April 16

T.S. Elliot poems-"The Four Quartets"
-In "Little Gidding," he says, "We shall not stop from exploration. The end of all our exploring will be when we end up at the place where we started and know it for the first time."

We are living embodiments of the mythological past.

Lucius has to eat roses to return to human form.
-"You are all asses. You all need to be transformed."

The final belief is to believe in a fiction which you know to be a fiction.

Nothing great ever happens to you except by ruin.
-What if the architect intended this, wanted you to know the mechanism.

April 13

No class.

Group presentation practice!

April 11

Moral of the Story in Metamorphoses
1. shit happens
2. things change

The Transformations or The Golden Ass:
-golden meaning bright, not color
-the moral of the story is the story
-the earliest novel
-melodrama: sensation for the sake of sensation
-beasts of burden, both the lowest and the highest
-a book about your eventual transformation
-redeems everything
-fairy tales are degenerate myths
-one of the greatest human needs is laughter

The story of Cupid and Psyche
-the first monster-in-law story
-all marriage is abduction/rape-all weddings are funerals
--pg. 104 "Now he was climbing into bed with her, now he was making her his wife"

April 9

Quiz #2

April 6

No classes.

April 4

Quiz Review:
1. Which birds represent Procne and Philomela?
- swallow and nightingale
2. What is ate?
- infatuation to the point of being ruined
3. Who was the original artisan?
- Daedalus
4. Who is the god of sleep, dreams, and disguises?
- Morpheus
5. What should we avoid at all costs?
- old people
6. What is Aristophanes theory about the soul mate?
- people used to be joined in twos, the gods split people apart
7. Tragedy emphasises (blank) while comedy emphasises (blank).
- individual, society
8. Plato thought that the way to achieve immortality of the soul was through what?
- knowledge and virtue
9. Socrates learned about love from whom?
- Diotima
10. What is Socratic irony
- I don't know nuthin'
11. What did Icarus do that he shouldn't have?
- flew too close to the sun
12. What was the difference between Minerva's and Arachne's weaving?
- the portrayal of the gods
13. What is the final frame in "The Spinners?"
- Rape of Europa
14. What does Pentheus mean?
- man of constant sorrow
15. How were Cadmus and Pentheus related?
- Cadmus was Pentheus' grandfather
16. What was Ulysses' claim to the armor?
- Ulysses started it all
17. What Shakespearean play was partly inspired by Tereus and Procne?
- Titus Andronicus
18. What is a characteristic of new comedy?
- boy wants girl
19. What is anagnorsis?
- recognition
20. What is the first instance of framing in Ovid?
- Pan and Syrinx
21. What is Grace?
- the awareness of God's presence in the world
22. What is omophagia?
- the eating of living flesh
23. Who are the parents of Love?
- poverty and contrivance
24. How old will Ovid's Metamorphoses be in 2008?
- 2000 years old
25. What was Daphne turned into?
- a laurel tree
26. What does naso mean?
- nose
27. Why was Aristophanes speech delayed?
- he had hiccups

April 2

More lines from Ovid were recited and the award for the best lines was given to Ashley for her lines on page 73, the final lines of the story of Europa
-Roberto Callaso says it all begins with the story of Europa
-To invite the gods to one house became a dangerous thing to do; to invite the gods is to destroy our relationship with them, but it sets history in motion
-A life in which the gods are not invited isn't worth living.

We have been created by Shakespeare.
-"Do not judge a book because you find it distasteful, there are no immoral or moral books."
-"A true work of art is static and has wholeness, harmony, and radiance."

We are examining the stories of artists.
-Pygmalion: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo
-Every technology has its dark side.

March 30

We spent the first part of the class discussing blogs, specifically those of Dustin, Elizabeth, and mostly Carly.
-She wrote about some ideas she had while reading a book by Roberto Callaso including thoughts on ate, infatuation to the point of ruining one's life.

"He turned his mind to unknown arts."

The Wind in the Willows-in the chapter titled "Pipers at the Gates of Dawn," the characters see the god of nature: Pan
-Pan's Labyrinth is a movie that deals with this too

We need to train our ears as well as our eyes
-We need to hear the music of the spheres (the music of the planets moving)

After Ovid: modern poets retell the stories of The Metamorphoses of Ovid
-only art matters

The last part of the class was devoted to the sharing of each person's favorite five lines from Ovid
-Many chose lines from Pythagoras, but there were choices ranging between pages 25-549, almost everyone picked something unique.

March 28

Daedalus & Icarus:
-He turned his mind to "unknown arts"
-Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man-main character is Steven Daedalus

The Redemptive Power of Art
-Buddha had to be kept away from sickness, death, and old age
-Art redeems us from the terror of the world
-The art of imagination robs the earth of horror
-The complete works of Shakespeare also transform the world
-James Joyce's last book, Finnegans Wake is a new version of The Metamorphoses
-The details make it real

Ovid was the most cinematic of all writers (except James Joyce)
-"But you'd have said that those Athenians had taken flight with wings"
-Ovid keeps all of the options open
-From similes to metaphors

Tragedy: wasted youth, never to have been born, what is the worst thing that can possibly be imagined

March 26

Dionysus: a god of opposites
- wine and clarity
- peace and carnage
- how can this be?

