The End

Today is the last day that we can blog and Prof. Sexson asked that we make some final comments. As the semester ends,I find myself having to transition to a new world. I am graduating next week and my life as a college student will be over. There will be new towns to move to, new jobs to work at, and new friends to make. I will know something special as I live my life, though. I now possess that special knowledge about the past possessing the present. I will be able to look and see ideas and events of the past that no one else will see. I will see Cupid and Psyche, the chorus, Antigone, Peresephone, and all the others that we have learned about this semester. My forgotten memory is slowly returning to me. I hope it is returning to you also. Have a good summer.

Beauty and Dying

I've been pondering alot of what prof. Sexson has taught us over the semester and when I was going through my notes, I came across this line: People are not beautiful in spite of dying, they are beautiful because they die. I thought it was very powerful when Sexson said it and I still think that it is powerful. Sure, people can be beautiful on the outside, but that beauty fades in time. At the end, the beauty that one is left with is the beauty that they have on the inside. Man, that sounds really, really sappy, but it is true. You know that there will be an end to that person's life, that they won't be around forever. So, you ahve to cherish all of the moments, and learn all of the wisdom, and gain all the experiences you can have with someone because when they die, there will be nothing more. Everything that you have done or said or seen with that person will all the more beautiful because that is all that you have left. Their death makes things beautiful.

Cupid

Last night I was flipping through channels and I came across a show called "Cupid." I thought it was so funny that I had written about Cupid and Psyche yesterday and that night I found an entire show about the two. In it Cupid is on earth working as a bartender and helping people fall in love, while at the same time trying to get a psycharist to fall in love with him. That was the best part, I thought, that the show still has Cupid falling in love with Psyche. Oh, how nice. I guess even in today's modern world love and soul are still suppose to be together. Now, I wonder how many other viewers of the show have caught on to that fact or even know about it?

Over and over again

It's snowing outside right now and it has been doing so all day long. This is nothing new to those of us who have lived anytime in the north. Winter comes and winter goes and we will live through the same cycle year after year, century afer century. I have to wonder just how often someone jsut like me has looked out their window at the beginning of Spring and sighed, watching the endless white flakes fall to the ground. I did the same thing last spring and the spring before that and the spring before that. My entire memory is a series of repititions. I share these same experiences with the many others who have lived before me and sighed. For most of my life I have thought that I only shared this trait with others who live around me at this precise moment in time, but the truth is that people have been doing the same thing since the very beginning. I have merely forgotten that there are others in the past who have watched the snow and sighed. I suppose than that I have never truly been alone. While I watch the snow and feel melancholy settle upon my shoulders, I am sharing this moment with thousands of others. It makes the world a less scary place to live in. The snow becomes a doorway to the past and to the memories of everyone who has watched the white flakes fall from the sky and felt sad. I now know those memories and thoughts, I have known them my entire life.

Cupid and Psyche

Some of the coincidences that I have experienced this semester are amazing. Such as the fact that not too long ago we had to read the story of Cupid and Psyche for class and last Friday I had to perform an entire presentation about the frescoes by Giulio Romano at the Palazzo del Te, which are about Cupid and Psyche. The entire ceiling of one of the rooms depicts the story of Psyche and the center image is their wedding. The image that I posted below is of their wedding feast. I thought that is shows how fascinating the world is. I had a much deeper understanding of the frescoes when I presented and I could picture the story in my head better when we talked about it in class. What are the chances?

Here are some other images from the presentation. I just really, really liked them and thought I would put them on. They show the giants being crushed by the mountains that they were building in order to take over Mount Olympus.

Term Paper

I ask for forgiveness concerning my the posting of my term paper. My internet and computer have not been working correctly lately and it's been interesting getting my homework done. Anyway, here is my paper.

