Week 10 Blog Review by Ryan Briggs and Johnny Mendoza

Mr. Cooper: “Frankenstein Meets The Rime-Man”
Bill touches on Shelley’s and Zizek’s text via a discussion of Coleridge's navigation through human history of what we would describe as the ideology of "liberal optimism," which represents a view of human progress that owes much to the Rousseauian belief in humankind's natural benevolence. Bill indirectly asks us to recall how Shelley herself represents her own rejection of this ideology in Frankenstein with the catastrophe that is Frankenstein's rejection of the monster and the monster's own subsequent hatred and perusal of Frankenstein himself. In another point addressed in the blog, Bill argues that Zizek would agree with the progressions of Coleridge's own tracing of modernity's origins to ultimately what Bills terms "the fractionalization of knowledge into specialization." Bill ends his post by arguing that Coleridge’s Rime is a poem that addresses modernity. He cites the work of Matthias Rudolf, who argues that Rime allegorizes Coleridge's theory of criticism.

Ms. Vales: “Solitude in the Wilderness”
Yuliana argues for a certain thematic connection between that of an article she one day "stumbled across," and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. According to the story in the article, to avoid persecution at the hands of the Russian Bolsheviks, the Lykovs, a Russian Orthodox couple, abandoned their home in 1936 and were thought to have died somewhere unknown thereafter. However, in 1978, much to everyone’s surprise, the couple were found living 6,000 feet up a mountain with four children in tow. Five members in all, (the wife had died), the Lykovs had managed to live on their own despite their being completely severed from civilization. A sad story, shortly after the family’s discovery by scientists, three of the four children would end up dying from exposure to outside diseases. Yuliana speaks of her fascination with the story, writing how inconceivable it is to think how these events happened not in the remote past but rather just relatively recently. The connection she makes between the Lykov story and Shelley’s Frankenstein is in her speculation as to how lonely the family members must have felt living by themselves for so long and the similar feelings of loneliness expressed by Shelley’s monster. Yuliana ends her post by pointing out how similar to the family’ alienation on the mountain, the monster also had no one but himself to rely on.

Ms. Cacace: “Zizek and Ecology”
Rosanna outlines the ideas of Zizek’s article, but not without adding her own comments. For example, she thinks much of Zizek’s point about how deceptively insignificant it is about the world’s dwindling honeybee population, agreeing the crisis to be something we are unlikely to consider, only to then find ourselves struggling later with due to the several unforeseen consequences. Also, she initially found Zizek’s idea about the worldwide implementation of egalitarian justice as a solution to our ecological problems to be attractive, saying that if “king of the world” herself she would have to consider it. However, after giving it more thought, she doubted (wisely, if you ask me) the wisdom of such a plan, wondering, for instance, as to who would be responsible for the overseeing of the world. She argues that anyone with such power would likely “exploit” the situation for their “own political agenda.” 

Mr. Ross: “Hypothesis Regarding Safi’s Love Letters”
Scott offers his theory as to why Safi’s letters are missing in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as they are in many ways at the center of the novel. For Scott, the central question revolves around the veracity of the letters and how we as readers might feel confident about what they say. After providing some background information about the letters themselves, Scott argues that the key to the letters’ significance lies in a certain novel by Rousseau called: Julie, or the New Heloise, a book that had been originally titled Letters of Two Loves Living in a Small Village at the Foot of the Alps. Scott’s argument, in brief, is that Safi’s letters bear what Rousseau in Julie might identify as the marks of real passion, (i.e., boring, unremarkable repetitions), and that marks such as these self-authenticate their own veracity. Scott ends his blog by reminding us that “the position of the letters at the center of the novel gives them additional importance. In concentric narratives, also known as chiastic narratives, the center of the narrative is emphasized as a key that provides an understanding of the greater work.”

Mr. Ross: “Books for Bones: The Intertextuality of Frankenstein”
Scott argues that Frankenstein is Shelley’s romanticization of the popular philosophical arguments of her day. He finds evidence within the novel for Rousseau’s Emile and Julie, Milton’s Paradise Lost, the Bible, William Godwin’s Political Justice and Caleb Williams, as well as her mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women. He notes Frankenstein’s intertextuality in particular with Rousseau’s Emile, specifically in how the novel

presents the subject of education. Walton, Victor Frankenstein, the creature, and Felix, not to mention the minor characters, are what Scott calls “variances of the course of education laid out in Rousseau’s seminal tract.” He makes an interesting connection between Emile and Shelley’s gothic tale in the form of a single sentence from Rousseau’s text stating the following: “The rebellious angle who fought against his own nature was weaker than the happy mortal who is living at peace according to nature.” This certainly describes the creature well, and makes sense as something Shelley might have had in the back of her mind while writing. 

Jeff Anderson: “Splintered Identity: Franken-monster”

 Jeff begins his blog by focusing on Zizek’s comments that biotechnology has created a divide between the so called first and second natures: first nature is described as that which is comprehensible and beneficial to humanity, while second nature refers to anything that is genetically modified or enhanced, and could create a problem for humans to have control over. Jeff links these ideas to Frankenstein, particularly at the point in which Dr. Frankenstein crosses the line between first and second natures, by creating life, but a life out of his control. Jeff refers back to Zizek’s point that safety is not necessarily the opposite of fear, but rather “pushing on to the end and accepting the nullity we are afraid to lose.” Jeff then says that this is what fuels the rest of the novel, as seen through Frankenstein’s pursuit of the monster and his unquenchable anger towards the monster.

