Romantic Comedy?

      Lucius or the Ass definitely made me laugh, which was not something I expected when I sat down and started reading out of Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature. Now as I am trying to think of a blog topic for this particular story I can't help but feel this may have been one of the first romantic comedies. Lucius starts out with the motive of wanting to see the witch perform magic, who ironically ends up being the wife of the host he is lodging with. That reason then leads him to a girl, Palestra, with whom he engages in sex with in order to get her to show him the mistress's magic, but I speculate that he did started to developed some sentimental feelings towards Palestra. In a Hollywood rendition he definitely would have fallen in love with her. So Lucius as a result of Palestra's oversight gets turned into an ass, instead of the bird he desired to morph into. After a succession of brutal attempts on his donkey life, Lucius finds fame in being a smart and well trained donkey, finally living the good life in his donkey form. Somehow or another a girl falls madly in love with his donkey form, a few bizarre events later and Lucius finally finds some roses to munch on and turns himself back into his glorious human self. 

      He is finally out of his donkey prison and free to do manly things once again. So of course his first order of business is to seek out the girl who loved him as a donkey and enjoy her love for him in his new man form. The part where this story diverges from romantic comedy and into some other weird genre that may be more similar to scifi than romance, is when the girl refuses him because he is no longer a donkey. Now full disclosure, I am chuckling to myself as I am writing this because I find is so funny, that she completely shoots his confidence down in a matter of sentences, while the entire story has been centered around his quest to be a glorious man once again. 

    After pondering this story I actually think it could make a great movie, no one would expect the ending because it is so different from what we have become accustomed to seeing at the end of a romantic comedy. 

Ekphrasis: Gerard & Longus

 Daphnis and Chloe

François Gérard

    After perusing both my art history books and google image I have settled up this tantalizing oil painting by the Neoclassical painter Francois Gerard. This painting is considered a history painting because of the story it is retelling, the story of Daphnis and Chloe that we have all grown familiar with. To me Gerard does an excellent job of capturing both the innocence and the lust, which the young blossoming relationship encapsulates. This painting does nothing to enlighten readers on the actual story, but it non the less transfixed me, most likely because I already know the story and this gave me the imagery I was craving . It is as though Gerard took the mental storyboard I had created and gave me a few scenes of it in just one painting.

   "Because absolutely no one has escaped Love, and no one will escape him as long as there is beauty and as long as there are eyes to see with" (pg 137, Daphnis and Chloe). 

     This quote struck me for a few reasons, one is that Love is masculine, which is odd only because it is normally given feminine qualities. In this painting I feel that Gerard may have been reflecting on this line, by giving Daphnis a red cloak draping over his naked body. red is a very sensual and lustful color and it is definitely where the viewers eye is first drawn to. A second reason I feel this quote and this painting go together is because of Chloe's closed eyes. She is clearly in love with Daphnis at this point and even though her eyes are painted closed it is as though she is in a dream or trance where she is thinking of herself with Daphnis. She also looks very at peace and she is not at all at unrest, Daphnis provides her the blanket of love that she can rest comfortably in. As far as the story goes, neither one o f the young lovers can escape their feelings, Chloe is struck first by Daphnis's beauty and he not long after, the painting makes it hard to discern if this is at the point when they both have realized their love or when just Chloe does, but in the end it doesn't really matter because neither can escape Love. 

    This painting is a history painting by definition of genre, but it does seem to be lacking some sheep or goats, nymphs or Pan. Still even with this narrative omission, I cannot help to see the beauty of the romantic love story that Gerard is depicting. His Neoclassical style makes the classical painting of Daphnis's body fit Longus's description of how Chloe first realized her feelings, when she sees him naked bathing in the cave. This may be shortly after that first sighting, as she is helping him dry off. That may be another reason why I like this painting and think it fits the story so well, because I can see it fitting into many different points of the story. Just like the story there are many different levels and elements that make it appealing to me, Gerard has created a painting that has many levels and phases that make it equally appealing and pleasing to me.     