The Paths of Love and Death

The heart beats faster and faster, while the breath in you lungs gets weaker and weaker. The world around you fades away, yet the focus of your gaze sharpens. You feel shy and giddy, powerful and invincible, all at once. There is no better feeling in the world as your mind shoots itself from one thought to the next. Are you living or are you dead? All that you know is that your entire life has changed in a single moment and from that time on nothing will ever be the same again. Falling in love is beyond compare. Poets and singers have been talking of love for ages and still have not succeeded in describing it in all of its disguises. Love is one of the most abundant emotions on earth and it is also one of the most mysterious for one cannot understand love until one has felt it. It is an experience that changes lives, opens doors, people begin life anew. Oddly enough, love has much in common with something that many would place at the opposite end of the spectrum: death. The ending that many view this as is a lie for death is a beginning. It forces people to walk a new course, one that is entirely unknown. The paths that love and death open to people can only be walked by those that have known love and that have known death. Love and death are intertwined affairs that exist in the past, present and future. Stories told about Hades, Antigone, Pygmalion and others today in the modern world continually link the two together. From obsession to suicide to eternity, this relationship echoes through the centuries.
Hades, the god of the Underworld, death itself, begins this bizarre liaison between love and death, for he was not immune to love. Persephone, the trim-ankled daughter of Demeter, was who he demanded for his bride. He stole her from amongst the flowers and while she rejected his overtures, he would not yield (Homeric Hymns, 3). His love for her was obsessive and controlling, perhaps not the most noble kind of love, yet it was a love all the same. One often feels the most sympathy for Persephone after a telling of this tale, but perhaps it is Hades who should be the object of our pity. He is the one who must live with the dead forever, always shut off from the warm breath of the living. He is the one who had to yield to Demeter and give his wife up for the better part of the year. Hades, who only wanted the girl as his wife, still ends up alone. Death gives love, yet death is not given it back. A sad, twisted beginning to this bond of love and death is what is learned here.
Antigone appears next on the list of events for love and death to make an appearance at. While her strong stance about her beliefs it what is at the center of this story, the suicide of her betrothed is what is really interesting. Creon comes upon his son “tumbled around her, hugging her waist, grieving for his marriage lost, gone under” (Sophocles, 53). The boy is so overcome by the unbearable agony of living without his love that he first tried to kill his father and, when failing at that, “took his blade and leaned on it, drove it half through his lungs” (Sophocles, 53). He kills himself so that, in death, he may be with the lady he loves. Haemon is unable to allow death to separate Anigone and himself, so he uses death to bring them together, forever. This is no silly, puppy dog crush that is quickly gotten over. The love envisioned in this world is strong and vital and will not be conquered by death. Death, in fact, becomes the tool that is used to prove the power of that love. It is a different tie that binds love and death in this story, yet they are still presented together.
Ovid pushes the two apart even more in his story of Pygmalion. Death and love are each shown at one end of the story and the relationship between them may easily be overlooked. The murder of the guests of the Cerastae led to Venus cursing the men and the women, who became ugly and hard and sharp (Ovid, 133-4). The sculptor, Pygmalion, could not bear to look upon these women and placed himself into seclusion (Ovid, 134). Yet, he was haunted by female beauty and when he created a woman out of ivory, he fell instantly in love with her (Ovid, 135). Venus even consented to bring the statue to life and the woman loved Pygmalion as he loved her (Ovid, 138). Strange as it may sound, none of that love would have occurred if the Cerastae had not killed their guests. If death had not stamped its mark on the ground, the woman would not have turned ugly, the sculptor would not have isolated himself from the world, he would not have been compelled to make a statue, he would not have seen the perfection of the woman, he would not have fallen in love with her and Venus would have had no reason to bring a statue to life. Death led to love in this story. Without it, the love that is so essential at the end would not have had a chance to form. Ovid told a tale using Pygmalion, which exhibits how strong the bond can be between love and death. Even when it is not obvious, the two cannot be without each other.
Love and death are as intimately entwined in today’s modern world as they were back when Hades was plucking unsuspecting girls from flower patches. If one were to listen to any traditional marriage vows, the phrase “until death do us part” immediately jumps out. The joining together of two people in love is marked by the mention of death. Entertainment has romanticized the idea that death cannot separate two people in love. Unlike Antigone and Haemon, however, these days the one who has died miraculously manages to come back to life or come back as a ghost or possess someone else’s body, in order for the lovers to be together again. The movie Ghost comes to mind when considering these ideas and many others do as well. The notion of love and death has not vanished from the minds of modern people. The relationship between the two has become idealized and mostly tucked away out of sight, for love is good and death is bad and never the twain shall meet, yet they come together all of the time. This modern world has not completely forgotten about this bond and it will not soon vanish from the world of the future.
Death and love, they are the two things in this world that so many people will experience and yet be unable to fully explain. Love can be joyous, difficult and gut-wrenching. Death can be the exact same way. They are similar in numerous ways. How many of us, though, would be willing to place them side by side, together, working as a team? It seems distasteful and slightly uncomfortable, for what do love and death really have to do with one another? The ancients understood that even Death, himself, needs love. They understood that love should not be separated by death and that it can bring love together again. They understood that death could lead to love and it is a sure thing that love can lead to death. Even modern, free-thinkers have placed love and death with one another. It is inevitable that they should have a strong bond between them. They are each doorways on to mysterious paths of life that only those who have experienced them can move down. One can be unsure what will happen after they fall in love and one can be unsure of what will happen after they die, but what one can be sure of is the fact that their love and their death will, together, change their life forever. There will never be a love without death and a death without love.

