Young Adult and Children's Literature

Six Degrees of Seperation: Our Connection to The Golden Compass!

2008-11-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

I am Stephanie J. Findley
My Grampa is Billie E Phillips
His mother is Jessie Phillips
Her sister is Opal Petersen
Her daughter and son-in-law are Judine and Terry Brooks

Terry Brooks is an author, and on the back of my copy of The Golden Compass is says

"The Golden Compass is one of the best fantasy/adventure stories that I have read in years. This is a book no one should miss. Long after I was finished reading it, I was still thinking about Lyra and her friends. I forsee much success for the series and its talented author"

-- Terry Brooks, author of The Sword of Shannara

Exam Questons

2008-11-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Who was the "original" illustrator for Alice in Wonderland?
Tenniel

What is the last word in Beauty and the Beast?
virtue

Who wins after death?
worms/art

Oscar Wilde said "life imitates _____"
art

5 themes of class:
myth, history, dreams, coincidence, art

Who does the white knight represent?
Lewis Carroll

How doth the little busy bee?
How doth the crocodile

What beautiful food does the Mock Turtle sing about?
soup

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
I haven't the slightest idea

According to Talbot, after Shakespeare ________ is the most quoted writer.
Carrol

__________________ is a personalized _______________ and ________________ is a depersonalized ___________________.
dream, myth, myth, dream.

Humpty Dumpty Portmanteau

Who is the rudest flower?
The violet

ANIMA - in-souled - animal

Who is the volcano in Through the Looking-glass?
Alice

Where does Alice live?
The collective unconscious

the first time Alice drinks, how tall is she?
10"

What is the deleted chapter from Alice?
Wasp and the Wig

How does Alice offend the mouse?
CATS

During the protestant reformation, what was the purpose of children's lit?
instill moral values

What language was the first American Bible in?
Algonquin

What pre-Darwin animal sparked curiosity in child lit?
Mammoth and Moneys

What invention helped with the Protestant Reformation?
Printing-Press

Mercury makes the Mad-Hatter mad is what?
misplaced concreteness

Make an anagram

What does the white rabbit drop?
white gloves and a fan

Beauty's tears turn into _________ in Jean Cocteau's B&b
diamonds

When reading the story trust the _____________ and not eht ___________
tale , teller

Lewis Carrol's nickname inspired what character?
Dodo

What rhetorical device is "I'm interested because I'm interesting"
tautology

In film, Goody two shoes is emblem of _________________ which adult lack
perfection

What part of the dream are tewwdle-dee and dum?
ditto, ditto, ditto

why do the walrus and carpenter weep?
sand

Who was the most prolific serial killer in 19th cent. Britain?
Mary Anne Cotton

What ghosts help narrate Sunderland?
The White Lady and Cyd James

Jabberwocky based on what folklore?
Lampton Worm

Last line of Alice
Life, what is it but a dream?

acrostic
Alice Pleasance Liddel

All art aspires to music

The text informs reality

Tweedledee/dum says "contrariwise"

queen of hearts

2008-11-05T14:39:00.001-08:00

Marx Brothers - Duck Soup - Mirror Scene

2008-11-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

Marylin Manson's Alice in Wonderland

2008-11-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

I am not a fan at all of Marylin Manson's music, but if you have ever watched an interview with Manson it is obvious that he is EXTREMELY intelligent and really his image is just part of his marketing genius. It's all an act. I did some research about this Phantasmagoria movie he is making that is based on Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. I also found that his most recent album was called "Eat me/Drink me" which most Manson fans would probably think was just more sexually masochistic heavy metal, but we English majors know it's a reference to Wonderland.

A Manson quote about Phantasmagoria:
"It's about Lewis Carroll and how he became a persona much more bizarre and elaborate than Marilyn Manson. Charles Dodgson was his real name, and he was a person who had a tortured inability to find love and to find happiness in his life, and his story is one of great depression. It's one of a split personality - a person who was deaf in his right ear and left-handed. He was a mathematician and an artist, a deacon in a church who believed in evolution."

I think this is a film we should keep our eyes open for in 2009/2010

I have also attached a picture from the film.

