Creative Reading

--what you are getting into: focus and objectives of course [make note of where you feel you are at this point with the objectives—and keep track]

--Emerson’s “creative reading”: read—what do you notice, what catches your eye? What is your sense of what he is getting at?

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, ? let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; ? cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair.

On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.

Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, ? when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, ? we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, "A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful."

It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy, ? with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some preestablished harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see.

I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed, who had almost no other information than by the printed page. I only would say, that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that, as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakspeare, only that least part, ? only the authentic utterances of the oracle; ? all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's and Shakspeare's.

Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office, ? to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.

Class share: what happens when we love a reading? How might we start to define our views/theories/methods of reading? How might we start to define the objects we read—in other words, the texts? What is a text?

Base these initial theories on your examples. [see, you are also literary theorists]

Note on reading logs: for the hear (summary section): I suggest you note any and all keywords, as well as any key questions that the author raises, asks us to think about. In addition, try to summarize some of the key points of the particular focus he is exploring.

[some other examples of texts I love: Things They Carried; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Joshua Tree; much of Van Gogh (including his letters);

What kind of text? Is it literature? Can we read this just as we might read a canonical literary text?

--Read and respond briefly to logs from your reading group. Make note of one thing they notice, or one thing they wonder.

[note: I will be posting these notes, also imagine that you can add to your notebook (or can use the log form if you prefer)—think of this aspect of the reading and noticing as ongoing.

I hear [summary—some basic points, perhaps even the focal point/thesis of the chapter]

What is the overall view of critical (or as I prefer, creative) reading and literary theory we get from the opening chapter?

One premise (p. 2): ambiguity is basic to reading and interpretation; not to be avoided as reader (and writer), but worked through. In other words: representation (text, painting, photo, film, speech, etc) exists because of the possiblity of misrepresentation.

All texts (including ‘literary’ texts) are acts of communication; and all interpretations of texts are acts of communication.

Jakobson’s model of communication—can thus apply to a variey of schools or approaches, based on what emphasis they give to the

What the heck does Meehan (do I) mean by: representation exists because of misrepresentation? Sounds too Alice in Wonderland. Can anyone help me?

Think about basis of communication: there is no perfect/noise-free medium or channel. All communication takes place through the potential for miscommunication. But that is where meaning (especially in a literary text) aries.

Notes/Keywords: text, representation, sign, palimpsest, communication, Jakobson (theory of communication), code. allegory

Some review from logs:

Think of not as on the lookout for hidden (or secretly coded) meaning; but looking for ambiguous meaning. Why? Because all communication is fundamentally ambiguous; and ambiguity is also where the complication/pleasure of reading comes in. Another analogy for this: the palimpsest—meaning in layers. A reminder also that texts are not just ambiguous because of code/language/signs, but complex because they are media, they mediate the communication.

The difference between the traditional view of a literary work (one meaning, usually known by the teacher) as opposed to the view of literature as acts of communication: think of it as bandwidth—one very narrow, the other large enough to contain the whole web and all it allows you to do with texts.

Questions: what about the feedback loop? (Michelle)

How can we find meaning in a word puzzle? (Kathryn)

We need to re-define meaning. Every word carries meaning—in fact, every sign, which is what makes it representation/symbolic in a more basic sense. Recall also that every text is coded, since language is a code.

A reading method to use—helpful in dealing with the inevitable ‘fog’ of literary texts.

When approaching a “literary” text (or any text—but especially literary) I suggest that you don’t take the text (and your reading experience) for granted. This means start with obvious things you notice or should notice. Notice what the poem is doing—rather than trying to ask or figure out what the poem is about or what it means. Because it is a text, a representation, what it means is tied up with how it means.

Where am I? Do I know who is speaking? What does this text look like (especially important for a poem: where the white space is part of the poetry)?sound like? What kind of language does it have? What does it seem to be doing with me: telling a story? singing a song? drawing a picture? How does this text make me feel? If this text were a song, what kind of music is it? If it were a painting, what kind—any analogies or analogues?

One other thing we are going to be practicing—since we will be returning to this text, rereading and further reading it: patience, not asking yet, or perhaps ever: what is this text about? Think more: what is the text doing and showing me.

--Go back to text and warm-up by adding to or expanind upon an aspect of this text (as a text) that you began to notice. [5 minutes]

Reading response/class discussion—initial views and responses from reading: let’s do a log together.

Why detail for certain things, vague/ambiguous for other things? [eg: facial/physical features of some]

Why lots of dashes? Possible effects: silence, reflective, pause, gap, interruption, change/disruption

--logs: share and respond—focusing on what you noticed—and how you are starting to make sense of this text. Are there resolutions to any of the questions you have been wondering about?

