question for March 29th
Posted on March 27, 2007
Do ONE:
1. Take a detail (scene, situation, character, piece of dialogue, begining, ending, whatever) from Scotland, P.A. and discuss how it alters Macbeth in some way (adding, deleting, changing emphasis, etc.). Besides just describing the change, see if you can explain how it alters the audience's perception of Shakespeare's original. For example, does it alter our sense of the tragedy of Macbeth (now Joe Macbeth)? IS it a tragedy at all?
2. Does Scotland, P.A. sustain or refute the notion of "indefinition" set out in Booth's piece on Macbeth?
3. Pat Macbeth ... does she embody any of the notions of "woman" / femininity that Janet Adelman addresses in "Constructing the Matrix" (the essay you read for last week when Professor Schnell came to class)? You might consider the material from Men of Respect that Professor Schnell showed.
question for April 3rd
Posted on March 30, 2007
Since Professor Pereboom (from Philosophy) will be giving a presentation on Tuesday (about Girard's weird, and controversial, Violence and the Sacred--two e-reserve readings for Tuesday), there won't be a formal discussion question. This would be a good opportunity to reflect on what you've written in your journal so far (in anticipation of when you will have to turn it all in at the end of term, with a cover letter / preface).
Or you can just reflect on questions about tragedy / the tragic as they have popped into your head so far this term. Talking about Scotland, PA yesterday I was thinking, for example, about how much a story veering into comedy (even black comedy) prevents it from being viewed as tragedy / tragic. Tragedy, I guess, calls for a certain kind of realistic emotional investment that comedy typically forestalls or prevents. So think of the scene in which Norm Duncan becomes "one big french fry," for example, a scene completely without the tragic intensity of that same moment in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Morrissette's version of this film is different for a bunch of reasons: 1) he's just said he doesn't think he can kill Norm; but then he punches Norm, for no apparent reason; and 2) then the witches make a momentary appearance (not so in Shakespeare), and this causes Mac to lose his sense of where Norm is, so that Norm "accidentally" gets killed--which makes Mac seem much less culpable than Macbeth; add to that 3) the death in the deep fryer is so comically grotesque that it's hard NOT to laugh, so that any possibility of deep emotionally resonance is lost (though the comedy might be ample compensation). In any event, what I am wondering is if the comic aspects of Scotland PA, however faithful the story is in a general way to Macbeth, prevent it from the sense of "suffering" that is so central to tragedy. And note, for example, that Mac is given no scene, no dialogue that would suggest "remorse" (Catharsis), which is one key way, for Aristotle at least, in which audiences take on a sort of empathy with / sympathy for the tragic hero. Does the sound and fury speech give us that in Macbeth, for Macbeth, or not? Does the lack of that prevent Morrissette's film from operating as tragedy?
I'm not asking you to answer those questions (though you can if you want). I'm just suggesting that you reflect on some question about tragedy as you have encountered it this term.
questions for April 10th
Posted on April 3, 2007
First, a note on the reading / viewing for Thursday and Tuesday (this is a repeat of what I sent as an email message ... sorry for duplication).
A reminder that I will be away from campus all day Thursday, so NO CLASS. During class time, though, you can watch the film that we'll be discussing on Tuesday (Angel Heart). The Thursday screening is in Bailey-Howe (Media-Resources Projection Room), and will run until about 4 pm. So if you have an obligation (e.g. class) between 3:15 and 4, then you won't be able to watch it then, at least not the whole thing.
But you can also watch it over at Media Resources anytime before Tuesday's class (it's on reserve now); AND, there's a MONDAY night screening: 427 Waterman (that's a lecture classroom), 7:30 - 9:30.
Also: reading for Tuesday. We're working with ideas from Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred ... those in class today know that we certainly didn't exhaust the topic; and, indeed, we never got to the material from the chapter called "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim" (which is an e-reserve reading). So, for next Tuesday, just read (or re-read) that. Do NOT read what is listed on the syllabus for Tuesday ("The Gods, the Dead, the Sacred, and Sacrificial Substitution") I might bring in an idea from that reading, but we'll have plenty enough on our plates without adding more.