Old People

I am going to take this time to complain about old people. I know that we've talked a lot about them over the semester concerning choruses and wisdom and all of that, but the epiphany that I have had this semester is that old people can be the meanest people on the planet. I know we were suppose to go assault an old person at some point and my only problem is that I don't need to stop assaulting old people, the old people need to stop assaulting me. I work JoAnn Fabrics in the mall and we have these old ladies who come and I've been hugged by them, but I've also been yelled at by them. It's like Creon complaining about Antigone and youth and young people knowing their place. I just have them complaining about proper manners and salesmanship. Last week, this lady called complaining about how we had placed some items on hold for her and because she had not shown up to buy them, we had put them away. "I don't think it would be all that hard to hold them a little while longer," she tells me, over the phone because she has still not put the effort to coming in. I'm sorry, but I have rules that I have to follow and if you don't like them, don't complain to me because I can't do anything about it.

Anyways, now whenever I have old people as mean customers, I just tell myself that I'm living one of Steiner's conflicts and that that person is Creon and I'm Antigone and I'm simply standing up for what I believe in! (Even if I don't really believe it)

Pets Dying

Okay, I know that Prof. Sexson assigned this topic a long time ago, but I've only really started thinking about it recently. The group presentations have really had a theme of pets dying or maybe it's just something in me realizing that I need to discuss it. I'm actually not going to talk about a pet dying, though. I'm going to talk about having to give up a pet.

Cody was my family's cocker spaniel when I was young. He had been abused by his former owner and he had bad attachment issuses, but he was really great. At least I remember him as being great, I was only about eight or so when we had him. He did not get along at all with my dad, however, and it soon became an issue of my dad leaving or the dog leaving. I remember being so crushed when Cody left. Sure, my mom told me that he was going to a better owner, one who had a farm and Cody could run everywhere and also be with other dogs, but all I could was cry. I knew I was never going to see him again or even have another pet to try to cover the grief with. I was sad and angry and frustrated all at the same time. It was like he had died, only he really hadn't. He only moved on to a different family to share his love with.

Party Time

Okay, so Lucius didn't really get into the party mood in this chapter, but he had a good reason, I think. Believing that you are on trial for murder would get anyone down. The trial was not very interesting for me. What did strike me was the statement, "Dead men tell no tales" (56), by one of the "thiefs." We use that phrase quite often in our time and for us it is probably true because I doubt that many of us believe in going out and raising the dead. For us, it is a truism of highest value because it signifies finality. Once someone is dead, you have lost all chances of learning anymore from them. They become an empty shell with nothing more to say. For Lucius, however, they do believe in bringing the dead back to life. Didn't we just read about someone doing that in the last chapter! How can anyone believe that by killing Lucius, someone wouldn't just bring him back to life to learn the truth? Perhaps, then, we really can't believe that anything is possible? The dead really do stay dead and necromancy is simply a weird story to tell the kids at night? How boring life would be then! Where would be the adventure, the great journeys, the near-death experiences?! Dead men may tell no tales to us, but maybe that's because we simply do not believe.

Thelyphron

The moment when the necromancer brought back to life the dead man was a great event. I liked how the guy did not want to be brought back. He's actually quite grumpy when he first wakes up, saying, "Leave me alone, I say, leave me alone! Let me sleep undisturbed" (48). This is fascinating, not so much because a guy was brought back from the dead, that still goes one today in literature, movies, and ecetrea. What is fascinating is the fact that he doesn't want to be brought back to life. As the living, we bemoan the death and wish that we could bring them back. We miss the dead ones, yet maybe the dead ones don't miss us. Their time has ended, there is no more need for them. Or maybe the afterworld is such a great party that they can't believe they didn't die sooner. It is all a matter of prespective. Now, the next you are contemplating bringing a friend, a family member, someone you don't know back from the dead, remember this: they don't want to come back. Plus, bad things are generally learned if they do (think rats eating your face off or Pet Cemetary).

At Milo's House

What would you prefer: someone who is blatantly mean or someone who is mean, but hides behind niceness? When Lucius is at Milo's house he sees that Milo is very mean because he will pretend that he will feed Lucius, but has Lucius spend so much time talking that Lucius cannot eat and then sends him to bed for nice reasons. It is a little frightening how one could become blinded to this. Just as we studied transformations into animals, Milo possesses the ability to transform into a monster. His true nature is hidden for a while, but it will oust itself when the time is right. People are still like this today. There was a girl in my high school who was like this and people knew that she was mean, but she could be so nice. Now, I know that she was simply another Milo preventing us Lucius' from having supper.

Aristomenes

The one line that I thought was the most interesting from "The Story of Aristomenes" was, " 'I refuse to admit, in theory, that anything in this world is impossible; to do so would be to set myself above the Power that pre-destines all human experience" (18). This idea is perhaps not so complex to us today because we all know of the saying, "anything is possible if you just believe." I cannot remember just where I heard that and perhaps it is something that has always been floating around and no one person can claim it. Nothing is impossible. It is so simple, yet so complex. We have sucha hard time believing that anything can happen. There must be a catch somewhere that will prevent it from happening. As humans, there are limits everywhere to what we can do, so to be able to have anything happen is beyond our comprehension. It is a fairy-tale. Yet, remember, if you believe, it is possible, and the story of Aristomenes reminds us of that.

Ah ha!

I have to tell you about the ah ha! moment that I had on Thursday. I now understand a whole lot better what Prof. Sexson has been trying to teach us this whole semester. I went and listened to E. O. Wilson and a panel of scientists talk about the human prospect. It was all very interesting, but what caught my attention was when one of the scientists called himself a "Cassandra." That made me sit up and go, "oh my goodness, I totally know what he means!" We have been learning about how we need to remember all of these things that we have forgotten by learning the classical texts. At that moment, I remembered something that I had forgotten before I had been born. My world was much more complete and fulfilling. It was an amazing moment and hilarilous at the same time.

Survivor's Guilt

Okay, that's a dramatic title for a post, but reading An Imaginary Life has sort of pushed me into a melancholic mood. Frankly, I've been trying to avoid thinking about death or maybe I've been thinking about death too much lately. My roommates have even informed me that I should major in dead things (how sad is that?). I suppose it is because when I think of death I immediately associate it with a neighbor's son who committed suicide when I was young. He had been a really good friend of my brothers and I and had put up with quite a bit from us. I hate thinking about it because I feel sometimes that I should have sensed that he was going to kill himself. I had actually seen him outside playing basketball in his driveway a few days before he did it, he did that alot and would often play with us, and when I was talking with him, he seemed like himself. I guess I feel like maybe I missed something, missed him being upset and angry and sad. Sometimes I ask myself if I could have said something to him then or done something that would have prevented what happened. I feel like I messed up. Now when I look back, after learning about warning signs of suicide and all that, I can see them. I have to wonder if Hecuba or Andromache felt the same way about the deaths they experienced. Did Andromache live the rest of her life wondering about ways she could have prevented her son's death? Is it something that everyone experiences? What can we, the living, do after the dead are gone?