The stories we are going to focus on from Ovid's Metamorphoses are:
- Io and Jove
- Syrinx
- Europa
- Arachne
- Pygmalion
- Procne, Tereus, and Philomela
- Daedalus
- Pythagoras
- and Professor Sexson's favorite: The Sibyl

March 23

We have been instructed to make one story from Metamorphoses "ours."

Gardens of Adonis: bloom early and die early

-live fast, love hard, die young

-the painting is The Awakening of Adonis by J.W. Waterhouse

Much of the class was devoted to a stichomythia between Luke and Jon taken from pages 32-35 and then pages 38-40 of Bacchae.

Anagnorisis: recognition

March 21

The story of Pentheus is also in Metamorphoses.
-pg. 97 Pentheus mocked Bacchus and even Tiresias

Cadmus founded Thebes when he went to go find his sister who had been abducted by Zeus.
-He married Harmonia and they had 4 beautiful daughters: Semele, Agave, Ino, and Autonoe.

We have to keep repeating the past until we get it right.

Tragedy occurs when a huge gap exist between the crime and the punishment.

March 19

We have been instructed to read the essay, "Athenian Women" by Sarah Ruden that is found at the end of Lysistrata.
- deals with the overturning of the typical laws
- The Dead Day or the Saturnalia: women have power, a day of license with no repercussions
- tragedy and comedy are the two sides of a coin

Lysistrata

-pg. 32: The women dress the councilor up like a woman (the most humiliating thing to happen to a man, ex. Hercules). He is used as a scapegoat because he is ritualistically expelled from the community, takes all of the sins away. This is probably unconsciously done by Aristophanes. The women then dress the councilor up like a corpse.

Aristophanes was making fun of the phallus
- attacking it as a symbol of the male aggression
- deflation of male authority
- making fun of phallocentricsm

The point of comedy is reconciliation, merriment: feasting and dancing.

Bacchantes were the women who danced for Dionysus: one day to be without oppression.
The point of Dionysus was to drive you out of your mind: the first deconstructor but also a liberator.

March 9

There are 3 types of comedy: old, new, and Shakespearian

In the movie The Name of the Rose (based on the book of the same name) they are looking for the lost section on comedy from Aristotle's Poetics

- the church didn't want it to be found because "laughter is what teaches us that nothing is sacred"

March 7

Comedy underscores community even at the expense of the individual
-There is nothing about the human being that is shameful
-Whatever is human is ok in comedy
-In the last act, all characters are usually on stage
-Turning upside-down of the laws
-Usually the hero is not very smart

Old Comedy: Aristophanes: 11 comedies, about current politics and peace, have an element of the obscene, death and rebirth

New Comedy: comic version of the Oedipus story, boy wants girl, boy can't get girl, in the end gets girl

"Literature is the product of neurotic people."

Aristotle said: 1. comedy deals with people who are worse than they are - comedy loves stupidity and 2. comedy originates from phallic processions

Jann and Ashley then performed a stichomythia of the oath taken in Lysistrata

March 5

Poesis: Greek for poetry, to make up

Logos: truth
-Mythos + Logos = mythology (when story and truth get together)

Wizard of Oz: "It is more important to be loved than to love."
-"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

Parents of Love: Poros (aka Contrivance) is the father and Poverty is the mother

The soul can give birth
-The Odyssey and the Iliad are the immortal children of the soul of Homer

The only ones worthy of love are philosophers.

Tragedy: pessimism
Comedy: give me more life-even shameful life

March 2

As always, read Elizabeth's blog - it is truly a marvel!

In the Symposium, we are to make a change, Professor Sexson prefers "each of us is the mere broken tally of a man."

- a tally was a Roman coin (you used to be able to break them easily)

Blank slates vs. traces of memory (an almost remembrance) is the theme of many current movies such as, Made in Heaven, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Silenus Statue: ugly on the outside, but you break it open and there are beautiful things inside of it

The Innocence, is a movie by Truman Capote based on the book, A Turn of the Screw-the subject matter of the story is stories.

The connection between love (desire for wholeness) and imagination is explored in the short story "A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud."

February 28

What is Love?
-philia is anonther form of love
-sophia means wisdom
--philosopy: the love of wisdom
-The pursuit of knowledge can be erotic (rhetoric -> erotic)

In the Symposium the love is homoerotic, pedophilia
-Between a lover and a beloved
-The lover (erastes) is an old man and the beloved (eromenos) is a boy
--On the physical level, Socrates is the erastes and Alcibiades is the eromenos
--But on the spiritual level, the roles are reversed.
-Women were inferior, they wanted to have a connection of equals

At this time, Dr. Sexson finished the story about the "Scheherazade of the Airways."
-Something was said, something was done, something was shown
-Said: "I just wanted to please you."
-Done: Gave him a package.
-Shown: A series of numerals on her left forearm.
-What a great story!

February 26

"All we do is simply imitate the gods and goddess."

