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Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Talkin Shop: First Lines (brief)
I used to attribute the following statement to a notable lyrical poet, but after consider searching for the attribution to that particular wordsmith—or an attribution of anything even resembling the quote—I guess I'll step up on my soapbox platform and take the blame for it. If anyone wants to debate that... let's sit down for a cup of coffee and spend some time talkin shop.
If one isn't otherwise presenting itself to you, here's a guideline for your consideration:
The first line of a story should be a simple statement of fact.
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If one isn't otherwise presenting itself to you, here's a guideline for your consideration:
The first line of a story should be a simple statement of fact.
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Friday, March 5, 2010
Terminal Point of a Cul-de-Sac
This course, this paper (and it's following siblings) profoundly changed something inside of me from where these sort of ideas become formulated into words. Breakthrough papers.
Of course, that's a subjective viewpoint. But I do think there is something noticeable in the trio of papers for Gothic Disturbances.
If nothing else, it was the course that lured me to the wondrous dark side of the English Department. And there I have found almost everything I hoped to find when I came here seeking knowledge...
It all clicked with the windings. They peeled off from my literary criticism blind eyes and suddenly I could see!
[This essay seems now to end curiously abrupt. I wonder if the file I have is an early save...? Hmm...]
~•~
(1st draft)
English 490 - Gothic Disturbances
February 17, 2009
When Mary Shelley introduces us to this precipitous ascent of Victor on an Alpine peak facing Montanvert, she is doing more than telling us about the steep mountainside and the felled trees along the path of avalanches. Indeed, this is the sixth time in the text that Shelley has used a variance of the word "precipitous," and, in all, the word is used 14 times in the novel.
Given this frequent usage, the word must carry with it some importance; seemingly connected with Victor's perception of the world around him, and the reader's perception of Victor himself.
At the point in the novel where Victor is ascending this precipitous, winding path, he has already brought life to his creation and abandoned it as something hideous, and William has been killed and Justine has been executed because of Victor's "unhallowed arts". Victor seeks some sort of solace in wandering the barren and starkly beautiful landscapes which bring to Victor's perception some calm reassurance that an omnipotent God must exist. He alternates these thoughts with suicidal considerations.
The word "precipitous" itself appears in various forms throughout the novel--most commonly as "precipice" (9 times); "precipitate" (3 times); and once each with "precipitation" and, in this passages, "precipitous". Of its meanings, perhaps the only definition not directly intended in any of these usages is the most apparent, that of meaning rain, mist, or snowfall; moisture. In this excerpt, "the ascent is precipitous" literally means the path Victor walks is extremely steep, but the word could also be used to represent his headlong ascent into unhallowed knowledge, and the way he abruptly ended his work upon successfully bringing life to a monstrous creation.
In chemistry, to precipitate something is to separate it, as in a solid form divided from a solution. In this sense, too, do we find a connection to Victor and his work, for he is seeking to separate himself from the substance--the thing--he has created.
Shelley describes the path Victor walks as "cut into [...] short windings" which is literally seen as being a treacherous path with many cut-backs crisscrossing the mountainside. But "windings" could also refer to Victor's meandering to avoid his responsibilities connection to playing God as a creator of life, his seeking to receive some sort of information about what he should do--to come to a conclusion about his uncertainty--as well as referring to the winding sheets used to wrap a dead body in.
All of these meanings could be found to have meaning in Victor's twisting, turning, walk through this landscape of his solitude. This landscape--where "traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived"--is described as an area where "trees lie [...] entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning [...] transversely upon other trees." An "avalanche" is, of course, a place of abrupt descent, or to suddenly go down, and to "traverse" is to barricade against, or to cross or thwart something. Victor feels like he has descended abruptly from his knowledgeable heights--that of becoming a life-giving God and then, falling from such a deified height in abandoning his creation--and feeling like he has been thwarted by the very thing he has created--that it is the creature's own fault that it is not a thing a beauty and perfection.
There is also a connection between "transverse" and crossing a bridge or passing through a gate. Perhaps, in wandering the Alpine mountains and valleys, Victor hopes to pass through a gate, or cross a bridge, that would allow him to shirk his past work and deeds, leaving them behind without having to ever deal with them again. This could then mean that the description of the trees should conjure images of broken limbs and other body parts that Victor would have seen in picking out the pieces to construct his creation, and he would have his creation scattered about in disarray like the mountainside in the wake of an avalanche.
Victor views these trees as "not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene." All at once, Shelley is revealing to us keys to Victor's nature and attitude with her choice of words. "Luxuriant" means to to have excesses, or to indulge, associated to Victor's unquenchable desires for knowledge that exceeds his reason; "sombre" and "severity" together displaying his gloomy and dark attitude, his austerity, and almost complete lack of kindness towards most anyone or anything. Descriptions which show him to be uncompassionate and selfish in the extreme.
