Praise Bell Hooks

Thank goodness for a finally readable, clear, organized piece of writing dealing with theory!

I was really intrigued by the information about women keeping women down that Hooks brought up throughout the book. I think it important to blame sexism and not just men for the problems that many women experience. The fact the rich with women often times held other women down solely to get ahead in a patriarchal industry is an important issue to be aware of in concerns with feminism. I also like the points Hooks made about mass media skewing feminism. It's apparent that the media has their own agenda based on profit. This also comes out in Hooks' chapter on beauty, and the commodification of a women. Feminism also deals with action against capitalism and I thought Hooks made great points about comfortable clothes and the fashion industry.

TMI

Jameson quotes in his essay in relation to “interpretation proper” that:

“This is the place to answer the objection of the ordinary reader, when confronted with elaborate and ingenious interpretations, that the text means just what it says. Unfortunately, no society has ever been quite so mystified in quite so many ways as our own, saturated as it is with message and information, the very vehicles of mystification (language, as Talleyrand put it, having been given us in order to conceal our thoughts)” (184).

I believe that the point he is making here is one of awareness. Not having knowledge about mystification is a great hindrance to the “ordinary reader.” It seems to me naive to think that someone might think that a text meant exactly what it says. In the sentences before the quote, Jameson talks about “interpretation proper” and “strong rewriting,” so is it that the critic must determine what the text is really saying to present to the reader, or should the reader already be doing this? Also, does the reader believe what the critic is saying or should the reader look even deeper into the text interpreting another text?

I will agree that our current age is complex in terms of information and one can be easily tricked into only seeing surface information or don’t care enough to interpret due to the constant stream of information. Jameson's essay brings to mind memes, as they are propagated by information that is recurrent.

Art Commodified

In his essay "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" Jameson states that "aesthetic produciton today had become integrated into commodity production generally; the frantic economnic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover, now assigns an increasingly essential structural function a nd position to aesthetic innovation and experimentation" (269-70).

I take this quote to mean that in general, people are being creative solely due to the prospect of getting paid for it, and that our system demands that they operate this way. I can see how this plays out in most cases, though some modes of creative expression yileds less payoff. We have put value on creativity and instead of representing feelings or ideas, it is assigned a monetary worth. Art is often times judged on how much it costs. The higher the price, the better the art is supposed to be. Also with odder aesthetic design comes a high price tag and people strive to develop oddball art, design, clothes, etc. to catch that golden dollar sign. I think that one of Jameson's points is that the way we think about creativity, the way we produce a piece, and the way it is seen in society has changed: everything now revolves around money.

Modernism vs. Post-Modernism

While modernism calls attenttion to the real nature of the world post-modernism tells us that everything we are subjected to is not real. Eliot and the Modernist authors were bringing attention to the fact that the 20th century was not an ideal time. In the past authors and poets had glorified war or nature, or their surroundings, whille Modernists told the truth: that their world was a literal and spiritual wasteland and that war was not glorious.

Post-modenists strive to reveal the truth about the modern world , claiming a "disappearenc of the real" While both classes are trying to change thought, realities change frequently and posssibily can never be clearly defined.

Cleanth Brooks: 'The Formalist Critic" is WRONG!

Brooks' attack on formalist critics surprised me. I have always liked formalism and believe that sometimes too much is taken away from the text by looking at outside influences. Yes, social aspects, etc.  of a piece are important, but so is the text. Augustine came to mind.  He said that a person should learn rhetoric by example: by reading past speeches made by great orators.  Can we trust the author to transfer their knowledge and influences into their work so that we don't have to rely on outside sources? Does the author oblige to the reader instead of expecting the ideal reader? 

Brooks say that to make a "poem or novel the central concern of criticism has appeared to mean cutting it loose from its author and from his life as a man, with his own particular hopes, fears, interest, conflicts, etc."  Am I wrong to assume that all the emotions from the author should be apparent in the text? Anything that the author intended the reader to know he/she would transfer it into the text itself. But then again, what if the author is writing something that is opposite of what they believe?  So many questions.