--Then: report back: a particular ‘notice’ that the group develops into the beginnings of an idea about something significant in/about this text. Not yet a thesis—but working towards a reading of this text, something important you think it is about or doing. [5-10 minutes to prepare this]

2]One thing it seems to be about (and has been explored in criticism): literary impressionism

Compare to Monet painting [key for me: that the meaning of the story is more tied to its medium, to how it represents, how we perceive and read. That the story in part is about texts and reading and voice and impressions]

Our exploration of formalism will be one way we can begin to consider this “medium” more closely.

Preview: First essay—a formal approach to Heart of Darkness—described on web link for writing assignments. For next class: some initial ideas, a passage or two you might consider, as well as further questions you have (in writing) about this approach. [at least 1 page of stuff you will post]

Structural, binary opposition, literariness, form, pattern, repetition, symbolism, style, whole, theme

[one way to consider this: think of how film or painting or stories are required to generate meaning—by having things (images or words) stand in for, represent, speak for, more than they can say. In this sense, every image and every word is already ‘symbolic’—has a form/structure that can be analyzed: and the formal or sturcutral approach believes that the real or important meaning of a literary text is in its form and structure]

Monet, Sunrise: What might a formal reading focus on? What would it not consider?

--reading a work (book or film) rather as a “text”: a collection of signs that are organized according to a code: belief that the forms of language and literature could be studied scientifically, independent of content (or of some distant, ususally dead author and his/her intention) [p.27]

--key to any code: a pattern; and the key to a pattern (emphasized especially by structuralists): repetition and difference; binary oppositions. [think of one basic to many narratives: protagonist and antagonist; an insight from linguistics—Saussure: key to our language is that meanings of words are arbitrarily determined by their difference from other words]

Any such patterns in Heart of Darkness? Where might we find examples of structure in film—the repetition of pattern (eg, the ‘cinderella’ structure)

--key implication [sometimes viewed as ‘death of the author’]: readers focus on how a text means, more than what it means; and what happens in a text [with its formal and structural properties] rather than what an author might have intended. [34] A famous article: “The Intentional Fallacy”

Structuralists (and formalists, though not strictly related): are looking for the deep structure of a text, that determines the surface structure—the grammar or logic of the text, the rules of the game—the stuff that an author puts to work in the process of creating art, but does not wholly invent.

In addition to wondering how you feel about this so-called ‘death of the author,’ I wonder (before you judge too quickly) if we can apply some of this perspective to a film. My sense is that most of us do strucutral readings of film at some level whenever we see a film, and for the most part, do not think of a specific author of the film. We talk about not what the writer of the film meant (or even the director) but more usually what (and how) the film made sense—how a scene is structured not just in the set/plot, but also formally. How form is symbolic. Remember McLuhan: the medium is the message.

Painting example: back to Monet—what does a ‘formal’ reading of such painting focus on?

[we will be doing more thinking not just about film reading, but using the analogy of film to think about our own writing]

--literature as a work of art, a formal object—meaning and significance comes through its formal properties (language and structure of language), not its content (and not because they author says so).

--Another key: the things that get our attention in close reading are the contradictions or paradoxes or strange moments where language is not everyday—these can be shown to be resolved by the critic into the artistic whole of the work.

--View of Russian Formalism: Everyday use of language has to be defamiliarized, estranged, in order for it to be literary. The formalist critic pays attention to this use of language foregrounded in a literary text and explains its meaning.

One key phrase (still used): close reading. What does it mean, imply? What are formalists interested in?

Consider the analogy from film: a close reading of a scene—that gets not at plot but structure of images, what the images do, and how that form (specific to medium) conveys the signficance or even ‘art’ of the film/text.

--Step one: pick a particular passage of Heart (perhaps one paragraph, no more than one page) that you are interested in, might focus on for your essay. Read it again; then in your notebook, write out a paraphrase of the passage: everything you hear/see in terms of its content or plot—what the passage seems to be about.

--Step two: Now in your notes, move toward a close reading of the passage that is not about the content (forget what you just wrote); instead, focuses on the medium: the language, the images, what you see or hear in the language.

--Step three: organize your notes from step 2: is there a particular thread that seems more relevant or significant, a particular aspect of language you are focusing on. This thread might be a thesis—or at least an idea to focus on and work on in your draft.

--remember: how not what is our focus; the deeper meaning that you read in/through a particular formal or structural feature of the text.

--suggestion: focus on key words/phrases that you want you reader to see and understand. OED is a good friend.

--suggestion: after quoting a key passage, count on a minimum of 3-4 sentences of your interpretation, showing us how you want us to read the passage. Use the language of: “notice.” Highlight the passage (the how, not the what) for your reader.

--note my general rubric for evaluation; also 2 sample essays in BB discussion (in-class reading)

Respond (on Blackboard) to a draft, using hear/notice/wonder model. [in your notice: give particular attention to the writer’s close reading—where you notice it working well, where you notice it not working so well, yet]

--Note: Reading Groups start Friday: explain.

