Creative Project Explanation

For our creative project, Ian and I chose to demonstrate the concept of blindness, a reoccurring disability and method towards realization that was prevalent in the material we covered this semester. Oedipus, Tiresias, Gloucester, and Delacey were all victims, yet also beneficiaries of their blindness. I took on the burden of visual darkness to attempt to understand the visually impaired struggles of these literary heroes.

Blindness was a critical theme to this semester as an indication of true realization and personal insight. In Oedipus the King, the most knowledgeable character was represented by the prophet Tiresias. A lack of sight gave him supernatural foresight, gifted by the gods to bring news to able bodied characters that nevertheless failed to see the truth. Ironically, they reject this knowledge in favor of their own rationality and personal observations, trusting in what they have seen and understand rather than a different type of insight. In his moment of catharsis, Oedipus blinds himself in a painful statement of realization. His own sight had deceived him; indeed, his observations had led him through a complacent life riddled with hidden terrors. Blindness served to humble Oedipus and replace his corrupted sight with the purity of blindness. In a similar manner, Gloucester can only see the true nature of his sons after he has been blinded. His opinion had been corrupted with perfect vision, yet blinding had revealed to him the truth once forced to withdraw from sight and gain knowledge from more truthful intuition and evidence. Finally, Delacey (who is already blind when introduced) is to be praised as the only character that can see another side of Frankenstein’s monster. This semester’s reading has taught us that true realization is not necessarily a product of sight and observation; in fact, those factors can lead to misinterpretations and a delaying of the truth for many characters.

In light of this observation, we sought to explore the cognitive benefits of blindness through comical shenanigans encountered with my own visual disabilities. I did in fact gouge my own eyes out for the sake of this project- the blindfold was included merely to spare the viewer from slightly graphic wounds, and as a result I am forced to dictate this write-up as we speak. Anyways, although partially motivated by humor, certain scenes gave an experience similar to the previously mentioned characters and their struggles without sight. My piano proficiency demonstrates the ability of blindness to enhance other senses of touch and sound, and not entirely destroying the skillset of a previously able person. Frisbee, bathroom breaks, walking, and Trimble didn’t work out so well. While the disabilities of these characters weren’t particularly discussed, the humility, patience, and forced creativity brought by lack of sight allowed a shared understanding with the characters we had studied. My analysis of Star Wars was also incorrect, yet we intended to show the possibility of alternative opinions forced by a lack of reliance on sight. Most of all, blindness was difficult- yet that challenge forces the victim to view traditional vision as an unnecessary sense.

While devoid of opportunity for grand realization, such as the nature of Gloucester’s sons or Oedipus’ cursed past, I did notice the need and clear availability of alternative forms of realization. Blindness takes away a sense that is very difficult to replace, severely limiting day to day activities as well as the basic acquisition of knowledge. But, its exclusion forces that person to take more time and think before coming to a conclusion, as information is not as readily available. The rash decisions made by Oedipus or the characters in Frankenstein show the downside to readily available information and the resulting hasty conclusions. My experience demonstrated the potency of blindness as a catalyst to an ultimately more complete form of realization, and essential to the acquisition of truth found throughout the content of this semester.

An Epic of Haikus- Rebecca Southern A6

For our creative project, David and I decided to write an epic poem made up of haikus. Inspired by our blog assignment, which was to write a haiku on Frankenstein, each haiku makes up one stanza of the entire epic. Using the form of a haiku of 5-7-5 syllables inside the form of an epic poet intertwining the works we have read this semester. We used the ideas talked about in our 102 discussion of the literature and nuanced this a bit with Shakespeare’s sonnet and references to Trimble. This epic is a tribute to the many things we have learned in Thematic Option and especially with Ed’s writing class! The greatest challenge was being able to fit what I wanted to say into a certain amount of syllables. This constraint resulted in a lot more trial and error than normal written essay. I can’t imagine what writing in iambic pentameter was like for Shakespeare.