Angel Heart is a spooky film, and it is violent. But there's not a lot of violence shown on screen; the main character is a detective (surprise!), so he sees dead bodies but we don't necessarily see people being killed. Still, there is a certain gruesomeness to the violence (even if much is inferred) and, in general, it's a film that might weird you out a bit. In a sense, it may capture for a modern audience the emotional/pscyhological resonance that Macbeth might have had in its original context. Anyway, that's part of my hope.
So, the questions; do ONE:
1. Discuss the nature of the violence in the film. (This will make more specific sense for those who were in class on Thursday, but you can address it any way you like.) For example, is this what Girard might call "sacred violence?"
2. Girard's "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim" addresses the notion of "sacrifice" as a kind of substitution. Is that relevant to the substitution that is at the "heart" of Angel Heart? (When you see the film you'll know why I put heart in quotation marks.)
questions for April 12th
Posted on April 11, 2007
a reminder:
We won't start King Lear until next Tuesday (April 17th); we'll finish up Angel Heart this Thursday, especially in relation to Rene Girard's theory of the "surrogate" or "sacrificial victim" (whose relevance to Angel Heart just started to come into focus at the end of class on Tuesday).
So, for Thursday's class.
1. If you didn't watch the film, you still have a chance (it's on reserve in the Library / Media-Resources).
2. If you don't feel you have any grasp on Girard's theory, re-read "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim"; and think about the implications for an understanding of Angel Heart specifically but, more generally, for a new way of conceptualizing our notions of religion and religious ritual as relevant to the Jewish and Christian traditions (that is, how are notions of "sacrifice" and "surrogate victimhood" relevant to these traditions?). I asked you about this in one of the discussion questions for Tuesday, and we'll definitely come back to this on Thursday.
3. READ: "Death of Satan" (e-reserve reading, from a book of the same title--also on reserve--by Andrew Delbanco). Ask yourself what he means by the "death of Satan" (an interesting claim in relation to Angel Heart where Satan is very much not dead).
So, the questions; do ONE:
1. We'll start with this question, and, time permitting, end with it (in between you may have changed your mind): what exactly constitutes the "tragedy" of Angel Heart? You can just answer however you see fit, though implicitly you are saying something about what constitutes tragedy in general (so think about the implications of your response for our study as a whole). You might ask yourself if Angel Heart is "tragic" in the way Macbeth is tragic. Or, since so much of tragedy (as an art of story-telling) depends on how the story ends, ask yourself about the relation between the end of the story (for example, Mickey Rourke's character's plaintive "I know who I am"--ring any bells with Memento?--and the possibilities of seeing the story as a tragedy? Does it matter "who" we think is saying this line ... Harold or Johhny?
2. In The Birth of Tragedy (pp. 49-50 in our text), Nietzsche distinguishes between Aryan (including ancient Greek) notions of "sacrilege" and Semitic (that is, biblical) notions of sacrilege, embodied especially in the "myth of the Fall" (Adam and Eve's definitely, but perhaps also Satan's fall). He doesn't address this directly, but we might note that biblical notions of the fall eventually come to be understood in terms of "evil" (as embodied in a character named Satan; note that the snake in the story of the fall in Genesis 3 is NOT necessarily Satan in disguise, no matter what Milton's grand Paradise Lost might say). The Greeks certainly thought in terms of "bad things happen," but they didn't as a rule ascribe this to the malevolent intent of an "evil" being operating at some cosmic level. So does that Jewish / Christian notion of "evil" affect tragedies that include that notion of evil (such as Macbeth and Angel Heart)? If so, how or why?
Due dates for sample discussion questions
Posted on April 12, 2007
As I said in class the other day, I want to get you thinking about your final assignments and how these are related to the discussion questions you've been doing. The Course Guidelines explain that you have at least one assignment based on these questions; and, if you choose, a second one in lieu of a final exam, though that is your choice.
