Author: Alexandra Marr

It has been awhile since I have posted on the blog because I used to think that the ideas I had to post were not worthy of posting. I wanted to have everything connecting with Intertextuality clearly, to where my words in the text matched my observation. But, that’s not how it goes I’m afraid. We have to take route from our text and apply it to everyday situations.  Continue reading “Transitioning”

Today in class, we went through the bedford dictionary and thought about the format of the work. I thought that it was interesting how everything was interconnected when giving the definitions of one word or idea. So you could look up a word and see go to a different word for the definition. That could use a lot of time, but it makes sense. I wondered if it would be better to group some of the ideas together. For instance, there are so many different types of Irony. So under I, perhaps you could see all the Ironies. I think that would have helped me when going through the book.  I did like looking through the book and reading the definitions that I already know.  It’s very interesting to look and see a bunch of different ideas, because they added a bunch of Ages where the ideas are no longer a simple definition book. They are a plethora of ideas in this book and even though it had a lot to get through, it was full of knowledge that I didn’t think would be in there.

I am disgusted with myself that I let myself push this part of the course so far out of my brain to where I have days when I post multiple entries. But in my defense, this book makes me feel extremely dumb. Like, really really dumb. How can I be an English Major if I can’t get through this? (Que my read more to find out that I actually do it) Continue reading “Stanley Fish”

I am posting another blog about Interdisciplinarity still on the science and nature chapter. Again, I did read this before class but didn’t understand until we talked about it in class, so I think it’s really wonderful that we did  talk about it. The section about travel writing really stuck in my head because I never really thought about travel writing. I didn’t think this genre, or in the book it quoted ‘in between genre’ had much value.  Continue reading “Travel writing”

The chapter in Interdisciplinarity talked about science, nature and the relationship in between all of these genres. I read this prior to class, yet I was very happy to re-read it in class because I had missed the point of the chapter. Joe Moran has talked about what we think we know to be true about science, and then has smashed that idea by saying things like Geography is not defined by nature but by culture and people. This goes against everything I have known to be true! How is space defined by people? Continue reading “Science and Space”

I was not looking forward to reading this essay to learn about the author. I thought that I would learn enough about Jean Toomer through his work. Of course, if I didn’t read this essay I wouldn’t know that Jean Toomer was originally Nathan Pinchback Toomer. And that Toomer was  not brought up because of his father abandoning his dear mother.

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I understand why an author would want to write under a fictitious name, it has been many times. Lewis Carroll, S.E. Hinton, Robert Galbraith. I couldn’t think of the word but I know it know! This is known as pseudonym, when authors use different names for whatever they want. Robert Galbraith is J.K. Rowling. S.E. Hinton made her name initals so she would be assumed a man and published. And Lewis Carroll is Charles Dodgson a lonely mathematician.

I don’t think it’s wrong for a writer to use a different name. In fact I have one for myself if I ever needed one. Andra Ramm. In case I wrote something I wasn’t proud of or something I wouldn’t be taken seriously in. It’s okay for authors to do this even if they are technically deceiving us. The writer that they are might be trying a completely different genre and not want to be associated and compared to their previous works. That makes complete sense. A fake name is like a fresh start, a whole career to add on top of one. So Jean Toomer may not fully be Jean Toomer but his legacy lies with this name. I believe later in the essay it talked about him wanting to or actually changing his writing name because of the exceptions that came with the Toomer name.

A pseudonym name gives an author freedom to be a different writer. I imagine it would be exciting to have a whole career based on romance novels and then change your name to publish hard core murder mysteries. But I think it’s important for me to state that I don’t think Jean Toomer changed himself really. He was always a Toomer, so truly all he changed was his first name. And I think it was a right choice because of his grandfathers amazing history to showcase his linage.

Irony is something everyone knows from experience and can see it in life, but giving irony a definition would be a Herculean task. From reading the bedford, there are several types of irony, which is great because we use them all. Irony has a Greek origin Eiron, Eiron was a character who was essentially an underdog. He was a weakling but managed to defeat his opponents by tricking them or simply making them look foolish. Good idea when he could not match against them physically.

There is so many different elements to consider when thinking about irony. There is Socratic, romantic, structural! Of course, listing all the different ironies doesn’t mean you understand them. What I found the most fascinating of the whole chapter would be the Romantic irony. It was a little confusing when I was reading the chapter, so I looked up some examples and definitions to help me better understand. It is still a convoluted idea to me, because the narrator makes up our world but then in the middle shows us he is not a trustful narrator. How crazy is this idea?! We have been trusting the narrator the whole time and following everything he says! Bedford says the suspension of disbelief and the reader would surely feel this way, the reader would have a moment when they question whether or not to possibly continue on with the story! This isn’t what I thought romantic irony would be and it blows my mind. The reader is supposed to see through the narrator and appreciate the cunning nature they have. And I’m sure the reader would have to fall in the love with the narrator more, even if we can’t trust them. How could you hate a character with such a wide assortment of qualities?

I think romantic irony would add such amazing dynamic in a work. I tried to look up if this is a common tool in writing but was getting caught on dead ends. I read quite a bit, and I can say they I haven’t come across romantic irony in a very long time! It certainly should be used more, it’s truly a fascinating idea to make an untrustworthy narrator and see where the consequences lead you.  I would love to be able to try to write in romantic irony. You can’t say this is a simple technique because the ground work you have to lay out would be extensive and then to rip all that up? This would be something that would take the author awhile, but I feel like it’s a great gutsy move. This is why it’s important to read all the boring, assigned reading. You stumble across something and get super excited. That’s the beauty of English as a whole. Romantic irony is a technique that will be useful in the future, this I am positive enough.