Alfred Valrie: “Zizek’s Follies”

Alfred’s post explores more deeply the relationship between religion and economics, as Zizek briefly mentions. Alfred claims fear, as a negative motivation, can be a good and necessary thing. Religion and environmentalism both share the principle, respectively, of improving the country’s safety, but are seen as evil, according to Zizek. Then Alfred makes a distinction between the Christian narrative’s views of spreading prosperity versus Zizek’s views. The former has helped other people flourish and thrive, while recognizing that a utopian vision of total equality is unattainable: “Some will have much, others not so much.” But this is not inhumane. The latter, Zizek’s vision, “terror would reinforce the State’s governing of egalitarian resource utilization,” without allowing people to independently arrive at the motivation of helping one’s neighbor, and by extension, the natural world.

Dimitrios Sotiriou: “From ‘Nihilism’ to ‘Justice’”

Dimitrios focuses on the main outlines of Zizek’s argument, which is his denial in the existence of a “Big Other,” or reality. Despite this nihilism, Zizek, similar to what Nietzsche did by privileging the will-to-power, fills the void with a worldview of his own. To elaborate, science and technology, capitalism, and even evolution have, arguably, shown how nature is unnatural. Dimitrios then discusses Zizek’s critique of ecology as a false alternative to capital forces, because of its actual resistance to change. While Zizek challenges these ideologies (science, ecology, religion) and refuses to think of science as holding absolute authority, he no less acknowledges that these ideas have become objective realities and incapable of being dismantled. His solution, as Dimitrios notes, is that we should act as if this eternal Idea of egalitarian Justice is real and objective, while being conscious that it is an invention. But in doing so, Dimitrios asks, won’t we be reinventing the collective or spiritual super-Subject, which Zizek says does not pertain to individual human beings? More importantly, if the collective Subject and Justice are inventions, who gets to define them? And at what or whose expense? 

Zizek and Ecology

      I found Zizek’s overall argument quite interesting. He is right in that although we are aware of the realities of global warming, our common sense makes it difficult for us to believe that something catastrophic will ever occur. According to Zizek, part of the problem is that we assume that the “world is part of reality as an ordered and seamless Whole” (444). When we look outside and see the trees swaying in the wind and hear the birds chirping, we see the sublimity of nature, but as Zizek points out, we are blind to many of the ecological changes (and its affects) to the environment. Part of the essay briefly mentions the mysterious disease that caused a huge decline in our honey bees, although many of us may have heard something on the radio or on the local news regarding the problem, I don’t think most of us seriously thought about how this will directly affect our lives. Until it becomes a catastrophic event, we continue to move on without giving the problem a second thought. And, when something horrible occurs, the desire or urgency in finding a solution to the problem quickly declines. For some reason, we cannot seem to sustain the public’s interest long enough to contend with the ecological crisis we are faced with today. 

Zizek’s first call to action is to follow Dupuy who suggests that we should first submit to the idea of a possible catastrophe and “perceive it as our fate, as unavoidable, and then, projecting ourselves into it, adopting its standpoint, we should retroactively insert into its past (the past of the future) counterfactual possibilities...upon which we then act today” (459). But  how do we know which “doom” to submit to? There are numerous scientific arguments that suggest we should focus on one potential catastrophe over another, which are we to chose? Also, when he argues that we should then “mobilize ourselves to perform the act,” it sounds as if there is one act in of it self that would fix the problem. Now, I’m not at all an expert on the details of our ecological crisis, but it would seem necessary for us to take on multiple acts simultaneously in order to evoke some kind of substantial change to the natural environment. Even if we were to attempt to solve the problem “retroactively,” there is no guarantee that the solutions we would come up with would work. 

He ends his essay with Badiou’s theory, the “eternal Idea” of revolutionary-egalitarian Justice (460). The first part argues for a strict egalitarian justice. Initially, this sounds fantastic. If I was king of the world, I would consider it, but I would first need to understand its meaning. What would be its guidelines and who would be responsible in overseeing this kind of policy? Would it be an international collective body? If so, then more than likely the same world powers would intercede and exploit it to serve their own political agenda. 

Weekly Digest

The Concord Elite (Jane Dubzinski)

            Jane mentions the fact that that she went to school near Walden Pond and has always loved reading Walden, due to the beauty of the connection between man and nature. Yet she finds Thoreau to be somewhat of an elitist in that he advocates a lifestyle (“unplugging” and living out in the woods) that most do not have the luxury to adopt. The everyday person has responsibilities, deadlines, obligations and, more often than not, mouths to feed other than their own. These people are implicitly looked down upon in Thoreau’s philosophy, possibly even characterized as cowards for their unwillingness to drop everything and become hermit-philosophers. She also finds the chapter “Reading” to be indicative of an elitist attitude.