The one you must do is writing a 3 page reflection that expands ONE of your journal entries (drawing on the many new ideas you've no doubt considered since you first wrote it, or applying the idea in new contexts) OR a general reflection on the discussion questions as a whole (to stand as a sort of preface or cover letter to the collection). I want to give you some feedback on these possibilities, so I am asking you to turn in TWO entries over the next four class sessions: the first group will have one entry due on April 12th and the second on April 19th; the second group will have one entry due on April 17th and the second on April 24th. I won't grade these but I will try to steer you toward what I feel are your most productive ideas.
So click open the file below to see when yours are due.
question for April 17th
Posted on April 16, 2007
We'll be starting King Lear. The syllabus I handed out would (for April 12th) have told you to read up through Act 3 scene 3 (III.iii) of the play. But in the edition I ordered (the Oxford edition), the editor has dispensed with that typical way of organizing the plays (by Act and scene) and has just provided a chronological organization of scenes, from 1 through 24. In that ordering, III.iii is scene 10 (so read through scene 10 if you have the Oxford edition). I will finish up a couple of things from Girard's Violence and the Sacred before we get into Lear. For Thursday, you will be finishing King Lear and reading the section on the play in Stephen Booth's King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy.
So, the question.
Lear himself doesn't necessarily seem like much of a tragic hero. He certainly commits an "error in judgment" (the plot's hamartia) in banishing Cordelia, but that is hardly something he needs to come to learn through the play's "anagnorisis" (discovery): after all, the Fool reminds him about it constantly. Also, although Lear says he is "more sinned against than sinning," at least in the first part of the play we might find ourselves agreeing with Gonoril and Regan's view of the situation (they might become monsters later on, but they don't seem so unreasonable in the first part of the play and Lear seems very unreasonable). So it may be that we need to look elsewhere for tragedy.
One thing that is immediately obvious in King Lear, though, is that the conflict (at first pyschological and only later physical violence) is within families (that is, "intra-familial"): Lear with his daughters (and sons-in-law a bit) and Gloucester with his two sons (although, later, he does get into it with Cornwall and Regan). Obviously an intra-familial struggle is part of Hamlet as well (though not of Macbeth), and there is explicit violence or other sorts of violations within families in most of Greek tragedy: Oedipus kills his father and sleeps with mother (in Angel Heart, Johnny Favorite in a sense sleeps with his daughter Epiphany, and Noah Cross rapes his daughter). Addressing this topic in the Poetics, Aristotle makes this comment: "Let us determine which kinds of happening are felt by the spectator to be fearful, and which pitiable. Now such acts are necessarily the work of persons who are near and dear (close blood kin) to one another, or enemies, or neither. But when an enemy attacks an enemy there is nothing pathetic [that is, inspiring pity / sympathy] about either the intention or the deed, except in the actual pain suffered by the victim; nor when the act is done by 'neutrals'; but when the tragic acts come within the limits of close blood relationship, as when a brother kills or intends to kill a brother or do something else of that kind to him, or son to father or mother to son or son to mother--those are the situations one should look for."
Gerald Else's starts his commentary on this passage with the following: "Murders or intended murders involving close blood kin evoke the tragic emotions most powerfully. There is something faintly ghoulish about the calm with which Aristotle identifies these situations as the ones 'one should look for.'" But ghoulish or not, there is some truth in the notion that violations of "blood relationships" are indeed what tragic writers are interested in (even in Star Wars, it's more interesting that Darth Vader is Luke's father). But why? and what does this have to do with whatever we think tragedy is (fully recognizing that not all tragedies insist on the blood ties between key characters)? and, finally, is this relevant in some special way to King Lear?
questions for April 19th
Posted on April 17, 2007
Do ONE:
1. I mentioned in class today (Tuesday) that productions of King Lear from about 1660 to 1810 or so were based on an adaptation of the play (written by Nahum Tate) rather than on Shakespeare's original. Among the very significant differences is that Cordelia does not die in Tate's version (in fact, Shakespeare is pretty much alone in having Cordelia die; in his own source material she does not die, so he obviously made the decision to "kill her" in much the same way he made that decision for Hamlet, who doesn't die in the source-versions of the story). So why do you think it is important, for Shakespeare (for tragedy) that Cordelia dies at the end? (If you want to experiment, you can ask yourself whether she is somehow functioning as a "surrogate victim" in Girard's sense, but that is a tricky idea.)
