4-16

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"

Above is a section from Little Gidding part of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets

The semester started with Demeter and Persephone and so it ends with Demeter and Persephone

psyche - soul - image of a butterfly

When you get pricked with cupids arrows not only do you fall in love with who you are looking at but you also experience ate (infatuation to the point of ruin)

Sexson suggests that we have all been transformed into asses...you can blame T.V.

Venus is the "wicked" mother in law

the tasks that Psyche had to preform for Venus
1. sort the grains
2. collect sheep's wool
3. collect pure water
4. bring back the make up (this is cosmic makeup not cosmetic makeup)

Both frames of the story (psyche and cupid along with Lucius) have to undergo their trials, or their initiations

If you want a moral of the story you have to disobey, a character can't be transformed or changed if they don't make the mistakes to change them.

4-11

Ovid's Metamorphoses can be described by two things

1. Shit happens
2. Things change


Robert Graves - he is the translator of the version of "the golden ass" that we read in class.



The Golden Ass also known as The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius or also known as The Transformation


Lucius was the first Mr. Ed


And once again this is a frame story



Along with being influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shakespeare, was also inspired by the Golden Ass


Cupid and Psyche, in this text, is known as the first telling of cupid and psyche



The moral of a story is the experience of the story



Dr. Sexson gives the advice to PAY ATTENTION, just LISTEN

Test #2 Question

These are the questions that we came up with as a class for the test. if it has an * next to it, it means it may not be on the test or will be rewritten in a way that Sexson finds more fitting

which birds represent Procne and Philomena
-Procne is a swallow
-Philomena is a nightingale

what does ate mean
-infatuation to the point of ruin

who is the original artisan/ artificer
-daedelus

who is the god of sleep, dreams and disguises
-Morpheus

*what should we avoid at all costs
-old people

what is Aristophane's theory of the soul mate
-we were all joined together in the beginning but they became too much so they separated them into two...if you find our other half, he or she is our soul mate

tragedy focuses on the individual while comedy focuses on the community

plato's theory on the immortality of the soul
-knowledge and virtue

in the symposium, Plato claims that he learned everything from
-Diotima

what is Socratic irony
-claiming to know nothing when in fact they know a lot

what does Icarus do
-fly to close to the sun, his wax melted and he fell

what was the difference between Minerva and Arachne
-Aracne weaves about the negative portrayal of the gods while Minerva weaves a positive portrayal

the last picture in the last frame in Velasquez "the Spinners" is
-Europa or the rape of Europa

what does the name Pentheus mean
-the man of constant sorrow

how is Cadmus related to Pentheus
-grandfather

why did Ulysses believe that he deserved the arms of Achilles
-because he started it all

what Shakespearean play was partically inspired by Procne
-Titua and Andronicas

what is a characteristic of new comedy
-boy wants girl

what is anagnorisis
-recognition or critical moment of discovery

what is the first instance of frame in the metamorphoses
-pan and syrinx

grace
-the awareness of gods presence in the world

omophagia
-eating of live flesh

according to Plato, Love's parents are
-poverty and contrivance

how old will the metamorphoses be in 2008
-2000 years old

what was Daphne turned into
-a laurel tree

naso means
-nose

4-4

Don't try to find the moral of the story in the Metamorphoses instead you should be left with the thought of "what's this all about"

art is redemptive, but it does not justify

Shakespeare's sonnet 65 is what we are left with

SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Sexson suggests that we watch the movie "Andre Rublev"
-he says it is like a 3 hour Russian movie that is so slow - but he says you need to watch the whole movie

4-2

Homer created the phrase "he bit the dust" - i can't help but thinking of Queen's song another one bites the dust

We all picked 5 lines from The Metamorphoses and Sexson choose the award winning lines to be on page 73. these were the lines the Ashely choose...he says to check out her blog for the explanation
-these lines are about Europa being ravished or carried away

Europa had a basket that was given to her that visual told the story of her life. she didn't stop and look at the basket...we never stop at take a look around

Sexson picked certain stories from Ovid to take a close look at and if you have read them you will notice that they are all about art or the artist.

Minerva isn't telling the whole story about the gods because she is in power - page 80

to invite the gods it ruins our relationship with them, but it sets history into motion

Stories are what makes life interesting

Shakespeare created you - because he has influenced everything that is still influencing you

the word catholic means everything

Oscar Wilde explains that no book is immoral or moral but instead well written or badly written

True art has three things
-wholeness
-harmony
-radiance

Pygmalion is Richard Gear in Pretty woman...this story is also represented in the Stepford wives

always ask...what did you gain and what did you gain and what did you lose

3-30

Joyce changed the spelling of phenomenal to funanimal

To be in love is madness

ate - infatuation (a type of love) to the point of ruin
Sophocles suggests that life can't be complete without ate

Pan - the greek god of nature

everything changes - nothing dies

3-28

Redemptive power of art
Art redeems us from the horrors of the world because it transforms the world into art.

