciate the borders in many of the rooms. But did I
think about it while I was there?
Many
of the comments have spoken to the humor of the Oxford mural designers. It is
noted that "they were in revolt against the mundane, middle-class values
held by a large part of that society."(677) That is probably true. But
perhaps what prompted them to change the subjects of the murals was the fact
that they knew people would barely glance at the murals beyond thinking, oh,
that's a pretty picture, and moving on. Why else would the head of a college
have to stop Morris and ask "my good man, can you tell me the subject of
these pictures," while thinking he was just talking to a workman? I think
these artists all recognized their audience, and so recognized the opportunity
to have a good time and make the points they wanted to make, not the points the
university wanted to make
This may be a sort of strange post, but I suppose we
can call it "HAMMER THOUGHTS INTO UNITY."
When I saw that Rossetti had a poem entitled The
Lover's Walk, I immediately thought of an episode of Buffy the vampire Slayer
I'd recently watched with my roomates entitled Lover's Walk. That episode
featured a lot of relationships breaking up because some characters cheated,
and others came to bodily harm because of their dalliances.
Naturally
when I read Rossetti's poem, my preconceptions were colored by this, and the
entire meeting of the lovers seem to take on a dark tone. When Rossetti speaks
of bodies that "lean unto each other's visible sweetness
amorously,"(707B) I sense a far more sinister attitude to love than seems
to characterise the PRBs, especially considering their favor of Arthurian
legend. The closing of the poem, describing the "cloud-foaming firmamental
blue [that] rests on the blue line of foamless sea,"(707B), I again get a
sense of foreboding. The foamless sea implies to me a calm before the storm,
rather than a settling into a pure love
This topic seems perfectly relevant given the fact
that controversial Conservative commentator will be speaking on campus Tuesday
night. Indeed if one were a hippie, one might see this happen at UT and be,
much like Richard Ford, "shocked at the state of affairs, particularly at
the influence...of ascetic lieutenant..."(202). While I am by no means
saying that Ann Coulter's freedom to speak is the same as the apparent
hijacking of puritanical minds at Oxford, it does parallel our national debate
regarding issues such as Terri Schiavo and gay marriage, where the name of God
is bandied about with an absurd amount of freedom by both sides.
When
H. B. Bulteel writes in a poem "Sink, Argo, sink for ever...sink, and be
found no more!"(203), again the attitude is similar to many of the
political/religious minds of today. Either go with us, or be damned.