Connections from Another Class

2008-11-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

For my 20th Cent. British Lit class we are reading Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. Here is an excerpt from the novel that applies to our class:

You may have heard of Rapunzel.
Against the wishes of her family, who can best be described by their passion for collecting miniature dolls, she went to live in a tower with an older woman.
Her family were so incensed by her refusal to marry the prince next door that they vilified the couple, calling one a watch and the other a little girl. Not content with names, they ceaselessly tried to break into the tower, so much so that the happy pair had to steal up any entrance that was not on a level with the sky. The lover got in by climbing up Rapunzel's hair, and Rapunzel got in by nailing a wig to the floor and shinning up the tresses flung out of the window. Both of them could have used a ladder, but they were in love.
One day the prince, who had always liked to borrow his mother's frocks, dressed up as Rapunzel's lover and dragged himself into the tower. Once inside he tied her up and waited for the wicked witch to arrive. The moment she leaped through the window, bringing their dinner for the evening, the prince hit her over the head and threw her out again. Then he carried Rapunzel down the rope he had brought with him and forced her to watch while he blinded her poor broken lover in a field of thorns.
After that they lived happily ever after, of course

The best dream I ever had

2008-11-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

November 28, 2006

(I keep a dream diary)
I walked outside at night time through a heavy forested area and there were rays of light coming from the sky perpendicular to the earth. They covered the entire skyline. I looked down at the ground and realized that the light was coming from the stars and they were actually shining so bright and concentrated (like a laser) there were constalations and nebulas all over the ground...like the ground was a mirror...and the ground was warm

My scary dream when I was young

2008-10-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

I have really vague memories of this story, but I will do my best. I remember being in church and turning around to look at the people sitting behind me. I wasn't the kind of little girl that made faces at people; I just wanted to see who was behind me. Well, there was a redheaded boy behind me...I mean REALLY red headed and he started making faces at me. For some reason this was REALLY scary to me...maybe because I was about 5 and he was probably 13 years old (sorry its an old memory). Anyway, that night I had the scariest dream of my life. I dreamt that my family was on a bike ride (which we did a lot) and I was trailing far behind (like I always did because I am the youngest). The bike path was going through a forest and it veered over near a cliff. Off the side of the cliff there was nothing but fog and I couldn't tell how far down the cliff went...by this time my family was all out of my sight...then...out of the fog came the scariest thing EVER!!! There was a flying sleigh (like Santa's) and in the sleigh was the guy from church and his head was HUUUUUUUUGE!!! SO SCARY!!!!

Anyway...this picture from Alice reminds me of his huge head and how scary it was.

Good Alice Art

2008-10-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Walter Pater

2008-10-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

Momo - Paper topic

2008-10-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

I think one of the reasons that I have always loved Momo so much is because I had only ever seen one copy of the book until this past summer. I saw another copy in a used bookstore in Duluth, MN and I bought it for about five dollars.

I am really excited to use what I have learned in this class to look deeper into Momo. It has already lost some of the magic it had when I was a child because I am not a child...and I read into it too much. But I will always remember how special it was when I was younger.

Wood Block Picture from Childrens' Books

2008-10-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

This web site has tons and tons and TONS of wood block pictures like the ones in My Book and Heart.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19132/19132-h/19132-h.htm

The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin

2008-10-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

I had never heard the Cock Robin nursery rhyme before we saw My Book and Heat, but it was my favorite part of the film. I really liked how the body of cock robin was falling and growing larger during the film. The body of cock robin made me think of a paper doll.

Who killed Cock Robin?
"I," said the sparrow,"
With my little bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin."

...

Who'll toll the bell?
"I," said the bull,
"Because I can pull,
I'll toll the bell."

All the birds of the air
Fell sighing and sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll
For poor Cock Robin.

Exam

2008-10-12T19:11:00.001-07:00

Archetypal Lady in Finnegan’s Wake: Prank Queen

Portmanteau – multilevel word – from Alice in Wonderland – Slithey = slimy and slithery

Privileged numbers in fairy tales: 3 and 7

What is misplaced concreteness: Can human hair really hold weight?

Type 333 – Little Red Riding Hood

How is the collective unconscious active in fairy tales? Archetypes

“if you’re crafty you’ll get them both” Little Red Riding Hood

What are the three parts of the universal quest according to Joseph Campbell: Separation, initiation, and return.

Triple goddess: Maiden, mother, crone

Why is there no original? All literature is displaces myth

I’m not history I’m mythology

Grimm version of Cinderella – Ashgirl

Motif Index: East/West, Beauty, and Hans – Missing husband/beats groom

Which story does not relate to parents wanting to conceive?

