I re-read Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories over the break, and I realized how pertinent its messages still seem to me. The novel advocates communication — of making connections though dialogue and art. The act of engaging our fellow human beings takes center stage in Rushdie’s novel: as long as people have the [...]
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Allegory
An allegory is a narrative in which the agents and action, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived not only to make sense in themselves, but also to signify a second, correlated order of persons, things, concepts, or events.
Notes on Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams”
Manifest content—the content of dreams that is retained in memory (148). Latent content—the relevant material discovered by analyzing the dream (148). Freud asks two questions: what is the psychical process that transforms latent content into manifest content, and what are the motives that necessitate this transformation? The former process he calls the “dream work,” while [...]
Essay on Critical Man
With this conclusion in his Essay on Man, Pope’s Essay on Criticism seemingly becomes irrelevant. I am interested here in how Whatever is, is right relates to criticism and writing. Rather than negating criticism altogether, Whatever is, is right only supports the critic’s endeavor further.
Epic Poetry
In its strict use by literary critics, the term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long narrative poem an a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race.
Notes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
SGGK is written in long stanzas and short, metered and rhymed, couplets, called “bob” and “wheel,” at the end of each verse. The alliteration, free from rhyme and rhythm, in the long stanzas is obviously influenced by Old English, while the “bob” and “wheel” signifies a Middle English influence.
Notes on Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh is a primary epic, composed over a thousand years by cultural stories of the legendary king, Gilgamesh, who is thought to have historically ruled Uruk circa 2700 BCE. The oral stories were probably assembled by a poet and cast into the narrative form of the epic between 2000 and 1600 BCE and finally written on clay tablets in cuneiform during the reign of Assurbanipol in 668-627 BCE.