My university has a forum called 'The Student Bar' which is basically quite a lot like facebook, only The Student Bar was there in the days before facebook. Anyway, I started a thread on there when I was in my second year called 'Advice To Freshers' which proved to be a hit and I got a LOT of positive feedback from it. I was rooting through my Bureau having a sort-out when I found a load of notes I made for it in an old exercise book, so I thought I'd write it down here so that anyone else, regardless of which uni you're planning on going to - all around the world, if you're about to start university, or 'College' as Americans seem to call it, you're all going to find yourself in pretty much the same situation. So this blog/article/whatever will give you the benefit of my first hand experience of what to expect.
1. LEAVING HOME
Leaving home to live on your own can be a daunting prospect at the best of times, but moving to another part of the country/world to a new place full of strangers and pretty much being left to your own devices can be pretty scary. Depending on whether or not you get on well with your family, it can also be an extremely emotional time.
You may think it's hit you when you've got a car full of boxes containing your whole life for the next 3-4 years, and your mum is blubbing on your shoulder about how she can't understand how you've grown up so fast but you'll always be her baby.. but you would be wrong. The time when reality really hits you right in the gut is when you're in your bare room, surrounded by all your stuff in boxes and the door closes behind your parents, and you're left sitting on your bed, alone, thinking 'now what'?
Many of us experience homesickness - even those of us who don't seem to. It's nothing to be ashamed of or to be embarassed by - a lot of those who you see partying the hardest are often the ones missing home the most. I know a lot of my friends spent the first two weeks in tears because they missed everyone at home so much, even if 'home' was a half-hour drive away (!)
Part of the shock is also to do with your clinical looking new room - but once you've got all your stuff unpacked (which you should do as soon as possible) and put your own duvet cover on, scattered your cushions, pictures and general junk around (and if you're a messy person, make a bit of a mess) and you'll feel right at home in no time!
Taking photos of your loved ones and sticking them up around your room really helps - as do frequent phonecalls home. The best thing you can do to avoid the homesick blues and enjoy yourself is to get out there, and get involved in university life - after all, a majority of you are there for three years - make the most of it while you can! I know you're probably fed up with hearing people banging on about university being the best years of your life - I mean, they lied about school didn't they!, but really, uni really is the best time you'll ever have in your life. I've been graduated for just under a year now, and not a day goes by without me wishing I was still a student!
Another small point to note, is that almost EVERYONE I know, and have spoken to on this matter has come to the same conclusion: the people you meet and befriend in your first few weeks of uni, you'll be friends with for the rest of your time there, and undoubtedly, will be friends with for the rest of your life. Out of my circle of 5 best friends at uni, 1 of them I met in the office of the course convenor before I even officially joined, and 3 of the others I met in my first two weeks.
Don't be afraid to talk to people - they're all in the same boat as you. It might be a little frustrating initially on the first day where EVERYONE asks you the same 5 questions:
1. What's your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. What course are you doing?
4. What halls/college are you staying in. (If you're living off-campus, this complicates things because they then want to know where that is, and is it near to town, how long is the walk into uni, what's it like in the outside world in that area, are you living with parents still etc etc etc)
5. Want to go check out the bar later?
After 3 hours of this, I felt like making a cardboard sign and hanging it around my neck to save time!
2. THREE SIMPLE RULES OF UNIVERSITY SEX
1. Just because you have had sex with somebody, it doesn't automatically mean you are boyfriend and girlfriend, unless, of course, you were already going out to begin with. Welcome to the world of the one night stand. Not amazingly pleasant if you're not a one-night-stand kinda person, but a reality you should be aware of.
2. ALWAYS use protection! condoms are often given out free from univeristy medical centres - there are Sexually Transmitted Diseases all over the place, so don't take any unneccesary chances! You might be the most loyal monogomous person in the world, but it doesn't matter because the person you sleep with might change their sexual partners more often than they change their socks. If you're in doubt, go to a sexual health clinic and get yourself checked out. Yes, it'd be embarassing, but you'd rather be safe than sorry, right?
3. If you're having sex in your room in halls (I think Americans call them dorm rooms) EVERYONE will hear it unless you have a bed that doesn't squeak or knock against anything, and you are really quiet. If not, the chances are you will be teased in the morning. Pretty much everyone in your block will know about it. For all the good they do, the walls may as well not be there. Also, show some consideration for those trying to sleep in the rooms on either side, above and below you. If you're having a great time, well, good for you, but the other people trying to get to sleep or trying to study really don't need to hear it. Show some consideration.
3. LIVING OFF-CAMPUS: WHAT TO EXPECT
I was in a draughty old cottage for my first year with four other people, and poor insulation throughout, and absolutely no insulation in the kitchen, which made mealtimes rather interesting in the depths of winter. UCAS made a mistake on my grades and sent my first choice university the wrong information so they rejected me, even though I HAD got the right grades, so I had to go through clearing and because this was so last minute, all the halls had filled up so I had to find my own place independently and share with a bunch of people I'd never met. Not an ideal situation - I ended up hating 3 of them and being best friends with one!
Anyway - the three detestables were the most wasteful people I knew, having the heating up to 30'C with all the windows wide open, leaving lights on throughout the house all night when they came in drunk etc etc.
Our average bills (bearing in mind, this was 2005-2006 so inflation and recession have raped these prices) excluding water came to (each)
£35 quarterly - gas (british gas)
£8 monthly (excluding calls) - BT Broadband @ £30 a month+ phone £10.50 a month
£30 quarterly - electicity (southern electric?)
like I said, these are in no way accurate representations of todays prices - this was the world before BT put the prices up on everything
BINS: if you have your wheelie bin stolen (usually by drunk students thinking it'd be funny to ride in) it will cost YOU £50 to replace it. They aren't freebees from the council, and your landlond won't pay as it is you responsibility to keep the property intact and in order.
If you're living in a place like Canterbury, where the council are anal about which rubbish they collect and when, it can pile up very quickly. Canterbury takes in rubbish on alternate weeks - so one week is recyclables, the next week is household waste (which absolutely SUCKS if you live in a flat so your entire kitchen ends up being one giant bin. If you refuse to buy a wheelie bin and put your crap in black bin bags, they won't be collected, and you'll get a snarky note from the environmental services people put on them saying that they won't be collected because they don't 'do' black bags, and if they find them on the street again, they'll give you a £50 fine for littering. Which is absolutely ludicrous, in my opinion, but I don't make the rules. The alternative is to buy purple bags, which are £13 for 30. In all honesty, the £50 chunk of cash may bring a lump to your throat, but it's a far less bitter pill to swallow in the long run than £13 for 30 bags which would last you maybe 2-3 months depending on how much waste you produce.
TV LICENCE
When you get a TV licence, regardless of whether or not your landlord paid for it, always make sure you have a copy of it in a safe place in the house where it won't get lost. In my first year, the landlord supposedly paid for it (he said he did a lot of things... a note to the wise: student landlords will try to fuck you over in any way they can, so be on your guard - get EVERYTHING in writing, so you can throw it in their face when they turn round and try to screw you out of money you don't owe)
and we had several warning letters and a visit from the TV licence company who wanted to fine us £1000 for not having a TV licence. We actually had two licences for the house, but as our landlord had the documents, we couldn't prove it, and spent 3 weeks trying to sort it out and battling with them because they wanted to send the bailiffs around.
4. HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS: A CHECKLIST
The best way we found of organising the household shopping was to have a kitty: we each stuck a tenner in at the beginning of the term and had one person designated to do the 'kitty shopping'. When all the money was gone, we all stuck another tenner in. This prevented arguments over whose turn it is to buy toilet paper, and stopped one person ending up paying more than everyone else.