Mythical mother/daughter duo: Persephone and Demeter

Significance of blue in bluebeard’s beard: oriental, fear, and otherworldliness

Who was one of the first talking horses: The Golden Ass

Spoonerisms

Which romantic poet thought everybody knew everything: Wordsworth

Beauty and the Beast = Cupid and Psyche

Bluebeard – curious female/ anti-female moral

Which Grimm story has a witch in it? Hansel and Gretel

Cinderella Moral

2008-10-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ditch the moral Perrault
You’ve really gotta let go

Of these patriarchal ideals
We’d rather see cutting of heels

And the pecking out of eyes
Than you trying to moralize

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

2008-10-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love this fairy tale. I actually had never heard it until I read it for this class. The artwork also contributes to the beauty of the story. This painting actually reminds me of Mt Si back home in Washington. I really like the idea of the castle inside the mountain. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings and also Krull...the horrible 1983 sci-fi action thriller with the mountain/fortress that can transport itself like star-trek beeming

Permanent Blood Stains

2008-10-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Blubeard's blood stained key made me think of Lady Macbeth and her line "Out damn'd spot!" I tried to do some more research and see if this blood/guilt motif can be found in other pieces of literature but I didn't really find anything. I did however find reports of actual blood stains lasting for centuries...who know if this is fact or fiction? But it is interesting non-the-less

MURDER OF DAVID RIZZIO—PERMANENCY OF BLOOD-STAINS

On the evening of the 9th March 1565-6, David Rizzio, the Italian secretary of Mary of Scotland, was murdered in Holyrood Palace, by certain Protestant leaders of her court, with the assistance of her husband, Lord Darnley. The poor foreigner was torn from her side as she sat at supper, and dragged through her apartments to the outer door, where he was left on the floor for the night, dead with fifty-six wounds, each conspirator having been forced to give a stab, in order that all might be equally involved in guilt and consequent danger. The queen, who was then pregnant of her son (James I of England), deeply resented the outrage: indeed, there is reason to believe that it affected her so as to become the turning-point of her life, giving her in the first place a strong sense of the unworthiness of her husband, who perished less than a year after.

The floor at the outer door of the queen's apartments presents a large irregular dark mark, which the exhibitor of the palace states to be the blood of the unfortunate Rizzio. Most strangers hear with a smile of a blood-stain lasting three centuries, and Sir Walter Scott himself has made it the subject of a jocular passage in one of his tales, representing a Cockney traveller as trying to efface it with the patent scouring drops which it was his mission to introduce into use in Scotland. The scene between him and the old lady guardian of the palace is very amusing: but it may be remarked of Scott, that he entertained some beliefs in his secret bosom which his worldly wisdom and sense of the ludicrous led him occasionally to treat comically or with an appearance of scepticism. In another of his novels—the Abbot—he alludes with a feeling of awe and horror to the Rizzio blood-stain: and in his Tales of a Grandfather, he deliberately states that the floor at the head of the stair still bears visible marks of the blood of the unhappy victim. Joking apart, there is no necessity for disbelieving in the Holyrood blood-mark.

There is even some probability in its favour. In the first place, the floor is very ancient, manifestly much more so than the late floor of the neighbouring gallery, which dated from the reign of Charles II. It is in all likelihood the very floor which. Mary and her courtiers trod. In the second place, we know that the stain has been shewn there since a time long antecedent to that extreme modern curiosity regarding historical matters which might have induced an imposture: for it is alluded to by the son of Evelyn as being shewn in 1722. Finally, it is matter of experiment, and fully established, that wood not of the hardest kind (and it may be added, stone of a porous nature) takes on a permanent stain from blood, the oxide of iron contained in it sinking deep into the fibre, and proving indelible to all ordinary means of washing. Of course, if the wearing of a blood-stained, floor by the tread of feet were to be carried beyond the depth to which the blood had sunk, the stain would be obliterated. But it happens in the case of the Holyrood mark, that the two blotches of which it consisted are out of the line over which feet would chiefly pass in coming into or leaving the room. Indeed, that line appears to pass through and divide the stain,—a circumstance in no small degree favourable to its genuineness.

