Notes for 1/28/14--What is Literature and Who is Antigone?

World Literature 2403

A beginning

What is literature and why read it?

The simple attempt to define literature has political implications.

E.D. Hirsch –Cultural Literacy Movement—static academic knowledge

Louise Rosenblatt --Reader Response Theory—employing the reader as critic/meaning maker

A canon—an accepted standard of literature, has changed with our culture.

Literature as a picture

Often, literature defines the culture and cultural standards from which it comes and from which it is held up as an example of the canon of literature.

Literature includes texts that

are written text (as opposed to spoken or sung)

are marked by careful use of language (metaphors, well-turned phrases, elegant syntax, rhyme, alliteration, meter)

are in a literary genre (poetry, prose, fiction, drama)

are read aesthetically

are intended by the author to be read aesthetically

are deliberately open to interpretation

Reader Response

The reader performs different activities during aesthetic and non-aesthetic readings depending on the different focus of attention during the reading event.

In non-aesthetic reading the focus is on what will remain after the reading.

In aesthetic reading the concern is what happens during the actual reading.

Understanding Openness

To understand metaphoric sense and poetic effect read the following two passages: one from The Joy of Cooking and one entitled The Joy of Cooking.

Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker’s majestic cookbook, Joy of Cooking (1975:507-
508):

About Tongue

Lucky indeed is the cook with the gift of tongues! No matter from which

source—beef, calf, lamb or pork—the smaller-sized tongues are usually

preferable. The most commonly used and best flavored, whether fresh, smoked or

pickled, is beef tongue. For prime texture, it should be under 3 pounds.

Scrub the tongue well. If it is smoked or pickled, you may wish to blanch it

first, simmering it about 10 minutes. Immerse the tongue in cold water. After

draining, cook as for Boiled Fresh tongue, below. If the tongue is to be served

hot, drain, plunge it into cold water for a moment so you can handle it, skin it and

trim it by removing the roots, small bones and gristle. Return it very briefly to the

hot cooking water to reheat before serving.

If the tongue is to be served cold, allow it to cool just enough to handle

comfortably. It skins easily at this point but not if you let it get cold. Trim and

return it to the pot to cool completely in the cooking liquor. It is attractive served

with Chaud-Froid Sauce or in Aspic, see below.

On the other hand, Elaine Magarrell’s poem, “Joy of Cooking”—although strikingly similar
to the cookbook excerpt above

I have prepared my sister’s tongue,

scrubbed and skinned it,

trimmed the roots, small bones, and gristle.

Carved through the hump it slices thin and neat.

Best with horseradish

and economical—it probably will grow back.

Next time perhaps a creole sauce

or mold of aspic?

I will have my brother’s heart,

which is firm and rather dry,

slow cooked. It resembles muscle

more than organ meat

and needs an apple-onion stuffing

to make it interesting at all.

Although beef heart serves six

my brother’s heart barely feeds two.

I could also have it braised

and served in sour sauce.

The Greeks and literature

The human and the divine—religious celebrations

Dionysian celebrations became an annual festival held in Athens at a large outdoor amphitheater. Eventually, the dancing choruses of worshipers began competing for prizes (a bull or a goat).

Then Thespis added another innovation: One chorus member would step away from the others to play the part of that hero or god. This actor wore a mask (like the one on the right) and entered into a dialogue with the chorus.

Three types of Plays

The tragedies, which had heroic characters and unhappy endings, were serious treatments of religious and mythic questions. The satyr plays were comic and even lewd treatments of the same themes. The comedies differed from the tragedies in having ordinary people as characters and happy endings.

A Tragic Myth: The House of Thebes

The basic plot of Antigone is part of a long myth that was as familiar to Athenian audiences as stories about the Pilgrims are to Americans today. A myth is an old story, rooted in a particular society, that explains a belief, a ritual, or some mysterious aspect of nature. Many myths also try to explain human suffering. In many cases, the myths explain our sufferings in terms of the workings of the gods—of fates that cannot be avoided, of curses that haunt generation after generation.

The following story is the myth the Athenians knew and the one that we must also know if we are to understand Antigone.

Oedipus Rex (the King)

The protagonist of the tragedy is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. After Laius learns from an oracle that "he is doomed/To perish by the hand of his own son," he binds tightly together with a pin the feet of the infant Oedipus and orders Jocasta to kill the infant. Hesitant to do so, she demands a servant to commit the act for her. Instead, the servant abandons the baby in the fields, leaving the baby's fate to the gods. A shepherd rescues the infant and names him Oedipus (or "swollen feet"). Intending to raise the baby himself, but not possessing of the means to do so, the shepherd gives it to a fellow shepherd from a distant land, who spends the summers sharing pastureland with his flocks. The second shepherd carries the baby with him to Corinth, where Oedipus is taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth as if he were his own.

Oedipus Rex (cont.)

As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus hears a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. When Oedipus calls them out on this, they deny it, but, still suspicious, he asks the Delphic Oracle who his parents really are. The Oracle seems to ignore this question, telling him instead that he is destined to "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire." Desperate to avoid his foretold fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth in the belief that Polybus and Merope are indeed his true parents and that, once away from them, he will never harm them.

On the road to Thebes, he meets Laius, his true father. Unaware of each other's identities, they quarrel over whose chariot has right-of-way. King Laius moves to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus throws him down from the chariot and kills him, thus fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. Shortly after, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which has baffled many a diviner: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

Oedipus Rex (cont.)

On the road to Thebes, he meets Laius, his true father. Unaware of each other's identities, they quarrel over whose chariot has right-of-way. King Laius moves to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus throws him down from the chariot and kills him, thus fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. Shortly after, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which has baffled many a diviner: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

To this Oedipus replies, "Man" (who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright later, and needs a walking stick in old age), and the distraught Sphinx throws herself off the cliffside. Oedipus's reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from her curse is the kingship and the hand of Queen Dowager Jocasta, his biological mother. The prophecy is thus fulfilled, although none of the main characters know it.

..the ending which leads to Antigone

A blind Oedipus now exits the palace and begs to be exiled as soon as possible. Creon enters, saying that Oedipus shall be taken into the house until oracles can be consulted regarding what is best to be done. Oedipus's two daughters (and half-sisters), Antigone and Ismene, are sent out and Oedipus laments that they should be born to such a cursed family. He asks Creon to watch over them and Creon agrees, before sending Oedipus back into the palace.

Antigone means “born to oppose”

Is intelligence born in all..so that laws that are created by all are the best ruler?

Antigone obeys a law which citizens approve and in doing so must die under Creon’s edict.

Thematic elements include the fall of the just and the evil consequences of good acts.

Action is divine and human

Antigone—the play

Characters do not merely act, they comment on the action

Characters criticize motives and judge ideas

The audience is a viewpoint

The characters are real people