Searching for a Good Title

In case you can't tell, I enjoy creative, provocative titles. At the risk of being obscure or pretentious, a good, eye-catching title can really "sell" your story or essay.

I like my titles to either be clever, explanatory, or (ideally) both. Looking at the printouts of our blog posts (which I was sure to gather in because I wanted to read people's comments!), I have settled on

Surmounted, Comprehended, Possessed

I like this title because it is a direct allusion to Stegner's essay "At Home in the Fields of the Lord," and I think it also provides a good outline for my paper. I've been wrestling with the ideas of author as observer or builder, the neurological underpinnings of memory, and the text of Recapitulation itself. These are nice punchy verbs which really encapsulate these ideas of three ways Wallace Stegner, his avatar Bruce Mason, and we, as readers, interact with text.

1. We surmount it. We get up above it: in my sketch, I drew the reader in the Salt Lake foothills with a telescope. Literature broadens our horizons.
2. We comprehend it. I have absolutely loved reading essays about how we interact with literature, from Borges to William James to Oscar Wilde (a post on the latter soon, as his ideas are important to this essay, although it's hard to imagine two men more unlike each other than Stegner and Wilde. ;-) ).
3. We possess it. This is that personal connection Dr. Burton's always hounding us about. The idea that great literature does, indeed, make us better: or at the very minimum, shape who we are.

I will spend roughly two pages on each concept. About a page of textual exposition, and another page proving the point argumentatively. Embedded in all three claims is a Cause/Effect argument. 

I'm more excited to draft this thing, the last paper of my college career. And it all began with a good title!

Been on this Road Awhile

Working so closely with Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken the past weeks, I have decided to memorize it for one of my personal learning outcomes (#4).  

This way I will be able to share it with family and friends while providing some information and analysis I have been working on. 

It Happened on the Road

Getting my  thesis draft to this point has been challenging.  

At the same time I have had questions answered about the text I decided to write on.  Researching BYU's library provided some sound analysis to help me fulfill my claim about Frost's ability to make us think one way while  he moves us on in a different direction.  

This is only a draft.  I still have much to do.  I appreciate and invite your comments to help guide me along this road.

Supporting my policy claim: The Bible should be taught!

It's definitely a draft.  But I feel like the ball has started rolling....

On a very gradual decline.

But  it's coming.  Any and all forms of criticism and comments are welcome, and I believe in reciprocity.

Here's the link to the Google Doc.  Hope it works!  Can't wait until everyone's ideas come together.  These will be incredibly interesting to read when they're finished, I think.

A Plug for an Outline.

Mmkay.  In all my years of taking English classes--whether required or not--I have never made an outline.

Ever. Whether...it was required or not.  I stubbornly assumed it was a waste of time. (Never had good grades in high school English classes.)

But as I was trying to organize this "critical mass of mess" for my final paper, I decided, with some humility, to throw one together on Saturday.  It has helped immensely.  I used color to divide concepts and supporting points, so my eye can go straight to them when I'm typing up my more formal ideas, but didn't worry too much about the way my thoughts were written.

Page one of the outline. 

If Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Cross or Mrs. Horstmann saw this..... 

They'd say, I told you so. 

Frost’s Style of Poetry

It has been debated which poetry sub-genre Robert Frost identifies with.  The Oxford English Dictionary gives us examples that illustrate how Frost is a blend of at least three sub-genres of poetry.  Having been compared to Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, who said in 1800, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility.”   And Keats who in 1817 stated: “The poetry of earth is never dead…a voice will run… about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshoppers.”  Frost is said to have been influenced by Emily Dickenson, who crafted her poetry with a tool box of poetic devices according to BYU’s Emily Dickinson Lexicon.

 

Frost was influenced by whom?

Frost is also thought to have leaned towards transcendentalism, which means to pass over or go beyond (a physical obstacle or limit); to climb or get over the top (of a wall, mountain).  The religio-philoshical teaching of the New England school of thought represented by Emerson and others that exalted character, thought, or language; also that which is extravagant, vague, or visionary in philosophy or language; idealism. 

In 1842 Emerson said: “What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is idealism.”

Modernism has been noted as stylistic of Frost’s poetry.  This is the tendency or movement toward modifying traditional beliefs and doctrines in accordance with modern ideas and scholarship.  A usage, mode of expression, peculiarity of style, etc., characteristic of modern times.  Later more generally, an innovative or distinctively modern feature.

It could be that Frost was influenced by all three sub-genres of poets to bring us his memorable poetry.  Knowing this information will help me understand more about Frost's style of writing and the tools he used to help when I write my thesis paper.

Searching the Harold B. Lee Library

 

Watching Dr. Burton maneuver through BYU Library’s web site, I just knew it would be interesting and help me find some information for my thesis paper.  What I did not know is how long it was going to take me to find any information at all.  I spent hours trying to find something  about “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.                                  
I   f  i  n  a  l  l  y  was successful in finding Poetry Criticism by Ed. Michelle Lee. Bol. 71. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006. 

BYU Library

I think I found what I had been searching for—an explanation for how Frost was able to craft his poem so as to create personal reactions in readers that caused them to interpret the poem in their own way. 


I also found Emily Dickinsons Lexicon that had Noah Webster's 1844 American Dictionary of the English Language (ADEL) that is right from BYU.  I found much of the site difficult to manage, and it took a long time.  I'm sure it has everything to do with my computer skills.

The main thing is that I was successful in finding help with what I was searching for and I emailed the site to myself, so I can access it easier.  I have been reading it to see how I can use the information to help me prove the thesis in my paper.

BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library is an amazing resource for all who are privileged enough to have access to it.  I just need to get better at using it on line.