His view of the peaks above him, shrouded in "thick wreaths" of "uniform clouds" where the rain falls from a "dark sky and added to the melancholy impression" also reveals to us his "black bile" of his irritability with the world surrounding him and his narcissistic sullen perception of how nothing he sees or has done is worthwhile. His creating life out of something dead is not a bright accomplishment, but a foul, deplorable thing, not because it is a creation of life from dead parts, but because it is, to Victor's eyes, not a thing of aesthetic beauty.
From his vantage point high along the winding path of the mountainside, where Victor has been wandering in philosophical circles, he looks down to the valley below where "vast mists were rising from the rivers". Aside from being a case where the word "precipitate" could have been used to indicate the falling moisture, it is a moment when Victor reaches a terminal point in his vicious circle of thought.
He looks back--and down--upon the world around him, knowing that he cannot forever stay in the solitude of the mountains, but must, eventually, descend back to the world below him, crashing like an avalanche upon those around him, shrouding a world he feels is, literally, beneath him.
· • ·
Of course, that's a subjective viewpoint. But I do think there is something noticeable in the trio of papers for Gothic Disturbances.
If nothing else, it was the course that lured me to the wondrous dark side of the English Department. And there I have found almost everything I hoped to find when I came here seeking knowledge...
It all clicked with the windings. They peeled off from my literary criticism blind eyes and suddenly I could see!
[This essay seems now to end curiously abrupt. I wonder if the file I have is an early save...? Hmm...]
~•~
(1st draft)
English 490 - Gothic Disturbances
February 17, 2009
The Terminal Point of a Cul-de-Sac
"The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the mountain. It is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees. [...] The pines are not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene. I looked on the valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I received from the objects around me." (Frankenstein, Vol. II Ch. II)
When Mary Shelley introduces us to this precipitous ascent of Victor on an Alpine peak facing Montanvert, she is doing more than telling us about the steep mountainside and the felled trees along the path of avalanches. Indeed, this is the sixth time in the text that Shelley has used a variance of the word "precipitous," and, in all, the word is used 14 times in the novel.
Given this frequent usage, the word must carry with it some importance; seemingly connected with Victor's perception of the world around him, and the reader's perception of Victor himself.
At the point in the novel where Victor is ascending this precipitous, winding path, he has already brought life to his creation and abandoned it as something hideous, and William has been killed and Justine has been executed because of Victor's "unhallowed arts". Victor seeks some sort of solace in wandering the barren and starkly beautiful landscapes which bring to Victor's perception some calm reassurance that an omnipotent God must exist. He alternates these thoughts with suicidal considerations.
The word "precipitous" itself appears in various forms throughout the novel--most commonly as "precipice" (9 times); "precipitate" (3 times); and once each with "precipitation" and, in this passages, "precipitous". Of its meanings, perhaps the only definition not directly intended in any of these usages is the most apparent, that of meaning rain, mist, or snowfall; moisture. In this excerpt, "the ascent is precipitous" literally means the path Victor walks is extremely steep, but the word could also be used to represent his headlong ascent into unhallowed knowledge, and the way he abruptly ended his work upon successfully bringing life to a monstrous creation.
In chemistry, to precipitate something is to separate it, as in a solid form divided from a solution. In this sense, too, do we find a connection to Victor and his work, for he is seeking to separate himself from the substance--the thing--he has created.
Shelley describes the path Victor walks as "cut into [...] short windings" which is literally seen as being a treacherous path with many cut-backs crisscrossing the mountainside. But "windings" could also refer to Victor's meandering to avoid his responsibilities connection to playing God as a creator of life, his seeking to receive some sort of information about what he should do--to come to a conclusion about his uncertainty--as well as referring to the winding sheets used to wrap a dead body in.
All of these meanings could be found to have meaning in Victor's twisting, turning, walk through this landscape of his solitude. This landscape--where "traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived"--is described as an area where "trees lie [...] entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning [...] transversely upon other trees." An "avalanche" is, of course, a place of abrupt descent, or to suddenly go down, and to "traverse" is to barricade against, or to cross or thwart something. Victor feels like he has descended abruptly from his knowledgeable heights--that of becoming a life-giving God and then, falling from such a deified height in abandoning his creation--and feeling like he has been thwarted by the very thing he has created--that it is the creature's own fault that it is not a thing a beauty and perfection.
There is also a connection between "transverse" and crossing a bridge or passing through a gate. Perhaps, in wandering the Alpine mountains and valleys, Victor hopes to pass through a gate, or cross a bridge, that would allow him to shirk his past work and deeds, leaving them behind without having to ever deal with them again. This could then mean that the description of the trees should conjure images of broken limbs and other body parts that Victor would have seen in picking out the pieces to construct his creation, and he would have his creation scattered about in disarray like the mountainside in the wake of an avalanche.