Strung Together

I've been reading An Imaginary Life and the thing that keeps coming to my notice is how he seems to remember things. I remember Prof. Sexson saying that everyone knows everything, except that we've forgotten it. Ovid in the story is in the process of remembering all of those things that we have forgotten. Near the beginning he tells of a dream where centaurs visit him and say a word to him. When he awakes, he cries out that word: "I have tried to remember that word, but the sound has sunk back into my sleep. If I could recall that sound, and speak the word again, I think I would know what it is I have named, what it is that I have encountered" (pg. 25). Later he comes upon a scarlet poppy and remembers colors and flowers that he had forgotten from his childhood. He says, "We give the gods a name and they quicken in us, they rise in their glory and power and majesty out of minds, they move forth to act in the world beyon, changing us and it. So it is that the beings we are in process of becoming will be drawn out of us. We have only to find the name and let its illumination fill us. Beginning, as always, with what is simple" (pg. 32). To remember all there is to know about this world and ourselves, we have to start with the little things, the simple things. Ideas about marriage and love and death can open us and remind us of all that we are suppose to know. The things that we are learning about in class are the simple things. We don't think about this stuff all the time or never, in fact, because we are trained to believe that it is unimportant. We are suppose to live in the here and now. We are to enjoy life to the fullest without thinking about the past because the past is irrelevant. The sad thing is that we will never be able to live life to the fullest without taking into consideration the past because the past is where all of the answers lie. David Malouf's character has to remember his childhood for him to accept and embrace fully his life in exile. If he were to only remember his adult life in Rome, he would never be able to understand his present. We are the same as that character. We must remember the past, even going beyond our childhoods, to be able to understand our present.

Shrews

While I was reading Lysistrata, I found that Lysistrata really reminded me of one of Shakespeare's characters: Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew. This is one of my favorite plays and it's because Katharina is so fiesty and angry and always knows what to say. My high school performed the play and I also got to see a production of it by one of the colleges in my town. The college performance really brought to light all of the sexual inuendoes the play has, just like Lysistrata. The two females leads are both quick witted to both men and women and get in to arguments. I love the flyting passage in The Taming of the Shrew between Katharina and Petruchio.

Kath: Mov'd! in good time: let him that mov'd you hither remove you hence: I knew you at the first you were a movable.
Pet: Why, what's a movable?
Kath: A joint-stool.
Pet: Thou hast hit it: come sit on me.
Kath: Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
Pet: Women are made to bear, and so are you.
Kath: No such jade as bear you, if me you mean.
Pet: Alas, good Kae, I will not burden thee: For, knowing thee to be but young and light,
Kath: Too light for such a swain as you to catch; and yet as heavy as my weight should be.
Pet: Should be! should buzz.
Kath: Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.
Pet: O, slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
Kath: Ay, for a turtle,-as he takes a buzzard.
Pet:Come, come, you wasp; i'faith, you are too angry.
Kath: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Pet: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Kath: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Pet: Who knows not where a wasp doth wear his sting? In his tail.
Kath: In his tongue.
Pet: Whose tongue?
Kath: Yours, if you talk of tails; and so farewell.

Old Men and Old Women

I loved the Chorus in Lysistrata. I thought the old men and women were a hoot. The way that they bantered back and forth and then made peace between each other by being nice was so funny and sort of sweet. They embody the way that old men and women seem to act in life, I think. I work at JoAnn's in the Mall and I see lots of old couples come in to the store everyday, so I like to think that I get to see what the culmination of a relationship is. When I was working a few days ago, I heard this conversation between a husband and wife who were fairly old. They were talking about making a quilt.

Wife: So, are you signing yourself up here?
Husband: Hmmm, huh?
Wife: Are you going to help me with this?
Husband: What? Oh, I guess.
Wife: You guess? Right, sure, uhhuh.