Socratic Irony: saying you don't know anything when in fact you know a great deal

Symposium: patriarchal
-Before the men could talk about the subject of live, they had to send out the flute girls

We don't even know if the Symposium actually happened because it comes to us through secondary sources of secondary sources
-Plato used the allegory of a cave: fire produces shadows, etc--bottom line: viewing things that aren't real, like watching movies
-Plato creates a blur between literary and philosophy

At this point in the class, Dr. Sexson began to weave the most fascinating story about a raconteur (storyteller), the Scheherazade of the Airways and the stories that she told him about her time in a concentration camp. Telling stories was her specialty.
-You really needed to be there for this one but:
-She told the story of "The Beggar King"
-The German officer's name was Konig (which means king)
-Upon landing, she washed the "tattoos" off her arm and said it was all a story

February 23

Quiz #1

February 21

Check Elizabeth, Brittni, Amanda, and Jann's blogs for review lists and class notes.

Quiz Review:
1. What did Demeter do in revenge of the abduction of Persephone?
- made it winter
2. What is a senex?
- a doddering old fool
3. What are 3 manifestations of the universal goddess?
- crone (Hecate), mother (Demeter), and maiden (Persephone)
4. What is a puer?
- the archetype of eternal youth
5. The reason I couldn't have stolen your cattle.
- "I was born yesterday."
6. What sacrifice did Agamemnon have to make to go to the Trojan War?
- his own virgin daughter
7. What is the heart of tragedy according to Sophocles?
- "The best thing that can happen is to never have been born at all."
8. Define sparagmos.
- tearing or rending of living flesh
9. What does Kore mean?
- maiden, Persephone
10. Birth of Dionysus.
- he of the double doors, born out of Zeus's thigh
11. What is stichomythia?
- a short exchange between agnostic combatants in a drama
12. The five conflicts in Antigone are?
- young v. old, man v. woman, living v. dead, mortal v. god(s), and individual v. society
13. Aphrodite Urania was the goddess of what?
- spiritual love, pure love
14. What was shown at the E. Mysteries?
- stalk of wheat
15. Definition of Antigone's name.
- against birth
16. What is hubris?
- pride or arrogance
17. In ancient Greece, who do you invoke?
- the 9 muses
18. What was the title of the 1st song according to Dr. Sexson?
- "Stairway to Heaven"
19. Define chthonic.
- relating to the underworld
20. What did Persephone eat while she was in the underworld?
- pomegranate seed
21. What did Tiresias experience?
- life as a male and female
22. Who was the father of the Muses?
- Zeus
23. What is catharsis?
- purgation of self
24. Who was Jocasta?
- Antigone's mother and grandmother
25. What is the Greek word for city?
- polis
26. When and where was Cassi born?
- February 2, 1987 in GrandJunction, CO
27. Is it time to go?
- "Yes, it's 2:03"

February 19

President's Day - no class

February 16

Mythos of Antigone vs. Drama of Sophocles
-the story everybody knew vs. the artistic version
-the original or true version can never be determined

Catharsis: the purgation of pity and fear, cleansing of the system

Tiresias: could see things beyond his blindness
-saw the world beyond the scope of a man or a woman
-said Narcissus would live a long time, but only if he never knew himself

The messenger in Greek tragedy: no good news, describes incredible graphic violence.

February 14

What is love? Well, if we could ask Aphrodite Uranos she would say that love was the pure, platonic, intellectual connection between two people's souls. But, if we asked Aphrodite Pandemos she would give us a very different description. She would say love was physical, passionate would make you "weak in the knees." Aphrodite Pandemos would also want to be honored with ritual prostitution.

Imagination is the power to give the unliving flesh and blood.

"The generation of men are the generation of leaves."
-the First Noble Truth: All is suffering.
-"It is best never to have been born at all, next best to die young, and that old age is the worst that can befall man."

February 12

Courtesan: a high-class prostitute or mistress; a tragic, and sometimes mysterious figure, who is linked to powerful, rich influential men; these women are often ostracized and made to be a comedic figure
-a figure that is being lost in today's world

Some famous courtesans:

-Manon

-Violetta

-Odette

-Cleopatra

-Marilyn Monroe

-Anna Nicole Smith

Why should we be so possessed by these people?

-What is it that makes an icon?

The failure of understanding between men and women is older than drama.

-The Pinchie Scorner was acted out by Elizabeth and Sutter

--"Life has imitated art."

-Fogs do not actually exist, they only exist because the artists created them.

Our assignment: Imitate art. (preferably legally)

Two blogs about a Steiner page to look at are Amy's and Brittany's.

-Screed: a long discourse or essay

-Genius: a spirit inside of you; when you invoke your own genius, it brings out the best in you

--Therefore, I'm a genius (and so are you!)

Error in Steiner's Antigones, page 235: Cleopatra did not say "mortal coil" (that was Hamlet) she said "knot intrinsicate."

-Yea! Steiner actually makes mistakes too!

Antigones, page 109: "the Antigone gesture is made"

Our assignment: Make an Antigone gesture.

Archaic: exceedingly old; page 36 of Antigone references the story of Niobe (see page 188 of Metamorphoses)

-Niobe was turned to stone, and that stone still weeps today.