ENGL 475: Postmodern Literature (Fall 2004)

These quotation marks are killing me. Any good suggestions for how to read through them?

Try reading a poem out loud. Pause between each set of quotation marks, even if only a single wrod.

Hard stuff to stomach... I'm not a big fan of the anthropological feminist revisionist state of mind, but I like her structure and development. Each page is growth and exploration. The underarching thematic elements are intresting to follow. I especially like this tyrant fellow, he seems to have his act together.

P.S. Intresting link:

http://www.21cmagazine.com/issue2/sextimepower.html

I don't know if we have time but I think it would be interesting to try and pin down the significance of all of the color references she uses.

ack...
i have to agree about the quotation marks, although it does do the job of forcing the reader to pause and emphasize what Notley intends to be the 'correct' reading.
It made me feel totally bullied, though. I found that it took me way more than twice the time to do the required reading than is usual for me.
I eventually got used to it enough not to fight it so much, but ended up feeling a sort of low key nausea. I also had a headache.
While I do not enjoy being made to submit like that (or to experience physical discomfort), I thought it was incredibly effective.
The reader cannot help but feel that their own mind has been controlled by a tyrannical will, which I guess is Notley's point. We all have to experience the feeling of 'The Tyrant' she is writing about.
Anyone else feel the same? Perhaps I'm just way too sensitive...

I had trouble getting through the reading with the quotation marks at first. They were annoying and made the text too noisy. I felt that the quotes were distracting me from the poem. But after a while I read the text as if they were not there anymore. But, as I got through the text I got to see their significance.

I liked that the text could be read through as a whole but then it could also be read as individual poems.

I still have not really figured out who the tyrant is/what he represents. I have a few guesses though. Throughout the text, he seems to have everything under control but at the very end he is chasing the main character like he has lost it! I thought that was funny.

Just wanted to mention a thought on something Faryan (I think) said today, about how when we were all reading the poem(s) aloud in class some parts sounded good, some parts sounded disjointed... with as contrived and silly as I may or may not have thought the quotation marks to be upon first reading, reading it aloud made a lot more sense. The feeling that some people got of a kind of disconnect with how certain people pronounced certain phrases is really interesting. Not to say that this is Notley's main intent, but the fact that everyone says words/phrases differently is important and possibly imperative to the reading of the text... I like the idea of an infinite # of voices interjecting, intermingling and making a nearly coherent whole.
Also, while we were all reading I couldn't help but think of Jung's idea of the collective unconscious.

So, "Inanna" maps vowel for vowel and consonant for consonant onto "Alette". Notley cannot expect to get away with this. Kafka creating the character "Samsa" is one thing, but to reference in name that myth whose form you have already fully appropriated is a weak move. I can think of two reasons for this forced parity. Either Notley is doing it because she can (superfluous), or because she doesn't feel that her precise retelling of the original tale is a sufficiently unambiguous allusion (daft).

Perhaps if Notley had significantly altered the Inanna myth for "Descent," then the congruence of the names would stand as a viable hidden link. However, as the Inanna myth is one of a handful of feminine quests, an additional link is unnecessary. It is a handrail in a covered bridge. I hope, and doubt, that it is mere coincidence.

I have no problem with Alette. Would anyone have known about Inanna otherwise? I don't see a problem in re-telling an epic in a different setting and I doubt that the story of Alette maps vowel for vowel and consonant for consonant the story of Inanna.
Here's the thing... every movie and every story you will ever see/read has already been written. There really aren't that many plots that exist, only variations and - aha - name changes. How many times has the Odyssey been written? Just because Notley was inspired to recreate and recast Inanna, doesn't weaken her poetry and it doesn't discredit her.

Anyone know what the significance of the owl was in this text? Why did she choose an owl over something else?

I'm with you Pat S...
i was reminded of that exact thing, the Jungian Collective Unconscious. This connotation hadn't really gelled for me until the in-class reading.
Perhaps the dissonance of voices and speech patterns is also part of the point...part of the idea (within 'The Descent of Alette') of all people being artificially & unnaturally seperated from each other, even tho they are really from the same darkness. Yet another effect of the Tyrant.
I said once in class that nothing is original. Perhaps that was inarticulate. People can find fairly original ways to tell/show a story. But i totally agree with you, there are only so many stories in all the history of the world.
Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent...

I'm getting a bit too heavy with the 21c links, but here's another one kinda linked with the jungian global unconscious. It's really f'in weird if you read the article...it might just blow your mind.

http://www.21cmagazine.com/issue2/serpenttemple.html

and the direct link to which the article refers to:

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

September 11th is 80th

McGwire home run shattered is 5th

World Peace Prayer T-10

I'm not saying that I believe in this shit, its just kinda funny to watch. Statistics dont lie...or do they?

Some of Barthes's discussion re the death of the modern author goes along with Pat's statement that everything we see now is a reproduction or retelling of something that aleady exists. Barthes defines the modern author as a "scriptor" who creates text from the "tissue of quotations" that already exist in culture. This can be taken literally and put forth as a reason why Notely uses the quotations but I highly doubt that that was her intention behind them. Rather, Barthes idea is more applicable in the modern/postmodern era where new narratives are inseparable from earlier ones.