The husband was barely paying attention to what his wife was saying to him and the wife obviously did not truly expect him to be helping with the project. They were simply bantering back and forth, like the men chorus and the women chorus just not as vulgar, as the probably do everyday. I thought what was especially telling about their relationship was the fact that neither of them looked at the other during the entire converstaion. The wife was going through her purse and the husband was staring in to the distance, surely thinking deep thoughts. Now, isn't this the way every relationship between a man and woman goes at some point?

Marriage

My brother just got engaged and it brought to mind all the things that we discussed over the Hymn to Demeter. I have especially been pondering the idea that marriage and death are linked very closely. Getting married would be kind of dying in a sense because you are leaving a way of life behind. You are no longer single, the life that you knew will no longer be the same. Even if you divorce or your spouse dies, your life will have forever been changed by being married. The way that you think, the things that you believe, and the innocence and cluelessness that you had about people and life have been influenced or taken away. I have a friend at work and she's been divorced and the way that she looks at marriage and love are nothing like what they were before she was married. That may be a negative way to look at marriage, I mean, getting married is supposed to be a happy event that signifies the love between two people. Just because marriage is the death of one way of life does not mean that the life you will lead as a married person will be horrible and dark and all those things that we associate with death. Who is to say that Persephone is not entirely happy with her married life? I perfer to think that she and Hades eventually came to love each other and are living happily right now. Although, I suppose with Spring on its way, Hades it starting to feel a little depressed and angry. Maybe that's what accounts for the snow that we've been getting. March coming in as a lion is simply Hades expressing himself. The funny thing is that now, whenever I think of marriage, I'm going to think of death. My future is already being possessed by the past. I don't think I'll share this with my brother on his wedding day, though.

Intoxication, hmmm . . .

Today, we are finally going to get to discuss Alcibiades' speech in The Symposium. This guy is so drunk that he is falling all over the place, yelling, and having to be supported by a poor flute-girl. Sexson gave us the assignment of going out and getting intoxicated because it is only then that we can understand what Alcibiades is saying. Most of us thought he talking about getting drunk with alcohol, but he also said that there are many ways to get intoxicated. I've been thinking about this for several days now and I think he's right. Being intoxicated generally means having a happy feeling, feeling like you are invincible, plus just feeling really, really good in general, but we have those types of feelings while doing other things as well. I remembered a suggestion sheet that I was given during junior high school, you remember those lectures and assemblies about don't drink, don't do drugs? Well, these are ideas of alternative ways to get high or intoxicated. They are called natural highs and I dare you to try one of them and not feel the slightest bit intoxicated.

• Falling in love
• Laughing so hard your face hurts
• A hot shower
• no lines at the Super Wal-Mart
• A special glance
• Getting mail
• Taking a drive on a pretty road
• Hearing your favorite song on the radio
• Lying in bed listening to the rain
• Hot Towels out of the dryer
• Walking out of your last final
• Finding the sweater you want is on sale for half price
• Chocolate milkshake
• A long distance phone call
• Getting invited to a dance
• A bubble bath
• Giggling
• A good conversation
• A care package
• The beach
• Finding a $20 bill in your coat from last winter
• Laughing at yourself
• Midnight phone calls that last for hours
• Running through sprinklers
• Laughing for absolutely no reason at all
• Having someone tell you that you're beautiful

Questions of Love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
I Corinthians 13: 4-7

While reading Plato's Symposium the other day, I had to wonder at the fact that the question of 'what is love' has plagued mankind since the great beginning. Plato was pondering it all those centuries ago in Greece and we are still pondering on it today. So, I wandered over to YouTube to see what I could for answer to this question. Apparently, Betty Crocker has an answer, as does Sesame Street, Michael Jordan, Diet Pepsi, and the movie Night at the Roxbury. There was a whole lot more out there, so much I can hardly believe it.