The poem begins by invoking a muse, which parallels the beginning of Homer’s The Odyssey. Just as The Odyssey begins with “O sing to me muse,” we began with “Oh sing to me Ed” (1). We are telling this story through “Ed” just like the Odyssey. The line “many twists and turns” (4) is also an allusion to a quote from The Odyssey. Ed is like a muse he is godlike and the “inspiration for a creative artist,” with David and I as the creative artists of this poem. Next we reference Trimble and Ed and all that we have learned about writing from them, proving that we did learn an immense amount over the course of the semester. We learned not to end a sentence with a preposition, which Trimble said was okay to do, but Ed did not. If there is one thing that was emphasized the most by about writing style, it was to never end a sentence with a preposition. The fifth stanza talks about the one-sentence paragraph that Ed encouraged us to try in our A5 essays.

The next section of haikus is about Margaret Shelley’s Frankenstein. We discuss his obsession with progress and his drive to learn more about science. Frankenstein was so obsessed with his project that “He did not notice” (21) the ugliness of his monster. It was when the monster physically moved that Frankenstein realized what he had done and now unnaturalness of creating life from nothing. Stanza 11 shows the monster’s shift from goodness and a desire to live in harmony with humans to his evilness. He was able to learn about humans and their customs by spying on the De Lacey family. He proved to be a very smart being and was able to teach himself many things such as speech. This gain of knowledge led us to the next section of the epic, which is about Milton’s Paradise Lost. This epic talked a lot about knowledge and the realizations of Adam and Eve. God says that he made Adam and Eve “free to fall,” which we used in our epic as well. One quotation that we emphasized in 102 was to “justify the ways of God to men,” which we also included in our epic, highlighting the main points of the epic.

The next theme of our epic is blindness. Blindness pretty much showed up in everything we did this semester. Eve’s desire and curiosity blinded her from God’s words, Oedipus blinded himself in Oedipus Rex, and Edmund blinded Gloucester in King Lear. The next stanza (16) references the Sphinx. Even though Oedipus solved the Sphinx’s riddle and saved his city, it really led to his final demise. Stanza 17 and 18 references Shakespeare’s Sonnet 24. Stanza 17 is as follows:

Blindness is not bad

Just a matter of perspective

See what I did there?

In Shakespeare’s sonnet 24, he breaks iambic pentameter on the word “perspective.” In this haiku, we broke the 5-7-5 pattern on the word “perspective” also because that line is eight syllables instead of seven. The next stanza alludes to the “cunning” eyes of Shakespeare’s sonnet and how he concludes that the truth can never be found in line “fails to find the truth.”

Next we went into Pygmalion. We quoted Higgins with “simple phonetics” and “the science of speech.” He saw making Eliza as a game but he forgot that she was a real person. Luckily, “Romance in Five Acts” is five syllables. Our epic also discusses the role of creator versus creation. Shaw created his play Pygmalion with many specific stage directions and was very intense about making sure that these were followed exactly in performances. Higgins also created Liza.

Lastly, our epic comes to a close with the last work that we read in Core 102, Arcadia. This play discusses the Law of Thermodynamics and Fermat’s Last Theorem, both worked on my Thomasina. Thomasina worked on this problem, but Hannah, Valentine, and Bernard are able to work on this “detective story” (90) and figure out that Septimus was the hermit in Sidley Park (stanza 29). The epic concludes with “in Arcadia Ego/Written on the tombs” (92). “Et in Arcadia Ego” is a saying that means, “Even in Arcadia, I am here” or “I, too, am in Arcadia.” This is written on tombs and is one of the first symbols in art history.

My Perspective on the Semester

Since blogging about haiku’s brought us so much joy, we decided to use a series of haikus to explain the semester and to tie together themes from Trimble, Ed’s teaching, and the Core 102 readings. Although haikus can be restrictive because of their syllable counts and three-line format, we feel they mirror the confining nature of this semester’s readings. We read mostly epics, dramas, and poems, all of which have their own limitations, so by explaining their connections through haikus, we forced ourselves to peep (to gaze) into the writing processes of the authors we had the pleasure to read this semester.

Inspired by Homer and Milton, we begin our poem with an invocation to a muse. Like Milton, our muse is not one of the nine classical muses. But we differ from Milton in that we also do not invoke the Holy Spirit. Rather, we invoke a much more powerful muse, Edward Kozaczka. We implore him to bestow his endless knowledge upon us, and he complies by guiding us through The Odyssey, Oedipus, Frankenstein, Paradise Lost, Writing with Style, Pygmalion, Arcadia and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 24.