Self-awareness and Self-criticism: Paths to Humility and Respect (Ms. Valdes)

            Valdes reflects on Cronon’s essay “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” pointing out the author’s observation that what we consider “nature” needs to be redefined, needs to be thought of as our everyday environments as opposed to something “out there.” Also she makes an interesting observation on how Western culture may have adopted a “lasses-fair” attitude towards the environment as a result of our Judeo-Christian belief in the Apocalypse, or end times. For example, we need not worry about the longevity or long-term health of the planet because it’s all going to end anyway.

Cronon and Nature (Rosanna Cacace)  

            Rosanna focused on Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” as well. She “appreciated Cronon’s article because it provided a more balanced approach to nature,” further stating that “if we only focus our attention to the wild, then we run the risk of losing ourselves in the process.”  Rosanna argues that “what we need to do is figure out how we can live with nature in a way that is environmentally responsible,” and that “no matter what we do, we will always have some kind of impact on the natural world … Regardless of how much we try to protect nature, it will always be affected by us … we can’t just stop progressing as a society for the sake of nature, instead we should take Cronon’s advice and ‘set responsible limits to human mastery.’”

Reflections on William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (Ryan Briggs)

            Ryan appreciated the way Cronen’s essay destabilized the “meaning of the wilderness by offering an informative and revealing historical analysis of the word's changing denotation, (and) especially its varying connotations across cultures.” He felt that “Cronon's penetrating analysis of the various parties belonging to the environmentalist movement, specifically their peculiar and often contradictory definitions of ‘the wilderness,’ represents what seems to (him)to be just the kind of clear-minded thinking that the environmentalist movement requires to win the hearts—and perhaps more importantly the minds—of those like (himself) who are only beginning to familiarize themselves with the movement's ideologies.”

Reflecting on William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (Jeff Anderson)

            Jeff feels that “Cronon is unduly harsh in arguing ‘[nature is] entirely a creation of the culture it holds dear, a product of the very history it seeks to deny.’” He argues that Cronen “takes a huge leap in suggesting that this desire to classify nature is a means to deny our history of modernization simply because the word deny implies an active and conscious refusal to believe or recognize.” This denial Jeff speaks of “might encompass a complete neglect and lack of concern for the wilderness” after one has taken a token visit to some wildlife preserve or a  “weekend jaunt to the woods.” He finds it absurd to “assume that enjoying the benefits of an undeveloped area is tantamount to an escape from all of humanity that we might never remember or return.”

Cronen’s Conundrum (Alfred Valrie)

            Alfred argues that our “concept of wilderness is not natural because it presumes a ‘virginity,’ an untouched quality that precludes Native Americans and which assumes that wherever man isn’t, nature is.” He goes on to state that “wilderness is a myth because we assume that what isn’t owned by the federal government, a state, or a private individual is untouched,”  and that “this fallacy allows us to pursue a course of unimpeded annexation, whereby lands that are already owned or falling into ownership are purposed, re-purposed, and plundered yet again beyond all possibility of sustainability.” Alfred rejects the notion that one must drive hundreds of miles out to some remote landscape in order to “wake up to (one’s) God-given, innate qualities of humility and start treating (one’s) fellow beings with more respect and compassion,” when this act should be possible in one’s own neighborhood.

Wilderness, Sacrality, Nationalism (Dimitrios Sotiriou)

            Dimitrios explores the historical connections between wilderness or nature and our sense of the sacred, along with our sense of nationalism. A few hundred years ago wilderness was seen as a scary place, or the home of the devil. Slowly but surely it started to become the area where one was closest to God and his authentic creation. This configuration is not without its problems, however, as he notes that “Within this complex of ‘religious’ belief and national identity, certain problems and contradictions emerge.  One of these involves class.  The wilderness as an artificial place of authenticity and Americianness can only be enjoyed and benefited from by the middle and upper classes who have the money and leisure to travel.  It is a place of recreation and of internal renewal separate from the urban centers where thesevisitors live and work.  The wilderness allows them to purify themselves of the corruption of a greedy, ugly, industrial-capitalist world, thus absolving them of any complicity in its injustices.

It’s the Economy, Stupid (William Cooper)

            Bill breaks down the meaning of economy for all those who are in “no danger of ever reading Walden.” According to him, “The purpose of an economy is to maximum the benefit of a society’s material resources by creating a system of exchange. Thus if A grows wheat and B owns a forest, A, after putting aside all the wheat he needs to make bread, exchanges his surplus wheat with B for the surplus wood that he has after he has built his cabin. This way they can each have a life, so to speak, which would not have been likely if A lived in the elements and B went hungry.” But in the case of Thoreau, he continues “But what if someone can provide shelter and food by his own industry, and still have time for a life, in fact only has to work six weeks out of the year? He then has a very successful economy of one. He is Henry David Thoreau.”

Rejecting Adam’s Curse: Thoreau’s Call to a Better Life (Scott)

            Scott points out that Thoreau wholeheartedly rejects the notion that “a man must work hard in order to earn (his) daily bread”; a belief also known as Adam’s Curse. He goes on to state that “Thoreau argues (against the notion that idle hands are the devil’s tools) that men should work less so that they can spend more leisure time contemplating the lessons to be found in nature, thereby improving their souls.” Scott argues that Thoreau is not against labor and hard work in general, but that what he is against is the misdirected toil of those working for material gain. These laborers waste their lives laboring in vain; in Thoreau’s words they "labor under a mistake."