Buddha as baby, tried to avoid three things
*sickness
*old age
*death

Shakespeare was inspired by Ovid...try and think of one of his works that doesn't contain any influence from the Metamorphoses

What does Dr. Sexson say that James Joyce, Shakespeare and Ovid all have in common....
if you read all of their works it can and will transform your life.

James Joyces' Finnegan's Wake is a version of the Metamorphoses
-this story (along with many in the metamorphoses) ends in the same place that it started

James Joyce wrote a book called "the portrait of an artists as a young man" this book is said to be his autobiography. The name that he gave to the main character was : Steven Daedalus. Hmm, i think that name sounds familiar...maybe because the name Daedalus comes straight from book eight of Ovid's Metamorphoses

You don't have to understand it, you only have to be there, to be apart of it....this was said when talking about James Joyce, but really i think it can be applied to anything in life.

weaving is a metaphor for art

imagination - keeping your imagination open

Ovid changes similes to metaphors the person goes from being like a bird to being a bird

In the book of Tereus, Procne and Philomela each of these people turn into a bird. Today you can see
Philometa as a nightingale, Procne can be seen as a swallow and Tereus is a hoopoe

tragedy - what's the worse thing that you can possible imagine

Ovid is not a moralist

3-26

Ovid is the most visual poet

The Stories from Ovid’s Metamorphosis that Dr. Sexson wants you to pay attention to
-Io and Jove pg. 25
-Syrinx pg. 31
-Europa pg. 71
-Arachne pg. 177
-Pygmalion pg. 335
-Tereus, Procne, Philomela pg. 193
-Daedalus and Icarus pg. 254
-Pythagoras pg. 515

Some of the stories that were picked as favorites from the class
-Callisto
-Pythagoras
-pyramus & thetis
-Arachne
-Peleus & thetis
-alcyone & ceyx
-perseus & redusa
-ceres & prosepia
-baucis & philemon
-daedalus & icarus
-The Calydonian Hunt
-Phaethon
-Rumor
-Death of Achilles
-Alpheus
-Erysichton’s sin

3-23

Garden of Adonis

Adonis was born from a daughter than slept with her father. She was turned into a tree while pregnant with her fathers baby, she gave birth to Adonis, a beautiful baby boy

Poets use the image of flowers that bloom early and die young to represent tragedy – a life wasted

Demeter –bread (grain)
Dionysus –wine
You need both Demeter and Dionysus to live

Anagnorisis – recognition

Stickomythia is once again depicted, page 17-21 of the Bacchae illustrate this idea

The picture below is a depiction of a thyrsus – stick with a pine cone on it

3-21

Grace
-a gift from god
-god’s presence is all around

Penthues means grief or sorrow

Dionysus was born from the leg of Zeus

The city of Thebes grew from the teeth of a serpent that Cadmus killed and then planted.

Cadmus and Harmonia had four daughters
-Agave
-Semele
-Autonoe
-Ino

Unfortunately all of these daughters turned out bad.

Invasion aka rape – this term is used a lot when talking about the gods

Liberal – freedom – to be freed from the constriction of the society or even your life

The moment of your greatest horrors of life are rescued by art

Metaphor – to carry over – to be carried away – imagination

A movie that resembles Bacchae is Sex, Lies and Video

Tragedy – when there is a huge gap between the crime and the punishment. Dionysus punishes the whole town for the mistake of a few, it doesn’t seem fair

Omophagia – eating of live flesh

3-19

Day of the Dead or Dead Day is the one day a year when the women had the power. They could do what they wanted and the next day they would not be held accountable of what they had decided to do on that day.

Make sure to read through Commentary #3 at the end of Lysistrata, it is titled Athenian Women

Lysistrata

they do two things to the councilor
1. Dressed him as a woman
2. Dressed him as a corpse

The first one, dressing him like a woman, is the most humiliating thing that can happen to a manly, man in greek mythology

The councilor is turned into a scapegoat

the word scapegoat derives from the idea of the community getting a goat and telling all of their sins to it and then sending it out into the forest. They do this to clear their slate, when the goat leaves, the sins that they told to the goat also left.