Alleged examples of blood-stains of old standing both upon wood and stone are reported from many places. We give a few extracted from the Notes and Queries. Amidst the horrors of the French Revolution, eighty priests were massacred in the chapel of the convent of the Camelites at Paris. The stains of blood are still to be seen on the walls and floor. 'At Cothele, a mansion on the banks of the Tamar, the marks are still visible of the blood spilt by the lord of the manor, when, for supposed treachery, he slew the warder of the drawbridge.' 'About fifty years ago, there was a dance at Kirton-in-Lindsey: (luring the evening a young girl broke a blood-vessel and expired in the room. I have been told that the marks of her blood are still to be seen. At the same town, about twenty years ago, an old man and his sister were murdered in an extremely brutal manner, and their cottage floor was deluged with blood, the stains of which are believed yet to remain.'

http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/feb/9.htm

What is a book

2008-10-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

I think a book, in very plain words, is something that expands your mind with ideas and new thoughts, images, and philosophies. I think a good book will cause you to question what you believe to be true or help you to bring ideas together and understand. Books can also be a way to live vicariously or to experience circumstances that are otherwise impossible to you. However, I also believe that books can be simply enjoyable as forms of entertainment. There are many things that are beyond the ability of my imagination, and I love to experience that type of creativity. Below are some illustrations of my favorite novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel

What is a child?

2008-10-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

You can't ask me this question without expecting some awesome pictures! My first thought prompted by this question is about how children don't comprehend time and how this can affect life. For me, time is my number one stressor...along with money. I think that a child can potentially believe anything you tell them...and I think they can also create the most outlandish ideas and create and imagine vivid and detailed worlds. The pictures I am posting I chose because they remind me of the feeling of childhood which was full of love, happiness, safety, and imagination.

(The dark haired cutie pie is my older sister - I have the light hair - and we are horse riding on my dad)

I've been reading into things again...

2008-10-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched the 2004 version of Phantom of the Opera (which I love with all my heart) and I found some motifs similar to those we have been finding in our fairy tales. One of these is the motif of "The Beast" which is obviously the phantom...when he is in the circus he is called "The Devil's Child" and he has a distorted face yet he is seeking love from the beautiful young woman. There is also the motif of the abduction and the decent into a type of underworld (like Persephone)
The video I have attached takes place right after The Phantom seduces Christine into following him into the caves and tunnels under the opera house. This song is a continuation of his enchantment. He is trying to convince her to turn to the darkness and be his...and Gerard Butler is really handsome...

It's Just LIKE A Fairy Tale!

2008-10-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

Man Saves Pet Dog From Jaws of Shark

Displacement

2008-09-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

Narcotics Anonymous -New Haven, Connecticut
Rebecca: Hi, my name is Rebecca and I’m a drug addict.
All: Hi Rebecca.
Rebecca: I’ve been clean for about five years now. I am currently a corporate lawyer, but the road here was not an easy one. I was always a really great kid until after I completed my undergrad. My dad was always really pushy about me being successful, and he eventually pushed me to go to law school. I’ll always believe that he wanted me to go and be this perfect student so he could hang out with some of the big names at Yale. He even talked personally with the Dean and built me up to be the best student possible. I did alright during my first semester, but when finals came around I just couldn’t keep up. My room mate saw that I was struggling and she told me about this guy “The Little Helper” that was around campus a lot during finals week. So I decided to meet him. Oh he was such a creep he was all decrepit and he had meth mouth. I should have known right then, but I was so desperate I needed something to keep me awake. I bought some meth from him and it definitely kept we awake for finals, but after that I was hooked. Anytime I had these seemingly impossible tasks I would call him for help. I had to hide my habit so I never used my financial aid or money from my parents for the drugs, instead I pawned electronics, my skis, an heirloom necklace and ring I had. I would have given the guy my first born child for drugs. After three years of law school I was still using even up to the bar exam I was using. By that time I was totally out of cash and I begged him to let me pay him when I found employment. He told me “when you’re a hot shot lawyer I expect you to pay me back”. After the bar exam the signs of my drug abuse were plainly obvious and my friends and family convinced me to go to treatment. Once I got out of treatment I used some of my connections from law school to find out the guys actual name. I found out his name was Nick Temp. We had him convicted and eventually incarcerated. I hope this is motivational to you all in your struggles to break from your habits. Thank you for listening.