Human Culture Can Be Destructive (Zully Henry)

            Zully comments on the differences between Native American culture and Anglo-American culture, how the former preserved their habitats and how the latter brought destruction and exploitation to the landscape. In her words, “The Native Americans have lived in the North American territories for a long time. Their culture lived in Nature and their treatment given to the environment was most advantageous for Nature than for them. They had a clear idea to what should be to live for ‘the preservation of the world’ (to use Thoreau’s quote in Cronon’s). So the culture they practiced worked to maintain Nature as pure as possible. However, European and world-wide immigrants brought with them cultures that when compared to the Natives could be quite destructive.” 

Blog Review For Week 8

Zully: “Sketch with a Purpose”

Work: John Muir and Alison Byerly

Main point: To suggest that Nature has been seen by all of us with a purpose whether our actions are in or out of human culture; often that purpose is due to commodity which is a harsh view that everyone tries to distance. But the bottom line would be on human control which provokes change in our thinking while the argument continues between the preservationist and the conservationists. Therefore Muir is part of the controlling force to bring forth Nature the way he perceived it, as it was those behind the picturesque movement.

William Cooper: “Suburban Fields Forever”

Work: Cosgrove “Sublime Nature”

William references at least three significant points that have a domino effect: The artist as tradesman to fulfill the middle-class’ demands, the artist as genius-organic, and the sublime as an ideology. William wants to see the romantics’ works ‘in a new light’ which suggests there is more to poetry. This opens up a discussion on how autonomous the artist wants or can be from the market. Though artists’ prestige suffered with the Industrial Revolution, it was beneficial in that their works were more widely distributed. Still they fought to retain “the privileged status of their work” (Cosgrove 225) and defended it by asserting their works disclosed truth “against the falsity of a social order” (Cosgrove 226). Artists were suspicious of the “British social formation” (Cosgrove 223) that they themselves had to function within. In their suspicion they created the sublime, claiming it was exclusively in their own construction of nature, paintings, poetry, literature, and human emotions. Once the romantic works are embedded in society, the romantic landscape inevitably became an ideology (Cosgrove 234).

Amber Vasquez

Work: John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra

Amber writes about Muir’s notion of ‘utility’ and the comparison between a shepherd in Scotland and one from the states. Amber’s observation suggests her connection with Nature has been not only with flowers, bugs, and school assignments but with her mother. This is meaningful because Amber’s memories of human nurture and recollection of community are based on the natural world. It speaks to how Romantic ideology survived in how it envisioned human emotions coupled with natural world aesthetics as sources for meaning. On the subject of utility, Muir reminisces on how Indian women were harvesting their crops, laughing, and enjoying the task (Muir 135). For Muir, the value of the landscape is not only in that it feeds people but that it produces satisfaction. A sustainable relationship to the land brings joy while also providing viable ways to trade and build relationships with neighbors: “The tribes of the west flank of the range trade acorns for worms and pine nuts” (Muir 136). Muir understands the ecosystem is bound up with human life and sees that the two can coexist.

Rosanna Cacace – General Thoughts on Muir’s My First Summer in the Sierra

Rosanna brings two ideas Muir carefully overlays through his writings: the landscapes blooming with life and the relationship music has with Nature and the sublime. While Rosanna writes “the natural setting as if it is alive and connected,” her recollection matches Muir’s experiences in the wilderness. He sees the mountains, though non-living, full of life “as the features of a human face” (Muir, Chapter XI, 154). This comparison evokes familiarity between Man and the outside world. In fact Muir is doing the work of the Romantics who not only make Nature as the background for Man’s history but made Nature part of human emotions. One would recall in Wordsworth’s poem Michael, the relationship Michael had with the landscape as his son, Luke, was sent to the urban settings. Like Wordsworth, Muir is not settling for a pastoral view but one in which Man can live, laugh, and struggle.

Ryan Briggs - Reflections on Muir's Curious Prose Style in My First Summer in the Sierra

Ryan provides a thoughtful discussion of how Muir’s language situates My First Summer in the Sierra in between Romanticism and scientific discourse. Muir narrates a unique genre that is interested in the wonder of nature along with an in-depth account of biology and ecosystems. Whereas a human encounter with the sublime in Romantic art could bring awe and fear, Muir’s account will invite an intimate relationship with the smallest of creatures, like insects, with the greatest of interest. When writing of poison ivy, Muir writes that it is a plant with few friends, describing a pesky plant to humans as one that is also a social creature. And while scientific discourse may appear rational and detached, Muir makes it personal. Muir combines something of science and romanticism while writing in a style quite different from both. Ryan’s use of the word “curious” to describe Muir’s tone echoes how Muir is an explorer who is a mature intellectual and at the same time full of the wonderment of a child encountering nature for the first time: “How interesting everything is! Every rock, mountain, stream, plant, lake, lawn, forest, garden, bird, beast, insect seems to call and invite us to come and learn something of its history and relationship” (Muir 145).

Alfred Valrie

Work: My First Summer in the Sierra and “The American Forests”

Alfred’s most interesting observation is that ‘Muir becomes one with nature,’ which is subject to many interpretations. One can see it as if Muir has left humanity to harbor within nature, even turning down a position at Harvard offered by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Muir emancipates himself from society to join God’s nature. Perhaps, Alfred is suggesting that the Noble Savage has been returned to its origin. But what was there in nature that Muir wanted so badly? Do you want to go there too and for how long? In the wilderness is found flora, fauna, bugs, and snow, living and non-living things, and drastic climates, all except people. Was Muir tired of humanity? Perhaps Muir fell in love with Nature and fell out of love with humanity. Muir was a fervent follower of Emerson and Henry David Thoreau who wrote about self-reliance and the purity of being individual. Muir’s work fits in a model of self-reliance as he lives in the wilderness with too little to survive while he plays the role of the good Adam, doing what Adam failed to do. Alfred writes that Muir gives ‘anthropomorphic qualities’ to living things in the solitude of Nature, which can be seen as Muir channeling Adam in the Garden of Eden before Eve.  

Joseph Mottola: “John Muir’s Environmentalism”

Ignorant of Muir’s book and a little confused about how to classify it, Joseph creates a new category for it: philosophical travel literature/nature porn.  Muir travels, while offering thoughtful interpretations of what he sees and does – all the while engaging in an orgiastic encounter with nature.  Nature is like a lover and a god, and accordingly he worships it.

Jane Dubzinski: “Romantic Paintings, Sublime Landscape”

Jane focuses on the tension between Romantic artists, nature, and society, using Cosgrove’s analysis.  In making the natural world and human beings resources for exploitation subjected to market forces, capitalism divided humans and the environment.  Society became a place of mechanical production and profit, so the Romantics sought unspoiled nature as a place where they could escape alienation.  Specifically, they sought the sublime, experienced through sight.  Using Friedrich’s painting "The Wanderer Above the Sea and Fog," she explores the complexities of humans in nature: Is man saved or threatened by nature, united to or separate from nature, subordinate to or superior to nature?

Yuliana Valdes: “The Picturesque is Pure Intentionality”

Yuliana elucidates Byerly’s article on the artificiality and constructedness of the image of the national parks.  To attract visitors, the park service wants the park to seem to be wilderness.  However, more appropriate to the way the parks function is the category of the picturesque.  The wilderness can only be wild if people are not there to tame it.  However, paradoxically, people want to go to the wilderness for leisure and aesthetically view it as wilderness. The wilderness is available to all, but they must have the leisure and money to travel.  Thus the wilderness is actively created to offer people the picturesque under the guise of the sublime.

Rabelais: John Muir: The Original Tree-Hugger Reignites Class Divide

Rabelais highlights the class tensions in Muir’s book.  Muir doesn’t idealize the shepherd. He portrays him as a hired worker who is not particularly fond of the sheep and not receptive to the beauty of nature.  Muir implies a certain training or refinement of the sensibility is required to perceive the wonders of nature.  Muir cannot tolerate the impoverishment of their diet, while the hardier workers can.  Ironically, Muir requires some of the benefits of civilization, like bread, to enjoy the wilderness.

Jeff Anderson: “A Reflection on My First Summer in the Sierra”

Jeff examines some of metaphors of Muir’s work.  His religious rhetoric includes language and symbols from the Bible: the flood, for example; the natural world as our inheritance; human beings as sheep who cannot handle freedom and who are in awe of the sublime.  Based on Cosgrove’s discussion of the sublime, Jeff observes that by applying the sublime to perception of the natural world, Muir implies that it is accessible to all people, whereas formerly it was associated with the majesty and solemnity of epic literature, which mainly the rich and educated could read.

Week 7 Blog Summary by Bill and Scott

Johnny: “Looking and Seeing in Mansfield Park”
Work: Mansfield Park (Vol I)
Sees Fanny as a decidedly shy and dull character. Only Edmund is willing to befriend her, and he takes her under his wing. The novel contains a number of irregularities, such as Fanny leaving her home to be raised by her aunts. The Bertrams struggle with how to make Fanny feel welcome while maintaining the necessary class distinction between them and her. Perhaps the only answer for Fanny lies in marriage. Much of the book is concerned with the problem of seeing and remembering. It’s a defect that appears to cross gender and class lines. The problem appears to be particularly pronounced in the Bertram family, as in the case of the morally-astute Edmund’s failure to see through Miss Crawford.

Amber: “Innate or Acquired?”
Work: Mansfield Park
Finds issue of nature versus nurture paramount in novel, with Austen emphasizing nature as the dominant influence in determining a person’s character. Thus despite Maria and Julia having been raised in a rarefied environment, they develop boorish characters, while Fanny blossoms despite having spent the first eight years of her life being raised by raucous and neglectful parents. Finds it odd, though, that the characters have such a diverse range of personalities since so many are descended from the three Ward sisters, and that the Ward sisters themselves should make such radically different life choices. Yet it was fascinating to see how all these different natures played out though the course of the novel.

Juliana: “Manipulation of Natures”
Work: Mansfield  Park
Also sees nature versus nurture as an important theme. Appears to agree that the novel emphasizes the influence of nature, as epitomized by the Bertram daughters’ imperviousness to the gentlewomanly values with which they were raised. But at the same time Austen contrasts the values inherent from being raised in the city versus the country; the Crawfords, who grew up in the city, are schemers and manipulators. Yet, in the scene in which Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords discuss their views on “schemes of happiness” in marriage, it seems that this demonstrates may be a family trait. The novel also underscores the unfairness of society’s allowance of men to emerge unscathed from scandal while women are stained for life, as evidence by the future foreshadowed for Henry Crawford and Maria Beatrice.

