[journal/日誌/學習筆記] 美國文學（下）
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Week 9: Emerson and Thoreau: foundation of American’s self-identity and self-improvement
My question:
Why Emerson, Thoreau, T.S. Eilot, and Artaud all think that Hinduism is the way out? I think they do not give me the good feelings about it because it seems they are trying to seek something out of the system but actually they don’t see the belief in Hinduism cause more inequality in social mobility.
Some notes on the lecture
Reminder:
The similarities between Romanticism and Transcendentalism: self-civilization; reacting against stifling, repressive, facade of a human beings and finally become original
Transcendentalism is hard to define
Emerson: more theoretical
Emerson: against past and travelling but supports time you spend with yourself; investigate in your country
Some features:
“Self-reliance”: political and individual
“Individualism”
Close reading of “Nature”
Divinity suffuses all nature and suggests that the God cannot be fought over
“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of the fathers” (553).
Think about if there’s any original idea other than the heritage we have recognized?
“Why shouldn't we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” (554).
“To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature” (555). -
The idea of child is wiser than the adults is not an eternal but something that has been developed around Romanticism
My idea: Violent behaviors of babies and teeangers are scientifically proven the most throughout a human’s life. I do not fully support that children are wiser but they are definitely unconsciously more violent. e.g., Lord of the Flies
The quality of their thinking isn’t necessarily better.
“Standing on the bare ground...all mean egotism vanishes” (555).
Buddhism and Zen: become part of the world and invisible
The influence of Eastern religion: Sinto, Hinduism
self-interest?
“I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all” (556).
lens or itself
My idea: Nothingness? Does the idea sound partly like Wabisabi, but takes away the idea of death?
Close reading of “Self-Reliance”
Why is self-reliance related to literature teaching? The idea has been applied to teaching since true judgement that is not corrupted is really valued
The piece encourages people to follow the innate talent
How far can you go without the past?
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string”
trust yourself
My idea: What does it mean by trust and myself? instinct? analysis? research? emotional based or evidence based? The idea is good but still I don’t know what approach I should adopt!
“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist”
“What I must do is all the concern me, not what the people think”
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do”
consistency with our past experiences only doesn’t foster creativity
people accuse him for being inconsistent
“Travelling is a fool's paradise. Insist on yourself, never imitate”
focus on your country, not travelling
“imitation is the greatest compliment” v.s. feeling duplicated
Hard standard to achieve
My idea: the contrast of imitation and authenticity. People embrace the idea of authenticity when they are talking about self-identity, but from the movie Big Eyes, Margret Keane, a female painter whose paintings are iconic with big-eyed girl, has become profitable because of the “imitation” of her painting-- postcards and posters printed with the image. Does it suggest that people are setting a double standard on possession and identity? This thinking might sound similar to Plato’s proposal on Idea and Imitation, but I think people are asking for spiritual authenticity, such as love, but don't really care about this aspect in material.
“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other”
“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man”
“Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will ”
My idea: The sentence has reminded me of Adler’s psychological theory that trauma is a trauma when you have intention to make it one and grab some social connection for your own sake.
My idea: Stanford athlete who sexually assaulted a drunk girl, and was defended as a “Promising Young Man” and victim-blamed the drunk girl.
Thoreau: more practical
the introduction is very well said in Thoreau’s thinking, “Life is short and life is miraculous….and it is incumbent on each individual to figure out how best to respond to the circumstances of the moment” (902)
Walden
live your own life (923)
people just mind their own business and please don’t be distrubed by the news (958)
love or friendship; shelter life and survive as the ultimate goal
reduce everything and be self-reliant (966)
Civil Obedience
break the law if the government is not justified anymore
My idea: What are some of the similarities and the differences from Thomas Jerfereson’s Declaration and de Crevecoeur, “Letters from an American Farmer?
don’t let oneself go wrong (929)
work without your own judgement is not appreciated (pp.903-904)
Comparison with Benjamin Franklin’s piece:
self-reliance is also emphasized!
