The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley declared at the end of his “ A Defence of Poetry” (1821) that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (Norton). By this Shelley meant that while poets are not acknowledged for their insight and wisdom by the status quo -they are usually considered as useless and irrelevant they are in fact the real lawmakers of the World. What he means by “lawmakers” is, I believe, custodians of the truth, keepers of a hidden wisdom that could transform our lives. What makes me believe this?  Earlier in the essay –and the whole essay is worth reading and re-reading- he speaks of poetry in the following terms: “Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge…”, “… poetry defeats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions.” “A Poet… is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue and glory….”.  A fabulous modern review of the continuing importance of Shelley has been written by the poetAdrienne Rich. 

Now whether you are inclined to believe Shelley or not, the literature that we have been studying this week – all of it broadly poetry in its creative use of language- all of it is legislative in a profoundly radical and subversive way. Leonard Cohen’s

What is honour? Air. A trim reckoning? Who hath it? He that died a ‘Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No…. 

And Charles Dickens’ uneducated, lisping (lithping) circus master Mr Sleary (Thleary) in Hard Times, dares to challenge the inhumane work ethic of the nineteenth century with the radical idea that instead of work, work, work people ought to have time to let their imaginations be touched by all that a circus represents “people mutht be amuthed Thquire”.

So Shelley is right! Literature, poetry –even poetry by dead poets!- is an animating source of renewal that can assist us all in challenging the life-denying forces that seem to run a frenzied, aggressive world, bent on self-destruction.

This coming week we will see this theme grow and expand in the work of  Hafiz, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Arthur Schopenhauer, Jules Renard, Shakespeare, Matthew Arnold….. what a feast in store!

New Blog Topics are in all the page links above: Intro, 19thC, Shakespeare….

(Be sure to click on all the links- some you will find very useful)

Bottom’s Dream in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most amazing, inexplicable moments in all of Shakespeare. Here is a character, at the bottom of the social hierarchy – like so many of Shakespeare’s most loved characters-  who has glimpses of a kind of knowledge -presented in broken sentences and muddled allusions to religious texts- that lift us, soaring, into space beyond the limits of reason. Bottom IS both a character AND a metaphor. How can a character be a metaphor? By simply embodying an idea that is way beyond his understanding, and in this instance he embodies the idea that the highest understanding is found where we least expect it- at the Bottom (in theology this is called the incognito of revelation- meaning that the most ordinary and common things can be the site of the most extraordinary). Here is the bottomless Bottom (courtesy of Daniel Parke’s Production):Bottom’s Dream

In A Midsummer NIght’s Dream Bottom is the link between down-to-earth reality and imagination- did he not literally AND symbolically find himself in bed with Tit(it)ania? The whole play in fact is about imagination- its dangers and its transformative powers. The duke Theseus (the rationalist) has little understanding of these things as we hear in his speech linking poets to lunatics:

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact....

But Shakespeare, through Bottom- and through what happens to the lovers in the forest, shows us that the imagination does have a transformative power.

Our exploration of Wordsworth, of his close observation of what goes on inside our minds (in “Tintern Abbey” & “Resolution and Independence“) – illustrates how poetry can provide a means for lifting us beyond the shifting, unstable movements of our emotions and vagrant thoughts. Here we saw how the leech gatherer was such an “admonishment” to the young Wordsworth who allowed himself to fall so easily into depressive, self-destructive thoughts & how Tintern Abbey was the stimulus for a deep, collected state of mind that the poet felt he was able to carry with him into the everyday world. We saw this process replicated in a smaller way in the poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud”. So the romantics continue to reveal themselves to be a powerful resource for managing the way we live our lives even- or especially – in today’s frantic world:

I could have laughed myself to scorn to find

In that decrepit Man so firm a mind

And of course as well as being a figure or character in a poem, the leech gatherer isalso a metaphor for the way life could be lived, filled with resolution and independence despite the difficult circumstances one might find oneself in.

Metaphors and all modes of Figurative Language (metaphors, metonymy, simile, synecdoche, paradox, irony, symbolism) were the core subject of Introduction to Literary and Dramatic Forms this week. These are the building blocks of your own creative and essay writing. More importantly -as we discovered-  figurative uses of language (like metaphor) are much more than just technical devices, they are in fact ways of deepening our understanding. For example finding the metaphors that describe the way that we think can reveal the nature of own minds (the processes of our own minds for example). Emily Dickinson explores this powerfully in her poem “the brain is wider than the sky”, where she finds ways of describing the brain as that which contains the whole universe, even, perhaps, God. And what does the simile in the last line mean?

Another, darker poem where she also uses a metaphor to evoke the condition of her mind is ” I felt a funeral in my brain” – worth looking up. 

Blogging: Questions and Answers:

So how are we all relating to this experience of literature blogging now that we have hit week 3? Most of us have by now mastered the new WordPress.com platform for our literature blogs. Yes, there have been teething problems with this new interface, but these have largely been sorted out. The biggest issue has been how to make our blog visible to each other. The easiest way seems to have been to simply click on the URL of someone else in the class and “Request Access”; when they then respond with “yes” to the email they receive requesting your access-  all is fine. Alternatively, just after you have created your blog- if you have made it “Private” (as recommended)- you should get a button that says “Add Viewers to my Private Blog” This is where you post either the WordPress login name  (eg themichaelgriffith1 part of http://michaelgriffith1.wordpress.com) or the student email address (s000 etc. @…..) into the Users/Invite New Users window. You can do 10 of these at a time. Some of you have elected to go public and that has solved all access problems, but until you are fully aware of all the implications of doing this (copyright, etc…) I would not recommend this.