Rosana: “Nature in Mansfield Park”
Work: Mansfield Park
Was skeptical before reading the novel because of having learned in class that Fanny is an uninteresting character, but found that she is nevertheless an intriguing. Sees novel as paralleling the way society cultivates social values with the way people cultivate landscapes. The novel also raises several interesting questions, such as, if the natural environment is tampered with, is it still a natural setting? Or is it human nature for Man to cultivate landscape in the same vein that it is human nature for Man to create class distinctions? In the nature versus nurture dichotomy,  an argument can be made for the efficacy of the latter because Fanny’s initial shyness evidently sprang from the neglect she suffered from her parents. Then when characters like Mr. Crawford take an interest in her, Fanny breaks out of her shell.

Bill: “The Sound on the Page”
Work: Mansfield Park
Finds the comic characters of Mr. Price and especially Mrs. Norris extremely engaging, but finds it depressing that, unless a woman wants to be a buttinsky like Mrs. Norris, the only moment of high drama in her life is the decision of which suitor’s offer of marriage to accept, providing she is fortunate enough, in terms of her family wealth and physical attractiveness,  to receive an offer of marriage. Austen was ahead of her time in several of her stylistic devices. She will often allow her characters to describe themselves by virtue of the rhythm and construction of their speech. She also uses a device that Nabakov calls the knight’s move, which occasions a sudden shift in the emotional tone of a character from one extreme to another.

Zully: "Man's Nature: Absolutism"
Work: Cosgrove's "England: Prospects, Palladianism and Paternal Landscapes" and William Gilpin

Zully attempts to meld the concept of absolutism, the political theory that the monarch held absolute power, with perception as it applies to landscape theory. She begins with Cosgrave's discussion of the rise and fall of absolutism in his article, which includes a section on the development of absolutism under Henry VIII.

 Zully goes on to argue that landscaping itself is a type of absolutism, in that landscaping is man's attempt to assert their will upon nature. She relies upon the works of William Gilpin, an influential "improver" who wrote several foundation works for what is now known as landscaping, for her understanding of landscape.


Jeff Anderson: "Landscaping Gothic Allusions in Cosgrove’s England: Prospects, Palladianism and Paternal Landscapes"
Works: Cosgrove's "England: Prospects, Palladianism and Paternal Landscapes" and The Castle of Ontronto

Jeff concentrates on the Gothic aspects of Cosgrave's article.  The introduction of the Gothic elements found in William Kent's landscapes is, according to Cosgrave, "gothic liberty" versus "roman authority." Jeff discussed Kent's landscaping at Rousham, the house of  General James Dormer. Jeff expands on Cosgrave's idea that Gothic Literature was an expression of the idea that modern civilization was the product of roman and gothic collision of values by discussing how this was manifested in Horace Walpole's The Castle of Ontronto, the first Gothic novel.

Dimitrious Sotiriou: "Landscape Ideology"
Works: Cosgrove's "England: Prospects, Palladianism and Paternal Landscapes"
Dimitrious concentrated Cosgrave's overview of the "changes and revaluations" of the political aspects of landscape over time, from absolutism to republicanism. However, Dimitrious notes that the liberty implied with the republican theme was really only liberty for the upper classes - the poor continued to be excluded from these discussions.

Jane Dubzinski: "Ideas of Escapism"
Works: Cosgrove's "England: Prospects, Palladianism and Paternal Landscapes"
Jane focuses on Cosgrove's discussion of the movement to create green spaces within cities. Cosgrove used Bath, a popular resort town, as an example of a place that incorporated green spaces within the city. Jane ties this to her own experience as a New Yorker and shared her fond memories of afternoons in the park - the urban getaway for those who have neither the time nor the money to escape the concrete jungle.

Blog Overview, Week 6

Jane: Hartman's Problematics in "A Poet's Progress"

Work Discussed: A Poet’s Progress: Wordsworth and the “Via Naturaliter Negativa”

Topics discussed: Jane argues against Hartman’s use of “via negativa.” She explains that he uses a “weak metaphor” because nothing is truly being negated. In Fact, Jane points out that Wordsworth’s imagination and Nature are not separate from one another but that they coexist.

Alfred: "Spot of Time"

Work Discussed: Wordsworth’s “Spots of Time,” Book Eleven

Topics Discussed: Alfred argues that Wordsworth is only concerned with himself, but in this particular poem, he moves beyond the self once he contends with “the woman backgrounded by the low pool and high summit.” Alfred makes an interesting point in that we are all products of nature, and through this perspective are we then capable of understanding ourselves.

Ryan: "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of  Early Childhood"

Work Discussed: Wordsworth 

Topics Discussed: He also believes that Wordsworth’s work is mainly concerned with himself, more specifically his consciousness. Ryan discusses how Wordsworth relationship with the natural world evolves over the course of his childhood. He explains that “for Wordsworth, adulthood, in the most profound sense of the word, is something that mandates an eventual spiritual detachment in a person from the natural world.”