Brooks places a lot of weight on the readers' shoulders.   I agree with him that there is no ideal reader (and perhaps no ideal author).  But I do think that there is some merit in formalism and close reading of the text without outside influences.    

Learn by Example

I like Augustine. Very readable.

Mixing the pagan with the Christian is an interesting thing for a Catholic to do. But I think that Augustine realizes that there are valuable things to learn from the ancient orators. He cites Cicero quite frequently and it's always relevant to his idea of rhetoric, which he has baptized Christian in "On Christian Doctrine." His mix of ideas reminds me a bit of Eliot's "The Wasteland." Eliot combines many elements of different religions as well as pagan ideals to get a good, sort of moral point across, much like Augustine does.

Augustine recognizes that bad people may use eloquence to sway a crowd, which is sort of the topic we were discussing in class last week. Augustine clears it up for me. Though the wicked may employ eloquence for their dastardly deeds, their actions don't match with their speech, making them irrelevant. He says "For how can they express in words what they do not express in deeds" (377). This contrast between what you say and what you do makes a lot of sense to me.

Augustine places a lot of importance on practice of rhetoric rather than just learning the rules. He says that basically if you want to learn rhetoric you should learn by example, studying past speeches, which follow all the rules you need to know anyway. However, if you don't have wisdom behind your eloquence, anything you learned is pretty much useless. In this case, Augustine says you must know the Scripture to back up your eloquence, "For those who speak eloquently are listened to with pleasure; those who speak with wisdom are heard with profit" (363).

Different from Cicero, Augustine says that you should pray to aid your speeches. He says that you should pray to know the material and pray for the crowd so that they will absorb and understand what it is that you are trying to get across. He has given the reader a pretty detailed guide to good speaking already and yet he still keeps the religious aspect which the reader doesn't even need for persuasive speech. The religious aspect throughout the essay fits surprisingly well with rhetoric. Instead of trying to convince a crowd about the innocence or guilt of a person, or about the function of art, Christians were vying for conversion, which doesn't deal with human law, but with human souls. Persuading someone to save their eternal souls seems less pressing than persuading a group to save someone's life.

Rhetoric Saves Bears

I was quite impressed by the turn that rhetoric took in the Second Sophist period.  Rhetoric as entertainment as "a humane substitution for gladiatorial matches and bear baiting" (Conley 61) is a big difference from what Aristotle was doing.  True rhetoric was a sort of art to A but as entertainment?  Rhetoric must have been highly artistic to achieve the status of entertainment and to be performed at public celebrations.   To hold the attention of the masses and be substitute for the more barbaric shows, rhetoric held some power during the period.  

The difference of function at public display speeches compared to imperial orations is an interesting one.  Instead of being propaganda for the ruling class, like it might be used for in modern times, rhetoric does not serve as mass communication due to the fact that the performance is solely for the elite.  Propaganda takes on a different role in a  time with no internet or CNN. 

As per Classic Rhetoric: Has anyone seen the HBO series Rome? I've been watching the first season and realized when I was reading Cicero that he's in the series.  Of course his role and relationship to Caesar is exaggerated, but there he is!  Giving Julius a hard time.  I thought that out of his selections Rhetoica ad Herennium  was the most useful to me. It is well organized and clear. His later selections get a bit wordy. 

His dig at women in RaH: "Sharp exclamation injures the voice and likewise jars the hearer, for it has about if something ignoble, suited rather to feminine outcry than to manly dignity in speaking" (pg. 169)

Philodemus' dig: "Not even a woman would be so foolish as to choose the worse when the better is present" (203).

Philodemus' view that epideictic rhetoric is art but not the deliberative, forensic, or political science branches makes sense by modern standards. We don't consider law as an art form, though it takes considerable talent. Creative is expressive of one's self and not just organized facts.