Individual Presentations--Day Four

Well I've changed my mind. I think I'm going to continue blogging on the individual presentations and only after they are complete, submit my final entry to this blog. Farewells are always bittersweet. We will never be in this place, literally or metaphorically, ever again. I don't feel it would be right to sum up a class that hasn't come to a close yet. With that said, here are the notes from today's individual presentations:

Erik--wrote about his experience with his broken ribs in relation to Beckett's character of Moran's suffering. He read to us a list he wrote that was, much like Beckett, poignant, humorous at times, and sad.

Caitlin--was inspired by the quote from a movie clip in the group presentations, "What we do in life echoes in eternity" she analyzed many of the themes in class in regards to movies.

Jon Orsi--said this class was ultimately close to a religious experience for him in regards to the revelations he has achieved this semester. Jon wrote the quote "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." by William Blake. He wrote on Jorge Luis Borges as well.

Zach Smith--wrote about the rose and the yew tree. He said these are like two sides of the same coin. Parts of infinity exist in life and life in infinity. only through life do we understand the infinite or need the infinite. He saw the image of the rose in his mind shadowed under the lofty branches of the yew tree. The yew tree, at first seems the noble one. Why would it allow the rose to live here? Then we see the rose, and life itself, as the noble and regal one, rather than the yew. Now we see that the yew protects life.

Shelby--what do I know now that I didn't before and her journey through highbrow literature. Highbrow literature may be perceived as a "snobbery of the literary elites" but it is really, "an obsession that cannot be helped"

Jennie Lynn--wrote about transmutation in Eliot's Quartets in relation to our transmutation while reading them. She spoke of their associations with the four elements and of Kenneth Graham's idea that there is a fifth element here, the idea of quintessence. Jennie says this quintessence is the reader. To isolate and know the meaning we must isolate and know ourselves. So our reading becomes a purification of self.

Craig Stephenson--talked about Hamlet, strangebrew, and Fishing with Ghandi. relating all these to a defense of the lowbrow.

Jennifer--sang us a song holding a candle flame in the dark as the sole source of illumination. Later, a thunderstorm appeared on the screen. As I understood it, her paper was on Eliot and god and the "spirit" that can be found therein.