Jane: Burke vs Kant in the Battle of the Sublime

Work Discussed: Burke and Kant

Topics Discussed: Jane compares and contrasts Burke’s definition of the sublime with

Kant’s interpretation. She explains that while Burke aligns the sublime with fear, pain, and astonishment, Kant views the sublime in terms attraction and repulsion that ultimately leads to a feeling of transcendence. She connects Kant’s understanding of the sublime with Freud’s theory of “unheimlich.” She argues that “Kant’s theory of the sublime focuses on the power of the imagination and its ability to produce feelings of gratitude and pleasure.”

Yuliana: "The symbiotic relationship of man and the environment with Wordsworth's Prelude"

Work Discussed: Prelude

Topics Discussed: Yuliana discusses the complicated relationship that man has with nature.

She explains that “We have a real and tangible relationship to nature and the interrelated system, but we also project onto nature our hopes, fears, desires, and emotions.” In her analysis of Wordsworth’s Prelude, she demonstrates how Wordsworth’s imagination cultivates an understanding of nature that is both “both real and imagined.”

Joseph: "The Prelude: Wordsworth and Solitude"

Work Discussed: Prelude

Topics Discussed: Joseph explains that for Wordsworth, nature provides a place of shelter and solitude. It becomes a safe haven for those looking for an escape. Joseph also points out that what is truly being demonstrated is “the power of the mind and/or imagination, and nature is simply the vehicle or the ideal setting to unleash the mind’s full poetic potential.”

Amber: “Sublimity and Other Questions”

Work Discussed: Perspectives: The Sublime, the Beautiful, and the Picturesque

Topics Discussed: Frustration with the mysoginist undertones of Coleridge’s “reimagining” of the Falls of the River Clyde episode; discusses the issues regarding the “packaging and consumption” of nature (ex: Claude glass), which implies a sense of artificiality to the experience; has difficulty with Kant’s interpretation of the sublime: is it rooted in absolute reason as opposed to nature?

Zully: “The Sublime in the Lascaux Paintings”

Work Discussed: “How Words Influence the Passions” from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Topics Discussed: Compares Burke’s theory of the word as the best method to evoke sublime passion to the Lascaux cave paintings; argues for the sublime nature of the artwork, as the objects in the paintings contain ideas of nature and human history not necessarily understood by the viewer.

Johnny: “Kant and the World of Reality and Experience”

Work Discussed: The Critique of Judgement

Topics Discussed: Proposes to reclassify Kant’s reality into two subcategories: the reality we experience (phenomenon) and reality itself (noumenon), as this reorganization blends epistemological and philosophical ideas of existence rather than separating them exclusively. 

Scott: “Forces of Nature: Irritable Bowel Syndrome”

Work Discussed: “A Poet’s Progress: Wordsworth and the Via Naturaliter Negativa”

Topics Discussed: Examines Blake’s criticism of Wordsworth’s poem “The Recluse,” which later is transformed into The Prelude; Blake viewed Wordsworth as a pagan for believing in “the reality of the natural world over God.”

Bill: “Ascent the Negativa”

Work Discussed: “A Poet’s Progress: Wordsworth and the Via Naturaliter Negativa”

Topics Discussed: Points to inconsistencies in Hartman’s citations (He sources an 1850 Prelude instead of the 1805 version found in the LABL; LABL also omits the Mont Blanc passage that Hartman refers to in the essay); finds trouble making sense of Hartman’s via naturaliter negativa analogy (wasn’t quite strong enough of a comparison to the via negativa of the spiritual world).

Dimitrious: “Spots of Time”

Work Discussed: The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind

Topics Discussed: Examines the paradoxical nature of The Prelude, focusing on Wordsworth’s past sufferings, confusions, and moments of doubt as catalysts for the poet’s subsequent understanding of truth and meaning, which Wordsworth views as the pleasurable experience. 

Blog Postings by Alfred and Yuliana

Joseph

Work/Discussion: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Topics discussed: Joseph discusses his surprise upon reading Coleridge that the two, Wordsworth and Coleridge, differ in tone such that Wordsworth seems more concerned with death but with Coleridge there is at least a redemptive aspect to death and dying.

Bill

Work/Discussion: McKusick’s “Coleridge and the Economy of Nature”/The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Topics discussed: Bill discusses the diachronic features of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with respective to the successive versions of the poem, all of which elided the epochal blurring of the first version.  These epochs represent discrete passages of time in the English language, and allow us as readers to be reacquainted with an extinct lexicon.

Amber

Work/Discussion: Coleridge’s Rime and The Eolian Harp

Topics discussed: Amber raises some very important questions in both poems which center on the fervent imaginings of the speakers, the respective speakers’ motivations, and the power of the passive mind.

Johnny

Work/Discussion: Kubla Khan

Topics discussed: Johnny utilizes the opening lines of the poem to explore the natural track of the river Alph with respect to the sexual act: first pleasure (dome), then fertility, and finally sterility.  The erotic sexual act is differentiated from the natural sexual act.  This is interesting because Coleridge’s personal sexual fantasies, then, are unnatural?

Alfred

Work/Discussion: Rime

Topics discussed: Alfred discusses the theme of transgression and expiation and the subconscious desire to understand the natural world.