Present your formal readings to class. [or—read on BB and reply by making any connections to your formal reading.]

-continue film reads.

Preview for Friday reading: will give you an optional, bonus quiz (to add 1-2 points to participation grade) in response to the reading, particularly the essay by Miller that follows the introduction.

--each share a question/confusion/wonder: select one (that you can’t answer) to report back to class.

--one at a time, share and teach something you have started to notice/grasp regarding deconstruction: select one to report back.

Two areas to help with: what “Voom” means for deconstruction (how that is different from formalist/structuralist approach); what deconstruction does with binary oppositions. Can we think of analogies from film or other texts that seem to ‘deconstruct’ in this way, or show this kind of deconstruction taking place.

Key things noticed/wondered by reading groups regarding Deconstruction and how “The Purloined Letter” is used by Carpenter as an example:

--p.56: Voom. Poststructuralists want to deconstruct voom: thus where Formalists are interested in contradicitions and ambiguities and ironies that (they claim) make sense and come together in the end, deconstructionists are interested in the same, but claim they can’t come together (or be swept under the rug). In particular: interested in deconstruction binary oppositions—showing that opposites can also be: both/and, not just either or. [thus you will find an interest among poststructuralists in ghosts and monsters, things that seem to disturb traditional barriers or cross-over]

--60: the interest in presence and absence (a deconstructed binary) is particularly relevant to writing and any kind of representation: where the thing represented is both present and by definition, absent

--63: some implications for readers—what we might learn from deconstruction, even if we aren’t planning to become one:

Interest in elements that lie on the edge of a text—the seemingly insignificant or marginal can also be (both/and) significant, central.

[review from logs/last class] Deconstruct a simple binary: white/black (not white).

Deconstruction argues that it is more complicated—and that such binaries create an unnatural hierachy, privilege the first term over second. Thus an approach that is suspicious of claims made for simple oppositions (and notes that much of our thinking and philosophy and culture is structured in terms of simple oppositions).

What does the text reveal about this binary—notice the way the boundary between the categories seems to be fluid. [also note the way that the ‘superiority’ of the first term depends ironically on the other—law of supplementarity]

--questions for them; highlights from the introduction to deconstruction—what are key aspects and characteristics of the approach?

Notes: Poststructuralism is the larger term (umbrella) for the kind of approach taken after strucutralism; can think of it as approaches that apply deconstructive principles to areas such as gender, race.

Examples from the reading of Heart?—what is of interest or compelling? What doesn’t compell?

--How does Memento deconstruct traditional film narrative or noir genre: what does it mean to say it deconstructs it? What is another text that would offer a good example of such ‘deconstruction’?

Formalism: text-focused; how not what; objectivity; patterns: binary oppositions; literary devices: symbol, metaphor, figurative language; style

Deconstruction: undecidable; heterogenous, multiplicity of text; deferral of meaning; de-centering

The analogy with hypertext/hypermedia—how does digital textuality ‘link’ to reader response? Give some examples from your own experience.

Notice: the tree metaphor for traditional book—linearity; rhizome: horizontal

Hyperlink (basis of hypertext/web); associative thought, reading (browsing/multi-directional reading vs. linear reading); tree metaphor vs. rhizome

Wreader: blurring/de-centering traditional distinction (binary) between reader and writer, writer as producer, reader as consumer

141: texts have become multi-media object. My view: they always were; hypertext just reminds us of this.

2]Reading application: examples of digital text (and hypertext) relevant to literary study: What is new or different in terms of reading and the reader’s relationship to text? What is old? Where do we see reader response?

Warm-up [5 minutes]: in your reading groups. Prepare to discuss/ask questions about reader response (and the example by Rabinowitz). Each group must: identify one aspect of the approach they grasp; one example from the essay they find most compelling; at least one question they have.

What the page/text does to the reader [what readers do with pages/texts]; reading is a temporal process, happens in a place and time, is embodied (readers have histories, psyches, bodies)

What does Rabinowitz mean in arguing that any interpretation of Heart of Darkness is political?

Second read: notice what the poem does to you/what you do with it [gaps you try to fill in, ‘links’ you make, etc]

For (perhaps) a digital representation of this poem’s (or your reading of this poem) heterogenity/multi-layered complexity, consider the hypertext.

--identify one link between this view/experience of hypertext and some aspect of literary theory or reading we have explored—particularly this week (reader response)

--identify/discuss another version of new media technology (other kinds of hypermedia you know and use) where similar issues of reading (reader response, de-centering, reader engagement) are also in play.

The Wikipedia game (Amanda): getting from one entry to another in least amount of links.