To His Coy Mistress

    I have read Marvell's poem before and honestly I didn't get it the first time, then I put on my literary eyes and read for more meaning and it was like a completely different poem. I really can see Marevell's argument though, coyness and flirting is great if you have the luxury of time to engage in it. Being a metaphysical poem, the physical and the spiritual are brought up and time being a physical and earthly drain is the central motivation for why they should not wait to be together and that time will only bring age and dwindle her beauty.
   One of my favorite lines of the poem is when Marvel compares the man's love to vegetable love and says that "My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires". In Marevell's time vegetable love meant the lowest kind of love, like love between peasants. His saying that it will start there, on the most basic level and grow to be vaster than empires seems to imply that he will love her from the bottom of the spectrum to the top of it and everywhere in-between. This is actually a sweet sentiment, as is much of the poem, Marvell is expressing love on every level from lust to true romance. Time is a main conceit of this poem, and that if he has eternity he would admire the young beauty for hundreds and thousands of years, but alas they are only human and that means mortality will unfortunately come between that lofty desire. It is the lingering question that still faces us today, you only have one life to live so why wait? 
    Many metaphysical poems address the issues of time and how mortality is the real hindrance at life achievement but that there is an entirely different spiritual world in which people can operate and be better that they were in their current life. No other metaphysical pots, in my opinion however, does such a persuasive job as Marvell in the presentations of his regiments for why the young girl should just give into him. Through metaphor, and jarring imagery Marvell complies a series of valid arguments that leave me wondering did it work on the girl he was seducing? And to me a good piece of literature always leaves me with a few lingering questions. 

K.A.R.M.A

    Karma...most of us say it, refers to it, threaten with it, but what is it? To me the golden rule of doing unto others as you want other to do unto you, and Karma have always gone hand in hand. Karma is what will come and reap revenge on someone who wronged you, without you having to dirty your hands by doing it yourself. Karma provides that blind faith that everyone will get whats coming to them.
   The story of Abu Kasem's Slippers brings up karma in that he took someone else's slippers and then never escaped the downward spiral that came as repercussion for his action. In this way the narrator tells readers that "not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny...This is the law of Karma" (23). I have recently been thinking a lot about how the decision I am making now will be the ones that can wield a huge effect on the rest of my life. I have been told repeatedly that I am young and there is time for me to change or reverse the decisions I make now later on. But I cannot get over that the reality that they will still change my future. If I do not generate enough good Karma now will I become the victim of bad Karma in the future as Abu Kasem suffered?  "...shows how finely woven is the net of Karma, and how tough its delicate threads" (23). Sure you may be able to change your luck, but is Karma as easily swayed? That time when I was four and I took my brothers Halloween candy, is that going to somehow come forth now and stop me from succeeding at a current endeavor? Or have I already paid that Karmatic dept? This is the fickle nature that Karma Law seems to correspond with. The narrator of Abu Kasem's Slippers also shares that "involuntarily and lovingly we have patched together the shoes that carry us through life; and we shall remain subject, in the end, to their uncontrollable compulsion" (21). This in the end is what we have to realize, that if I live my life the way I want and can fully support my actions then all I can do is put on my shoes one foot at a time and step out and onward in the world.

   My mom sent me a card at the beginning of this semester as I was about to embark on my senior and final volleyball season and the card read:
   "Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world" - Bette Midler
On the inside she wrote "I wonder if Bette had ever thought that volleyball shoes would be the shoes that can conquer----"
   In the end it all becomes a mentality, Abu was too zealous to look for his own shoes and that woefully hindered his life path. For me, volleyball shoes have served as my way of navigating life, and thus far they have taken me to a place I cannot complain about.

First Love Cannot Remain Hidden for Long

"they did not know what they desired. This only knew, that the kiss had destroyed him and the bath had destroyed her" - Daphins and Chloe (pg 149).

