Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Orality...who'd've thought

I was thinking about what has made this class so fun compared to most other classes I have taken in my four years at MSU. The wild epithets, the class atmosphere and participation, the brilliance of Dr. Sexson, everyone’s extremely unique final projects…all of this comes to mind. But where I really think we need to delve, in order to understand the success of this class, is back to the beginning. And I mean, the very beginning. To the tradition of orality, upon which this class is, after all, based.   

I think we underestimate how the ‘oral tradition’ really seeps into our class. We talk about it as if it is something that exists in the past, or something that cannot exist under the designation of ‘tradition’ unless all the elements of an oral culture are present. But we engage unconsciously in the tradition of orality every day.

You think we’d be more aware of what is going on around us. But precepts of the oral tradition are so subtle they are hardly worth noticing. It’s not as if the oral cultures of the past stopped themselves one day and said “Hey, wait a minute, we’re an oral culture”. There was no designation to make; orality was culture. And still largely is. It is difficult to take notice of that which is inherent to us as humans, we associate everything that we do, think, feel, sense as us. It is only by the absence of orality that we would even recognize it had been there in the first place.

Orality is erratic, ever changing, permeating, evolving—it is hard to pin down. Those lists of things that we were set to memorize—Foer’s 15 random items, the nine muses, twelve tribes of Abraham, Ong’s nine processes of orality, Kubla Khan, everyone’s epithet, and now, Grace’s five things—may still seem random, though I think many of us understand the concept behind it, because, after all, they are no longer random. They have been integrated into the class psyche, into our individual memory palaces, and into our future associations. When anyone mentions the muses, will you be able to think of them without also thinking of this class? Without thinking of Megan Mother of the Muses? Or envisioning the palace in which you placed your muses? Which might getting you thinking about your grandmother’s house, and then perhaps the smell of that really great ravioli dish that she used to make, which would lead you to think about what you were going to have for dinner, then to thinking about your refrigerator, then maybe to Seth’s refrigerator, then to the horribly antagonistic character Jennifer of the Falling Waters modeled off of Seth for her story, then to Mikelby Sharpe, and then… what do you know…you are right back to this class.  

This is the essence of orality; the patterns of associations and relationships that weave together EVERYTHING; the underlying structure of the earth, which permeates all forms and is revealed in the psyche. Myth is the song the earth sings to itself.

We have been initiated not only into the timeless society of the mythtellers, but of the myth-listeners, too. We have become aware of the constant hum of the earth, which reverberates with all stories ending and beginning, crumbling and extending, renewing and restoring.  We have touched upon something here in class that is eternal, and that we are only a piece of, but that is all of us.

So go forth from this class, feeling refreshed in your initiation, in your understanding of the traditions which make the earth what it is. Never let the epithets die (sorry Ashley). And always remember to THINK MEMORABLE THOUGHTS.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Potential quiz questions from Yates ch. 7-17

Q: Where did Camillo originally erect his memory Theatre?
A: Venice

Q: Rather than coming out of the classical rhetoric tradition, Lull’s art of memory comes from ________.
A: The philosophical tradition

Q: What does Lull introduce into memory?
A: Movement

Q: Which letters of the alphabet does Lull use in his memory system?
A: B to K

Q: What three geometrical figures does Lull’s Art use?
A: Circle, triangle, square

Q: According to Yates, Lullism has become inextricably associated with ________.
A: Cabalism

Q: What is Bruno attempting to organize through contact with the cosmic powers?
A: The psyche

Q: Who deliberately gets rid of Imagination in his art of memory?
A: Ramus

Q: For Ramus, the return to dialect is a return to _____ from _____.
A: Light, shadows

Q: In Bruno’s view, the whole process of cognition is really only what one process?
A: the imaginative process

Q: Who is the only person to have left us with a visual record of the stage at the Globe Theatre?
A: Robert Fludd

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Oh that Bruno, always picking and choosing what he wants


 I fell intently upon this paragraph while reading Jennifer of the Falling Water’s most recent post:
‘I find it interesting that Bruno admired Thomas Aquinas, but not as a religious leader, as a Magus. Oh that Bruno, always picking and choosing what he wants, and bending it around for his purposes. Perhaps we all do that to some degree.’

It reminded me of this quote from Yates:

 “The Renaissance occult philosopher had a great gift for ignoring differences and seeing only resemblances” (165).

Yates is referring to the flexible way in which the Renaissance occultists constructed their systems of memory. To use Camillo as an example, his memory theatre synthesized the occultist hermetic and cabalistic influences with classic rhetorical and mnemonic practices. (The point of synthesis between these traditions is a major destination in this chapter). Present still, is the Dantesque imagery which acts as “vestiges of older usages and interpretations of artificial memory” (163). But rather than serving a scholarly, moralist purpose—which is inherently narrow and self-containing—Camillo extends those artificial conceptions to inhabit a space that reaches beyond good or bad, heaven or hell. Flowing from Ficino’s use of talismans in his magic, Yates believes Camillo imbues his images with talismanic virtue—meaning—the images of his theatre contain a power that is both cosmological and unifying. Rather than using images as mere signifiers or end points in his art of memory, Camillo utilizes them as a vehicle or conductor through which memory is unified with the higher world. 

"his Theatre is the first great landmark in the story of the transformation of the art of memory through the Hermetic and Cabalist influences implicit in Renaissance Neoplatonism" (162).

“When Viglius asked Camillo concerning the meaning of the work as they both stood in the Theatre, Camillo spoke of it as representing all that the mind can conceive and all that is hidden in the soul—all of which could be perceived at one glance by the inspection of images” (158).

I believe this puts into perspective all we should be doing for our Museyrooms; picking and choosing what we want to incorporate from Yates, and the class discussions, and other’s suggestions, and bending/weaving/layering/mixing (to take advantage of Seth’s cake analogy) it all to create something that represents us individually; is representative of our imaginations.
-------Be like Camillo and Bruno, put together things like Thomas Aquinas and heliocentrism that don’t initially appear to mesh. Don’t be afraid that you are misinterpreting, it’s not possible—any interpretation involves the use of imagination, which is exactly the cylinder you should to be firing on. Be fearlessly imaginative; create something awesome--------





And as always, do not forget that this is a final project, the culmination of all we have come to learn in this semester. So cull and compile! Through the process of creating your museyroom, you are already engaging the one crucial tool that this class revolves around: your imagination.