While each of these works receives specific reference, we also subtly allude to Arcadia through our disjointed style. Stoppard blurs the distinction between past and present by having both appear on stage at the same time, and our poem works similarly, seamlessly shifting from an ancient epic poem (The Odyssey) to a contemporary book on style (Writing with Style). The disjointed, yet understandable style forces the reader to forget barriers of time and recognize everything as homogeneous within one semester of learning.

While we touch on themes of blindness, creation, and perception, I find our stylistic experimentation more compelling than simple references to the works. To this point, my favorite stanza of the poem reads:

Blindness is not bad
Just a matter of perspective
See what I did there?

Here, the haiku’s 5, 7, 5 syllable pattern breaks with the word “perspective.” This not only alludes to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 24, but also comments on the importance of perspective relative to our semester. From Trimble we learned that we must consider the perspective of our reader, and to alter our writing to interest a specific audience. From Aristotle, we learned his hierarchy of writing forms, and how writing can be broken down to a science. And from Milton we learned to evaluate our lives through a fallen perspective, and to approach life with more humility. These are but a few examples of perspective, and the theme could be applied to every work we read.

We end out poem by inviting the reader to explore his own perspective about life, about our readings, and about our poem. We end with “In Arcadia Ego” because this acts as the culmination of perspective. Since the phrase has been “Written on the tombs,” it reminds us that while we are equal in death, the life experiences leading to this culmination shape the world differently for each person. Our poem mimics this structure, as no matter how much the poem jumps around, every reader ends up in Arcadia. But the perspectives each person experiences before he arrives at this point make the individual visits to Arcadia unique, just as we each had a unique experience in Ed’s class. So as we depart, we accept that although we may know not the heart, we are grateful that through the painter we have seen his skill, and have become better writers as a result.

One Haiku to Rule them All

By Haiku masters Rebecca Southern and David Tobia

Oh sing to me Ed

And through me tell the story

Of all we have learned

Many twists and turns

Brought Odysseus back home.

Many suitors died

Kittens also died

Thanks to a preposition

Ending a sentence

Trimble says it’s fine

But Ed says no way José

I agree with Ed

He wants us to try

A one-sentence paragraph

We are now writers

Trimble is sassy

Victor Frankenstein is cray

Obsessed with progress

He made a monster

The thing was really ugly
He did not notice

Then it came to life

Got lots and lots of knowledge

And killed many people

Victor even knew

Who killed little William

Without any proof

Searching for friendship

But judged by exterior

Made him turn evil

Knowledge comes from trees

God says, “Guys, please don’t eat that”

Eve screwed that one up

Tempted by a snake

She took the apple and bit

Crunch, crunch, damnation

Made them free to fall

Justify the ways of God

To men, we will see

Invoking a muse

Because humans are fallen

Blinded, Milton wrote.

Desire blinded Eve

Oedipus blinds Oedipus

Edmund blinds Gloucester

Oedipus the King

He solved the sphinx’s riddle

But it did not help

Blindness is knowledge

At least for Tiresias

He sees with no eyes

Blindness is not bad

Just a matter of perspective

See what I did there?

With its cunning eyes

Shakespeare’s sonnet 24

Fails the find the truth

Can Eliza hide?

Her past of flower selling?

Or her dirt and grime

Simply phonetics

And the science of speech too

Higgins plays a game

Molding her to be.

Pickering treats her

As a human being

Romance in five acts

Higgins taught Eliza words

But can she use them?

Shaw created play

Higgins created Liza

Both want to control

But can they do it?

What is the relationship,

Maker to product?

Fermat’s last theorem

Lord Byron in the game book

Thermodynamics

The chaos theory

A rabbit population

Thomasina’s work

Hannah discovers

Valentine understands it

Bernard gets it wrong

Plautus and Lightening

Septimus is a hermit

In Croom’s Sidley Park

The Maid of Turkey

And the Couch of Eros too,

Chater a liar

Detective Story

In Arcadia Ego

Written on the tombs.

Yeahhh Epic Yeahhhhhhhhhh

I was only trying to be a smart-ass when I said that we should adapt Poetics for A6. I think I was trying to be as absurd as possible when I came up with a cheesy ‘80s workout video idea. I was definitely trying to impress a rhetorical/cinematic/fabulous deity when I put the two together.

It didn’t work out because at the heart of Poetics is a debate, so it was cool of Sydney to roll with the tangential idea of competing workouts—an adaptation of an adaptation, if you will.