2. Explain how Booth's notion of "indefinition" is relevant to King Lear? Is this different from how he explained the term in relation to Macbeth?
questions for April 24th
Posted on April 20, 2007
First off, a quick clarification on what we'll be covering next week.
Things from that revised syllabus that we WON'T be doing:
1. I had listed a film screening of Peter Brook's King Lear for Monday evening; but, as I said in class, since we've done so many films I thought it would be nice to give you the opportunity to hear Jon Kilik speak at that same time. Mr. Kilik is a well-known Hollywood producer (most recently of Babel, a film nominated for best picture this year), and he's also a UVM graduate. He will be speaking in the CC Theater from 5:30-7 pm on Monday. And there will be a screening of Babel before that: starting at 3 pm I believe (also in CC Theater).
* For an extra-credit assignment you can write a 2 pg. reflection of what Kilik says (see if you can relate what he says to anything we're doing ... so it might be really helpful to go to the screening of Babel if you haven't seen it already).
2. the syllabus says that we're going to read Stanley Cavell's essay on King Lear ("The Avoidance of Love") in two parts, one section for Tuesday and one for Thursday. We will read the first part of that essay (see below), but NOT UNTIL THURSDAY (see below). So you don't have to read anything from Cavell for Tuesday.
So, what are we doing?
for Tuesday, 4/24:
We'll concentrate on Stephen Booth's notion of "indefinition" (from the chapter in his book). Certain points from his discussion of King Lear came up on Thursday, but we didn't actually try to define his specific theory of indefinition as it relates to King Lear; if you remember, we previously considered his theory in relation to Macbeth. I would like you to re-read sections 3-5 of his chapter (pp. 31-65, and think about what "indefinition" means here. The discussion questions for Tuesday are based on this notion.
Wednesday, 4/25: film screening of Peter Brook's King Lear at 6:30 in the Media-Resources Projection Room (this is a very dark and brooding film (it will be on reserve by Sunday), and goes well with the reading for Thursday
for Thursday, 4/26:
Electronic reserve: "Avoidance of Love: a Reading of King Lear" (Stanley Cavell ... one of America's great philosophers); this is a long essay, and the whole thing is on e-reserve, but I only want you to read section I (pp. 44-81) ... so you can skip pages 39-43 and 81-123 (though feel free to read them if so inclined). This is a subtle reading, less concerned with the spectacular violence of the play than with the nuances of familial life and relationships (a nice essay to end the course).
Finally:
Although I know many of you wouldn't be able to attend, I would like to try to schedule a final film screening for Monday April 30th ... and also order pizza for the class. I still have to get a classroom for this; and we would decide together whether we should watch:
a) Ran (Akira Kurosawa's "samurai" version of Lear, nominated for best picture the year it was released ... not just nominated for best foreign film). It's a sweeping epic, though on the long side: 160 minutes
b) A Thousand Acres (film version of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-prize winning novel: King Lear in Iowa)
c) Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear (surreal film from the French New Wave tradition; hard to describe ... it does "borrow" from King Lear but it's hard to call it an adaptation; Woody Allen is the Fool)
d) something very different:
(i) Woody Allen's Interiors (a tragedy with 3 sisters, but not based on Lear)
(ii) Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder ... a kind of tragedy that inverts the ending of Lear ... in a sense; great film and something less of a downer to end the course
Ok, so questions for Tuesday:
Do ONE:
1. In his discussion of King Lear, Stephen Booth gives many, many examples of what he calls "indefinition" (or how King Lear exemplifies the more general concept). Take ONE of the following and summarize his explication of it as an instance of indefinition:
a) pp. 42-43: his discussion of the phrase, "And my poor fool is hanged"
b) pp. 45-46: his discussion of the passage that begins "Nothing could have subdued nature ..." (you really need to pay attention to his details); why do the lines that follow confuse us?