Discussion of Group J presentation and my ideas
chronicle social disobedience what I have come up with marked with the highlighter
Economic issue: Sugar Cane Protest in Ur-Lin (Japanese colonization in Taiwan)二林事件，1924 (similar to Tea Party, the price that the government bought the sugar cane is too low and the farmers could not survive)
similar event: Indian’s protest from farmers recently
Female Labor Movement: adapted to be a theatrical production in Taipei, Asking the Colored Clouds問彩雲，1970-1980，failed
Autonamy of Nation: Nylon’s suicide 鄭南榕自焚，1989
Political and economic autonomy: SunFlower Movement太陽花學運，2014
Body Autonomy on Clothing: Taichung Girl’s High School台中女中脫褲事件，2015，suceed and inspired Taipei Girl’s school and BangChiao High School
Cultural rights: No One is An Outsider by Native Taiwanese沒有人是局外人，2017. Over a thousand days, failed
Week10 Edgar Poe & Hawthorne
Edgar Poe:
nature is a source of horror and supernatural, which is more of the sense of British’s Romanticism
Nature is not a source of self-identity, unity, salvation as Emerson and Thoreau have suggested.
However, darkness and spooky scenes are not bad thing to Edgar Poe but revives some beauty and possibility in his writing such as the assigned reading of The Rave
Edgar Poe’s The Philosophy of Composition (1846)
the effect; the feelings for the readers
reminds me of Artued, who as well as focus on the irrational, harassing, violent theatrical/aesthetic choices to create a new experience for the audience
Hawthorne:
question for religion: Faith as his wife, personification
not so much about nature and what nature could symbolize
Interesting connection between Edgar Poe and Hawthrone:
The critic on Young Goodman Brown: Contemporary critic Edgar Allan Poe disagreed, referring to Hawthorne's short stories as “the products of a truly imaginative intellect” (from Wikipedia)
Week11 Douglous Fendrick & Harriet Jacobs & Harriet Beecher Stowe
The overall theme: the life with the threat of/ the hovering death all the time
the 1850’s situation on slaves v.s. America in 2021
Douglous Fendrick’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:
The slaves sing the song to relieve the pain: such as the origin of Blues
Gayl Jones’s Corregidora; the expression of Blues and the pain
Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is death; Gospel
Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Chapter 2: “Why does the slave ever love?”
The love under death among slaves is dangerous; but why do we feel the love under death by White people (Greek Mythology) is pretty?
the responsibility of being a human with self-reliance,as Thoreau has written, even with slim chance
“I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.” (from Resistance to Civil Government, 904)
“...it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left”(from Walden, 923)
Break the fourth wall: ask for emotional support and empathy
“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not” (884)
Comparison between Douglous Fendrick & Harriet Jacobs
Week 12 Walt Whitman
The use of Nature (Similar to Edgar Poe, Whitman, Dickinson.)
“Grass”:
Democratic side of the image
The significance of the insignificance
Mythology
Interconnection: Bond between two people
Celebrate body, sex, same sex affection
Interesting point of Whitman “Pettiness” and “Insignificance” when he values some of the small things
The oversharing and overexpression could cause some trouble if other would like to have emotional boundaries
The “City on the Hill” vibe is definitely influencing Whitman’s piece
Week 13 Emily Dickinson
Mind the difference: How they deal with death (Emily Dickinson, Edgar Poe)
Walt Whitman:
more optimistic
section 6 “And to die is different from anyone supposed, and luckier” (1093)
Poe: more of the evil spirit and ghost
Emily Dickinson: the death is the trip and has its end, probably has something to do her non-religious belief
The assigned poems of Emily Dickinson’s:
She is a pretty passive aggressive person, always reversing the poems in the last one or two sentences when you think she writes elegant and nice. Her poems seem to suggest her bottled up frustration and anger about why she is unseen and unappreciated.
Many emotional crisis depicted
When she writes about nature, she is anti-romanticism
Success is counted sweetest (112)
Only loser knows what success really means
“Fleeting”: death is often seen in her work
Much Madness is divinest Sense (620)
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.” John Stuart Mill
Minority: her self reflection as a female, aged poet
Majority: what if they have the wrong decision?
“Faith” is a fine invention (202)
The quotation mark shows some skeptical attitude
Science v.s. Humanities/ See v.s. peep/ Emergency of what? Maybe it is a warning for people to stand up and see
The agency? Where is the agency if we see everything through the microscope but no through our eyes?
There's a certain Slant of light, (320)
I like a look of Agony (339)
I don’t know if the lines of “I like a look of Agony, Because I know it's true— ” is contradictory to “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” Maybe seeking consistency is impossible because evolution is also happening in the writer’s life.
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)
She imagines being at her funeral: I don’t know if she has depression (suicidal attempt) or if she pops up an extreme experience in her head.
Prof. Goodwill’s opinion: Adventure
A Bird, came down the Walk - (359)
After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)
The idea of Sublime can have people a bit afraid to but feel taught by nature, is it contradictory or familiar to Emily Dickinson’s experience?
Nature: Stone and Snow
The Soul selects her own Society (409)
I Died for Beauty, but was Scared (448)
Because I could not stop for Death – (479)
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)
Fly has interrupted the sublimity of funeral
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty” in Ode on a Grecian Urn by Keats
“The Brain—is wider than the Sky—” (598)
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun (764)
Creativity can kill? I do agree with that because the Beat Generation has some revolutionary but problematic thinking. They are chaotic and often under influence. Examples can go on.
The poem reminds me of Aurora’s song, Muder Song: the song captures some of the consensual self-sacrifice of a female and her faith in the murderer’s action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTwdGRHl5Mw
How Emily treats body is different from Walt Whitman
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
Nature: Lightning, Blind, Dizzy, Circuit
I don’t know if the belief that truth should be delivered in another way has to do with her passive aggressiveness. But I can tell that she likes to keep everything implicit.
Note: It would be great to do the comparison of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
Week14 and Week 15 Tom Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
Truth or Lie: (chapter 1)
Some of the points I really liked:
Lies to escape
It is tricky that Huckleberry thinks there are three people who will not lie.
I always feel weird about the repetitive usage of “monstrous” in his narrative. I don’t know if it reflects that he is a coward and imagining that he is on an adventure? Or does it reflect that even if he is timid but still goes on with his life?
Moral Lesson: (chapter 2 to 3)
Some of the points I really liked in the presentation:
cast a shadow on education that fake leaders who are not actually critical thinking
civilized v.s. uncivilized
Chirstian standard: not killing on Sunday (the boy’s moral code, hierarchy of criminal), Huckleberry offered Miss Waltar in the kill game
I found that Huckleberry has not joined the private game but still complains about feeling tired in the end.
Though he joined the gang, he didn’t really “play with them” but more of an outsider.
I was confused if he was trying to persuade himself that he participated or that he is unconsciously away from violence. However, I am more inclined to the previous interpretation because Huckleberry once pointed the gun to Pap when he was asleep, which gave me goosebumps that he is actually more violent than Tom when he has no other people watching him although he was not given the power to execute a bloody game.
Note:
Innocence is complicated in this novel. Huckleberry was skeptical
Mark Twain is a realist.
The relation between the Huckleberry and his father
Some of the points I really liked in the presentation:
Pap: path of freedom and the imprison of Huckleberry
Tom: don’t you reckon that people who writes the book
Friendship between Huckleberry and Jim
Some of the point I really liked in the presentation:
Looking for freedom
Superstiatious
Jim was afraid that he will be turned to a slave hunter
I think they both seek power in a very childish way. Huckleberry shows of his mere word on French to Jim even if he is not educated; Jim was one of the slaves who likes to be the opinion leader
However, they still obtain different kind of morality
River and Nature
Some of the points I really liked in the presentation:
a tunnel for Jim and Huck to reach freedom
Two rivers emerge: White and Black being together as friends
Chapter 8: the grass - similar to Walt Whitman
Civilization in the end? What kind of civilization is expected and needed? The mentality was changed in Huck.
My study note for the final:
cluster for different texts:
Death- Waltman, Poe, Emily Dickinson, Fedrick, Jacobs, Stowe, Mark Twain
Waltman & Poe & Emily: death are natural; however, there are some differences
Ｗaltman: death is a part of a beautiful life
Emily: death is still considered even she talks about life
Poe: the beauty in death
Fedrick & Jacobs & Stowe: hovering death
Mark Twain: adventure; inter-racial brotherhood
Nature- Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Emily Dickinson, Waltman
Emerson & Thoreau: bright side of nature; people are educated and inspired by nature; self-reliance (be yourself!)
nature nurtures you to become a better person
Poe & Emily Dickinson: dark side of nature; people are little and do not control over nature, horror, anxiety, tension, spookiness, evilness. Reveal the unwanted, cruel side of nature
nature is not always your friends
Both authors are not super religious, and they don’t seem to be very interested in nationalism
Waltman: the brilliant and ecstasy side of nature; people (especially Americans) will become one in the nature; description on body and unafraid of death
nature magnets and liberate people to build a better nation
Slave- Ferdrick, Jacobs, Stowe, Mark Twain
Fedrick: male; intense fight and writing
Jacobs: female; romantic love is shadowed with death
Stowe: female; some stereotypes we need to be aware
Mark Twain: the definition of being “civilized”; the perspective from a child
Week 16 Final
Week 17 and Week 18: Flexible Weeks
Here are two pieces related to American Literature I would like to introduce in this journal.