Note this link in the essay with reader response/Iser/the reading process: what we do with the text makes literature into a kind of ‘virtual’ reality experience:

Some additional notes/references on links between the literary and the digital:

Digital: arbitrary code/representation: no direct or inherent connection between the code and what it represents

Analog: continuous—the code or representation is somehow connected to or touching the thing it represents.

Consider the difference between digital and analog code—and what digital allows/enables that analog code can’t.

Movement, transportability, linking: if writing is digitally coded (vs analogically coded by hand or type)—that digital code can be sent anywhere, and combined and re-combined. This fluidity (and multi-mediacy) of language I believe is where hypertext literacy comes in.

Some key “links” (now you know why I like this word so much) between hypertext and ideas from literary theory, as viewed by Landow.

--reader choice (link with reader response): note that even in these notes, in the way I can link to Landow’s text, I am re-writing his text. Don’t we do this all the time when we write an essay or report in response to some text? And doesn’t hypertext then just foreground this more, in effect open the curtain, but also make it part of the story?

--link to Derrida and de-centering. What are the implications of de-centering (what does it mean) for our reading experience? Can or should we seek or avoid such de-centering as good, active readers (the kind I want you to be)?

Remember a key from the deconstruction chapter: reveal all texts to be radically heterogeneous (think of any web text and how its boundaries are dynamic, deferred).

For this essay: your secondary citation (that is, not the quotation of Conrad, but of one of the critical perspectives) should help you to elaborate/explain/develop/justify your critical perspective. Help you not just do a deconstruction/reader response approach, but also help you reflect on how/why you are doing that (part of the assignment).

--Identify a key place in your draft where you have or could use a connection to a critical source.

--Then open a blank document: title it second essay experiment—save into your Creative Reading folder.

--Then in that blank document: quote a key passage from one of the critical sources that you can connect to that part of your essay. After quoting it in full, provide your analysis/follow-up to that quotation [remember, no drive-by quotings]: Put this quotation to work for you—what do you want to emphasize in it? What are some key words and ideas in that quotation? How does it relate to your essay?

--Now work on integrating this secondary source (and your interpretation of it) into your essay.

Ways to do this: [1] footnote [2] integrate into the pargraph (especially if the langauge and the ideas of the passage are relevant and rich) [3]hyperlink. (you can insert a hyperlink on the original document, connect it to the new document.

Read through essay, paying attention to their critical connections: where it is effective, where they might make another or different connection; where they might make an existing connection more effective and thoughtful.

--read and respond to 2 (the people to your immediate right): in your response, either make a connection to something they noticed or attempt an answer to something they wondered.

2]Review: from formalist to deconstruction to reader response to cultural context.

--Focal point/notice: [117-118] how deconstruction opens the issue of context, moves us from formalism toward reader response and cultural studies

--Idea of reading the cultural context of a film: discuss other examples of film. What does this mean? What about reading a shopping mall—what does this mean?

1]Reading group: Make a case to a Formalist/New Criticism teacher in high school for presenting Heart of Darkness (and other texts from the course) through the lens of cultural studies.

--Explain what cultural studies means for interpretation—with specific information about its ideas and theories.

--Show/Teach an example of what a student might do with this text, demonstrating insights from cultural studies.

Overall question: what does cultural studies (and the historical/cultural approach to reading) do for us? What does an English class look like if it is interested in cultural studies?

1]Logs: read 2-3 summaries. What is out there regarding this film? What are some things we might encounter, wonder, consider for further reading?

--reminder that I consider film to be a multimedia hypertext: and Apocalypse Now in particular (since it remediates and appropriates a literary story)

--read through the basic film intro: I want you to be actively reading this film, not entirely sitting back [this is one of our course texts; you may also want to write about it in your final research project]. Take note of what you notice as a reader; take some notes—at least enough to have discussions. [hand out note paper]

Structuralism/formalism	Poststructuralism/deconstruction
Close reading: focusing on text and language properties of text, its form; text as object	Close reading: similar focus on language and text
Binary oppositions that reflect an underlying structure/logic of text	Binary oppositions: but focus on them to see how they unravel; interested in the blurring of boundaries: same and different; both present and absent [like a ghost, or in fact like any representation]. Interested in the gray area
Interested in how ambiguity and contradiction and irony in a literary text leads to a larger significance, is resolved into a greater whole, something meaningful	Interested in how ambiguity and contradiction are present, but are not in the end resolved—no “Voom” to come in and clean up the ambiguity inherent to language or any text
Significance is internal to text: not found outside of it in author or history	The question of what is inside vs. outside the text is a binary that unravels: thus can focus on things that seem marginal or insignificant: redefinition of the relation between the center and the marginal
Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent New criticism: the work as object of art, a whole	Derrida: focus on play, and de-centering; the work is strucutred by its lack of ultimate strucutre, its holes or gaps