Victor views these trees as "not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene." All at once, Shelley is revealing to us keys to Victor's nature and attitude with her choice of words. "Luxuriant" means to to have excesses, or to indulge, associated to Victor's unquenchable desires for knowledge that exceeds his reason; "sombre" and "severity" together displaying his gloomy and dark attitude, his austerity, and almost complete lack of kindness towards most anyone or anything. Descriptions which show him to be uncompassionate and selfish in the extreme.
His view of the peaks above him, shrouded in "thick wreaths" of "uniform clouds" where the rain falls from a "dark sky and added to the melancholy impression" also reveals to us his "black bile" of his irritability with the world surrounding him and his narcissistic sullen perception of how nothing he sees or has done is worthwhile. His creating life out of something dead is not a bright accomplishment, but a foul, deplorable thing, not because it is a creation of life from dead parts, but because it is, to Victor's eyes, not a thing of aesthetic beauty.
From his vantage point high along the winding path of the mountainside, where Victor has been wandering in philosophical circles, he looks down to the valley below where "vast mists were rising from the rivers". Aside from being a case where the word "precipitate" could have been used to indicate the falling moisture, it is a moment when Victor reaches a terminal point in his vicious circle of thought.
He looks back--and down--upon the world around him, knowing that he cannot forever stay in the solitude of the mountains, but must, eventually, descend back to the world below him, crashing like an avalanche upon those around him, shrouding a world he feels is, literally, beneath him.
· • ·
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Broken Little Lies
Pen to the Page and Write.
~•~
In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh. Words to memorize and words hypnotize. Words make my mouth exercise. Words assemble, words be quick... Cast letters to spell words, and become sentenced by what is said; by what is written. Judged by it. Writing is magick, of course. And we should be bound by our words. The sentencing of our thought made word. A promise; an oath. Sending forth an affirmation; a troth of binding.
We should not promise something easily, nor lightly. And, once given, an oath should be kept except in extreme circumstances. Breaking one's word is a crime, a sin, against oneself. And should perhaps be viewed as a defeat in the ongoing struggle of attaining a life of compassion and brightness.
Of course, some persons derive pleasure from creating falsehoods, and inflicting them upon others. Place no faith with such people, yet they are not to be despised, merely avoided upon discovery of their false intentions.
Anything new or strange should be cautiously welcomed.
Once I dreamed I stood in the wreckage and debris of my own broken promises. They lay littered about my feet. I gathered the scattered pieces and threw them up into the sky where they stuck across the ceiling of the cosmos. And then I saw that they were not alone up there, for among them were the billions of glittering fragments of so many other broken promises.
The brighter the light shone, the darker the shadows cast.
When Love and Hate cease, there is but indifference. And that is truly far worse than either of the strong emotions. For in feeling angry or feeling concern, at least there is feeling. Without feeling, there is no care; no compassion. And then the Vacuity has overcome the Swell.
There is Truth. And there is Lie. In truth, is always faith. Faith is what you know to be true, even if you don't believe it. Lies, are the broken promises to yourself.
· • ·
~•~
In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh. Words to memorize and words hypnotize. Words make my mouth exercise. Words assemble, words be quick... Cast letters to spell words, and become sentenced by what is said; by what is written. Judged by it. Writing is magick, of course. And we should be bound by our words. The sentencing of our thought made word. A promise; an oath. Sending forth an affirmation; a troth of binding.
We should not promise something easily, nor lightly. And, once given, an oath should be kept except in extreme circumstances. Breaking one's word is a crime, a sin, against oneself. And should perhaps be viewed as a defeat in the ongoing struggle of attaining a life of compassion and brightness.
Of course, some persons derive pleasure from creating falsehoods, and inflicting them upon others. Place no faith with such people, yet they are not to be despised, merely avoided upon discovery of their false intentions.
Anything new or strange should be cautiously welcomed.
Once I dreamed I stood in the wreckage and debris of my own broken promises. They lay littered about my feet. I gathered the scattered pieces and threw them up into the sky where they stuck across the ceiling of the cosmos. And then I saw that they were not alone up there, for among them were the billions of glittering fragments of so many other broken promises.
The brighter the light shone, the darker the shadows cast.
When Love and Hate cease, there is but indifference. And that is truly far worse than either of the strong emotions. For in feeling angry or feeling concern, at least there is feeling. Without feeling, there is no care; no compassion. And then the Vacuity has overcome the Swell.
There is Truth. And there is Lie. In truth, is always faith. Faith is what you know to be true, even if you don't believe it. Lies, are the broken promises to yourself.
· • ·
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