So let me explain the choices we made in ArisBattle:

1. We embodied the competitors in Poetics, epic and tragedy, in our workouts. Epic and Tragic both have distinctive personalities in workout style. They share general characteristics in verse like completeness and unity, but they differ fundamentally in that epic imitates admirable people (9) and tragedy imitates admirable actions (11). These are driving forces for their respective workouts: the epic values the person exercising, and tragedy values the exercise itself.

2. The persona of the trainer is also an extension of the verse she’s teaching. Our profiles were tailored to the interests of epic and tragedy: I’m from Ithaca, NY, because The Odyssey’s home base is in the Greek Ithaca, and the great tragedians were from Athens. Epics like loooong, grandiose activities, and tragedies are unapologetically dark. My clothes were over-the-top to capture the grandeur of Epic; Sydney’s were black because for Tragic, life ends that way.

3. Each exercise showcases different elements of epic and tragedy. I tell my student in the first (Strength) round to “pump it with a stiff upper lip” because “an epic is no vulgar art.” Only epics are written in heroic verse, and I translated that as the most stately and grandiose form into the physical form of my student (40). The purpose? It reflects herself as a person (or maybe a winner) worth imitating. The stage notes tell Nathalie to appear godlike because it is superior to the vulgar art of tragedy, which involves a great deal of movement (46). Kati is in a lot of pain and she’s showing it…making her all the more vulgar because her action-driven audience isn’t intelligent enough to intuit what she’s feeling. But her technique (action) is superb so she wins that round.

4. The Core Round emphasizes Epic’s multiplicity. Epic poems are made impressive by their ability to carry on many simultaneous parts, achieving grandeur and variety of interest for the audience (40). The sideways, bicycle, and scissor-leg crunches “keep the kid engaged,” while similarity in tragedies becomes monotonous and perhaps not as effective in a workout. Another note: Tragic loses her cool when Epic gets more points—definitely not as stately. Ironically, she’s making a bigger spectacle out of herself than she perceives Epic to be (referencing that vulgar art, tragedy).

5. Tragic definitely wins the Endurance Round. This seems counterintuitive because Epic deals with “a lot of magnitude to cover,” and Homer handles that especially well with focusing on one plotline with smaller episodes to diversify the poem (38). But this decision only compensates for the trouble of holding such a long story in our memories, whereas tragedies are short (but not so sweet) by design—favorable to the audience (14). The slow-fast interval style of the Epic workout may help Nathalie build endurance, but with the Tragic workout it isn’t necessary for Kati, who speeds through the round effortlessly.

6. In the last Cardio Round, we see that Epic wins by a landslide because Kati takes a critical fall. Why Epic wins isn’t clear, but that’s my fault because I totally forgot to yell my lines during the race. I was supposed to egg Nathalie on with mantras from previous rounds, with the final “Think admirable people!” Cheesy, but the words of encouragement motivate her more than the rote technique that Tragic emphasizes. Kati trips up because she isn’t nearly as invested in herself as she is in squaring her legs just right. Epic wins because Nathalie embodies the admirable person that audiences love.

Anyway, Epic had to win. Would you really want to endorse something called Tragic Workout? Instead of Epic Workout? Exactly.

*Major props to Sydney for editing and finding a commentator. All I did was yell a lot and torture my roommate.

ArisBattle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpv44U2SySE&feature=youtu.be

“So what book should we use for A6?”

“How about the Poetics?”

“You’re kidding right?”

Weird as it may be, our idea to use Aristotle’s Poetics originated as joke, partially because it seemed less interesting (in terms of a creative adaptation) than other works such as Frankenstein or Pygmalion. But as we continued to contemplate the idea, Christine and I realized that we would not necessarily have to use it as a guide to writing good literature, but that we could follow in the steps of our in-class debate. We thought this would be a great backdrop for our adaptation since Aristotle explicitly contrasts epics and tragedies in the Poetics. After that revelation, our focused shifted to what kind of adaptation we would create.

We began with the idea of doing a one of those cheesy 80s workout videos based on the conventions of epics and tragedies (plus who can resist the opportunity to wear neon tights and sport super-high side ponytails?). However, after watching a few videos on Youtube, we were inspired to change our concept to incorporate a more modern, competitive aspect. Thus ArisBattle (yay for cheesy titles!) was born.