Happy endings are for comedies - they also tend to end with either dancing or feasting or a combination of the two.
-a way for this to happen in most comedies is through a wedding
a new comedy would wed a young man to a young woman
an old comedy would wed an old man to a young woman

Elvis and Dionysus
The cover of the Bacchae is Elvis, I had no idea why they would use such an icon to depict Dionysus. In class though Dr. Sexson.. Dionysus drives you out of your mind, much like Elvis does. Women riot for both of these guys because they are hypnotizing (Evils actually uses his hips to do this). Both Elvis and Dionysus have the ability to bewitch people, women especially.

Dionysus is also not aggressive.

Dionysus means deconstruction
His saying would be something like…”You think too much, lets party”

Dionysus is not worried about people being smart, instead he just cares about doing things that are natural.

Dionysus and Apollo are the opposites of each other

Ecstasy – standing outside our self

3-7

Tragedy emphasizes the individual
Comedy emphasizes the community....with comedy "it's not all about you"

Comedy is void of shame. There is a notion that whatever is human is ok. Life can and is crude messy and not perfect.

With Greek mythology there is something for everyone.

Old Comedy consists of three points
*polis - current politics
*obscenity
*death and rebirth (regeneration)

Northrop Fry suggests that the last point, death and rebirth or regeneration, is the main theme.

the movie Little Miss Sunshine is a modern day example of old comedy

Comedy often celebrates stupid people....the hero tends to be dim witted

Aristotle
*comedy deals with people who are worse than they are
*comedy originates from the phallic procession

Comedy has happy ideas..."Wouldn't it be nice if...."

carnal - of or relating to the flesh

Steve Martin suggests that "comedy is not pretty"

3-5

Contrivance - made up

Poesis (Greek word for poetry) - to make up

Mythos- story
Logos - Greek word for truth
*myth + logos = mythology...the story of truths

Diotima's speech is so interesting because it tells a story

There are 3 levels
1. naivete
2. skepticism
3. where story and truth come together

Stage two can be very scary. In class we discussed this stage relation to finding out that Santa Clause was not real or when Dorothy and the gang found out that the wizard was just a man behind a curtain.

The Speech of Diotima suggest that the parents of Eros are poverty (or want) and contrivance.

Diotima also suggests in this speech that everyone is pregnant, both in body and in soul

"Everyone would rather have such children than human ones, and would look up to Homer, Hesiod, and the other good poets with envy and admiration for the offspring they have left behind - offspring, which, because they are immortal themselves, provide their parents with immortal glory and remembrance" (pg.57)

Philosophers are the greatest lovers of the world because the greatest lovers of the world are those who purse wisdom

We have defined extreme tragedy as "Life is not worth it" now we define comedy as "even shameful life is better than no life at all...Give me Life!!"

There are two types of comedy
*old comedy - talks about current politics, old men which at the end of the play they are regenerated somehow
*new comedy - which is simply boy wants girl - boy can't have girl - boy gets girl at the end

Aristophanes is the only survivor of Old Comedy

3-2

The Symposium, on page 27 Dr. Sexson has decided that the first part of the last paragraph was not a preferred translations. In his opinion the translation that follows is more fitting...

"Each of us then is the mere broken tally of a man, the result of a bisection which has reduced us to a condition like that of a flat fish, and each of us is perpetually in search of his corresponding tally"

His decision for this translation revolves around the word tally. A tally is a roman coin that used to be broken into two pieces. Two individuals would take a half as they went separate ways, that way if after years and years apart if they ever met they would have the broken tally to connect back into one, this would prove that they were a match.

Dr. Sexson gave us a demonstration in class by having Katie and Katey tear in index card in half and each keep a half. If by chance they happen to run into each other in some South African cafe years from now they will have the torn card to connect themselves to each other.

Henry James' Turn of the Screw is a frame story and the movie Innocence is a visual depiction of this text.

The subject of the story is the story

2-28

Frame or a story within a story
*the frame just distances us from the story

The Symposium is about love

philla- love
sophia - wisdom
*philosophy is the love of wisdom

Phaedrus - rhetorician
Pausanias - lawyer
Eryximachus - doctor
Aristophanes - comic playwright
Agathon - tragic playwright

Aristophanes was supposed to go before Eryximachus but because Aristophanes had the hiccups, they switched turns and the good doctor gave him several ideas on how to get ride of his hiccups.

lover - erastes - older male - can't control themselves
beloved - eromenos - young boy - can't control the lover

The relationship between the two males doesn't create any issues. Issues meaning children.

aesthetic - beauty

Socrates on the physical level is the erastes
Alcibiades on the spiritual level is the erastes
Pandemos (physical love) vs. Urania (spiritual love)

Dr. Sexson shared with the class a very life changing conversation with us between himself and a lady he sat next to on a plane ride home. Along with the Eleusinian Mysteries this woman followed the idea of something said, something done and something shown.