* note: if you want to be daring try connecting the word "unkind" (p. 45) to another passage Booth looks at on p. 53, which includes both "kindly" and "kind" (the slippage of meaning in these words is fascinating)
c) pp. 50-52: his discussion of the Fool's speech from III.ii (how does "nonsense" work in the play?)
d) pp. 59-60: his discussion of Kent, Oswald, and the retinue
e) pp. 61-[very top of ]64: his discussion of problems involved in assessing our own assessments of the three sisters
2. only for the stout of heart and bold of mind
In "Oedipus and the Surrogate Victim" (pp. 74-76), Rene Girard seems to suggest that violence originates somehow in a "loss of distinctions" (Oedipus, for example, is a "slayer of distinctions," and his interactions with both father and mother--killing the former, sleeping with the latter--are special instances of this as a general problem ... precisely the problem that prompts the reciprocal violence that destroys human communities, and which requires the ritualization of violence as sacred violence). Booth, obviously, isn't following out Girard's theory, but there are hints in his reading that he is intrigued by something of this problem in King Lear. So read from 54-56 in Booth (starting on p. 54 with the paragraph that begins: "A pair of characters") and reflect on how Booth might be pointing to something about the loss of distinctions that Girard is interested in.
discussion question for April 26th
Posted on April 25, 2007
This is the last discussion question ... the collection of all your responses is due on the last day of class (along with the extended reflection on one of the responses OR the preface/cover letter to the collection as a whole; see Course Guidelines--listed under "syllabus" on the blog site--for submission instructions).
We'll be finishing up with Stanley Cavell's subtle reading of King Lear, "The Avoidance of Love" (e-reserve). As I have previously told you, rather than reading the entire piece, you can skip the intro (pp. 39-43) and section II (pp. 81-123) and just read section I (pp. 44-81). Obviously, we want to try to think through what he means by "the avoidance of love"; I should say that while his concept doesn't constitute some wild reading of the play, his examination does ask us to reconsider some of our basic assumptions (about, for example, who is a good character and who a villainous one). And there is definitely some overlap between Cavell's reading and Booth's discussion of "indefinition," at least in the context of how we assess the major characters of the play ... a point we started considering yesterday.
So the question is a follow up to our discussion of the play's opening scene (if you weren't in class, or if you need to rethink Booth's point, we were working through material discussed on pages 61 [very bottom] through 64 [very top] of his King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy). Cavell's essay is broken up into a discussion of what happens in the Gloucester-family subplot (Edgar / Edmund / Gloucester) followed by a discussion of the Lear-family mainplot (Lear and his daughters). On pg. 57, Cavell transitions to the latter with this statement: "We now have elements with which to begin an analysis of the most controversial of the Lear problems, the nature of Lear's motivation in his opening (abdication) scene. The usual interpretations follow one of three main lines [which Cavell briefly summarizes] ... My hypothesis will be that Lear's behavior in this scene is explained by--the tragedy begins because of--the same motivation which manipulates the tragedy throughout its course" ... and for Cavell this "motivation" is what he calls "the avoidance of love." So you are to briefly explain Cavell's understanding of "Lear's motivation in his opening (abdication) scene" in the context of Cavell's sense of how this "same motivation ... manipulates the tragedy throughout its course." In other words, what's going on in this opening scene, according to Cavell--obviously, we might want to compare / contrast this reading to Booth's notion of "indefinition"--and how does this opening provide a snapshot of the play's larger consideration of the tragic.