A Deeper Treatment

In All for Love the one great tragic action of the play is all that we really get in the sense of a physical detailing of the personalities of the main characters. Unlike Shakespeare’s version where the characters are determined more through their interactions with those around them. In All for Love we see the characters described more explicitly by the other characters of the play. Instead of the action determining the characters personalities we get a good sense of their personalities from the descriptions provided by others.

I wanted to say a little something on the whole reason versus passion thing that we see in All for Love. Professor Kuin went to great lengths to explain and demonstrate how at each turn of the play you can see the dynamic of Reason, Duty, Virtue pitted against Love, Passion, Desire. Rome versus Egypt. But I’m not really sure where to go with it all.

Haven’t we all been there? Isn’t Virtue and Vice common knowledge to us all even though we may not care to elaborate. Personally I have no direct comment from experience that I would care to provide. But the drama still tugs at something within all of us. It is a challenge that still exists and still must be navigated by us all. I’d love to make it simple by talking about some food related issue or comparing Duty and Desire to cleaning my room, but how do those banal everyday things even get close to the conflict?

Its something that makes one angry and glad confused and composed, focused and mad. I think that the more we try to make sense of this constant pull between the two opposing sphere’s or the more that we try to give some sort of logical ordering principle to it all, the more the damn thing seems to evade and consume us. The trivialities of life, the things that won’t really make a difference to who we are in the eyes of the world could never serve to enlighten so profound a contrast.

Every once in a while something comes along which calls into question our notions of what the right course of action is. My line in situations like that is that ‘I just can’t see the solution’, especially when both things seem to be just a wrong as each other. Whom do you betray your heart or your head? Which is less significant?

Antony places the heart above his head and we see the same for Cleopatra in act three. In that sense I can see how the both are well suited for each other. But usually when you see a person making a decision, your understanding of their action is also based on a good knowledge of their character. I’m not sure that I get a deep enough sense of just who Cleopatra and Antony are in this play to justify their actions.

Their love is supposed to be one that is deep and ever lasting but the fact that they have been in love for ten years is a mere footnote in the whole play. This can’t serve well to better understand the dynamic between Antony and Cleopatra. Their decision to stay together, to choose love is one that needs a deeper treatment in order to gain the right sympathy from myself.

In having a deeper understanding of the character the action can be better understood.

An Expletive, Indeed

Usually I have the pleasure of writing these blogs from my home but today is a little different because my pc is down. Cost to fix it is too expensive to talk about. But I'm here at the Toronto Public Library and it’s nice. I can even see the place where my PC is getting fixed through the window. I also had the rare coincidence of sitting down right in front of a book that I read about four times in '98. It’s called the Iron Dragons Daughter. It was a good read, no a great read, one of the best and I’ll return to it this summer. I was always fascinated by the intellect of the author and his ability to create an entire world so full of details that bear no resemblance to our own, that the feeling of reading it was one of being immersed in a lukewarm pool. His skill as a writer, no doubt, came from years of practice.

Friend, may I warn you that this blog is long? I think this will help you decide how far to in which to wade. Like a swimmer who knows his limits you can decide just how far and how deep you need to go to gain your own satisfaction of mental fitness. I decided to post the rhetorical devices. I came across on this site http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm. Professor Kuin is always referring to them and it may help you to have some knowledge of them when you’re trying to string together words of interest. Rogers’s favourite device Gradatia is posted as Climax but the meaning is the same. I at first tried to combine them in unique ways to make a more efficient way for people to remember them:

An Expletive, indeed.

Asyndeton improves, moves, suggests, illuminates.

Polysyndeton can and will and shall and may do the same if it doesn’t cause the opposite effect.

Understatement is best for modesty since we write to persuade and not to offend. Placing the intellectualizing into the hands of the reader most often works best.

Litotes will serve to make you appear not the fool in challenging discourse. Denying the opposite is never easy.

