27 October 2008 Class Notes

• Raquel played Bach's Cello Suite #1 at the beginning of class, or I should say Michael made her play and that is what she chose. It was absolutely beautiful. She did a wonderful job. What a way to start the class.
• Sublime - literary critic term
• "all the arts aspire to the condition of music"
• Two different poems that begin Alice (one of those was didactic)
• Alice was a real little girl, according to Alice In Sunderland
• The Matrix is based on Alice In Wonderland.
• Alice is one fo the most looked at books, 2nd most quoted coming in behind Shakespeare
• Go look at Kayla's blog for info on Alice
• The film (My Book & Heart)...the little books have good intentions. "None of it is real" --> grandmother's house of books
• Art is deceiving
• Human nature is misplaced concreteness. What is a child, book, nature? There is no answer, you can't define these things.
• Literature liberates us into play
• Aesop's Fables --> Allegorical
• William Bennet wrote a book on morals, judgemental on people who don't spend time wisely --> Tatar criticizes him for this
• Mary & Martha from the bible ---> like the ant & the grasshopper from Aesop's fables
• What is needful?
• Reading things that people have been reading for centuries and still enjoying them today.
• Being literate allows you to go into the story, the portal into the other world
• Discussed differences between metaphors and similes
• Symbols --> communion, cannibalism, like the story of the Juniper Tree
• Children's Literature still being didactic today
• Subversity
• Don't trust anybody to tell you what something means...
• The film (My Book & Heart) wasn't exactly meant to be teached or didactic.
• Read Sutter's response to My Book & Heart...
• Oscar Wilde --> great children's literature art, life is an imitation of art, the thought of "you wouldn't be sad if Shakespeare hadn't wrote it"
• "Only the educated are free..."