*What she said: I just wanted to please you.

*What she did: gave him a package that still sits on his book self unopened

*What she showed: the inked numbers on her left wrist

2-26

The Symposium is patriarchal...NO GIRLS ALLOWED, they even sent away the flute girls before they started the discussion

The Symposium is an example of dialectic philosophy because it can't all be completely trusted, it is a composed frame story.

We never see the real thing until we are educated, until then we are just seeing forms....sound familiar?
Plato's Allegory of the Cave suggests the idea of living life by just seeing shadows. In class we made the connection to the Matrix or a movie theater, so i guess the extreme would be if you are watching the matrix in a movie theater. The movie theater is just a modern day cave for Plato, people go into a dark room and sit and stare at shadows on a wall...interesting

Raconteur - is a story teller

"I don't want to talk about it" as the beginning of a story just adds to the drama

Sheherazade - was mentioned in class about telling stories to save her life. The description of her on Wiki closely reminded me of the lady that Dr. Sexson met on the plane....very interesting and worth taking a quick look.

2-16

The blogs to check out for the test are
*Elizabeth
*Brittini
*Jan
*Amanda

Don't forget to bring a question to class on Tuesday that you think should be on the test Friday

Dithyrambos - Dionysus
*God of the Double Doors

The mythos (or story) of Antigone is used by Sophocles to make the tragic drama of Antigone. The story that everyone knew went under a metamorphosis by Sophocles to become a dramatic, creative story.

Tiresias - sees the world as both a male and a female because he had lived and experienced life as both

Senex - old men
an example is Tiresias and Creon

The messenger only comes in to deliver bad news and often their description is of scene of graphic violence

Hearing vs showing
*hearing is your own interpretation, they are sparking your imagination and describing a scene but each individual paints a different picture
*showing is someones else interpretation, nothing is left to the imagination

Mistakes are a great thing because they take you somewhere you hadn't anticipated.

2-14

In honor of Valentines Day we spent some of the class period talking about Aphrodite (aka Venus) and Eros (aka cupid)

Cupid today is just the watered down version of Eros

Aphrodite is the goddess of love

Eros is the god of love

Aphrodite Urania

*goddess of pure (platonic) spiritual love

Aphrodite Pandemos

*goddess of physical love

Both Eros and Aphrodite have the power to make you weak in the knees

Psyche means soul and the visual representation of psyche (and soul) is a butterfly

Whippersnapper - Dr. Sexson said he could never figure out where the term came from and it looks like it dates all the back to 1674. Check out this link if you want the definition.

"it is the best never to have been born at all, next to die young, and that old age is the worst that can befall a man" pg 243 in Steiner - know for the test

2-9

[stich]o[mythia] ....meaining row speech

The rape and abduction of Persephone was a good thing because it woke her and took her out of her daze. It opened her to the ideas of death.

If you missed class on Friday you missed Elizabeth (as Antigone) and Megan (as Ismene) and Mick (as Creon) and Dr. Sexson (as the chorus) reinacting lines 497-580. It was very intertaing and gave a lot of clarity and humor to thoes lines!

Hubris - pride

en-theos means the god is inside you
enthusiastic

gods can never take back something after they have promised it

the Furies are the goddesses of the underworld

Antigone is very connected with the gods of the underworld.

2-7

Homework:
*look around at everyone's blog and find at least one to post a comment on.
*find a single page in Steiner and do a close reading
*pick one of the five categories listed in the pages of 231-277 of Steiner.
-man and woman pg.234
-young and old pg. 242
-individual and society pg.247
-living and dead pg. 263
-mean and god(s) pg. 266

Antigone was only 13

Can you guess who Charles Dickens was obsessed with....Little Red Riding Hood

Look at Carly's blog if you want to check out a great link for Hegel.

You don't have to ban books you just have to create a distraction. Television has done wonders for keeping people away from books.