What you will need:
Washing up liquid
Sponges (the fat yellow ones may cost a bit more, but they last much longer than the cheaper thinner ones)
Jay Cloths (those gingham fabric things for mopping up spills)
dusters (for the tv mainly)
kitchen roll, and lots of it. Never underestimate how many things can be spilt when drunk
toilet roll, and even more of it - often ends up being a substitute for kitchen roll when someone's forgotten to buy it
bathroom cleaner.
dettol surface spray for the kitchen
BLEACH! trust me, you do NOT want mushrooms growing in your shower like we had, because the tiles weren't sealed properly and mushrooms started sprouting out of the rotting grouting.
binbags for indoor bins
black bags for general rubbish. recycling bags tend to be delivered free by the council
hoover bags - sounds obvious, but make sure you get the right one
a bucket - ALWAYS useful - from swabbing the decks to a pot for making mashed potato when you have 12 people around for sausage and mash
air freshner. A MUST for the loo!!!!!
5. LANDLORDS
As aforementioned, my landlord for my first year was an exceptionally bad one, and my landlord in my third year could rival Joe Walker (dad's army) in terms of conning people. So, some practical advice:
1. Very rarely will you find a genuinely good landlord. They are there to get as much money out of you as possible, not letting you stay there out of the kindness of their hearts, so if they can find a way out of doing work on the house, they will. If they don't do something that needs doing - like fixing a ceiling that's fallen in (which has actually happened to one of my friends - it fell on her laptop - so make sure you get all your gear insured!!!, or your fridge has exploded (which happened to me in my 3rd year) call them, pester them, and if you have to, threaten them with legal action until they get off their arses and do something about it. If they try and swindle you out of money by saying 'you need to pay for this' challenge them, if you feel that you shouldn't pay (read your contact carefully) and anything they try and charge you for - demand to see the receipts.
2. Get everything in writing. Ask for things in writing, and when you want something done, write to them and make sure everything is dated and/or sent via registered post if it is something important. That way, if they try to deny saying they'd do something later on, you will have the proof that they did agree.
3. If you are being messed around by your landlord, DON'T think that you are helpless. Go to the university students union and the campus accommodations offices and they'll be able to give you advice and support. If your landlord really is an absolute nightmare, get them blacklisted so nobody else has to put up with them.
4. upon moving in, go around with a camera and take photos of everything in the room. print out, write the date on the back, store somewhere safe. Upon moving out, go around with a camera, and take photos of everything - and again print out and write the date on the back. that way if they try to get you to pay damage costs on something that was already broken when you moved in you can tell them where they can stick their damage costs.
5. Landlords will do anything in their power to withhold your deposits at the end of the year. They will find ANY excuse to not give you your money back. My 3rd year landlord said to us he'd take our bins out for us when we all went on holiday for a week. At the end of the year, he tried to charge us £40 per bag. He'd never said ANYTHING about that before. So basically - keep your eyes open - they are all conmen hellbent of screwing you out of every penny you don't have.
6. ALARMS
a quick note for people living in dorms/halls: Have a set of clothes put aside including gloves, and know exactly where they are, because when fire alarms go off at and you're standing outside for 2 hours at 4AM because some pillock forgot they were cooking fajitas, it gets COLD!
here ends my advice (my notes ran out and i can't think of anything else to add to that right now) hope it's been of some help
xx
Monday, March 2, 2009
BACK TO BASICS
BASIC STUFF TO REVISE/REMEMBER:
NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE
- omniscient
- 1st person - i, me, mine
- 2nd person - like a drama - dialogue
- 3rd person - he, she it - p.o.v of narrator
Changing the perspective defamiliarises the story
EMBEDDING (story within a story)
chaucer, arabian nights, frame/individual stories
NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE
- omniscient
- 1st person - i, me, mine
- 2nd person - like a drama - dialogue
- 3rd person - he, she it - p.o.v of narrator
Changing the perspective defamiliarises the story
EMBEDDING (story within a story)
chaucer, arabian nights, frame/individual stories
KIPLING - THE 2ND JUNGLE BOOK
- Kipling questions empire as monolithic political system
- ambiguous comedy - irony
-unbearable pathos in 'spring running'
kiddies books only coming 'in' in the 1890s
-celebration of a childhood
- Absence of didactic moral message - illustrated though characterisation & incident
-EMPHASIS ON PHYSIQUE & RESPECT FOR DISCIPLINE
- parallel with changing notion of 'boyhood' in late victorian period
OUTSIDER
FERAL CHILD- remus (metamorphosis)
TRICKSTER - odysseus, tom sawyer, puss in boots,v. different from previous child protagonists ie Dickens' good, innocent kids.
- ambiguous comedy - irony
-unbearable pathos in 'spring running'
kiddies books only coming 'in' in the 1890s
-celebration of a childhood
- Absence of didactic moral message - illustrated though characterisation & incident
-EMPHASIS ON PHYSIQUE & RESPECT FOR DISCIPLINE
- parallel with changing notion of 'boyhood' in late victorian period
OUTSIDER
FERAL CHILD- remus (metamorphosis)
TRICKSTER - odysseus, tom sawyer, puss in boots,v. different from previous child protagonists ie Dickens' good, innocent kids.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Disposession: deprive, oust, dislodge
ARTHUR MILLER - Crucible 1952 (U.S obsessed with communism)
BRECHT- Active socialist first half of the 20th century
Karl Marx
} communist manifesto 1861.
1% of pupulation= power % 99% = exploited
Freidrich Engles
THE HERETIC'S COAT
the ego is not the centre of the universe
could argue that Hawthorne is too clever to make an impact because the message of the story isn't totally out there and in your face
THE CHALK CIRCLE
underdog story of the ooor getting one-up over the rich
TWO SONS
when a person is stripped naked, they become a person.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE - Rappucini's daughter
WASHINGON IRVING- Rip Van Winkle
OSCAR WILDE - The happy prince
ARTHUR MILLER - Crucible 1952 (U.S obsessed with communism)
BRECHT- Active socialist first half of the 20th century
Karl Marx
} communist manifesto 1861.
1% of pupulation= power % 99% = exploited
Freidrich Engles
THE HERETIC'S COAT
the ego is not the centre of the universe
could argue that Hawthorne is too clever to make an impact because the message of the story isn't totally out there and in your face
THE CHALK CIRCLE
underdog story of the ooor getting one-up over the rich
TWO SONS
when a person is stripped naked, they become a person.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE - Rappucini's daughter
WASHINGON IRVING- Rip Van Winkle
OSCAR WILDE - The happy prince
RUSSIAN FAIRYTALES
Louis XIV 1670 - 1730
1830 - Afa'nas'ev dedicated his life to collecting russian fairytales like the grims, but determined to write them down faithfully and not change and/or embellish them like the Grimms. Not so much of a writer as a folklorist
Ending of crystal mountain and the golden slipper = 'pay me!' because it is embarrassing to have to ask for money, he makes a joke of it.
Magic objects are basic - eg a shirt, shoe, etc. not rings and lamps like 1001 nights.
frog princess = animal lover
tom thumb - went it up as he went along with well known tropes
ALL: fantasies are about basic wants/needs.
VLADIMIR DROPP- Morphology of the folk tale
parts of a whole and how the parts combine to make the whole.
1830 - Afa'nas'ev dedicated his life to collecting russian fairytales like the grims, but determined to write them down faithfully and not change and/or embellish them like the Grimms. Not so much of a writer as a folklorist
Ending of crystal mountain and the golden slipper = 'pay me!' because it is embarrassing to have to ask for money, he makes a joke of it.
Magic objects are basic - eg a shirt, shoe, etc. not rings and lamps like 1001 nights.
frog princess = animal lover
tom thumb - went it up as he went along with well known tropes
ALL: fantasies are about basic wants/needs.
VLADIMIR DROPP- Morphology of the folk tale
parts of a whole and how the parts combine to make the whole.
BLUEBEARD -Perrault vs Grimm
- powerful & evil suitor
- emphasise prohibition
- series of female victims
- a bias within academic scholars & against female start of story
SOCIETY
Based on Gilles de Rais? (real dude in 1440) - a common theory, but no provable evidence
-Writers try to connect to and exorcise crimes/redeem bluebeard
-similar tendencies found in mythological and socialogical things
WOMEN
bluebeard is not to blame. woman is [charming!] Gustave D'Orcay 1867, Watter Crae, Arthur Rackombe 1900ish }seduction/abandonment of duty of women.
LOCATION = a mystery. "Quasi pseudo erzat medieval german past. weird and eerie"
SOCIAL CONTEXT
Grimms locate story in a forest. Emphasis on a different family structure, female protagonist= sole woman, luebeard = altered: no reference to missing wives. Makes brides fear seem disproportionate. Grimms = fantastical throughout, not as realistic as Perrault. makes it timeless.
- emphasise prohibition
- series of female victims
- a bias within academic scholars & against female start of story
SOCIETY
Based on Gilles de Rais? (real dude in 1440) - a common theory, but no provable evidence
-Writers try to connect to and exorcise crimes/redeem bluebeard
-similar tendencies found in mythological and socialogical things
WOMEN
bluebeard is not to blame. woman is [charming!] Gustave D'Orcay 1867, Watter Crae, Arthur Rackombe 1900ish }seduction/abandonment of duty of women.
LOCATION = a mystery. "Quasi pseudo erzat medieval german past. weird and eerie"
SOCIAL CONTEXT
Grimms locate story in a forest. Emphasis on a different family structure, female protagonist= sole woman, luebeard = altered: no reference to missing wives. Makes brides fear seem disproportionate. Grimms = fantastical throughout, not as realistic as Perrault. makes it timeless.
Charles Perrault - Mother Goose
After dinner entertainer
cleaned up folk tales for the polite ears of high society
Ancients v moderns} sources used = Vernacular
SLEEPING BEAUTY
- Fairy goddess of strife from Troy
- Ogre mother figure symbolising venus - cupid and psyche
CINDERELLA
- Universal story (Egypt 1st century BC = original)
- fairy godmother represents dead mother
RED RIDING HOOD
- young girls think they can get a rich old lord and get into cour by being provocatively dressed. Angela Carter - 'come and get me' red coat attracts wrong kind of attention, mother decking child out in risque clothing.
COMMON THEMES IN FAIRYTALES:
evil stepmother, good fairy, castle, objects that transform/that transform things eg wand, coach and rats etc
cleaned up folk tales for the polite ears of high society
Ancients v moderns} sources used = Vernacular
SLEEPING BEAUTY
- Fairy goddess of strife from Troy
- Ogre mother figure symbolising venus - cupid and psyche
CINDERELLA
- Universal story (Egypt 1st century BC = original)
- fairy godmother represents dead mother
RED RIDING HOOD
- young girls think they can get a rich old lord and get into cour by being provocatively dressed. Angela Carter - 'come and get me' red coat attracts wrong kind of attention, mother decking child out in risque clothing.
COMMON THEMES IN FAIRYTALES:
evil stepmother, good fairy, castle, objects that transform/that transform things eg wand, coach and rats etc
Straparola & Basile
The Decameron [deca=100, so decameron=100 stories] Giovanni Boccaccio [Florence 1348- great plague]
*CHAUCER PLAGIARISED FROM THIS*
Written in VERNACULAR (local lingo - not latin)
STRAPAROLA deals with taboos (snake in womb etc)
Basile colloquial - enjoys the Italian language and ridiculousness
*CHAUCER PLAGIARISED FROM THIS*
Written in VERNACULAR (local lingo - not latin)
STRAPAROLA deals with taboos (snake in womb etc)
Basile colloquial - enjoys the Italian language and ridiculousness
1001 Arabian Nights
Embedding - story within a story
1001= a lot... and then some!
SUPERIMPOSITION-
go to bed, have sex, tell story
make love [sex] make life [baby] make art [story]
MORAL: if men and women aren't getting on, they should go to bed and talk
Parallels to Shaherazade: telling stories suspends death. Absence of narrative means death
doctor, christian, jew, married couple etc - all are cardboard figures. All are flat stereotypes.
ARABESQUE: repetative patterns - carnival aspect of literature and fantasy
CHAPTER SUMMARY
THE STORY OF KING SHARYAR AND HIS BROTHER
- 2 brothers whose wives betray them
- Woman, jinnee, rings
-Agree to never stay married to a woman long enough for her to betray them
THE TALE OF THE OX AND THE DONKEY
-vizir warns Shaherazade against marrying Sharyar. Demonstrates his point with OX and DONKEY story:
-ox envies donkey's easy life. Donkey tells him if he pisses around, he'll be left alone. ox does, and donkey has to do his work. Allah grants the farmer ability to understand animals if he tells his secret, he dies. His wife is harassing him and learns from a cock how to treat women 'properly'. Shaherazade marries Sharyar
THE TALE OF THE MERCHANT AND THE JINNEE
man accidentlly kills a jinnee's son by chucking a date stone at him. 3 sheiks barter for his life: junnee gives them 1/3 of the man's blood if he likes their stories:
1st sheik- cow confusion - gazelle
2nd sheik- dog brothers - dogs
3rd sheik - wife enchants him - mule
THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNEE
man finds a bottle on beach - opens it - jinnee comes out and says he has to kill him. fisherman tricks him back into the bottle. jinnee tries to get him to let him out again. fisherman tells of the tale of the Kin Yunan and the Sage Duban
1. KING YUNAN AND THE SAGE DUBAN
king whose lerosy was cured by playing polo. Evil vizir tries to persuade king duban =bad. king says he is talking nonesense and is just jealous like King Sinbad
2. THE TALE OF KING SINBAD AND HIS FALCON
King sinbad on hunting trip - wanted drink but his falcon kept knocking it out of his hands. he injured it, but realised it was trying to tell him the drink was poisoned. it died and sinbad felt very guilty for killing it
- back to king yunan 3: THE HUSBAND AND THE PARROT (basically chaucer's miller's tale)
- back to king yunan 4: THE PRINCE ANDTHE OGRESS.
prince on hunting trip, finds maiden, follows her. she turns
out to be an ogress trying to lure him back to her lair to
eat him. prince scarpers
- back to yunan
- back to FISHHERMAN AND JINNEE
fisherman caves in; jinnee gets him to cast his nets. he catches fish and jinnee tells him to take them to the king. in return, the kind will make him wealthy. Fish talk. Black man bursts through wall. Asks them if they're keeping their pledge, and then upsets the pan. King gos to place where fish were caught. finds 1/2 man, 1/2 statue who tells his tale
5. THE TALE OF THE ENCHANTED PRINCE
- wife drugs him every night and shags a black slave. he wounds the slave when wife is away. wife goes into mourning. turns prince half to stone and tortures him every night
- Back to fisherman - 6. KING'S TALE
king toes and kills the slave and poses as him. tells woman to release spell over prince. spell of lake and its people is also removed. much rejoicing. prince marries fisherman's daughter (it was thanks to the fisherman that his kingdom was liberated) etcetc and they all lived happily ever after.
7. THE EBONY HORSE
king wants to trade daughter for a flying horse (wood) prince Kamar-al Akmar (her bro) = livid. Flies away on horse. 2 buttons: 1 up, one down. learns to control it. makes a pit stop at a palace. falls in love with a princess and wants to marry her. tells his dad. Quote p85 "by Allah if my son returns home to me, i'll destroy the horse so that he'l be forced to stay on the ground where he belongs and i won't have to worry about him anymore"
princess pays a visit to her future inlaws. sage kidnaps her and horse. flies to Greece. captired by King. Sage imprisoned. King fancies Princess. Kamar al Akmar = on search. disguises himself as a doctor. says he will gure her (she is acting mad) says he needs horse to cure her. king says 'whatever' prince flies off with her. they marry, the horse is destroyed and they all live happily ever after.
8. ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES
hids in a tree, see thieves go into cave with treasure. he does same 'open sesame'
ali's sister in law is curious about what ali's wife
wants to weigh gets coin imprint in wax on scales. kasim threatens ali with the police if he doesn't let him in on the secret. kasim caught and killed by theieves. ali tells kasim's wife he'll marry her to show she'll be cared/provided for;. Morglana (slave) does all the dirty work - tidying up all the loose ends, ketting kasim sewn back together and buried etc (baba mostafa)
robbers on a hunt for their stuff enlist baba mustafa. marks on door - morgiana finds and marks all doors x2. hide in jars. 1 goes to see ali and would give signal to others. disguised as oil merchant. morgiana uncovers plot. she heats up oil and pours it into jars - thus killing robbers. leader finds out and scarpers. bury corpses (secret leader sets up shop in market. befriends ali's nephew invided back for dinner. morgiana recognises him, dresses up as a dancer and kills him (with a sharp ceremonial knife) ali gets his newphew to marry her.
9. ALADDIN AND THE MAGIC LAMP
gets set up with a job as a merchant by his uncle. goes on treasure hunt. instrucet to get lamp. aladdin can't get out because weighed down with gems. moor (uncle) thought = insolent so locked him in the cave. Jnnee appears - Aladdin gets out. uses jinnee for food and sells the platters to a jew (who cheats him) for income. old jewller tells aladdin " jews do not repsect the laws of the moslems and are always cheating them " p148
sultan's daugter visits town. Aladdin dalls in love. his mum thinks he's insane "who would ever dare ask a sultan to wed his daughter to the son of a tailor!" she goes to the king, asks, shows him the jewells, king says 'ok' vizir miffed because the princess is promised to *his* son. king breaks his promise to aladdin. aladdin gets jinnee to bring the two to him in their bridal bed. he shuts the vizir's son in the toilet and sleeps in the same bed as the princess (nothing indecent happened) in the morning, he gets the jinnee to take them back. she tells her mum what happened. same thing happens the next night. marriage is dissolved. al's mum reminds the sulatan of his promise. he sets al a challenge. aladdin passes test with flying colours: uses jinnee to get whatever he needed/desired. king agrees to marriage. everylone loves aladdin - allah in heaven, aladdin on earth etc. moor returns gets lamp has 40 days to find her and bring her back or the sultan will kill him. aladdin finds wife and house (ring jinnee) drugs and kills moor and all goes back to normal. moor has evil brother. persuades princess palace needs a rukh egg. aladdin gets jinnee to get it. jinnee has a hissy fit p208 as the rukh is is histress. but pardons Al because he didn't know. he tricks the moor's bro by pretending to have a headache and then kills him. and they all lived happily ever after.
1001= a lot... and then some!
SUPERIMPOSITION-
go to bed, have sex, tell story
make love [sex] make life [baby] make art [story]
MORAL: if men and women aren't getting on, they should go to bed and talk
Parallels to Shaherazade: telling stories suspends death. Absence of narrative means death
doctor, christian, jew, married couple etc - all are cardboard figures. All are flat stereotypes.
ARABESQUE: repetative patterns - carnival aspect of literature and fantasy
CHAPTER SUMMARY
THE STORY OF KING SHARYAR AND HIS BROTHER
- 2 brothers whose wives betray them
- Woman, jinnee, rings
-Agree to never stay married to a woman long enough for her to betray them
THE TALE OF THE OX AND THE DONKEY
-vizir warns Shaherazade against marrying Sharyar. Demonstrates his point with OX and DONKEY story:
-ox envies donkey's easy life. Donkey tells him if he pisses around, he'll be left alone. ox does, and donkey has to do his work. Allah grants the farmer ability to understand animals if he tells his secret, he dies. His wife is harassing him and learns from a cock how to treat women 'properly'. Shaherazade marries Sharyar
THE TALE OF THE MERCHANT AND THE JINNEE
man accidentlly kills a jinnee's son by chucking a date stone at him. 3 sheiks barter for his life: junnee gives them 1/3 of the man's blood if he likes their stories:
1st sheik- cow confusion - gazelle
2nd sheik- dog brothers - dogs
3rd sheik - wife enchants him - mule
THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNEE
man finds a bottle on beach - opens it - jinnee comes out and says he has to kill him. fisherman tricks him back into the bottle. jinnee tries to get him to let him out again. fisherman tells of the tale of the Kin Yunan and the Sage Duban
1. KING YUNAN AND THE SAGE DUBAN
king whose lerosy was cured by playing polo. Evil vizir tries to persuade king duban =bad. king says he is talking nonesense and is just jealous like King Sinbad
2. THE TALE OF KING SINBAD AND HIS FALCON
King sinbad on hunting trip - wanted drink but his falcon kept knocking it out of his hands. he injured it, but realised it was trying to tell him the drink was poisoned. it died and sinbad felt very guilty for killing it
- back to king yunan 3: THE HUSBAND AND THE PARROT (basically chaucer's miller's tale)
- back to king yunan 4: THE PRINCE ANDTHE OGRESS.
prince on hunting trip, finds maiden, follows her. she turns
out to be an ogress trying to lure him back to her lair to
eat him. prince scarpers
- back to yunan
- back to FISHHERMAN AND JINNEE
fisherman caves in; jinnee gets him to cast his nets. he catches fish and jinnee tells him to take them to the king. in return, the kind will make him wealthy. Fish talk. Black man bursts through wall. Asks them if they're keeping their pledge, and then upsets the pan. King gos to place where fish were caught. finds 1/2 man, 1/2 statue who tells his tale
5. THE TALE OF THE ENCHANTED PRINCE
- wife drugs him every night and shags a black slave. he wounds the slave when wife is away. wife goes into mourning. turns prince half to stone and tortures him every night
- Back to fisherman - 6. KING'S TALE
king toes and kills the slave and poses as him. tells woman to release spell over prince. spell of lake and its people is also removed. much rejoicing. prince marries fisherman's daughter (it was thanks to the fisherman that his kingdom was liberated) etcetc and they all lived happily ever after.
7. THE EBONY HORSE
king wants to trade daughter for a flying horse (wood) prince Kamar-al Akmar (her bro) = livid. Flies away on horse. 2 buttons: 1 up, one down. learns to control it. makes a pit stop at a palace. falls in love with a princess and wants to marry her. tells his dad. Quote p85 "by Allah if my son returns home to me, i'll destroy the horse so that he'l be forced to stay on the ground where he belongs and i won't have to worry about him anymore"
princess pays a visit to her future inlaws. sage kidnaps her and horse. flies to Greece. captired by King. Sage imprisoned. King fancies Princess. Kamar al Akmar = on search. disguises himself as a doctor. says he will gure her (she is acting mad) says he needs horse to cure her. king says 'whatever' prince flies off with her. they marry, the horse is destroyed and they all live happily ever after.
8. ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES
hids in a tree, see thieves go into cave with treasure. he does same 'open sesame'
ali's sister in law is curious about what ali's wife
wants to weigh gets coin imprint in wax on scales. kasim threatens ali with the police if he doesn't let him in on the secret. kasim caught and killed by theieves. ali tells kasim's wife he'll marry her to show she'll be cared/provided for;. Morglana (slave) does all the dirty work - tidying up all the loose ends, ketting kasim sewn back together and buried etc (baba mostafa)
robbers on a hunt for their stuff enlist baba mustafa. marks on door - morgiana finds and marks all doors x2. hide in jars. 1 goes to see ali and would give signal to others. disguised as oil merchant. morgiana uncovers plot. she heats up oil and pours it into jars - thus killing robbers. leader finds out and scarpers. bury corpses (secret leader sets up shop in market. befriends ali's nephew invided back for dinner. morgiana recognises him, dresses up as a dancer and kills him (with a sharp ceremonial knife) ali gets his newphew to marry her.
9. ALADDIN AND THE MAGIC LAMP
gets set up with a job as a merchant by his uncle. goes on treasure hunt. instrucet to get lamp. aladdin can't get out because weighed down with gems. moor (uncle) thought = insolent so locked him in the cave. Jnnee appears - Aladdin gets out. uses jinnee for food and sells the platters to a jew (who cheats him) for income. old jewller tells aladdin " jews do not repsect the laws of the moslems and are always cheating them " p148
sultan's daugter visits town. Aladdin dalls in love. his mum thinks he's insane "who would ever dare ask a sultan to wed his daughter to the son of a tailor!" she goes to the king, asks, shows him the jewells, king says 'ok' vizir miffed because the princess is promised to *his* son. king breaks his promise to aladdin. aladdin gets jinnee to bring the two to him in their bridal bed. he shuts the vizir's son in the toilet and sleeps in the same bed as the princess (nothing indecent happened) in the morning, he gets the jinnee to take them back. she tells her mum what happened. same thing happens the next night. marriage is dissolved. al's mum reminds the sulatan of his promise. he sets al a challenge. aladdin passes test with flying colours: uses jinnee to get whatever he needed/desired. king agrees to marriage. everylone loves aladdin - allah in heaven, aladdin on earth etc. moor returns gets lamp has 40 days to find her and bring her back or the sultan will kill him. aladdin finds wife and house (ring jinnee) drugs and kills moor and all goes back to normal. moor has evil brother. persuades princess palace needs a rukh egg. aladdin gets jinnee to get it. jinnee has a hissy fit p208 as the rukh is is histress. but pardons Al because he didn't know. he tricks the moor's bro by pretending to have a headache and then kills him. and they all lived happily ever after.
Apuleius- The Golden Ass
THEMES:
-understanding femininity
- sexuality and animal sex
-treatment of animals
- egyptian gods vs roman gods
IRONY: begins by seducing women, ends up worshipping women
Learning lessons
Importance/significance of Cupid & Psyche.
Attitudes towards Christianity p155 in this edition - reference to one God.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
BOOK 1
Aristomenes tells Lucius of his tale with Socrates, Meroe & Panthia. Lucius goes to stay with Milo
BOOK 2
Lucius meets up with Byrrhena (his aunt) & is warned about Pamphile (Milo's Wife) shags Photis, the maid, Milo's tale and Thelyphron's tale
BOOK 3
Lucius is set up in a mock-trial for the God of Laughter. Photis confesses. Lucius turns into an ass.
BOOK 4
Lucius is kidnapped by robbers. robbers tell tales and bring back Charite (young girl) who they stole from her wedding. Old woman tells tale of cupid and psyche to comfort her.
Book 5
Cupid and psyche continued...
Book 6
Cupid and Psyche still continued...
Back to robbers. Lucius attempts to escape, old woman grabs him, girl comes to his rescue and they both gallop away. Recaptured.
BOOK 7
Charite's hubby, Tleptolomous (disguised as a robber) comes to rescue her (they were wanting to kill Lucius and sew Charite up inside him and leave her to die). Lucius and charite saved. lucius set fere as reward. Stableman's wife steals him and abuses him
Book 8
Charite is dead. Thrasyllus (jealous ex) kills tleptolomous in a hunting 'accident'. Tlep goes to charite in a dream, tells her what hapened. she pokes Thras' eyes out, runs to hubby's grave and kills herself. Thras wakes up, finds out what happened and starves himself to death. Slaves flee and take lucius with them. Stop @ a village and hear a story about a slave who got above his station. Lucius is auctioned off to a bunch of trannies. Takes it up the arse p143. Gay scene p145. They go to stay with some rich guy.
BOOK 9
Next story at in inn is of a cuckold (jars) lucius is up for sale (again) bought buy a miller and his old harridan of a wife. lucius exposes the wife's lover. miller serves her with a divorce notice. wife gets a ghost to kill him. miller found hung. lucius sold. again. to a poor market gardener. go to posh guy's house. posh guy dies. gardener leaves, beats up soldier who accosts him for lucius, goes into hiding, lucius gives him away. he gets locked up.
BOOK 10
Lucius now belongs to the soldier. soldier has 2 sons. stepmum *likes* son. he isn't interested. gets slave to poison him. her own son comes back and drinks the poison. she accuses/blames her stepson because 'she wouldn't let him rape her'. big trial. all say guilty. stepson's tutor leaps to his defence. he sold slave fake poison (narcotic) because he was suss of him. woman exiled, slave crucified, lucius sold AGAIN to 2 cooks. master gets lucius to eat with him because he is entertaining. woman hires lucius for sex from slave. slave tells master. master finds it funny and wants lucius to 'perform' in public with a whore. lucius - anti-the whore chosen and scarpers. lucius purifies himself and pleads with isis to return him to his normal shape. she does and he becomes her servant (priest)
FIN.
ELEMENTS:FAIRYTALE AND OTHERWISE
* not fable - can't speak to, or understand animals while his is in ass form
- book 7
* biblical and well... not biblical, but religious - isis = egyptian goddess - mother of goddesses
book 10 - appears before lucius and all her symbols- wheat etc.
- Cupid & psyche
- recurring theme: Sex & curiosity = BAD
Metamorphosis
Magic
ARTISTIC AMBITION
Born 125 AD, North Africa
Sent to Carthage (roman north africa)
Then to athens
was a priest in carthage
success @ public speaking - road to fame
purpose - to entertain
Quote: give me your ear, reader: you will enjoy yourself. Book 1
narrative is bulked out by stories heard by lucius both before and after his metamorphosis (books 1-10: anecdotes make up 60% of the book)
Lucius is a mask for the author himself
Book 11 seems out of place and not really attached very well. very serious & anti-climactic. what was the purpose of this?
Show that egyptian gods are better than roman gods.
not written as a social history but is broadly realistic. eg large landowners with retainers etc.
World presented = grim. motivated by deceit, spite, greed and lust.
Original title = metamorphosis 'transformations' - a tale of changes of shape and vicissitudes (changes - esp of fortune) of fortune shows an affinity to ovid's poem of the same name
lucius = 'golden ass' = ironic. to Isis, in her cult, the ass (seth -Typhon) is a hateful beast who killed her husband, Osiris
The reader makes moral judgements on lucius behalf - he lives it, we learn from it.
content/style - some things are dragged out for entertainment eg the woman who tried to poison her stepsson - why didn't the doctor tell the truth straight away - why let the trial drag out for so long first? ENTERTAINMENT why not found out what a a thief? ENTERTAINMENT
THEMES
CURIOSITY - getting him into trouble continually
SEX - true love - cupid and psyche
estranged love - charite & tleptolomus
lust - lucius and photis
homosexuality - the queens
revenge - miller raping his wife's lover (sodomy)
desire - woman + lucius
urge - man + lucius
spectacle - lucius & prostitute
perverse - stepmum/stepson
infidelity - miller & old man with jars.
MAGIC
- city = renown for witchcraft which is what draws lucius there in the first place
- pamphile - witch
- meroe & panthia = witches
- witches seen to be bad
- Byrrhena's friend, theylphron's tale of spirits that stole his eyes/deformed him
WOMEN
wiches are al women and all mean. witches change their shape
women have a vendetta against men
women are not to be trusted
women (eg venus est) = vindictive
women will be unfaithful
BUT
women have the power - isis
charit/psyche/photis women are there to be seduced.#women will always prostitute themselves
women are immoral
METAMORPHOSIS
into an ass
from seducer of woman into worshipper of women
from posh (human) to trash/slave (ass)
people change in their views
MESSAGES
do not trust blindly
look before you leap
let not curiosity get the better of you
do not act before thinking of the concequences
people are not always what/who they seem to be
if someone CAN exploit you, they WILL
QUOTES:
BOOK 1
"Being in any case an all too eager student of the remarkable and miraculous, and remembering that i was now in the heart of Thessaly, renowned the whole world over as the cradle of magic arts and spells and that it was in this very city that my friend Aristomene' story had begun" -p22
BOOK3
"officers of the court led me like some sort of sacrificial victim out across the stage and placed me in the middle of the orchestra" p41 (he was a sacrifice to the god of laughter - his sacrifice was his dignity, not his life)
"nothing he could say or do could alleviate my feeling of outrage at the indicnity i had suffered so feeply had it sunk into my heart" p45 (the first of many)
"the only redeeming feature of this catastrophic transformation was that my natural endowment had grown too"
BOOK 4
RE: psyche: "I'll see to it that she regrets this beauty of hers to which she hwas no right " p73
BOOK 5
" you aren't really rich if nobody knows you are" (psyche's sisters)
"gods and men alike will find it intolerable that you spread desire broadcast through the world, while you impose a bitter constraint on the love in your own family and deny it admission to your own public academy of gallantry" (ceres and juno defending cupid)
BOOK 6
pandora's box type occurance - cupid says to psyche "poor wretch... you see how yet again curiosity has been your undoing" p104
BOOK 7
"the learned men of old... knew what they were talking about when they envisaged and portrayed Fortune as totally blind. It is invariably in the wicked and undeserving... that she bestows her favours. Her choices are never grounded on reason, indeed she goes out of her way to freqent the company of those she ought to avoid like the plague if she could see" p112
"as soon as she saw Haemus and heard what they were saying about pimps and brothels, she became elated and began laughing merrily. That, i felt, justified me in condemning the entire female sex, when i sw this girl who had pretended to be in love with her betrothed and to be pining for a chaste marriage, now delighted by the mention of a filthy sordid brothel. at that moment, the whole race of woman and the morals hung in the balance, with an ass holding the scales" p117
BOOK 8
"will you please our masters and bring relief to my exhausted loins" - man to lucius p145
"they brought back with them to share their dinner, a robust young peasant fully equipped in loin and groin.... the young man was stripped and laid on his back, and crowding around him they made repeated demands on his services with their loathesome mouths' p145 (gay orgy)
BOOK 9
"speaking for myself, i am devoutly grateful to the ass that i once was, for it was he, when i was concealed under his hide and was buffeted by so many tribulations, who rendered me, no wiser, i must admit, but very widely informed" p154
Re Myrmex: "she, fickle like all women, acted in character and agreed to sell her honour for the accursed metal"
Book 10
"what pleased him most of all was that in me he had both a companion and a conveyance" p184
EMBEDDING
LUCIUS STORY = THE FRAME
1. ARISTOMENES - socrates tells of his ruination - aristomenes socrates, meroe and panthia
2. THELYPHRON (at Byrrhena's ) p38 - dead man brought back to life tels what happened when Thelyphron went to sleep
3. PHOTIS - what happened with the goatskins
4. ROBBERS - their exploits
5. OLD WOMAN - tells the tale of cupid and psyche to charite
6. TLEPTOLOMUS (as Haemus) - tale of escape from soldiers etc. a ruse to save charite
7. SLAVES - tells story of charite's death
8. OLD MAN / Serpent - tells tale to lure bait
9. SlAVE - woman has an affair with a slave 0 her hubby finds out, she kills herself and the kid and he kills the slave
10. ARETE & MYRMEX - the guy who leaves his sandals under the bed
11. AT AN INN - man with jars cuckolded
12. MILLER tells of his friend's wife's infidelity
13. LUCIUS tells the story - stepmum and stepson
14. A WHORE for lucius - finding the prostitute - also told by lucius
-understanding femininity
- sexuality and animal sex
-treatment of animals
- egyptian gods vs roman gods
IRONY: begins by seducing women, ends up worshipping women
Learning lessons
Importance/significance of Cupid & Psyche.
Attitudes towards Christianity p155 in this edition - reference to one God.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
BOOK 1
Aristomenes tells Lucius of his tale with Socrates, Meroe & Panthia. Lucius goes to stay with Milo
BOOK 2
Lucius meets up with Byrrhena (his aunt) & is warned about Pamphile (Milo's Wife) shags Photis, the maid, Milo's tale and Thelyphron's tale
BOOK 3
Lucius is set up in a mock-trial for the God of Laughter. Photis confesses. Lucius turns into an ass.
BOOK 4
Lucius is kidnapped by robbers. robbers tell tales and bring back Charite (young girl) who they stole from her wedding. Old woman tells tale of cupid and psyche to comfort her.
Book 5
Cupid and psyche continued...
Book 6
Cupid and Psyche still continued...
Back to robbers. Lucius attempts to escape, old woman grabs him, girl comes to his rescue and they both gallop away. Recaptured.
BOOK 7
Charite's hubby, Tleptolomous (disguised as a robber) comes to rescue her (they were wanting to kill Lucius and sew Charite up inside him and leave her to die). Lucius and charite saved. lucius set fere as reward. Stableman's wife steals him and abuses him
Book 8
Charite is dead. Thrasyllus (jealous ex) kills tleptolomous in a hunting 'accident'. Tlep goes to charite in a dream, tells her what hapened. she pokes Thras' eyes out, runs to hubby's grave and kills herself. Thras wakes up, finds out what happened and starves himself to death. Slaves flee and take lucius with them. Stop @ a village and hear a story about a slave who got above his station. Lucius is auctioned off to a bunch of trannies. Takes it up the arse p143. Gay scene p145. They go to stay with some rich guy.
BOOK 9
Next story at in inn is of a cuckold (jars) lucius is up for sale (again) bought buy a miller and his old harridan of a wife. lucius exposes the wife's lover. miller serves her with a divorce notice. wife gets a ghost to kill him. miller found hung. lucius sold. again. to a poor market gardener. go to posh guy's house. posh guy dies. gardener leaves, beats up soldier who accosts him for lucius, goes into hiding, lucius gives him away. he gets locked up.
BOOK 10
Lucius now belongs to the soldier. soldier has 2 sons. stepmum *likes* son. he isn't interested. gets slave to poison him. her own son comes back and drinks the poison. she accuses/blames her stepson because 'she wouldn't let him rape her'. big trial. all say guilty. stepson's tutor leaps to his defence. he sold slave fake poison (narcotic) because he was suss of him. woman exiled, slave crucified, lucius sold AGAIN to 2 cooks. master gets lucius to eat with him because he is entertaining. woman hires lucius for sex from slave. slave tells master. master finds it funny and wants lucius to 'perform' in public with a whore. lucius - anti-the whore chosen and scarpers. lucius purifies himself and pleads with isis to return him to his normal shape. she does and he becomes her servant (priest)
FIN.
ELEMENTS:FAIRYTALE AND OTHERWISE
* not fable - can't speak to, or understand animals while his is in ass form
- book 7
* biblical and well... not biblical, but religious - isis = egyptian goddess - mother of goddesses
book 10 - appears before lucius and all her symbols- wheat etc.
- Cupid & psyche
- recurring theme: Sex & curiosity = BAD
Metamorphosis
Magic
ARTISTIC AMBITION
Born 125 AD, North Africa
Sent to Carthage (roman north africa)
Then to athens
was a priest in carthage
success @ public speaking - road to fame
purpose - to entertain
Quote: give me your ear, reader: you will enjoy yourself. Book 1
narrative is bulked out by stories heard by lucius both before and after his metamorphosis (books 1-10: anecdotes make up 60% of the book)
Lucius is a mask for the author himself
Book 11 seems out of place and not really attached very well. very serious & anti-climactic. what was the purpose of this?
Show that egyptian gods are better than roman gods.
not written as a social history but is broadly realistic. eg large landowners with retainers etc.
World presented = grim. motivated by deceit, spite, greed and lust.
Original title = metamorphosis 'transformations' - a tale of changes of shape and vicissitudes (changes - esp of fortune) of fortune shows an affinity to ovid's poem of the same name
lucius = 'golden ass' = ironic. to Isis, in her cult, the ass (seth -Typhon) is a hateful beast who killed her husband, Osiris
The reader makes moral judgements on lucius behalf - he lives it, we learn from it.
content/style - some things are dragged out for entertainment eg the woman who tried to poison her stepsson - why didn't the doctor tell the truth straight away - why let the trial drag out for so long first? ENTERTAINMENT why not found out what a a thief? ENTERTAINMENT
THEMES
CURIOSITY - getting him into trouble continually
SEX - true love - cupid and psyche
estranged love - charite & tleptolomus
lust - lucius and photis
homosexuality - the queens
revenge - miller raping his wife's lover (sodomy)
desire - woman + lucius
urge - man + lucius
spectacle - lucius & prostitute
perverse - stepmum/stepson
infidelity - miller & old man with jars.