     Daphins and Chloe share what I deem the most pure time of love. They are truly bonded together in their friendship and the way in which their lives have been intertwined since each of their interesting births. Their births may be the element of the story that makes it a worthwhile and memorable story. Frye seems to highlight that a story must catch attention in its narrative aspects in order to be a story worth telling. The love that blossoms out of their early childhood can correlate directly to a connection made from their origins initially.
     Chloe is the first to recognize and identify her feelings towards Daphins. She is innocently helping him bathe and realizes then that "he seemed beautiful to her. And because that moment was the first time he looked beautiful to her, she thought that the bath was the cause of his beauty" (143). It is an interesting idea that she thought he was beautiful as a result of the bath. I know from personal experience that sometimes you never really see a person. It takes just that one altering glance or that one instance when you really and truly look at someone that your view of them changes. This I think is what Chloe is undergoing, she has know Daphins for so long and this bath was the time when she really sees him. But even after this she has a hard time explaining to herself that she does in fact have these feelings of love for her dear friend.
    Daphins is different in that it took their first physical encounter for him to uncover his romantic feelings for Chloe. After being chosen for a kiss by the already desirous Chloe Daphins reacts "like someone who had been bitten rather than kissed...Then, as never before, he was filled with admiration for her" (146). He requires that physical awakening where as Chloe was visually stimulated. It seems as though the male and female ways of discovering love are varied, but that if those true feelings of love exist there is no way to keep them hidden for long.

Childhood Habits

     One of the most important and self molding experiences I had as a child was my mom reading aloud to my brother and I at bedtime. It was cemented into our nightly routine and something I certainly remember looking forward to. He is three years older than me so the stories were usually novels, not picture books, The entire C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series was the most memorable for me, but I know that Gulliver's Travels, Charlotte's Web, and many other adventure stories were also in the rotation, because my brother was the one who got to choose the majority of the time. I do remember though, very specifically, in the time before I drifted off to sleep the stories that I was hearing and the mental picture my imagination was creating must have been very different from the one my brother and my mom had. Rereading the same stories now provides me the small window into my child psyche. I think I can attribute my desire for literature and the passion I have for stories and reading to be originated from this nightly ritual.
     I don't remember hating or loving the happy endings or being particularly drawn to any certain type or genre of story. I was enthralled by my mom's voice and her enthusiastic reading and character voices. It was a sort of comfort that I cherished and even to this day when I hear my mom read anything aloud there is a nostalgia that I cannot evade. I certainly was instilled with the desire to read from my mom, and we still share a good book when we happen to come across one. My childhood habit and passion is now continued and like the stories that change over time my relationship of reading with my mom has grown and changed over time. 

Words Containment

      I always enjoy when my classes cease to parallel and there is a cross over between the material. William Blake is one man who has come up in three of my classes so far this semester. His first appearance was most obviously in my 19th century Literature class, he made his second appearance in my Art History class as an example of Enlightenment ideals. And finally in this class, where stories and words are the forefront of topic and their ability to survive time and change. Frye mentions Blake in regard to "double tradition, one biblical and the other romantic, growing out of an interest in Blake which seems to have contained them both...the distinction underlying this relation is our first step" (Frye, 6).  The word that most struck me was "contain" it seems to me that while words can live in a sentence or be the structure of a single story there is something ambiguous that makes them unable to be fully tamed. To me connotation and denotation are the easiest way to explain this; while the denotation of a word may mean one thing, the connotation of the word is just as if not more important than the actual meaning. Popular culture and slang also plays into the complete value of a word and that changes over time as well. While a word may remain constant in spelling and denotation, the word can completely change in its use and  everyday meaning. 

      Blake enters the picture for me via his poem "The School Boy", more specifically the fourth stanza. 

                              How can the bird that is born for joy

                              Sit in a cage and sing?

                              How can a child when fears annoy,

                              But droop his tender wing,

                              And forget his youthful spring?

It came up in class discussion of this poem that this stanza and the metaphor of the bird and child could also be imposed to be a reference to words and the inability to cage them. Even though these words exist in this poem in this order, they are merely put there by Blake. And one person cannot get the same meaning from the poem as another simply because words do not mean, or connote, the same meaning to people universally. I think that Frye too would agree that words cannot be caged, it is their nature to move and change in meaning and from story to story. While the context of words, or application of a genre or description for the text as a whole, these may only be able to provide a linear explanation and sort of imposed boundary on words they are still unable to be tamed. Perhaps this is why words and the tradition of story is such an interesting an complex study.