After a while, though, I got tired of it and decided you can take the original descriptions of these devices and figure out your own ways of etching them into your memory The list of devices, all sixty of them are listed, follows this paragraph. The original is 60 pages long (Who does that!?). I've tried to shorten it for efficency of meaning, no one should have to go through what I went through ever again! Highlights of the site include a self-test that you can employ at the end for your own benefit. The devices fall into three general categories of Focus, Form and Beauty. The author also suggests that you write to persuade and not to offend. The best advice was just to read more good books and your skill at these devices will develop on their own.

But knowledge of the devices won’t kill you either or should I say not anymore, medical practice being what it is today.




Rhetorical Devices
1. Expletive is a single word or short phrase, usually interrupting normal syntax, used to lend emphasis to the words immediately proximate to the expletive. 2. Asyndeton consists of omitting conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses. In a list of items, asyndeton gives the effect of unpremeditated multiplicity can be energetic
3. Polysyndeton is the use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton.
4. Understatement deliberately expresses an idea as less important than it actually is, either for ironic emphasis or for politeness and tact.
5. Litotes, a particular form of understatement, is generated by denying the opposite or contrary of the word which otherwise would be used.
6. Parallelism is recurrent syntactical similarity. Several parts of a sentence or several sentences are expressed similarly to show that the ideas in the parts or sentences are equal in importance. Parallelism also adds balance and rhythm and, most importantly, clarity to the sentence.
7. Chiasmus might be called "reverse parallelism," since the second part of a grammatical construction is balanced or paralleled by the first part, only in reverse order. "What is learned unwillingly is forgotten gladly," you could write, "What is learned unwillingly is gladly forgotten." 8. Zeugma includes several similar rhetorical devices, all involving a grammatically correct linkage (or yoking together) of two or more parts of speech by another part of speech. The main benefit of the linking is that it shows relationships between ideas and actions more clearly. ‘Pride opresseth humility; hatred love; cruelty compassion.’ –Peacham. ‘His father, to comfort him, read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed, and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. --Thomas Love Peacock.
9. Antithesis establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure. ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine.’ –Pope
10. Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, commonly in conjunction with climax and with parallelism.
11. Epistrophe (also called antistrophe) forms the counterpart to anaphora, because the repetition of the same word or words comes at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences: ‘Where affections bear rule, there reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued.’ --Wilson
12. Anadiplosis repeats the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next. it can be generated in series for the sake of beauty or to give a sense of logical progression. ‘Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,/ Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain . . . .’ --Philip Sidney
13. Conduplicatio resembles anadiplosis in the repetition of a preceding word, but it repeats a key word (not just the last word).
14. Epanalepsis repeats the beginning word of a clause or sentence at the end. The beginning and the end are the two positions of strongest emphasis in a sentence, so by having the same word in both places, you call special attention to it.
15. Hypophora consists of raising one or more questions and then proceeding to answer them, usually at some length.
16. Rhetorical question (erotesis) differs from hypophora in that it is not answered by the writer, because its answer is obvious or obviously desired, and usually just a yes or no.
17. Procatalepsis, by anticipating an objection and answering it, permits an argument to continue moving forward while taking into account points or reasons opposing either the train of thought or its final conclusions.
18. Metabasis consists of a brief statement of what has been said and what will follow. It might be called a transitional summary.
19. Distinctio is an explicit reference to a particular meaning or to the various meanings of a word, in order to remove or prevent ambiguity. ‘To make methanol for twenty-five cents a gallon is impossible; by "impossible" I mean currently beyond our technological capabilities.’
20. Amplification involves repeating a word or expression while adding more detail to it, in order to emphasize what might otherwise be passed over. Allows you to call attention to, emphasize, and expand a word or idea to make sure the reader realizes its importance or centrality in the discussion.
