To the pure, all things are pure, not only meats and drinks, but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defil'd. -- Milton from Areopagitica.

Imagery of eating, food, critical to Paradise Lost, of reaching truth part by part ref. Greek goddess Isis and Osiris. Resurrecting truth part by part

God's censorship to the forbidden fruit, as against the Licensing Act of 1643.

The expression of choice versus censorship.

yawwn

Greece and Tragedy

Why is Aristotle so important? I don't know. He came up with lot of ideas. What about the notion of tragedy? I don't seem to be coming up with convincing answers to any of these questions. So, what's an epic? A long narrative poem about quasi-divine figures who didn't know what to do with the knowledge they had, and had divine interventions to further confuse their sense of self. And, what about the oral tradition? Please, no winks. :P Where does Oedipus figure in the puzzle? Sophocles, (whose name I still can't pronounce) wrote 'Oedipus the King' and left us with the complex to figure out. Not bad.

Coming back to Aristotle, student of Plato, who in turn was a student of Socrates, wrote Poetics and spoke about logic. Hm

So, what does tragedy invoke? pity and fear. Good one. Aristotlenism also has an offshoot into early Islamic philosophy.

Pity and fear..yes, feel the former when i flunk, and the latter when you meet me. :p :p :p

Stand By Me

On the subject of love or the lack of it, I'd like to make some notes. I am not saying I should, I am saying I will. I am not going to mince it to pieces, like what I saw happening to a mutton chop today at the table, I was empathetical with the potato fingers, which must have been watching the scene in delight. I am simply saying, that love has to be something that is felt, not thought. And, how does one feel? As an acquaintance on Facebook puts it on her tagline, that the greatest miracles to have happened to us is how to feel (paraphrased) by e.e. Cummings. I don't want to be too delighted either, 'cos one's heart needs to be in the right place without forking it all the time (ref. Ghosts of My Girlfriends' Past). I would rather live out a sorry tale of love and losing (Marquez's Love in the time of Cholera) than simply denying the impulses their rightful escape.

What is the job of good writing? To make one feel something or to make one have a dispassionate understanding of the text? How does writing inspire? To, what end? As Aristotle would have it (ref, entrance prep M.A.), mimesis, or the art of imitation, one needs to have refined, higher understanding of the world. To simply feel, is not enough. Where does that leave me? On to something far more interesting, of Greek society. Where were the women? Why did the philosophers sport beards? Why was theater or drama so central to art?

Back to books :}

Matthew Arnold

Notes from J. Hopkins for quick reference:

"disinterest" - - To be disinterested is to participate in a common cultural tradition or a common body politic, and it is to evince a genuine, generous appreciation of what is truly excellent within these forms of common experience. To be generous in this way is to embody one's "best self", and it is from the perspective of this best self that the disinterested critic passes judgment on all specific social and intellectual issues.

First major English critic to invest poetry with sacral status..Ref. William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and John Keats

proponent of "free play of the mind upon all subjects"

Like mid-Victorians, including George Eliot, and John Stuart Mill, he believed that the historical progression of culture was tending toward the realisation of human "perfection".

The necessity of system. actively engaged in the pursuit of "intellectual deliverance" from spiritual distress.

"On the Modern Element in Literature" in 1857 culminates with "Culture and Anarchy" in 1868..a decade in which..Literature and Dogma (1873) and God and the Bible (1875)

In the phase of early essays towards "Culture and Anarchy" he seeks to strike a balance between the "Hebraic" moral consciousness and the "Hellenic" critical intelligence. but dominance of Hellenism.

In 1860s, ..leaning toward Romantics, esp William Wordsworth.