We then went throughout the book to find passages we could use - either as workout mantras or just phrases we could yell at our students - or, as I’d like to call them, our “victims.” Even though the idea of using exercises to symbolize tragedies and epics seemed unorthodox, we still wanted to include the main concepts in our execution. For example, in his description of a good tragedy, Aristotle emphasizes the importance of plot and actions over characters: “There could not be a tragedy without action, but there could be one without character” (12). Therefore we decided to have the Tragic Workout focus on technique and skill - it wouldn’t be about the person doing the workout as much as practice and “substance.”

Continuing off our class debate as inspiration, we had Epic win over Tragedy (sucks for me, but whatever... you win some, you lose some). Because the Tragic Workout student kept thinking about every aspect of her technique while running - proper breathing, pumping her arms, measuring the length of her strides, and other random stuff like that - she lost awareness and ended up stumbling right before reaching the finish line. Our rationale was that, in order to succeed, one does not necessarily have to over-think his or her actions. It’s definitely debatable, but we believed that practice does not always render perfection. Sometimes it’s about losing oneself to passion, and that’s what we decided to stress overall within the competition.

A6- Blake's Blindess

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW2Jdkeyz4k

For our A6 project, we chose to do a video about being blind, since blindness was a recurring theme throughout this semester. The main focus of the video is how blindness, whether figurative or literal, is a struggle, similar to how Oedipus and Gloucester suffer after being blinded. It is not all bad news though, as we attempted to show through the piano scene, as blindness allows for the development of other characteristics (in the movie’s case, musical talent). Characters who exhibit some benefits from their blindness would be Tiresias and DeLacy. Nevertheless, although comedic in nature, our video attempted to show how overall blindness is detrimental (obviously), even though there are some benefits to be had.

Oedipus is a prime example of a character that suffers from blindness. Before being literally blind, Oedipus was figuratively blind to his fate. Oedipus the King seems to say that vision or prophetic insight is not dependent on literal sight. Oedipus was famous for his intellect and ability to solve riddles, yet neither of those allowed him to see the truth of his marriage that he had been living with for years. Thus, this seems to suggest that all humans are imperfect and will err, regardless of how smart or prophetic they may be.

Gloucester too symbolizes how a minor error can end with tragic consequences. The root of Gloucester’s problems is his rejection of his bastard son Edmund, which is precipitated more by society’s treatment of bastards than of Gloucester’s personal feelings towards his son. Edmund’s jealousy and rage spawned from this second-class treatment, and led to his plot to strip his father of his power. Thus, Gloucester was merely abiding by society’s rules, yet he was blinded. Can it really be said that he brought his fate upon himself? This harkens back to the theme of free will vs. fate that we have seen in many of the books we read. In Gloucester’s case it seems as if he was destined to become blind, similar to how Oedipus was unable to escape his fate. Therefore, blindness not only represents the ignorance of one’s future, but also the inevitability of fate.

Not all characters purely suffer during their season of darkness; blindness can be a boon for some. Tiresias would be a prime example of this; for without his physical sight he gained fabulously accurate prophetic vision. This is another example of the imperfection of humans; for he is literally blind yet a visionary, which suggests that humans cannot be both prophetic and able to physically see simultaneously. De Lacy in Frankenstein may not obviously derive any tangible benefits from his lack of vision, but one benefit would be that he is only able to judge people based on their characters. In Frankenstein, society is very judgmental and based on appearances, while De Lacy is the antithesis of that, just like how De Lacy and his family are exiles from French society. His inability to judge based on sight allows him to give the monster a chance, for at heart the monster is truly a benevolent character. Although the monster’s attempt at civil conversation collapses when the rest of the family, who can actually see him, enters, De Lacy’s blindness symbolizes that at times ignoring appearances can be beneficial, for it leaves the inner character of a person stark naked.

Even though our movie was largely comedic, we attempted to communicate some of the symbols that blindness has played in the books we read this semester. We had many scenes of Blake struggling with daily life to symbolize how blindness is mainly a disadvantage. However, we juxtaposed it with Blake playing Mozart on the piano to symbolize how other skills, such as prophetic vision, can be heightened during blindness. Similar to how Frankenstein is a series of stories within stories, yet a major theme is the unreliability of narration, it is ironic that we shot a film about blindness. For those of you who could see it, we hope you enjoyed the symbolism behind our project.