So, just what it love? I thought it was interesting what Diotima says about love in the Symposium: "he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair . . . he is hard-featured and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven . . . and like his mother he is always distressed" (pg. 27). It is very different from the picture of the cute, chubby cupid that many of us think of when we picture love. Yet, I think I have to agree, at lest partially, with this depiction because if love was a cute baby, then it would easy and fun and cute. But that is not how love really is most of the time. Love is pain and agony. As the saying goes, there is a thin line between love and hate.

Exam Starts Now

So, it's that wonderful time of the year: the first test! I'm sure everyone is very excited. Here are the questions that we thought of during class that Sexson will develop the test from. Good luck everyone and Godspeed!

1. Hubris
2. Elusinian mysteries
a) what was done, seen, and said according to Sexson
-relationship between this and Homeric Hymns
3. 5 Steiner Conflicts (in order)
4. What is an epithet? (give example)
5. Which 2 characters exemplify Steiner's conflicts?
6. Stychomythia
7. Sparagmos
8. Define anthropocentric
9. Miasma
10. Antigone's view of politics, notion of a moving target, and meaning of Creon's name (intro)
11. Myth of the Eternal Return
12. Who is Hermes like? -Stewie
13. Thoreau said we should read the ___ instead of the ____.
14. Who is guilty of taking one above and tossing them below?
15. In illo tempore (define)
16. Which 2 mythologicl figures are polytropic?
17. Who are the 3 great tragedians?
18. Who is the god of the crossroads?
19. Define agon (conflict)
20. All that is ___ possesses the ___.
21. 2 best things that can happen according to the chorus in Antigone
22. Sarvam
23. What does Antigone's name mean?
24. What injury does infant Oedipus sustain?
25. Hermes response to demonstrate his innocence? (2 words)
26. What did Robert Johnson do at the crossroads?
27. Why do we laugh?
28. What's it mean to make something anagogic?
29. Senex

Give me my robe . . .

I loved the scene from Antony and Cleopatra that Sexson ended class with the other day. While it is not my favorite play and I haven't actually seen it performed, I was intrigued by his acting, so I thought that I would look it up. This is how Cleo's death scene it written in my Complete Works of William Shakespeare book.

Cleopatra: Give me my robe, put on my crown;
I have
Immortal longing in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:-
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick.-Methinks I hear Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life.-So,-have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmian;-Iras, long farewell.
[Kisses them. Iras falls and dies.]
Have I aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still?
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
It is not worth leave-taking.
Char: Dissovle, thick cloud, and rain; that
I may say
The gods themselves do weep!
Cleo: This proves me base:
If she first meet the curled Antony,
He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
Which is my heaven to have.-Come, thou
mortal wretch,
[To an asp, which she applies to her breast]
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool,
Be angry, and despatch. O couldst thou speak,
That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
Unpolicied!
Char: O eartern star!
Cleo: Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
That sucks the nurse asleep?
Char: O, break!, O, break!
Cleo: As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as
gentle:-
O Antony!-Nay, I will take thee too:-
[Applying another asp to her arm]
What, should I stay,-
[Falls on a bed and dies]


Talk a great death scene! Sorry if it's a little long, but I think if you want the whole affect, you have to hear the whole scene. The way that Shakespeare phrased his speeh and the words that he used, just grab one's attention. That's the power of words, I guess. By simply hearing them, you can feel any range of emotions and be moved to do things. Awesome (in the true sense of the word)

Open Sesame

Passwords. They are magical and mythical and allow you to get to your e-mail account. We are surrounded by passwords in this world. We are required to have one for every little thing these days. Debit cards, library cards, bank accounts, e-mail accounts, facebook, blogs, and the list goes on and on. Even as people we are labeled with numbers: social security, driver's license, college id, which allow us to pass through this world without too much trouble. As adults it is tedious and boring to try to keep track of all of them, but as children passwords were wonderful things. Do you remember having a secret knock or handshake with your friends? Perhaps it was a fun, weird word that you said to identify yourselves. Passwords allowed you to go beyond the ordinary, they made life special and magical. If you think about it passwords have been present in this world since the beginning. Elusinian mysteries were all about passwords. By having seen, heard and done something they were all linked by those shared experiences. With a word they could relate to one another. Maybe that's what passwords are all about. Sure they are made to let you 'pass' through, but maybe they are about finding commonalities amongst all the people of this world. Maybe they are used, not to pass through, but to pass with.

