Saussure- I am a better person for having read this…

My goal, this semester, is to be so well versed in a text that all I’ll have to do is smell it and I’ll be able to recite everything off the page. That said I have not achieved my goal as creepy as it sounds.

I left class eager to dive into Saussure’s piece knowing that it was supposed to be straight forward. Was it supposed to be interesting (I asked myself)? Maybe it was…maybe it was really interesting and I missed something…I better read it again…wait…wait…still sucks…what’s going on here?

I guess I could break down what I got from the text, but that seems pointless since we’ll probably do that collectively tomorrow. Instead, I’ll tell you what I asked of the piece to clarify for me. First, what are the linguistic organisms of language?– Phonemes, lexicals, dialects? How is language a social institution?- Because as a community we create it? Why is language a human phenomena?- no ans. What is the value of a word? His sheep and money examples helped a bit with this last question, but I had a hard time applying the concept to other words outside of a biblical reference (cup, grail, holy cup).

Language was/is conceived somewhat arbitrarily. For the creation of language to be truly arbitrary seems a bit farce. If the creation of language is a social institution how can it be arbitrary?

The question I found myself asking the most was SO WHAT?!? This led me to two conclusions; 1) I have a bad attitude which has blinded me in realizing the greatness of this piece, or 2) It needs salt.

Reaction to Marxism

I don’t want to start every one of my blogs the same way whining and complaining about how much I didn’t understand the reading(s). It’s becoming reoccurring theme amongst the work I’ve posted so far this semester. So, for this entry, I refuse to let myself fall victim to my own pessimistic reaction by admitting that I had a hard time in comprehension. I will not tell you that I am frustrated, nor will I talk to you about the growth I’ve noticed in violent tendencies towards literature as a whole. Instead, I will say that I think I understood a little bit more of what I read this time. Reading is supposed to be a relaxing, pacifying experience.

Williams is a Marxist theorist. If that’s correct then he believes that struggles within social class influence history and everything in it including literature. Eventually capitalism must fail and the world will reform to a classless society. He navigates us through the history of the word ‘literature’ and the reasons why we need to have criticism. Williams seems to support some of what Eliot and Bakhtin say in that we need to understand the root of tradition in literature to define literature and we need to understand each specific element of it to criticize it. Williams says that the problem with society is that when we talk about politics or society or topics like crime and racism today, we talk about them on an abstract or superficial level. Literature’s purpose is to delve deeper into defining what it actually means to be a human and struggle and existing not as a number describing that struggle. Great. What happens when capitalism disappears? What happens when we’re all the same, and not a sole suffers? Not possible- but if it was, what would happen to literature? Would its importance cease to exist?

Deleuze and Guattari are a comical pair. They first introduce their argument holding hands letting the reader know that they are going to try and be confusing by hiding in plain site. They say that a book is a “little machine”. A book is not “ideology”. The two also go on to say that a book does not reflect society, but rather involves separating yourself from the ‘individual’. I know that they are trying to contradict Marxist thought, but it was hard for me to put my finger on the pulse of their argument. Getting back to the little machine analogy- wouldn’t society be the driver? If the book is not ideology, meaning that the people don’t follow the literature or use it as a political tool, it must mean that it is then a reflection of society. I don’t think I agree with this if this is what the argument actually supports. A reread may lure me into editing this piece.

Bakhtin

No me gusta. Barry is Mr. Positive. It took me a very, very long time to get through the Bakhtin. The work that I’ve done in completing this reading is far from over if I wish to fully understand it. There is little that truly angers me; not understanding what I’m working on makes my blood pressure soar. I spent about an hour and a half analyzing the first two pages of Bakthin’s essay and feel about seventy percent confident that I know what he’s talking about. I didn’t want to cause myself to become violent so I moved on with the rest of the piece, trying to enjoy the cadence of the unfamiliar ‘prose’. This kind of work humbles me.

To take a stab at what Bakhtin is saying I’ll try to discuss what he means by the use of discourse in the classification of genres. Previous to the 20^th century our author suggests that the means by which we gave art a genre was merely accomplished by studying the materials or the biology that made up that art. The author’s time period and his/her place in society weighed the heaviest in determining the direction of its literary placement. Followed by the way it was written including its style and language came second (whether it be poetic, conversational, informative, etc.). Bakhtin suggests that before this metamorphosis (soon to be discussed) we described literature in an ‘abstract’ manner. We didn’t figure in to the equation what he calls the ‘social tone’ of either the time, the language of the piece, the characters (if any) and their relevance to the people, or the piece as a whole (I may very well be missing the point of his argument. I don’t mean to put words in his mouth if I do. This is my interpretation of what the last two hours have meant to me). The novel has changed as language has changed. Studying the language and what the language meant to the people is what Bakhtin suggests is the root to classifying a particular work into a genre. It involves understanding why there was a change and what necessarily the change meant to the condition of society. Like we discussed with the Eliot, it is essential to have a consciousness of the past to create art that can be truly understood and given value. The same principle has to apply then when categorizing that art.

Its possible that Bakthin will come back from the dead to slap me in the face. I look forward to the clarification of my thoughts during the next class. If any feels like writing a response I would most happily accept some feedback.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely confident in what I’ve selected as a career path.  I won’t until I’ve finished it.  Currently I’m on my sixth major, studying English, and doubt lingers.  Is one ever sure that they are marrying the right person- I mean 100% sure, or that they are ready to become a parent?  I weigh my future choice of employment with the same concern. 

I love to write.  When I went back to school I decided I was only going to take courses I thought I’d like for the first semester to decide where my main interest fell.  English was never my best subject, and never will be, and that’s why I am attracted to it.  I  am going to become a teacher.  Knowing how to overcome the difficulties in becoming literate in this field will only make me a stronger educator.  I will become a valuable resource to my students.  Other subjects come easy to me, blinding my ability to predict the hurtles.  I have an obsessive compulsive disorder with my writing and probably will have edited this piece numerous times before its publication.  It’s good to put an ample amount of sweat into your work.

High school was a long time ago.  It seems a bit foggy, but I know we studied Shakespeare.  It also seemed like Vietnam was a major concern at that time and I remember studying books based on US history.  We read Tim O’brien’s The Things They Carried, and Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fouth of July.  It seemed that in high school we studied a lot of American and Brit lit.  My college English career has encapsulated more marginalized authors, with the exception of Shakespeare.  Also, since my absence from the rural and religious community I lived in, I’ve noticed that I don’t read too much of the Bible.  I guess that’s a personal choice that God isn’t on the list of my most studied authors.

I think I learned the most about what I know about myself as an English major last semester.  Through countless revisions and rereads of texts I’ve discoverd my writing technique.  I know what I do wrong and know how to fix it.  I know how to read a piece of literature that seems well over my head so that I may mildly understand it.  I am very concerned about the responsibility I have to myself and my future students.  As far as life and the way that literature has affected my view on it, I believe that I’ve grown to become overly critical, or ashamed of my own people.  When I say my own people I mean white people.  Much of the literature that I’ve recently read makes me feel that and realize that the United States is full of overconfident and self serving people governed by a hypocritical upper class of white superheroes.  But, there are good people too.