As administrator of this blogging experience, it has been very satisfying for me –despite the effort- to be connected to each of you (one-on-one as it were) and to hear your on-line responses and your peer reviews of the literature we are studying. There have been many creative and highly enthusiastic moments where people have been able to express – in words and images- their deepest thoughts beyond what is possible in the tutorial or lecture situation. And there have also been some really excellent, supportive peer interactions where you are getting to know each other’s thoughts and impressions. So the community of literature students is expanding and collectively we are sharing and deepening our reactions and understanding.

Using this technology for teaching is of course brand new; for all of us (teachers especially) it is an experiment in enhancing students engagement with their subject and their learning. I sense that (once the technological issues are sorted out) it works really well and gives people a space to speak and share ideas, feelings and creative, imaginative responses. Where else would this happen without the blog environment?

As all of you are interested in the work of creative writers it stands to reason that you might welcome this space to develop your own writing skills across a spectrum of writing modes (academic, creative, formal, informal, journal, poem, story, critique, discussion….). This is what the blog environment tries to provide: an additional space to expand the horizons of your writing and to open more channels of communication with your peers.

This is the first year that we have tried this exercise with incoming first year students (who will shortly be able to connect with second and third year students too).  I have been doing this with the latter groups for some years now, so it will be really interesting to get feedback (and please give it- as comments to this blog) on how you are finding the exercise and what you think could be done to improve your enjoyment of the whole process.

Here is a nice cartoon and a great blog to go with it on the whole question of the educational value of blogging- Click here.

Have a look also at these seven good reasons for blogging in a teaching environment- Click here.

I have had an important question from a number of you along the lines of what is the difference between creative and critical when it comes to my blog?

Answer: simply stated “critical” in this context means analytical, for example analyzing a piece of literature for its meaning and effect; “creative” means using your imagination to interact with a text either by adding something to it, responding to it imaginatively (eg a letter to a character in a story or poem, or even to the author), or using the text as a springboard for an imaginative work of your own (e.g. a poem or a story). Clearly there may be overlaps between “critical” and “creative”. An analytical piece may be very creative and a creative piece may demonstrate a deep analytical understanding.  So don’t get too hung up on the differences, just be sure that your literature journal blog explores a number of different modes of writing before the end of the semester, a whole string of analytical comments for example is not so good.

Enjoy preparing for the coming week.

MG

Find Justine’s WordPress Blog at JZ    (you will have to “request access” because her blog is set to “private”).  I understand that some of our current first year literature students had Justine as a teacher last year and arrive at ACU with well honed Web 2.0 skills!

Here is Justine’s most recent Blog entry (quoted with her explicit permission):

Hi MG,

Feel free to share! My school is incredibly supportive and the executive team encourage us to share and collaborate with other members in the profession. The great thing about my Year 12 LJ is that every single student can access it either on their smart phones, tablets or computers. My HSC students have access to all content outside of the classroom at a time that suits them, which in turn makes it more relevant to them because they have chosen when they wanted to access it. In fact, I was asked to share my Livejournal setup with the English department at a staff meeting two weeks ago because our coordinator heard positive feedback from the students in the playground. She was very interested and asked me to share my experiences with blogging. I commented on how I used this tool as a student at ACU and that is where it stemmed from. They were very impressed… How’s that for positive feedback!

You certainly are a ‘lead’er MG!

I am heading down to the Hawker-Brownlow Education conference in Melbourne in May and I cannot wait to share my professional development experiences with you:

http://www.hbe.com.au/conference.html – check it out. I will attend a number of technology sessions during this weekend.

I shared your Pencil Metaphor with a group of English teachers- it’s fantastic and very true.

Take care- always happy to share my love of teaching,

Justine

Here is a picture of Justine whipping up excitement for literature and technology in her class!! Go Justine!! ( picture posted with permission of both Justine and the School Principal: no faces of any students appear here)

This semester we have literature bloggers and ePortfolio creators across three years: in first year students studying “Introduction to Literary and Dramatic Forms”; in second year “The Nineteenth Century”; in third year “Shakespeare and the Renaissance”. What a feast! Welcome to this blogging site where you will be getting a running commentary on weekly lectures and the ideas and experiences that flow from those. This is the place also where you must come to get your weekly topics for your creative and critical blogs and your wiki discussions. There will shortly be links across the top of this page that will take you to your specific unit topics. But I suggest you always read the entry on this main page before going off to your own unit area. I hope that you find this e-writing component of your units personally satisfying, a way of becoming more personally involved with the literature you are studying and a way of sharing your thoughts and ideas with others in the group. Remember at all times when you are writing for the web that you are in a public space so your writing should be carefully edited before posting.

Autumn is on its way with its wonderful mists and the beginnings of cooler air. Here is a shot of the bush around the top of Galston Gorge one of my favourite early morning haunts. In Autumn it is often ringed by mist and one feels transported to another world: