Thursday, September 20, 2007

Reading

• Jack London, “To Build a Fire” (31–41)
• Galway Kinnell, “Blackberry Eating”
• Poems by Christopher Marlowe & Walter Raleigh
• Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California” (380–381)

Notes

London’s story seems to be awfully nihilistic. Is there any hope in it? Think also about the concepts of hubris and nemesis.

With the poetry, pay close attention to the poets’ use of sound, especially with Kinnell and Ginsberg. The Marlowe & Ralegh poems are thought of as a pair, although they weren’t initially construed as such. What does Ralegh do to respond to Marlowe’s poem?

A brief note on Wordsworth, from last Thursday, and also (I suppose) on Meloy: We talked about detachment from the world around us, especially as it relates to the interactions between urban and “undeveloped” landscapes. But we should also think about the fine distinction between abundance and excess.

If we recall Genesis from our first class meetings, God offers “enough” to Adam and Eve in Eden. But “enough” isn’t enough for them; we see this desire for “more” in many of our readings. Think especially of Pearl, Meloy, Kingsolver, and Wordsworth, though also Kinnell, London, and Ginsberg from today. One of the questions we face is what happens when we become dissatisfied with the abundance around us. Thus, for Wordsworth, the world becomes “too much with us,” i.e., we attempt to make the world more than it needs to be (or perhaps even can be).