Dream Last Night

2008-09-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland last night and I had a dream that was obviously motivated by what I read. In my dream I had a new fish tank that was really large (I don't know about gallons and that but It was about 5 feet long, two feet wide, and three feet deep- up and down-) At first I purchased a really scary looking prehistoric fish that was just floating around being ugly and when I was out for the day my dad bought a bright red serpent that was swimming around in the tank. I was afraid to go near the tank and it wouldsit out of the water with its creepy teeth snowing. Then one day I came home and my cat (Beatrix Kiddo) was floating in the tank she had been BIT! I tried to get to her to pull her out of the water but the serpent was there. So I grabbed it by the neck and cut off its head with a kitchen knife. Then I pulled Kiddo out of the water - and she woke up after a while - but it was scary.

I think the water was like Alice's tears, and the serpent like Alice's neck in the tree, and Kiddo was like Dinah!

In the picture I am posting, the mouse is floating in the way Kiddo was in my dream...probably the motivation

Only Connect...

2008-09-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

Only connect!

That was the whole of her sermon.

Only connect the prose and the passion,

and both will be exalted,

And human love will be seen at its height.

Live in fragments no longer.

Only connect...

--E.M. Forster, Howards End

To See a World... William Blake

2008-09-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage.

A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons

Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.

A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State.

A Horse misus’d upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall never pass the Polar Bar.

The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,

Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The Gnat that sings his Summer song

Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.

The poison of the Snake and Newt

Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;

Man was made for Joy and Woe;

And when this we rightly know

Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn

Some to Misery are Born.

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight.

Some are Born to sweet delight,

Some are Born to Endless Night.

Triple Goddess

2008-09-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

the New Moon is the white goddess of birth and growth;
the Full Moon, the red goddess of love and battle;
the Old Moon, the black goddess of death and divination

Maiden
Among Pagans, "The Maiden" represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the promise of new beginnings, birth, youth and youthful enthusiasm.

Mother
The mother represents ripeness, fertility, sexuality, nurturance, fulfillment, stability, power and life.

Crone
The crone represents wisdom, repose, death, and endings. Like the moon which waxes once again after the new moon and like in the year, where spring always follows winter. The Crone is an end, but she is always followed by the Maiden once more. It is death and rebirth, representing the common pagan belief of reincarnation as well as the renewing cycles of the moon and of the year.

(my mom would be so mad if she knew I was researching into Wicca stuff...ahhh!!!)

All three of these women are present in Rapunzel the story and are arguably present in The Juniper tree (Marlene, Mother, and Stepmother), and in Snow White (Snow White, Birth Mother, Stepmother/old woman costume), as well as little red riding hood (LRRH, Mother, Grandmother), and perhaps Hansel and Gretel (Gretel, mother, old woman/witch), maybe even Sleeping Beauty (Aurora, Mother/good fairies, and the snubbed fairy/old lady costume).

Who's getting the shaft now?

2008-09-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

This comic wasn't meant to be about the frog prince, but I love Natalie Dee and it's funny to think about the princess chasing the frog and the frog being resistant instead.
nataliedee.com

I was thinking about the fact that Rapunzel (the plant) is asexual and I was looking for other types of asexual patterns in fairy tales...well I found out that most frogs are asexual! So, not only did the Frog King become a frog but he was also asexual...hrm...so why was the little girl so afraid of him?

A disappointing Transformation

2008-09-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

It was interesting that Tartar poses the question "Does Beauty feel any disappointment after Beast's transformation?" because when I watched the Disney version as a child I was extremily upset when he transformed into a human. I have always felt like I was supposed to like his human form but I never did. I am moving the YouTube video of to this post because Jean Cocteau's version has Belle upset about the transformation, and there is a comic I am posting that states how I felt as a child.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

2008-09-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

—I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Art By: Maria Diaz

The Wind in the Willows: Piper at The Gates of Dawn

2008-09-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter.

An interesting connection

2008-09-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Rapunzel and I have made an interesting connection. When I was coming to the end where the prince in blinded I could only think of Jane Eyre and the character Mr. Rochester. Like the prince, Rochester falls from the attic (or tower) and he is blinded (by fire instead of briar – but they do rhyme). Then the prince wanders alone in the forest for years while Rochester sits alone for years waiting. The prince in reunited with Rapunzel and Rochester is reunited with Jane, both men regain their sight and live happily ever after! Yay!