21. Scesis Onomaton emphasizes an idea by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases or statements. While it should be used carefully, this deliberate and obvious restatement can be quite effective. ‘Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that deal corruptly. --Isaiah 1:4
22. Apophasis (also called praeteritio or occupatio) asserts or emphasizes something by pointedly seeming to pass over, ignore, or deny it.
23. Metanoia (correctio) qualifies a statement by recalling it (or part of it) and expressing it in a better, milder, or stronger way.
24.Aporia expresses doubt about an idea or conclusion. Among its several uses are the suggesting of alternatives without making a commitment to either or any
25. Simile is a comparison between two different things that resemble each other in at least one way. Using like or as.
26. Analogy compares two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea ‘because people by what they understand are best led to what they understand not’. --George Herbert
27. Metaphor compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a simile or analogy, metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing, not just that one is like another. Very frequently a metaphor is invoked by the to be verb
28. Catachresis is an extravagant, implied metaphor using words in an alien or unusual way. ‘I will speak daggers to her’—Hamlet
29. Synecdoche is a type of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole, the whole for a part.
30. Metonymy metaphor through proximate association.
31. Personification metaphorically represents an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes.
32. Hyperbole, the counterpart of understatement, deliberately exaggerates conditions for emphasis or effect.
33. Allusion is a short, informal reference to a famous person or event
34. Eponym substitutes for a particular attribute the name of a famous person recognized for that attribute
35. Oxymoron is a paradox reduced to two words
36. Epithet is an adjective or adjective phrase appropriately qualifying a subject (noun) by naming a key or important characteristic of the subject, as in "laughing happiness," "sneering contempt," "untroubled sleep,"
37. Hyperbaton includes several rhetorical devices involving departure from normal word order. The adjective follows the noun. If you want to amplify the adjective, the inversion is very useful. 38. Parenthesis, a final form of hyperbaton, consists of a word, phrase, or whole sentence inserted as an aside in the middle of another sentence:
39. Alliteration is the recurrence of initial consonant sounds.
40. Onomatopoeia is the use of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes. "Buzz," for example
41. Apostrophe interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, ‘O books who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully!’ -- Richard de Bury
42. Enthymeme. The usual form of this logical shorthand omits the major premise: He is an American citizen, so he is entitled to due process. [All American citizens are entitled to due process.]
43. Climax (gradatio) consists of arranging words, clauses, or sentences in the order of increasing importance, weight, or emphasis. Parallelism usually forms a part of the arrangement, because it offers a sense of continuity, order, and movement-up the ladder of importance.
44. Diacope: repetition of a word or phrase after an intervening word or phrase.
45. Antimetabole: reversing the order of repeated words or phrases. ‘Ask not what you can do for rhetoric, but what rhetoric can do for you.’
46. Antiphrasis: one word irony, established by context:
47. Epizeuxis: repetition of one word (for emphasis):
48. Aposiopesis: stopping abruptly and leaving a statement unfinished.
49. Anacoluthon: finishing a sentence with a different grammatical structure from that with which it began. Usually highlighted with a break.
50. Enumeratio: detailing parts, causes, effects, or consequences to make a point more forcibly. 51. Antanagoge: placing a good point or benefit next to a fault criticism, or problem in order to reduce the impact or significance of the negative point.
52. Parataxis: writing successive independent clauses, with coordinating conjunctions, or no conjunctions.
53. Hypotaxis: using subordination to show the relationship between clauses or phrases
54. Sententia: quoting a maxim or wise saying to apply a general truth to the situation.
55. Exemplum: citing an example; using an illustrative story, either true or fictitious:
56. Pleonasm: using more words than required to express an idea; being redundant.
57. Assonance: similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants
58. Dirimens Copulatio: mentioning a balancing or opposing fact to prevent the argument from being one-sided or unqualified.
59. Symploce: ‘To think clearly and rationally should be a major goal for man; but to think clearly and rationally is always the greatest difficulty faced by man.’
60. Appositive: a noun or noun substitute placed next to (in apposition to) another noun to be described or defined by the appositive. ‘Henry Jameson, the boss of the operation, always wore a red baseball cap.’

