For our first major assignment in this course, I wrote an essay titled “Looking More Closely Still”. In this essay, I focused on the Suspicious Pants tweet epigraph, which we examined in class during its first few sessions.
I explain how through class discussion, each of my peers and I had differing opinions on what we saw in these pants. As I mention in the essay, this notion parallels the concept of each individual reader analyzing texts in their own unique ways. Some people will have specific quotes that resonate strongly with them, while others may read that same quote and have a total opposite understanding. Furthermore, I affirm that it is important to allow the opinions of others into your mind in order to learn yourself. I then related the Suspicious Pants to the reading of Euripides’ The Bacchae. The Bacchae tells the story of Greek god Dionysus, who returns to his homeland of Thebes in search of revenge against those who spoke ill of his late mother. His authority as a god is not taken seriously upon his arrival. As I mention in my first essay, “Dionysus began to curse the women who spoke against him, who happened to be his mother’s sisters. These Maenads, as they were called, brought havoc to Thebes, which greatly angered Pentheus. Pentheus locked up Dionysus, which resulted in the derangement of the Maenads. Agave, one of the Maenads, was under the possession of the Bacchus, which caused her to kill Pentheus.” I focus on line 1281 of the play, which reads “Look more closely still. Study it carefully.” Agave returns to Thebes exuding with pride over the supposed lion that she thinks she killed. In line 1281, Cadmus speaks this proposition with hopes of bringing clarity to Agave and her action.
When I originally analyzed this quote back in September, my thought was focused on being open to the interpretation of literature from peers. I explain in my essay “It took Cadmus saying for her to actually look at it in order for her to realize she was the reason her son was dead. Her close minded viewpoint relates to those suspicious pants—if you only look at things from only your own perspective, you restrict yourself from gaining valuable insight.” Through discussion with my groupmates about the Suspicious Pants and studying the pants carefully, I was able to notice details that had gone unnoticed upon first glance. These details include but are not limited to: the wrinkles in the pants creating eyelids, the buttons in the pocket looking like eyes, and the stitching along the beltline resembling lips.
While I still agree with this interpretation, now that I’ve gone through this course, I’ve realized that this quote also applies to both the concepts of New Criticism and New Historicism that we learned this semester. According to The Bedford, New Criticism is defined as “a type of formalist literary criticism characterized by close textual analysis”. In this course, I have quite literally looked more closely at the texts we worked with, practicing the close textual analysis that The Bedford describes. This work was done through diligent reading of the course materials, as well as providing specific textual evidence in writing the mini-collaborations, such as the Frenzy regurgitation piece from October. As I have spent time reading for this course, I have studied each text carefully, as Cadmus suggests. Coming into class, I was prepared for the discussions that would ensue. I feel as though I was able to focus on thinkING and understanding by doing this, which is what I stated was a goal of mine in my September essay. Looking “more closely still”, however, is not just limited to the New Criticism perspective.
New Historicism, as I have learned, demonstrates another connection to Cadmus’ line in The Bacchae. According to The Bedford, New Historicism “assumes that literary works both influence and are influenced by historical reality, and they share a belief in referentiality, that is, a belief that literature both refers to and is referred to by things outside itself.” The careful study that has taken place throughout this semester was mostly done in a New Historic manner. We went outside of the texts through watching films, discussing laws about films such as the Hayes Codes, and reading author interviews in order to more carefully study our course materials. I now realize that in order to “look more closely still”, you need to educate yourself on the influences that affect a piece of literature so a more well rounded understanding can be achieved.
Those Suspicious Pants that we examined in class have formed a through line, connecting all of the work done this semester. Every time we started a piece of literature, I found myself feeling a recurring sense of confusion, as I did on day two of this class while looking at the Suspicious Pants. I see now that this tweet embodies what this course is all about. At first glance, literature seems daunting. Especially in this course, I was initially overwhelmed with the language of Frenzy and reading the picaresque novel I Am Not Sidney Poitier. Percival Everett’s style of work was not something I was familiar with prior to starting this course. However, the longer time you spend working with a text, you begin to have bits and pieces of understanding. This remains true for the study of The Bacchae and Frenzy that were done in this course toward the beginning of the semester. As I explain in my first essay, when I read The Bacchae for the first time, I understood the gist, but realized I had missed key details after talking with group members. Slowing down, going back into the text, and re-reading after discussion allowed me to realize where I had missed. Furthermore, I was able to have a better understanding of the plot of The Bacchae after reading Percival Everett’s Frenzy. In Frenzy, Everett teaches his readers the story of The Bacchae through his unique adaptation of the characters and the plot. His inclusion of the narrator, Vlepo, as the “seer”, gives readers a first hand point of view in actions and thoughts of characters, which are then reported back to Dionysos. For example, Everett writes on page 17 of Frenzy “Dionysos looked to me. ‘I will put you into a woman and you will tell me what is felt.’ Before I could offer my opinion, I was in the body of a woman, feeling her delirium, walking toward a freshly killed deer from which others were tearing strips of flesh.” Everett’s adaptation of The Bacchae allows the reader to gain a new understanding of a more ancient text.
The experience of reading The Bacchae first, followed by Frenzy, was important in my understanding of the importance of viewing literature from a New Historical lens. Had we not gone outside the text and read The Bacchae, as a new historicist would do, the plot of Frenzy would’ve made little sense. I would have viewed it as an isolated piece of literature, unable to achieve a deeper understanding. Everett’s weaving of Euripides’ work into his own, without plagiarism of course, demonstrates intertextuality. This term is defined in The Bedford as “The condition of interconnectedness among texts, or the concept that any text is an amalgam of others, either because it exhibits signs of influence or because its language inevitably contains common points of reference with other texts.” Intertextuality is the basis of the New Historic way of looking at literature, and taking this course has allowed me to understand this.
This entire semester, we have been working on the concept of intertextuality. We have done this through “looping back”, as Dr. McCoy says to previous works we studied and finding the connection between them and the current piece. As I look back on my time in ENGL 203, I realize that those Suspicious Pants set the foundation for what we would learn about in the class. All that we have done ties back to those first few class meetings and discussions.
In the conclusion of my first essay, I state that my goals for this class include: refraining from focusing on my end grade, honoring the thoughts of my peers, and slowing down. As I reflect on this course, I believe that I can say I achieved my goals. Although I thought avoiding the pressure of the grade would be a significant challenge, it was actually a refreshing experience. Back in September, I believed this would be the case because of my former educational experiences. I have always strived for perfection and placed unrealistic expectations on myself for a grade. Removing the looming thought of the grade from the course seemed impossible at the time, but I am glad that I met the challenge. Experiencing this course free from the grade made me engaged without pressure or fear. Achieving these goals did not occur without reminders of the purpose of the course, though. As Dr. McCoy would say, the “ghost of previous training” did make its appearance quite often throughout the semester. At times, I found myself operating through moves in a checklist fashion, just trying to get things done. Slowing down was the hardest part of this course for me, but the challenge was rewarding and allowed me to learn how to “take care of readers” —another one of Dr. McCoy’s phrases— in my work. By taking time and focusing on the process, I feel as though I have been able to craft better, more coherent work. As I continue through my collegiate career, I will remember those Suspicious Pants and all that I have learned in this course.