Nonsense

2008-09-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

I found this essay while I read researching nonsense in children's literature. I have copied the relative information and posted it below.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.g.mason/Nonsense.htm

The Walrus -- February/March 2004
Stop Making Sense
The strange worlds of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, can transform the way we understand our ownby Ian Garrick Mason

"The word “nonsense” is a little misleading, for literary “nonsense” is not really nonsense at all. True non-sense is mere random noise -- a stream of data that contains no information or meaning, like the galactic radio static that SETI computers listen to in hopes of one day discerning an intelligent pattern. Even if we keep to the structured world of words, a real nonsense phrase, such as “climb dog artful to to”, would never appear in literature, as it would convey no meanings beyond those of each word on its own. We need yet another step back from full-scale nonsense:

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. “What! No soap?” So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyalies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gun powder ran out at the heels of their boots.

Referred to as the Great Panjandrum, this odd little construction was reputedly written to test an eighteenth-century actor’s ability to memorize text at a glance, obviously made all the harder by the lack of “sense” it contains. Yet the passage still contains sentences with subjects and objects, with generally correct grammar and spelling. One can even visualize some of the different scenes in it. Where the sense evaporates is in the conjoining of actions that do not relate to each other, in the unreality of many of the actions themselves (she-bears don’t talk, nor do they inquire about soap supplies), and in names like “Joblillies”. The Great Panjandrum is a memory test, but little more: it contains no narrative interest, and very little humour. It is as far as literary nonsense can go.

In contrast with this, Carroll’s Jabberwocky begins to look eminently sensible. “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves” sets a moody forest scene, and the rest of the poem follows a simple narrative thread from here. Despite his father’s warnings (“beware the Jubjub bird, and shun”), a brave boy waits in the forest for a jabberwock (“and as in uffish thought he stood”), and when the monster appears he rapidly dispatches it (“the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!”) and returns home victorious (“and with its head, he went galumphing back”), to be greeted by a joyful parent (“oh frabjous day!”), at which point the poem closes with a repetition of the first stanza (“twas brillig, and the slithy toves…”), reminding us that the dark forest goes on as before. The fact that almost every noun and adjective in the poem has been created from scratch does not impair the reader’s ability to understand the poem’s narrative and its specific moods."

Long before the Earth was new...

2008-09-09T08:13:00.001-07:00

Here is a nice web site with fairy tale opening lines:

http://www.folktale.net/openers.html

Juniper Trees

2008-09-08T16:03:00.001-07:00

I found some interesting information about Juniper trees on the super-reliable website Wikipedia!!!

Please, take the following information with a grain of salt. I will try to confirm this information asap.

Many species, such as J. chinensis (Chinese Juniper) from eastern Asia, are extensively used in landscaping and horticulture, and as one of the most popular species for use in bonsai. It is also a symbol of longevity, strength, athleticism, and fertility.

Juniper berries have long been used as medicine by many cultures. Juniper berries act as a strong urinary tract disinfectant if consumed and were used by American Indians as a herbal remedy for urinary tract infections. Native Americans also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive. Culpeper recommends the ripened berries for everything from asthma to speedy delivery of children to sciatica.

Forests in Fairy Tales

2008-09-08T14:16:00.001-07:00

It's interesting to me that in the two stories I have already read The Juniper Tree and Little Red Riding Hood) the forest or a tree is a main element of the story. Also, a lot of the fairy tales I know from my childhood have forests ie. Hansel and Gretle, Beauty and The Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White...etc.) What's going on with the forest?

In the book "The Forest: In Folklore and Mythology" by Alexander Porteous, there are references to trees being used as guardians of personal welfare and guardians of marriages in german and slav cultures. Could this have something to do with the Juniper Tree? Perhaps the tree was guarding the boy or guarding the family in general?

Also, I found in "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell, Campbell states, "the bird is symbolic of the release of the spirit from bondage to the earth (23)".

It raises several questions for me...was the boy embodied in the bird? What happened to the bird after it dropped the millstone?

Little Red Riding Hood

2008-09-05T14:27:00.001-07:00

Art by Mike Ellis
www.artshole.co.uk/mikeellis.htm

Adding classmates' blogs to your blog

2008-09-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Click on the "customize" button on the top right-hand corner
Step 2: Click on the "Layout" tab
Step 3: Click on the "add gaget" button (if "add gaget" is not an option on your blog you need to pick a new template - click "find new template" button)
Step 4: Glick on "Blog List"
Step 5: Click on "Add to List"
Step 6: Enter the web address of a class mate's blog.
Step 7: Save!!
Step 8: click "rename" next to class mate's blog address and type in his or her name instead of the web address.

The Juniper Tree

2008-09-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

I love this picture, but I am pretty sure she is under a Tulip Tree not a Juniper. Hm...oh well!