Ryan
Work: Neil Evernden’s “Beyond Ecology: Self, Place, and Pathetic Fallacy”
Topics discussed/Questions: scientific minutiae and human nature, absence of human concerns in Evernden, conceptual distance. "How, for instance, would one's studying or being made aware of the various examples of bacteria in the human stomach ever lead a person to the knowledge of the Sistine Chapel? Or Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon? Or the beauty of Shakespeare’s verse?" 

Rosanna
Work: Neil Evernden’s “Beyond Ecology: Self, Place, and Pathetic Fallacy”
Topics discussed/Questions: interrelatedness, fluidity within nature, holistic approach to ecology, individual-in-context, bridging the gap between man and nature in the modern world. How would a holistic ecological approach translate in practice?  

Jeff

Works: Neil Evernden’s “Beyond Ecology: Self, Place, and Pathetic Fallacy” and James C. McKusick’s “Coleridge and the Economy of Nature”
Topics discussed/Questions: The interrelatedness of the humanities and science, the symbiosis of language and the environment, mankind’s relationship and symbiosis with the natural environment, utility and aesthetics.
 Zuly
Work: Neil Evernden’s “Beyond Ecology: Self, Place, and Pathetic Fallacy”
Topics discussed/Questions: humanity’s primordial relationship to nature, environment and private property, nature as commodity, utility argument as corrupt. 

Class Blog Digest for Week 3 by Amber and Jeff

Blog Digest - Week Three

Bill

Work: Michael and Tintern Abbey

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Why does the narrator find the poem “delightful”? How does this color the interpretation of the unexplained destruction of the Evening Star cottage in “Michael”? Who is the intended audience for “Tintern Abbey”? Why should Wordsworth address his sister Dorothy, if she isn’t able to benefit from his advice?

Yuliana

Work: Preface, Tables Turned, Exposulation and Reply, Tintern Abbey

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Wordsworth sees poetry as most fitted to address the familiar elements of the daily life of the everyday man rather than the esoteric concerns of the “Poet”. Nature as teacher and poetry as the language of learning.

Jane

Work: “Ecocriticism in British Romantic Studies”, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Are human cognitive abilities, reason and logic, part of the larger classification of human nature?   The idea of “Vindication as a critical response to the deep ecology philosophy ‘in which the ecospheric whole is understood as a contextual extension of the human self’”.

Dimitrious

Work: “Poems on the Naming of Places”, “Green to the Very Door? The Natural Wordsworth”,

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Culture and Nature, perception and imagination, “understanding or consciousness emerges from a dynamic relationship between language/mind on the one hand and nature on the other.”

Jeff

Work: “Poems on the Naming of Places”, “Ecocriticism in British Romantic Studies”,

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Environmental Commodification, Is naming a mark of connection or appropriation/control?

Johnny

Work: Preface to the Lyrical Ballads  

Thematic Concerns/Questions: The Image of Man and Nature, How does Wordsworth use/ discuss rationality, structure and methodology in the preface to The Lyrical Ballads? Does the Poet write as a duty? And, if so, how do we reconcile the process of writing as both “pleasurable” and “mechanical”?

Amber

Work: "We are Seven" and “Anecdote for Fathers”

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Grown-Ups and Children, How does our experiential knowledge influence or shape our perceptions of Nature?

Zully

Work: “Poems on the Naming of Places” and “Green to the Very Door? The Natural Wordsworth”   

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Wordsworth Naming Places, How do we reconcile attempts by Wordsworth to break away from “common life” with the modern day concerns of encroachment by humans? 

Ryan

Work: “Ecocriticism in British Romantic Studies” and The Blank Slate

Thematic Concerns/Questions: A Brief Analysis of the Ethical Problems Suggested by the Ideology of Deep Ecocriticism, Is it possible to separate human nature from our natural environment? Do humans, alone, determine the value of nature?  

Scott

Work: “Poems on the Naming of Places” and Tintern Abbey

Thematic Concerns/Questions: The Writing on the Rock: Graffitti in Wordsworth's Nature, Is it possible to name places in nature and not take possession or ownership over them? Is a natural space cluttered with masses of visitors capable of allowing the transcendence of an individual?

Alfred

Work: Tintern Abbey

Thematic Concerns/Questions: ’Tis Her Privilege, For Wordsworth, “Only by growing up in the country can each person arrive at a sense of place and a sense of purpose.” Given this idea, is it possible to connect with nature and ourselves even in our modern world of crowded hiking trails and camping grounds littered with RVs? Is “perpetual renewal,” in both body and spirit possible without solitude?     

Rosanna

Work: “Ecocriticism in British Romantic Studies,” “Lines Written in Early Spring”

Thematic Concerns/Questions: Lines Written in Early Spring, Is it possible to separate humans and nature? Is it possible for humans to encroach and manipulate nature, but still have the potential for a connection? But, would it be a connection or a simple mastery over nature?

Trends: Is it possible to name places and not gain control or mastery over nature? How are we to differentiate manipulation/ control from a connection/ interaction with nature? Can we separate humans from nature? Is it still possible, in the modern world, to connect with a commoditized and manipulated version of nature? How does nature influence our perceptions of others (e.g. children, loved ones, ourselves)?