MAGIC
- city = renown for witchcraft which is what draws lucius there in the first place
- pamphile - witch
- meroe & panthia = witches
- witches seen to be bad
- Byrrhena's friend, theylphron's tale of spirits that stole his eyes/deformed him
WOMEN
wiches are al women and all mean. witches change their shape
women have a vendetta against men
women are not to be trusted
women (eg venus est) = vindictive
women will be unfaithful
BUT
women have the power - isis
charit/psyche/photis women are there to be seduced.#women will always prostitute themselves
women are immoral
METAMORPHOSIS
into an ass
from seducer of woman into worshipper of women
from posh (human) to trash/slave (ass)
people change in their views
MESSAGES
do not trust blindly
look before you leap
let not curiosity get the better of you
do not act before thinking of the concequences
people are not always what/who they seem to be
if someone CAN exploit you, they WILL
QUOTES:
BOOK 1
"Being in any case an all too eager student of the remarkable and miraculous, and remembering that i was now in the heart of Thessaly, renowned the whole world over as the cradle of magic arts and spells and that it was in this very city that my friend Aristomene' story had begun" -p22
BOOK3
"officers of the court led me like some sort of sacrificial victim out across the stage and placed me in the middle of the orchestra" p41 (he was a sacrifice to the god of laughter - his sacrifice was his dignity, not his life)
"nothing he could say or do could alleviate my feeling of outrage at the indicnity i had suffered so feeply had it sunk into my heart" p45 (the first of many)
"the only redeeming feature of this catastrophic transformation was that my natural endowment had grown too"
BOOK 4
RE: psyche: "I'll see to it that she regrets this beauty of hers to which she hwas no right " p73
BOOK 5
" you aren't really rich if nobody knows you are" (psyche's sisters)
"gods and men alike will find it intolerable that you spread desire broadcast through the world, while you impose a bitter constraint on the love in your own family and deny it admission to your own public academy of gallantry" (ceres and juno defending cupid)
BOOK 6
pandora's box type occurance - cupid says to psyche "poor wretch... you see how yet again curiosity has been your undoing" p104
BOOK 7
"the learned men of old... knew what they were talking about when they envisaged and portrayed Fortune as totally blind. It is invariably in the wicked and undeserving... that she bestows her favours. Her choices are never grounded on reason, indeed she goes out of her way to freqent the company of those she ought to avoid like the plague if she could see" p112
"as soon as she saw Haemus and heard what they were saying about pimps and brothels, she became elated and began laughing merrily. That, i felt, justified me in condemning the entire female sex, when i sw this girl who had pretended to be in love with her betrothed and to be pining for a chaste marriage, now delighted by the mention of a filthy sordid brothel. at that moment, the whole race of woman and the morals hung in the balance, with an ass holding the scales" p117
BOOK 8
"will you please our masters and bring relief to my exhausted loins" - man to lucius p145
"they brought back with them to share their dinner, a robust young peasant fully equipped in loin and groin.... the young man was stripped and laid on his back, and crowding around him they made repeated demands on his services with their loathesome mouths' p145 (gay orgy)
BOOK 9
"speaking for myself, i am devoutly grateful to the ass that i once was, for it was he, when i was concealed under his hide and was buffeted by so many tribulations, who rendered me, no wiser, i must admit, but very widely informed" p154
Re Myrmex: "she, fickle like all women, acted in character and agreed to sell her honour for the accursed metal"
Book 10
"what pleased him most of all was that in me he had both a companion and a conveyance" p184
EMBEDDING
LUCIUS STORY = THE FRAME
1. ARISTOMENES - socrates tells of his ruination - aristomenes socrates, meroe and panthia
2. THELYPHRON (at Byrrhena's ) p38 - dead man brought back to life tels what happened when Thelyphron went to sleep
3. PHOTIS - what happened with the goatskins
4. ROBBERS - their exploits
5. OLD WOMAN - tells the tale of cupid and psyche to charite
6. TLEPTOLOMUS (as Haemus) - tale of escape from soldiers etc. a ruse to save charite
7. SLAVES - tells story of charite's death
8. OLD MAN / Serpent - tells tale to lure bait
9. SlAVE - woman has an affair with a slave 0 her hubby finds out, she kills herself and the kid and he kills the slave
10. ARETE & MYRMEX - the guy who leaves his sandals under the bed
11. AT AN INN - man with jars cuckolded
12. MILLER tells of his friend's wife's infidelity
13. LUCIUS tells the story - stepmum and stepson
14. A WHORE for lucius - finding the prostitute - also told by lucius
Homer, The Teller of Tales: The Flood, Genesis, Metamorphosis, Gilgamesh
CONTENT - the role of nature, gods, animals and humans
FORM - Language, Structure, narrative perspective etc
TOPOGRAPHY - situation of event/setting/earth/water/boat/heaven
THE ROLE OF ANIMALS
GILGAMESH: dove, swallow, Raven [strength] Significant religious symbol
OVID: No birds. Fell into the sea. Sacrificial role = animal = wealth
BIBLE: Clean/unclean animals - noah's ark
*ANIMALS are not important in Babylonian times. NOT mentioned in GILGAMESH
PORTRAYAL
OVID: V. evocative - shows panic and chaos
BIBLE ordered - shows passengers on a ship
GODS; AND THEIR REASONS FOR DESTROYING MANKIND
GILGAMESH - gods show fear 'terrified, fled to heaven'
Christian- god = patriarchal society. Old man + beard: kindly but firm.
WHY & HOW
BIBLE: Humans are evil >>> RAIN
OVID: Humans are rubbish & anger the gods. Will try again >>> RAIN & DAMS BURSTING
GILGAMESH:Humans make too much noise >>> fire & water
THE GODS
GILGAMESH: Dickle, prone to mistakes etc - v. human
BIBLE: God = perfect. V. Patriarchal
OVID: Looks after their own - like a parliament in the heavens
THE HUMANS
GILGAMESH: Upnapishtim selected by Goddess
BIBLE: The 'main man' = Noah. God chose
OVID: Deucalion & Pyrrha = afterthought: Gods: 'oh... I... er.. ok'
OVID - METAMORPHOSIS
- Written in exile to prove to Emperor Augustus that he is still the greatest poet ever.
- Is a compendium of all the myths in circulation
- Direct linear relationship between rulers & gods
- INCOHERENT/INCONSISTENT: gods referred to by many different names:
Apollo = phoebus, Mercury = Jupiter & Jove
INTERTEXTUALITY: eg 'Rebecca' and 'Rebecca's Tale' - telling a story from a nother point of view.
FORM - Language, Structure, narrative perspective etc
TOPOGRAPHY - situation of event/setting/earth/water/boat/heaven
THE ROLE OF ANIMALS
GILGAMESH: dove, swallow, Raven [strength] Significant religious symbol
OVID: No birds. Fell into the sea. Sacrificial role = animal = wealth
BIBLE: Clean/unclean animals - noah's ark
*ANIMALS are not important in Babylonian times. NOT mentioned in GILGAMESH
PORTRAYAL
OVID: V. evocative - shows panic and chaos
BIBLE ordered - shows passengers on a ship
GODS; AND THEIR REASONS FOR DESTROYING MANKIND
GILGAMESH - gods show fear 'terrified, fled to heaven'
Christian- god = patriarchal society. Old man + beard: kindly but firm.
WHY & HOW
BIBLE: Humans are evil >>> RAIN
OVID: Humans are rubbish & anger the gods. Will try again >>> RAIN & DAMS BURSTING
GILGAMESH:Humans make too much noise >>> fire & water
THE GODS
GILGAMESH: Dickle, prone to mistakes etc - v. human
BIBLE: God = perfect. V. Patriarchal
OVID: Looks after their own - like a parliament in the heavens
THE HUMANS
GILGAMESH: Upnapishtim selected by Goddess
BIBLE: The 'main man' = Noah. God chose
OVID: Deucalion & Pyrrha = afterthought: Gods: 'oh... I... er.. ok'
OVID - METAMORPHOSIS
- Written in exile to prove to Emperor Augustus that he is still the greatest poet ever.