Artful Arrangement

I have another blog online that I had began to write when I was at the library because my computer was driving me nuts and I had to take it in to get it fixed. So I thought I’d be there all day slaving away to the symphony of flu like symptoms that you always seem to hear in public places at this time of year, but to my good fortune I'm already back home listening to my own music, which thankfully has a better arrangement.

If I were to choose with of the plays I liked more in the story of Antony and Cleopatra I’d have to say that I prefer Dryden’s version to Shakespeare’s. First of all I find it difficult to read Shakespeare because he’s always using all these terms that I can understand. He’s full of these crazy phrases that seem to be slang and he’s so fond of word play that most times I think that he’s only playing with himself. If there’s a gleam of any pleasure to be derived from ‘We would so, and then go a-batfowling’ (Shakespeare, The Tempest, Line 178) it is more Shakespeare’s than mine. Two weeks ago I had to read the Tempest and Hamlet, over the course of a couple of days and I spent more time flipping back and forth through the index of words and the lines of the play that my reading was slowed down to a snails pace. Where is the pleasure in that? I even found Shakespeare harder to follow that Sir Phillip Sidney, which is saying a lot. Dryden though, not so difficult to follow, I found that the play was a good read and at some points I found myself surprised by the turn of events. For instance when Octavia comes to play the honour card against Antony. Some sort of noise escaped my throat, which I can only hope to others was a manly version of a gasp.

Dryden’s play sticks closer to the Unities of time, place and action than Shakespeare and at this point in my appreciation of literature I think it packs a better punch. It’s tighter probably because it has to be. The unities impose more restrictions on the writer but at the same time require the writer make more artful use his skill in delivering something that is just as strong playing at affecting the audience. I think Sidney does the same type of thing when he uses a variety of rhetorical devices, well known to people of his age, to highlight the combination of his skill and known device. The five acts of All for Love while observing unity also display it’s own unique unity. A cohesiveness that makes each of the emotional turns that Antony suffers through interesting and engaging.

It seems that Dryden owes a lot to the thoughts of Horace and Aristotle when it comes to the arrangement of All for Love and he comes off the better for the attempt in my eyes. To quote someone that Dryden seems to love to quote, Horace, (Ars Poetica) Dryden creates a play ‘so deftly fashioned out of familiar material that anybody might hope to emulate the feat, yet for all his efforts sweat and labour in vain. Such is the power of arrangement.’

Comparisonitis

“Later that day Fitzroy looked at his earlier blog and realized that ‘universal commonality’ sounds pretty stupid and a little pretentious. Accepting his faults he moves on….”

I think ‘universal commonality’ sounds like two words that mean the same thing. I guess that would make me a superfluously unnecessary writer. Hmm. But I stand close to my point that I was trying to make in my previous blog about Dryden’s ‘An Essay of Dramatic Poesy’ and that was that it was laying a foundation for the merits of English criticism. Plus celebrating English works at the same time.

I think each person writing in their particular time has only what has gone before him draw from. Its drawing from this common source that makes it difficult for a writer to know if their contribution is one that has any use for the eyes of others. It is only in retrospect mostly, that we get any sense of our contributions to society. So thinking that what we have to say is great before it is received by the masses may be foolish and a little scary. But I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that.

Looking to other works to try to figure out your own merit is akin to adopting a certain mindset to decide what is worthy. This type of mindset, when it is adopted, may render a writer impotent. Constantly looking to the works of others in order to find merit for your own style is what a gospel sermon I know calls ‘Comparisonitis’. The art of difference can serve to, in a way, entrench certain modes of though and even to take away from modern contributions as works of substance. It would then seem like a sticky situation to get out of, this malady of comparison, because as we all know it’s hard to stop comparing your self to others. Better to focus on the moment and find the pleasure that is present in your own now. If a writer received no pleasure from a piece of writing, it wouldn’t exist. This is as true five hundred years ago as it is today.