The word myth comes from the word mythos which means story. So when people ask "what's the story" they are really asking "what's the myth"

Both tragedy and comedy are all in the family

2-5

Comedy - Hermes
Tragedy - Demeter

sparagmos - the tearing of living flesh

polytropic- the trickster, Hermes

metempsychosis - the transformation of one soul into the body of another...nothing every dies,
only changes

Hermes is the guide of souls, takes the souls after death into the underworld

Hermes: Don't things to seriously...everything can be laughed at if you just step back an reevaluate

2-2

What is significant about February 2?
*Groundhogs Day
*Cassie's Birthday (Born in 1987 in Grand Junction, Colorado)
*James Joyce's Birthday
*Dr. Sexson's wedding anniversary
*Aztec New Year
*Purification of the virgin

holiday....holy day

Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, and 16 June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend. (from wikipedia)

Hero's are distracted by
*women.......sex
*wine........drugs
*song........rock & roll

Mysteries of Eleusis
*something was said.....rain, conceive
*something was shown.....stalks of grain
*something was done.....drama of Demeter

1-31

The movie Groundhogs Day

*doing it over and over until you get it right

*an ordinary day turn to an extrodinary day

Find the magic place in the ordinary

Can you find that place in Bozeman

if you look you can find OZ in Bozeman

Dr. Sexson added the first Homeric Hymn to our list, it is To Dionysus

The 3 way archetype

*cron

*mother

*maiden

Demeter is the goddess of fertility and agriculture, mother of Persephone

Doso(line 123) means sorrow

gods can't eat the food of the mortals or they will be stuck there (pg 9)

1-29

Blogs to take a look at while studying for the test
*Elizabeth
*Brittini

Historians can only deal with facts where poets can deal with the truth

MUSES
*figures of inspiration
*mother is Mnemosyne (memory)
*agents to anamnesis (or recollection)

Epic
*Homer ...Odyssey and Iliad
*Virgil...Aeneid

Drama
*Sophocles
*Euripides
*Aristophan (old comedy)
*Aeschylus

Theogony - the text about the birth of the gods

[anti] is against [gone] birth
Antigone...against birth

To Demeter
metaphor of biology
metaphor of love
about the love between a mother and a daughter

metaphor - a story of pictures

men are like microwaves....useful but not necessary

1-26

The key word for the day is...SING
*Here i sing fearsome, lovely-haired Demeter (pg 3 Homeric Hymns)
*Muse, sing of Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia (pg 38 Homeric Hymns)

The homeric hymns are meant to be sung or at least be recited with a tone of inspiration

The muse has to be invoked before one can sing or write. The muse is for inspiration. People are only vessles by which the gods speak through.

A few new terms
*politics - comes from polis meaning the city
*BCE - before the common era, also referred to as BC (before Christ)
*Chthonic - laws that are above the state laws

Plato does not believe in the idea of a blanks slate, he instead believes that people are all knowing until they are born and then life is just the process of remembering what you have forgotten. He believes that people already know everything, you can't learn something new just relearn what you have already forgotten

1-24

If you are looking for some plans for Feb. 6 at 7:00 then meet Dr. Sexson at Borders Book for his discussion of book addictions. The meeting has been labled "8 readers reading" and will be covering the "whys" surrounding the love and sometimes obsessions of books.

If you missed class on Wednesday you missed a reading of Dr. Sexson's response to watching a man read the newspaper and then plunging himself into the same newspaper. If you want to read it, this link will lead you there.

Sexson suggests that there is nothing new but just versions of the old. With this ides in mind, Dr Sexson challenges us to read the newspaper the same way....Look at the news story and see if you can find the old story.

1-22

Agon comes from a Greek word meaning contest or battle between adversaries

Agony comes from the stem of Agon

The 5 Conflicts in Antigone (between lines 441-581) as described by George Steiner on pages 231-277
1. man and woman
2. young and old
3. individual and society
4. living and dead
5. men (humans) and god(s)

If you’ve started reading George Steiner than you probably think you are CLUELESS! However the reason Steiner is "over our heads" is because it is highly educational. Sexson says we are not aloud to say we are clueless but just get what we can from the writing.
Take a close look at pages 231-277

obscene means off stage

If you were a little stupmed by any of the Greek in Striner's Antigone i found a great site to translate. It also translates from English into Greek...kinda fun to play around with

Sexson asks that for homework everyone gets a Bozeman Daily Chronical and spend some time reading and looking over it

1-19

Class Theme: All that is past possesses our present

Antigone - Memorize (ok maybe not memorize the whole scene but become very familiar with) lines 441 –581

Sexson introduced everyone to a new word (not currently in the dictionary) originary, which means going back.

When asked “What’s New” Sexon suggests we answer “What’s Old” because that is a far more important answer.

Wondering about the young face on the cover of Antigone…well look no further because this link will take you to all you need and want to know about Simone Weil