- Is a compendium of all the myths in circulation
- Direct linear relationship between rulers & gods
- INCOHERENT/INCONSISTENT: gods referred to by many different names:
Apollo = phoebus, Mercury = Jupiter & Jove
INTERTEXTUALITY: eg 'Rebecca' and 'Rebecca's Tale' - telling a story from a nother point of view.
Telling Tales: The Nature of Storytelling: Aesop's Fables
* Conflicting ideas: each situation requires a different approach
* No tales are to do with morality
* No tales are politically correct
- Times change; so does what is and what is not deemed to be acceptable
- Some stories are dropped from editions because they are offensive eg Hermes' wagon distributing wickedness: Arabs plundered it which is why there is no word in their language for 'truth'
*'morals' of story = survival & wit
Morals change according to society:
- Victorian boy cries wolf - boy gets eaten
- Modern boy cries wolf - boy gets told off for fibbing
HUBRIS - Arrogance (pride comes before a fall etc)
ANTHROPOMORPHISM - Attribution of human characteristics to animals
DIDACTIC MORAL - 'didactic' - to instruct
MEANINGS:
Candle and Darning needle = analysis of post-industrial Denmark. Needle = pathetic need to be optimistic - social betterment- self made man etc etc. Needle = one eye = cyclops = blinkered. Loses eye later in story, therefore blind.
EMPHASISES THEME AND REINFORCES MESSAGE
EMBEDDING: needle telling story to a piece of glass about fingers. Not just her who is proud.
* No tales are to do with morality
* No tales are politically correct
- Times change; so does what is and what is not deemed to be acceptable
- Some stories are dropped from editions because they are offensive eg Hermes' wagon distributing wickedness: Arabs plundered it which is why there is no word in their language for 'truth'
*'morals' of story = survival & wit
Morals change according to society:
- Victorian boy cries wolf - boy gets eaten
- Modern boy cries wolf - boy gets told off for fibbing
HUBRIS - Arrogance (pride comes before a fall etc)
ANTHROPOMORPHISM - Attribution of human characteristics to animals
DIDACTIC MORAL - 'didactic' - to instruct
MEANINGS:
Candle and Darning needle = analysis of post-industrial Denmark. Needle = pathetic need to be optimistic - social betterment- self made man etc etc. Needle = one eye = cyclops = blinkered. Loses eye later in story, therefore blind.
EMPHASISES THEME AND REINFORCES MESSAGE
EMBEDDING: needle telling story to a piece of glass about fingers. Not just her who is proud.
Hola
Here's the backstory to this blog: last June, I graduated from university, having completed a BA in Comparative literature with a 2:1 (I was only 4 marks off a first! was SO annoyed about that!), got home, had about 4 carloads worth of crap that all got shoved in the garage and I haven't looked at it since.
I've decided to become an artist, and in order to convert my shed into a studio, I'm having to clear all the stuff out of the garage in order to transfer all the crap from the shed into there... I think you get the picture. So all day today, I've been trolling up and down a ladder putting stuff in the attic, and right at the bottom of an absolute MOUNTAIN of old pots and pans and folders and bedding, I found a box full of my notes from various books over the past three years, along with some old notes from A-level History (which I failed spectacularly at, but there's nothing wrong with the notes).
At uni, and being lazy - as in too lazy to walk for 45 mins up a steep hill to get books out of the library- I relied heavily on the internet as a resource for information; and reading other people's notes and essays and things really played a large part in helping me form my own ideas about.. whatever it was I had to write on, and to be honest, I think I learned more from them than I did from sitting in a two hour lecture playing hangman with the person sitting next to me, while a dusty old professor droned on about Bluebeard and the significance of the colour red.
So. These things are just taking up room in my garage, basically, and they're of no use to me anymore, but rather than chuck them away, I thought I'd put them up here so that others can get the benefit of the information I've collected over the years (and so I can still keep them for reference without them taking up any more room!). I'm the most disorganised person I know so I've never really been very good at keeping all my notes in one place, so some things will be fragmented, but I hope the bits and pieces that aren't will prove to be useful.
I may or may not include some of the essays I've done - it depends how much time I have on my hands and how bored I get waiting for my parents to sort THEIR crap out in the garage so I can get a wiggle on with converting the studio, but if I do post them up, feel free to quote me in your work, but please do reference me. And as a note to new students, universities have a special thing where they scan your essays into a database which does a check to make sure you haven't plagiarised anything, so don't bother doing a cut n paste job, because you WILL be found out and kicked out of uni (and you'll probably get more of an arse-kicking if you're a student in England, because when you hand in an essay, they make you sign an 'I haven't plagiarised' form, so you really would be fucked.
It's not worth it, just do the work yourself - you'll learn far more and feel like you've actually achieved something at the end of it too.
i'm just working through the mountain of stuff so just putting it up 'as is' - many bits are in bits and pieces so if i find, say, another sheet of paper on 'the golden ass', i'll just add it to the entry that already deals with the golden ass.
Like I said, this isn't like spark notes - it's not uniformly written down and presented, it's literally just the notes i've scribbled down in lectures and seminars, and things i've done while reading books in preparation for essays; so you're going to have to do the legwork trawling through them yourself- I haven't the time nor the patience to make it look pretty. The information is there if you want it.
I've decided to become an artist, and in order to convert my shed into a studio, I'm having to clear all the stuff out of the garage in order to transfer all the crap from the shed into there... I think you get the picture. So all day today, I've been trolling up and down a ladder putting stuff in the attic, and right at the bottom of an absolute MOUNTAIN of old pots and pans and folders and bedding, I found a box full of my notes from various books over the past three years, along with some old notes from A-level History (which I failed spectacularly at, but there's nothing wrong with the notes).
At uni, and being lazy - as in too lazy to walk for 45 mins up a steep hill to get books out of the library- I relied heavily on the internet as a resource for information; and reading other people's notes and essays and things really played a large part in helping me form my own ideas about.. whatever it was I had to write on, and to be honest, I think I learned more from them than I did from sitting in a two hour lecture playing hangman with the person sitting next to me, while a dusty old professor droned on about Bluebeard and the significance of the colour red.
So. These things are just taking up room in my garage, basically, and they're of no use to me anymore, but rather than chuck them away, I thought I'd put them up here so that others can get the benefit of the information I've collected over the years (and so I can still keep them for reference without them taking up any more room!). I'm the most disorganised person I know so I've never really been very good at keeping all my notes in one place, so some things will be fragmented, but I hope the bits and pieces that aren't will prove to be useful.
I may or may not include some of the essays I've done - it depends how much time I have on my hands and how bored I get waiting for my parents to sort THEIR crap out in the garage so I can get a wiggle on with converting the studio, but if I do post them up, feel free to quote me in your work, but please do reference me. And as a note to new students, universities have a special thing where they scan your essays into a database which does a check to make sure you haven't plagiarised anything, so don't bother doing a cut n paste job, because you WILL be found out and kicked out of uni (and you'll probably get more of an arse-kicking if you're a student in England, because when you hand in an essay, they make you sign an 'I haven't plagiarised' form, so you really would be fucked.
It's not worth it, just do the work yourself - you'll learn far more and feel like you've actually achieved something at the end of it too.
i'm just working through the mountain of stuff so just putting it up 'as is' - many bits are in bits and pieces so if i find, say, another sheet of paper on 'the golden ass', i'll just add it to the entry that already deals with the golden ass.
Like I said, this isn't like spark notes - it's not uniformly written down and presented, it's literally just the notes i've scribbled down in lectures and seminars, and things i've done while reading books in preparation for essays; so you're going to have to do the legwork trawling through them yourself- I haven't the time nor the patience to make it look pretty. The information is there if you want it.
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