Apple TV: “Dickinson” Season 1
Since I really like Emily Dickinson, I was excited to watch the TV series. And here are some reflections for the production and some recommendations for it.
First of all, I really like how the narrative is surrounded by a female, Emily Dickinson, just like the TV series Why Women Kill (revenge of females) and the movie Book Smart (redefines who a nerdy young girl is, which is rare in YA films) do. It told a story that focused on a female character and her growth. Even if we might not be an Dickinson Studies' expert, we could easily expect that the protagonist would go through a lot of obstacles to become herself because the first appearance of her in the production was her looking outside from the space between balusters. It was surely fun to see how “the poet was born” when she was a fearless fighter for the space of her passion--writing and writing as a female.
Also, I like how the TV production was inspired by some poems of hers and imagined some scenarios she might have been through. I think the choice was smart because people who like the piece and the people who do not know the piece can relate to the episodes. For the former, we could interpret it in a different way, and for the latter, they could approach the pieces in a more entertaining way.
What amazed me the most was that Dickinson had talked with a female writer at the time, who liked to jog even with dresses on and admitted she did writing for the money. The writer reminded me of Weatley and Bradstreet that people were starting to become more materialistic rather than religious, and finally around the 1840s (10ish years from 1830, the year Dickinson was born) some females can become and embrace the trait of being “materialistic” to feed themselves. The encounter made me thrilled and also thought of the Bronte Sisters, who started to publicize some stories for the money.
However, the adoption still made me feel uncomfortable with some sessions.
I understand that romance is the spice in TV series, but the production team has written another male friend of Dickinson’s in real life into Ben Newton, a clerk who studied law with her father and developed romance with her. I didn’t expect a historically accurate adaptation but I didn’t like to see that almost every male figure that Dickinson hung out with had to do with romance. I believed that different kinds of kinships and bonds were possible to sustain someone's social life, and making people fall in love, chase after love, reject love all the time was kind of too dramatic.
All in all, I like the TV series. It is entertaining enough for people who are indifferent with literature and presents a poet’s life in a fancy way.
Eugene O’neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (Norton, pp.854-)
I have heard of the script for years and didn’t have a chance to read it. Now I understand why O'neill has been said to cry after the creation of the work, which recorded some moments of his family life, in his twilight years.
The script has been very truthful that home is not always a sweet place for everyone, and reminded me of Death of the Salesman by Arther Miller and Ghosts by Iben. But other than some masterpieces, I would kindly introduce an interesting coverage of BBC news (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190328-family-estrangement-causes) that the estrangement from the family is actually really common. A good man is hard to find, and a happy family is actually hard to find either.
I can understand why O’neil has revealed so many traumas in this script and the decision was actually hard for him so it didn’t happen until he was really old. Emotional abuse in a family is rarely admitted and healed by the abusers, but the counter attack and the defensive mechanism that a person makes is hurting the person as well. No one can come out unharmed from the battle as we can see from the script.
However, here’s my unpopular opinion. I didn’t feel that mind blown when reading the piece that much because I guess the family in the script resembles my family. I didn’t let a teardrop go down or feel moved because it was not a theatrical representation to me. It was part of my life. I guess the catharsis is easier to feel when people are still living distant from the emotional arousing experiences. I rather experienced what Emily Dickinson has written, “after great pain, a formal feeling comes.” I actually felt numb when the hurting parts were too similar to my life. The same quirky experience happened to me when I read one of the best selling Irish novels recently, Normal People, which portrayed the atypical attachments between a girl and a boy with themes of violence, attachment styles, and social class.
Is the reconnection with the family that we always find in Eastern movies necessary? From the coverage of BBC news, I don’t think it would be 100% healthy. But is the reconnection with the memory to fix ourselves necessary? I would vote yes. Long Day’s Journey into Night, for me, is not to see how a family destructs, but to see how a person can be mentally strong enough to clear out the long hidden trauma and condensed it into a greek tragedy style piece that tells a story in a day.
Since I was the Teaching Assistant for the Freshmen’s literature class (I was in the Freshmen A, and the class I helped out was Freshmen B), I also read some other American Literature pieces to prepare myself for the discussion session.
Death of the Salesman by Arther Miller
Trifles by Susan Glaspell
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot
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