After hearing everyone’s presentations I feel as if everyone did a great job representing their author and his or her ideas. There were some ideas that stuck out to me and hopefully will help me in the writing of my final paper.
I really enjoyed the reading of Bakhtin that Lauren and I did. I found a great deal of usefull information and ideas that really stuck out to me. While listening to everyone else’s presentations at the table I was starting to get worried because Bakhtin’s ideas were so radically different then everyone else’s readings. Bakhtin did not talk about history or things of that nature. Instead he just tried to define what makes a novel great and give ideas anc characteristics of the novel. I really thought that what I read about the two different interpretations to be extremely true. I think that this is really important to a novel, that everyone can take a different meaning from the text. The author and reader are always allowed to have two different viewpoints and it leads to different interpretations and meaning. This also leads to the literary language and extra literary language as well. I think that in every literature class I have ever taken these points have always been brought up and expressed. What the author is trying to say that literary is right there on the page in front of you, and the extra literary, the meaning is what we must search for. I think that since this piece was written over 25 years ago Bakhtin will be very happy to know that many of his ideas stand true and are used today. I am sure that I will use many of his different ideas to help me write my final paper.
I also think that Nancy Armstrong’s ideas really interested me as well and I like what Kellie and Meg had to say about her as well. I think that this semester we have done a lot of reading on women’s roles and what they had to say could help relate to both Myra Beckinridge and Mary in The Uses of Enchantment. I think that Nancy Armstrong has a lot to say about women and the “new woman” and these are some things that I would like to learn more about. I feel as if gender roles are so important, not only to the literature we’ve read, but to society today.
Lastly, I also was really intrigued by what Alex and Tammy had to say about Linda Hutcheon’s work. I have never even heard the term “Metafiction” and I was really interested to hear what they had to say about it and why it is important to literature. THis is something I feel as if I would have to read more on. I also really like this author’s idea about how historical narrative and historical fiction are interwoven together. I do agree with that and think it is very true that history can be found in fiction. I think in many fiction novels the author’s take some part of history, whether it just be a broad account of history of a specific example and try to include it in their piece.
October 15, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I think that you and Lauren did a great job in your presentation on Bahktin. As I go into thinking about the final novel project, I know that I will definitely be using him as a theorist since he demands such particular things from the novel. It seems as if he doesn’t beat around the bush (for lack of a better term) in order to say that it is okay to have different interpretation of a novel. I also love how he has literary, and extra literary, what you read and what you actually get out of the novel.
October 15, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I also liked your presentation on Bakhtin. It seemed that you really knew his theories and had some passion for his ideas. I liked the idea that there is no canon because people see the novel in different ways.
Also I liked Armstrong because she has a lot of good theories on the representation of women and their role in society like the Jane Austen novels.
October 18, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I really enjoyed your presentation on Bakhtin. The abstract clearly defines his ideas and seems to be very relateable to any novel. I like how you pointed out both in class and on your blog that Bakhtin seems to answer in his own words what makes a novel great. It’s interesting to see another person’s point of view on what makes a great novel when just a couple of weeks ago we were trying to pinpoint what the qualities of a great novel were. I think I will definitely be able to use Bakhtin in my final paper.