Enter Dryden. The defeat of the Spanish armada was a time of celebration for England, noting that the period also brought about the establishment of a parliamentary style government and protestant rule, I think it highlights a long slow movement in English contemporary thought to establish England’s place as a leader in cultural contribution. It was a great time to wake up and recognize what England had to offer as opposed to looking to other countries for any type of cultural enrichment. This celebration can be seen in the chief players in ‘An Essay of Dramatic Poetry’ and in how they are opposed with one another. We have Crites and Lisideius on one side of the main arguments and we have Eugenius and Neander on the other. Both Crites and Lisideus only seem to support ancient and foreign works respectively while Eugenius and Neander speak for modern English works. Don’t get me wrong though, the essay does kind of smack of its own propaganda with its timing and its stance with England at the centre (Hey since we thrashed a bunch of foreigners in our coastal waters, why not thrash foreigners in print as well!), but it still manages to use proper tools of criticism by making use of comparison, evaluation and description. Dryden uses the essay to ground criticism so that it represents something more than mere pious propaganda. It is this grounding that gives the essay its credibility and gives England something to talk about.

Drydenian

I looked at my blogs today and realized that it has been awhile since I have blogged, two months! But thankfully the exams and the Christmas holidays break it all up so I think in a technical sense I’m shy by about four or five blogs. But I have kept up with all of the readings and I still think I have something to contribute there and here. I was trying to decide what would be the best approach to getting back on track with these blogs so even though we’re at Wordsworth I’ll focus on Dryden for the next few blogs until I’m satisfied that I’m caught up. I’m not sure if my honesty is working against me here but oh well…

It’s funny that when I start to write blogs I get a fair bit of enjoyment from it. Play a little music in the background and get into the spirit of letting my thoughts flow. I could imagine myself as some sort of column writer for a major magazine working from home letting my words delight the world, while my hot wife makes me eggs. (that’s right, h o t) Sigh. Fantasy. I lack the one thing that those column writers seem to possess in abundance and that’s discipline. D C PLIN. Instead I B SLEEPIN. But that’s enough of that.

So the first work of Dryden hat we come across is his Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Where Dryden helps to lay down the template for modern criticism or analysis of works. I found that the language was easier to absorb but I think this is because I’m used to the language and not because its actually easier some how. I’m not suffering through the passages at a halting pace like in September and I’m a little better versed in some of the Greek mythology that they are constantly referring to in a lot of the works of the period.

This ‘conversation between the four gentlemen’ (I like to call it the ‘war time river boat chatty chat’) takes place at the time of England’s butt kicking of the Spanish armada. Where four gentlemen find themselves in each others company after seeking some sort of solace form the torrent of cannonball volley. At first I thought that this all actually took place but then I realized that life doesn’t happen that way. Who wants to talk about books and plays at a time of war? Why would these men be talking at length about something other than the giant war going on at their doorsteps?

These few points of logic helped me realized the logic of the composition. Its focus on matters of aesthetic and intellect juxtaposed to the matter of the armada would be to highlight the intensity of the debate. Each individual seems heavily armed with more than enough wit and skill of retort to withstand any attack from the others. Also each of the gentlemen seems more than ready to defend their points with an extensive array of Latin quotes and idioms. They all seem well matched with a little more favour weighing towards the foreign plays and ancient works, which are also foreign in nature.

The debate begins to roll when the four gentlemen take fading sounds of cannon fire to be a good sign of he Spanish armada in retreat and I guess in some sense the debate works to celebrate England and all of its works. What better way to celebrate than by thrashing all that is foreign? But maybe that is putting it simply. I think its more a thrashing of all that Dryden and his contemporaries take to be inferior and an effort to place focus on some sort of universal commonality from which the aesthetic could proceed.