Author: Kate Keller

After going a while back in the archive that is this website, I found a post to which I found I could speak to. I read Deirdre’s post, “Words,” in which she discussed the idea of esoteric knowledge and how if we take the specific meanings away from words, and define them by their “differential relationship with other signifiers,” they lose their esoteric meanings – and by extension, I think, their value as a whole.

I agree wholeheartedly with Deirdre; words certainly have special relationships with the things that they are attached to, otherwise we may as well communicate in clicks and tongues (I exaggerate, but I think you know what I mean). The most remarkable thing about words is the fact they have such an array of meanings, meanings that cover such an expanse of human emotion and experience so that we as a people can express ourselves fully. Words and their meanings, sometimes so beautiful, can move a person to tears. If we take away their special connotations, and relate words simply by what they are not, we take away the artistry of life that is found in language. Isn’t description where so much of that happens? Who has ever listened to an arrangement of words composed into music and hasn’t felt moved by the story being told? That is where magic is created, where words meet beauty, beauty meets soul, and soul meets the spirit of life.

Even if we weren’t concerned with maintaining some sort of reverence for poet, compelling culminations of words, if we decide to define them by their “differential relationship with other signifiers,” I doubt anyone would ever really be able to communicate. As Professor McCoy generously quotes, “it’s amazing a sentence is ever understood,” (my apologies if I quoted that incorrectly) and I imagine that would become an even greater feat if everyone adhered to that definition of a word.

“For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” – Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things” (1968)

Each time I read these words, I am moved as deeply as I was the first time I heard them (which was in a choral arrangement by Joan Szymco). These words remind me of the beauty that is found in the natural world, and how we can find solace by “coming into the peace of wild things.” This idea has been found in literature for hundreds of years (Frankenstine, Thoreau, Heart of Darkness, etc..), and The Bacchae and Cane  are no exceptions.

While rewriting the first essay for our class, I took many much-needed breaks by reading some of Berry’s poetry. He wrote my favorite poem (quoted above), and so I’ve made an effort to expose myself to more of his writing. While reading his book of collected poems, I stumbled upon nothing other than pine-tree imagery. My first reaction was mere incredulity; I couldn’t believe I had actually read it, and was sure I was just spending so much time in the worlds of Euripides and Toomer that I was simply imagining it. I was of course not imagining it, and when I finally accepted what I had read, I began to view it in a much more receptive mindset.

I re-read the poem (“The Handing Down”) and began to appreciate his use of pine-tree imagery in his poetry. It made me think of all of the intertextual connections we have been exposed to, not only in this class, but in all of our English classes we have taken. I reflected not only on the connections between Cane and The Bacchae, but the connections found between Berry’s poem I cited above, Heart of Darkness, and Watchmen. It becomes more and more exciting each time I find these connections between different texts, because it’s exciting to discover where different authors and writers have found inspiration, and where they are carrying a conversation from. I think it’s important to analyze these connections because it allows us as readers to deepen our relationship with any given text, which further enables us to truly appreciate and take away from something an author has written.

 

If anyone is curious to hear the poem as a choral arrangement (it’s one of my favorites), I’ve included a link:

As humans, it seems that we have a constant, inherent need and desire to categorize; we put labels on everything, and place every aspect of our lives into neat, little boxes, each set  in their own special corner of our minds. I assume this is our brains’ way of comprehending the world around us, by breaking down the information to its most simplistic level and lumping it together with other similar pieces of information – therefore, it is only natural that we have come to take the broad spectrum of knowledge around us and differentiate it into smaller, more concentrated areas of study.

In Interdisciplinarity chapter 2, Moran discusses how a man named Raymond Williams brings up that the “original meaning of ‘literature’ was interdisciplinary,” meaning that the term literature itself used to cover all forms of writing. This includes not just artistic writing, but also covers historical and scientific works. In the present day, literature refers more so to “highly valued” creative writing, not biographies or science journals. This change coincides with (what I believe to be) our tendencies to categorize. What I really find interesting, however, are our attempts to reverse all the specification we have done. The concepts of intertextuality and interdisciplinary actively work against this seemingly natural process of distinguishing between different pieces of information, and work toward finding connections between things people have tried so desperately to separate. Conversely, it’s interesting to me that it seems difficult to restrain the English subject as a whole to one category, despite the efforts of many scholars – though I suppose for Moran’s purposes of interdisciplinarity, it’s helpful to his argument.

When I initially read the first chapter of Interdisciplinarity and Moran described English as being an “autonomous” area of study, I mostly agreed and was interested by the idea of English being something separate and unique from other disciplines. However, a few days ago my friends and I engaged in a conversation regarding my possible declaration of the English major – with which I was met with much criticism and friendly harassment – and after much deliberation, it was decided that continuing to study English was actually a good idea. My roommate, a biology major, worried about losing some of her ability to write, which was echoed by our neighbor, also a biology major. We agreed that while frequently dismissed as a serious discipline, studying the English language and its conventions, specifically writing, is actually pertinent to all areas of study, and even important outside of the classroom.

Being well-versed in English doesn’t just mean having exceptional analytical skills, or being über-perceptive about an author’s purpose behind writing a text; it’s about being able to communicate your own feelings and thoughts to other people, whether that be on the page, verbally, formally, or informally. These communication skills are not exclusive to English classes; nearly every other academic class I’ve been in has required some form of writing – the most challenging being in my science and math classes, where I have had to explain, with detail and clarity, step-by-step what calculations I did, why I chose said calculations, and why I followed a certain procedure. So to Moran, and my friends who are majors in math and science, English is certainly not an “autonomous” subject, but rather the complete opposite. It is indefinitely intertwined with all disciplines, and allows us to effectively communicate both inside and outside of academic settings.