Time is ticking

Monday's discussion on time and how we view time and the past really got me thinking. Why is it that humans have such an interest in time? Just think of all the movies and books about time travel, changing the past, seeing the future. Groundhog's Day, the Terminator series, Michael Crichton's Timeline, and so many more that the mind boggles. Time is a staple in any good plot. Is our interest solely based in our desire to understand what has happened? Perhaps we feel a need to repeat things until we do get it right? Or could it be that we fear time because it reminds us that there is an end coming, so we seek to control it through media?

I was reminded of reruns of a sci-fi TV show that I watch sometimes about a government group that sends a man back 7 days in to the past whenever something very bad happens. For everyone else in the world what happened during those 7 days disappears. The man who time travels, however, remembers things that he heard and saw and did that only he will remember. Just like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day, his present is possessed by the past. His future is actually the past. How must one react then to everything? Are these people the only ones who can truly appreciate their present since they view it from an entirely different angle then the rest of us? Can we, as non-time traveling beings, gain an understanding of life by grasping at what we might remember of our pasts?

Frozen Words

I got to thinking recently about what Prof Sexson said in class a couple of days ago about how when we speak our words immediately disappear. It reminded me of a story that I read in elementar school about a girl whose words froze in to icicles when she spoke. To hear what she actually said one had to melt the icicles. For this girl, her words could be eternal. Something to hold and store away. They could always be remembered, but still one could never hear them. They would be physically solid, yet at the same time have faded away like the echoes of our spoken words. Is this what happens with writing? Words become physically solid, but still fade away? It is just as easy to forget what one has read as it is to forget what one has heard. ALos, what one writes down is never identical to what one has spoken. Words and phrases continually change and shift, perhaps becoming better. Our minds play tricks on us and what we remember fades as easily as the spoken word. So, cherish what you speak because what you say will never be said again. It will never be heard again. Things change, people change, places change.

True Originality

We were discussing the inauguration in my 401 Capstone class just a little while ago and I was struck by the fact of how often Obama and what happened today has been compared to history. For those of you who were perhaps abducted by aliens and have missed the entire last year, Obama's slogan has been "Change." After the discussion in my class, I have to wonder just how original that change will be (if there is any to begin with). Will anything that he does be truly new and wondrous? Or will it simply be the same events and decisions that have occurred and reoccurred over the centuries with new places and new faces? Have there been any original thoughts since the dawn of man?

For me the word "classic" has always had connotations that whatever is "classic" is original, the basis for whatever follows. Yet, if there has been no more originality since the start of mankind, then how can anything but those things that existed at that moment in time be considered "classic"? How can the Rolling Stones be considered "classic"? How does something gain the designation of that all powerful label "classic"?

Any thoughts? Any original thoughts?

Ah, sweet beginnings . . .

My roommates and I were hanging out last night and if you truly knew us than the fact that the conversation turned to zombies at some point during the night would not be a surprise. So, we were talking about vampire movies and jumped to zombies somehow and Kim tells me that she finally told Jenn about her zombie plan. We were laughing hysterically and I had a brillant thought that instead of everything going back to myth, everything actually goes back to zombies! I've since given it some thought and have started wondering just how old the idea of zombies truly is. So, I did a little research. For those of you unbelievers who scoff at the notion of zombies and say that of course zombies are myth, really meaning not possible, here is a little tid bit for you. Apparently, zombies originated in myths of Haitian Voodoo! It is believed that one can take over and control a person's body by using a powder called coup padre. Even zombies, something that seems relatively new and planted firmly in movies, goes back to myth. I guess Sexson was right in the end. Hmmm, I wonder what else can be traced back to myth?

If you have an undying love of all things zombie or are just a little interested in the concept here are some of the websites that I looked at: http://www.umich.edu/~engl415/zombies/zombie.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie