Paper Topic Idea

As I was trying to brainstorm a paper topic I thought back on all that we have talked about in this class and I thought back on my years as an English major, and I felt completely lost and overwhelmed. Than I realized that I was continually thinking back to things, revisiting memories and I figured that maybe this was something I could write my paper on. I am not sure if this is just entirely too broad (and I know that right now it is VERY rough) but I thought I would write my paper on, as Proust's editor put it, remembrance of things past. In so many of the texts we have read we have encountered characters being told "remember me" and as an English major about to graduate I cant see a better time than now to reflect on the idea of past memories. I want to basically say that epiphanies are a by-product of memories revisited, like Sexson said "it is not so much visiting a place but re-visiting it" so now after 5 (yes 5!) years of English lit I want to re-visit the world of literature and see why remembering our past is so important, specifically when it comes to Epiphanies. Obviously this is an extremely rough idea as of now, so we will see what happens with it!

My favorite posts

So I think that it is much too difficult to chose only one blog that i have really enjoyed and has influenced me, so after a bit of work i was able to narrow it down to two. First Kari's blog about the displacement of myth in To The Lighthouse and second Jennie Lynn's blog regarding sestina in The Four Quartets. I felt like both of these blogs reminded me of the many ways that you can read a text and all that you can do with them. Sometimes as a consistently late blogger it is easy to feel like maybe everything has already been said and there is nothing left for you to say, but both these blogs reminded me to slap myself if I ever think that again because it is never, ever true. While some blogs discuss things where I think to myself 'why didn't I think of that' both of these blogs were ones that I never would think of because both Kari and Jennie Lynn did things that I habitually forget to do when reading a text: drawing in correlations from other things you have read and taking a close look at the actual composition and layout instead of just the words themselves. It is the blogs like these of other people that remind us as English majors just how vast our major really is and how many different ways there are to look at books!

Hamlet as a closet Hindu?

Something that caught my eye when I was reading Hamlet was a part of Hamlets conversation with Horatio in act III scene II when Hamlet says:
"Sh'hath sealed thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commenddled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not a passions slave, and I will wear him
In my heart' core, ay, in my heart of heart."

This particular quote seemed to be relevant to The Bhagavad Gita in a few different ways which i will attempt to explain but will probably only further confuse. First is the way that hamlet describes "one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing" this reminded me of the importance of unity in Krishna's counsel of Arjuna. Krishna says "They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them" when I read this with Hamlets line "A man that Fortunes buffets and rewards/ Hast ta'en with equal thanks" I was immediately reminded of the way that Krishna advises Arjuna to remain above and unaffected by both pleasure and pain, good and bad:
"When the senses contact sense objects, a person
experiences cold or heat, pleasure or pain. These
experiences are fleeting; they come and go.
Bear them patiently, Arjuna. Those who are
unaffected by these changes, who are the same
in pleasure and pain, are truly wise and fit for
immortality. Assert your strength and realize this!" ch 2 lines 14-16
By finding a sense of unity and remaining unaffected man is able to reach a higher state and "suffer nothing." Krishna goes on to say more about this saying:
"They are completely fulfilled by spiritual wisdom and Self-realization. Having conquered their senses, they have climbed to the summit of human consciousness...Because they are impartial, they rise to great heights." (ch 6 lines 8-10)
"The supreme Reality stands revealed in the consciousness of those who have conquered themselves. They live in peace, alike in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, praise and blame." (ch6 lines 7-8)

It would seem to me that when Hamlet says "Give me that man/That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him/ In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart" he is basically asking for Krishna, finding the same ideas valuable as demonstrated in The Bhagavad Gita. I am not really sure if this is actually what is going on or not, or if I was just reading this looking for something that related to The Gita!

Some Similarities Between The Bhagavad Gita and Hamlet

After first reading The Bhagavad Gita and Hamlet I searched for the reason why we were reading them together, looking for an epiphany if you will, about the correlation between the two works. I am still searching because i haven't found it yet, however i did find some smaller connections between the two stories. Both Hamlet and Arjuna are princes, Hamlet is the son of the King of Denmark and Arjuna is the son of Indra, king of the gods. I think that both Hamlet and Arjuna being princes allows them to symbolize not just one character but instead their entire society. Both characters find themselves in situations which require them to kill family members, both characters are faced with a difficult internal dilemma. if the characters are both representative of something larger than one person than the necessity of murdering a relative seems to be an interesting aspect. I suppose that to me this does not necessarily mean that society is faced with the conflict over murdering a family member, instead I think that being forced to kill someone in your family is shown as one of the worst things someone could be forced to do. Therefore this is more representative of the struggles between doing something you know that you must even though it seems like the worst thing possible.

Total Eclipse

When I first read Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse" my initial reaction was basically wondering why everyone was being so dramatic about this natural event. When Dillard described the scene as "From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching." I could only think that the people watching this event most certainly couldn't be living in 1979, they would have known that a total solar eclipse is simply the moon passing between the sun and the earth obstructing the view of the sun from some parts of the earth. But then I started to understand that sometimes regardless of all logic and knowledge, things happen that are inexplicable and impossible to understand in logical terms. Epiphanies in the most logical sense are simply the firing of synapses and receptors in your brain right? But what I got out of Dillard is the importance of letting go of logic sometimes, understanding that regardless of what you KNOW about an eclipse, it still FEELS scary, and regardless of what you know about the functions of your brain you still must be able to feel something in order to have an epiphany.

The Fisher King

So, Dr.Sexson asked us to google Fisher King since it is that name you come up with when you invert the words of Kingfisher from the poem we looked at on Monday. Fisher King is a character associated with Arthurian legend, he is also called "The Wounded King" because he is always depicted as injured in either the legs or groin which renders him unable to move on his own (and infertile) and so all he can do is fish. Basically when he is injured his country suffers as well without a strong virile king, but the most interesting part of the story is that the fisher king is the man in charge of keeping the holy grail. What seems of note about the holy grail in a class about epiphanies to me is the miraculous powers it possesses and the constant search for it. Supposedly the grail is something that cannot be found until the knight or searcher is able to prove himself to be worthy of finding it. According to some the grail is symbolic of the grace of god and while it is possible for everyone to find it, only those who become spiritually worthy are able to. Since an epiphany in the religious sense is the appearance of a deity could the holy grail as a symbol of god be an epiphanic object? Yes I know that epiphanic object makes really no sense but if it is the symbol of a deity and an epiphany is the appearance of a deity couldn't finding the holy grail be in essence finding an epiphany? If we are to follow this twisted mess of logic then couldn't we further deduce that this makes the Fisher King a guardian or keeper of epiphanies? Yes well, I think this line of reasoning is pretty clear proof that I really shouldn't try and blog before my first cup of coffee, so I will leave you with that.

In both Tintern Abbey and To The Lighthouse one thing that i noticed about both experiences of epiphany is how incredibly all encompassing they both are. They are both divine and secular in the sense that there seems to be an understanding of everything. In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth writes, 'A presence that disturbs me with the joy/Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime/Of something far more deeply interfused' (lines 93-96). By being both sublime AND "something far more deeply" it would seem that Wordsworth is turning the epiphany into something far more that a religious experience, even noting that there are things far deeper than a religious epiphany- I doubt the church at the time loved that.
At the end of To The Lighthouse, Lily says that "I have had my vision" and it would seem that this vision is something that is not just regarding Mrs.Ramsay or herself but instead everything. Suzette Henke writes in her essay on To The Lighthouse "The vision is artistic and epiphanic, mystical and materialist- a revelation that proves to be so all-encompassing that it is difficult to envisage its scope or (en)gendering radiance..." How could I possibly say it better than that!

So when i read Kari's Blog, her mention of an epiphany possibly being the experience of "seeing into the life of things" struck me as really interesting, even though i am not entirely sure i fully understand it. However i like the idea, maybe Lily's epiphany is a result and product of her being able to see into the life of Mrs. Ramsay, someone who has absolutely befuddled her for so long. The ability to take oneself out of your own body and experiences and understand others possibly allows for epiphanies?