Sinbad and his seven shipwreck stories

Today I would go out to breakfast and start reading more for this class. At Main Street Overeasy I ordered Earl Grey tea w/ cream, chicken fried steak, eggs, hash browns, and and English muffin of course. I was well on my way when I started Sinbad and his seven tales this goodly Thursday. I was most impressed with the fourth, fifth, and seventh stories from his tellings. Although before I dive into my thoughts I must note that I was very interested with the storytelling structure. I'm not usually one to address structure (I think..), but this class has got me thinking [quite confusedly] about what is necessary in the structure of a romance and where it works. It's formulaic thinking, and it's fascinating. Each of the seven tales has a few things in common. Sinbad is the narrator [think of Frye, "de te fabula: the story is about you" (186)] who's telling the tale. Sinbad always starts off great, then Sinbad always is shipwrecked, then Sinbad finds a fruitful and providential island, then Sinbad finds his way off the island, and then finally he convinces his audience to come back the next night for his next, more exciting tale. Yes, these facts are very generic, apparent, repetitive, and they remind me of the oral tradition. That's why they're there. Although when it comes to his tales it seems that it's not a romance, if we may digress into the meat of matter in this class. Sinbad himself has [at least] a couple of romantic relationships in the story. He has two wives for sure; he's a widower until marrying the king's daughter in the end. And he's a man of God, luck, and providence.

Oh, I won't go on for much longer. Earlier today I thought that I'd center my thesis paper around Sinbad, but because of what I've read in his tales I think that there's not enough romance in his stuff. So...to the forty thieves...

Concerning digressive thoughts

This blog post could easily [and quite literally] post for Professor Sexson's other oral traditions class, but some reason my sense of urge has me writing into this particular ocean of stories. This is so for the simple fact that I've learned a lot more about fantasy in this class than mastering your memory with a factual fortitude of creation--ironically being fantastical conjures constructed by the marriage of language (of the clearly communicable recollection...) and...living? (...within the continuum of experiences)--wherein my memory palaces. We're reading The Art of Memory by Frances Yates in our other class and after our first class ending at two o'clock I got to reading more of Yates prior to Ocean of Stories. In reading the first few pages of chapter 16, which focuses on correlations betwixt Shakespeare playwrights and the mnemonic systems of Fludd, Bruno, and Camillo [comparing The Globe Theatre with , then Walter walks through the door. He cordially waves while setting his stuff down. I salute him. We both have on our headphones.

The day before he said something that struck me--something along these lines so I'll paraphrase--, something that I can completely relate to,

"You're in The Ocean of Stories class? I didn't even know because I get our two classes mixed up. I'm reading one thing for three-thirty-seven and it applies moreso to something we're discussing in four-thirty-eight." I know how you feel, man; seeing as I'm going to now offer several quotes from Frances Yates book to mull over while they might seem completely frivolous, but consider my proposition beforehand--'Every aspect of the real world, from the societal to the natural, is playfully notioned, put in motion, and evidentally present in each of plays Shakespeare has written and henceforth been performed in The Globe Theatre--famous for it's variety of possible entrances, square stage, and circular hole in the ceiling (if I'm not mistaken, although no one else seems to be sure after reading Yates' historical research). One play, theoretically, contains a fair representation of the universe in and of it's prudential production.':

"...the Vitruvian figure inscribed in a square and a circle became a symbol of hte mathematical sympathy between microcosm and macrocosm. How could the relation of Man to god be better expressed...than by building the house of God in accordance with the fundamental geometry of square and circle?" (359)

"And the Globe...shows that the Shakespearean theatre was not imitation but an adaptation of Vitruvius...there was a basic change introduced by the multilevel stage. The old religious theatre showed a spiritual drama of the soul of man in relation to the levels of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise." (363)

""All the world's a stage."" (364)

Then something else comes to mind, something having recently occurred within the confines--if I may elegantly gloss--the pages of the washroom's literature. A book also referenced in my 337 blog (crap, how will I ever get around to my point for this class?), titled Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, and Cosmology. On page 112 they talk about a triangular vesica-based--(in geometry it's like a trinity-venn diagram) influence on architecture, namely showing the floor plan of Winchester Cathedral (pictured above). From what I can gather, this is a church we see above is obviously a cross. The two short sides, which I'm assuming are facing east and west, are equal in volume so that there can be more room for the lead priest's stage (with a large backstage) and an even vaster space for a plentiful congregation to fill the pews. Look at a triangular vesica--when I did all I could think of was the rule of three and all it's derivatives; there's Father-Son-Holy Spirit--Heaven-Hell-Purgatory--Priest-Farmer-Warrior--A-B-C. Furthermore, on the offhand, I think that a preached sermon is as much a performance as a playwright itself--something I realized by watching my most recent, brilliantly persuasive, and rather--pardon my insensitivity--superficial minister of the Trinity Presbyterian Church. Nevermind that because too soon another Yates quote oncomes to mind reminding me of the short sides,

"When these 'heavens' cover the stage, we learn that the stage was at the east of the theatre, like the altar in the church." (364)

Anyways, reading the previous quote along with rummaging through Quadrivium this evening really got me thinking about the significance of geometry as well as drama, it's elements being tragedy and comedy, a dichotomy of genre instead of the genre quartet we addressed in class early this semester (Romance, Comedy, Irony, Tragedy). I'll be honest, this whole numbers game confuses me so by reasonably quantifying the concept of genre it makes it a whole lot easier for me to understand our classes main theme of "Romance."

Which again gets me thinking of something Walter said this afternoon before class--and I'll once again paraphrase--"The romance in people mostly goes unsaid. People think about what they're going to say--let's say it's to someone they really like or think is awful cute--and they give what they want to say a lot of thought. But we hardly ever say what we think, so people never quite can be defined as romantics if they don't speak it."

This thought rung to the tune of one of Frye's final declarations in The Secular Scripture when he says that "in our greatest romance that we begin to say that we have earned the right to silence." (188) Now let's think about this-- let's reflect with a 'moment of silence'.

Anyways, I guess my initial thought was that Romance is a derivation of Comedy because this is the realm of 'happy endings' as opposed to the tragic endings where like--the hero dies. Our final project is to present the 'perfect romance'--something our group has began to work on--and it's quickly turning into a comedy.

Now, let's look back one of the Yates quotes describing the difference between imitation and adaptation. This story we're developing seems like it's becoming an imitation of romance because it's turning into a comedy, but--by incorporating the essential elements of romance, yes?--that's fine. I've discovered that between the drama, the historical figures, my fellow classmates--on top of the rich teaching--and other thoughts at the tip of my tongue which creep into the back of my mind that, well shit I guess, that romance is an elementally supplementation itself. Simply, it's secondary.

My argument here goes back to Irony. A couple years back when I took Mythologies our final group presentation was an adaptation of the story of Oedipus--one of the the most amazing plots I've ever read. It's perfect, but what genre does it belong to? Tragedy! I say 'yeah, and romance. The fling between Oedipus and Jocasta happened out of love! But Oedipus doesn't end happily. Oedipus is probably a tragedy, but there is without dispute a romance in and of the play (engulfed in irony [thus, associated and undertoned with in comedy?])'

Well in celebration of this combination of Professor Sexson's classes I'll end with a couple of my favorite quote from Frye which apply directly to Oral Traditions:

"William Blake once said 'imagination has nothing to do with memory.'" (175)

"...all memory is selective, and the fact that it is selective is the starting point of creation." (175)

"...heaven and hell have been written but the great poem of earth has still to be written." (171)

And of the call

Our assignment over spring break was to 'see the call to adventure,' we were given specific instructions to let the adventure present itself to you--not for you to seek it. My oh my did the adventure find me, and Frye's thoughts in his final chapter "The Recovery of Myth" has a lot to do with the antics that were presented. The end of spring break, St. Patrick's Day weekend in Butte, America, was nothing short of storybook--I mean I did grow up there after all having lived a good 14 or so years there total--and not until this weekend did I get the chance to witness the bizarre and unique night life. When I was younger my parents always insisted that we--my brother and I--stay downtown on St. Patrick's Evening because Butte becomes much more wild than Butte usually is centering around this rather small holiday. Most people around here know all about it, but what most people don't know are the more personal stories that encountered me this past weekend.

It's been almost six years since summer 2006 when my family relocated up to Anchorage. Butte and the people I'd come to know so well had become a memory in the back of my mind--I'd become happy with my new life beyond that once hometown--but it's only natural that coming to school an hour from where you grew up will trigger some of that hidden nostalgia. Anyways, it wasn't until this year that I got the chance to experience a St. Patty's Day back there, and my was it adventurous. Not only that, my two-and-a-half day span spent there gave me a chance to recovery some sort of lost identity that had been long forgotten.

I stayed with some family friends who I'd never really known that well, but they were incredibly generous by giving me a place to sleep and eat (damn was their corned beef & cabbage meal tip top). Justin, who's from Butte but goes to school here, and I after supper went up to Maloney's bar to find our group of friends who'd traveled over from Bozeman. We found them conveniently at the back of the bar where we stayed for a good hour or so--time hereafter gets a little blurry although I clearly remember the enormous amounts of people emerging from uptown crevices I never knew existed after we exited the back of the bar and returned out to the completely littered streets. The sidewalk trash cans were overflowing with empties as queue lines of people for the bars. We're at the corner of Main and Broadway and we'd lost some of those in our group, but they couldn't have gone far so we decide to head to Metal's--an old bank turned sports bar. On the street I see Lance, which reminds me of Lancelot in the old Celtic tradition at the time, who was the quarterback back in elementary school. He doesn't know who I am. Same goes for Zach, who was telling an older drunk guy to move along and out of his face. The older guy raised his fists--he would be trying to fight a former hockey teammate of mine--but he wouldn't do anything. I can only think about Frye when he says that in romance "violence becomes melodrama." (183) After the older guys moves along I go up and say "Hi" to Zach, it takes a moment for him to recognize me. It's been a while. Thereafter we go into Metal's and one of the first people I come across is Sarah--this story all of a sudden becomes a romance, what a coincidence. We hadn't kept up for a while, but she was the first friend I had in Butte. She became more than just a friend as we grew older, but she never knew that about my feelings for her--that 'first crush' type of thing, and now here we are. I hadn't seen her for over five years, let alone had a decent conversation with her. It seemed she had moved on like me because she wasn't with any Butte people, only with her friends from school in Missoula. But here we--the Bozeman people and Missoula people--were together in the middle. The Middle you say, eh? Anyways, we decided to head to the lounge in the Hotel Finlen, one of the most historically rich hotels in Butte which I had never been in--funny that it was my first time because you can seen the sign all the way from the other side of town. This is when my initial groups began to disintegrate. We weren't all sleeping in the same place, and naturally the drinking wasn't helping. It didn't matter though because what could be better than this, catching up with one of my oldest friends in my original hometown in a bar I'd never even knew existed?

It turns out that however sentimental this all sounds it's not a romance. Although, if we speak of Frye then who knows really? Everything went full circle that night. Also, over the entire night I was trying to catch up with a current coworker from Bozeman. It didn't seem like it would happen. We went back to Maloney's for a little, that's where we lost Sarah. Then we went back down the hill a little to Metal's, the final place we'd go. We found a table this time around because the night was winding down, but then I hear a "Spence!" come from behind me right after I'd made some offhand comment. It was Rob, my coworker, "Haha! Where you been buddy?" "Man, everywhere." What a night, it was only Bozeman people left, at least close around and I'd done everything that I wanted, and much much more. We all had a drink, Rob was with his girlfriend and I with my college crowd, and we all had a brief talk before Metal's was shut down. Then we all went home.

That night was an adventure, and it just came to me although it took some recovering. It was a place I'd never known although I'd lived there for so long. It got me thinking "Quis hic locus?"--or, "what place is this?" (152)--that this is the place I'd been so familiar with, and simultaneously neglected knowing, all along.

Themes of Descent

I'll begin with a thought from his next chapter "Themes of Ascent" where Frye declares, "that the happy ending exists only for readers who finish the book." (134-35) This struck me when put up against something he mentions in the prior chapter in that "life that is a pure continuum, beginning with a birth that is a random beginning, ending with a death that is a random ending, nothing is more absurd than telling stories that do begin and end." (125) If we think about this from a romantic standpoint then it fits that the typical structure of the genre's narrative excludes instances which are considered 'secondary'. These instances include potential pieces of a romance which are unnecessary (yet, ultimately containing qualities and notions of unison) such as birth, rebirth, marriage, sex, a birthing, etc. The substance of romance is interesting because, as mentioned somewhere in the text, there are explicit clues of what's on the horizon embedded in signs throughout the entirety of the story. These reoccurring small, seemingly insignificant, symbols contain within them the secrets of literature's 'big scheme-of-things'. Characters who momentously come into contact with such an image are revealed knowledge of the big picture. These happenings withhold truth of the macrocosm within the confines of a microcosm showing how any common discovery can compound into revelation, the epiphany manifested. Of course, this realization of reality and recollection of memory doesn't come into consideration until the notion of ascension has been undertaken, but then we must reconsider the fact that possibly there is no need for any explicit instance of unification.

Let's take a step back before we come to a conclusion [because, well, that's exactly what's troubling me]. A full-blown conclusion requires the utmost exhaustion and fleshing-out of characters, but in Romance we must consider this alleged requirement of two lovers coming together and unifying as a single-souled organism. This alleged requirement has been deemed unnecessary to our literate eyes which are well-versed at reading between and beyond the lines.

Therefore, all things considered, we must understand that for a story (romance or not?) to exist then a primary protagonist must descend across a threshold of an unknown existence where he unleashes his inner harlequin; "Of the various things Harlequin does, one is to divide himself into two people and hold dialogues with himself." (111) Here the hero meets his second self, his alter ego, his doppelganger; coincidentally this is the manifestation of an anti-hero. With this knowledge the hero has been exposed to both sides of his being, allowing a transcendence from an initial sense of self to take place, which gives them access to a path upwards. Self, that's the key. This 'underworld' or 'other world' is a place of self-reflection, a place where one finds love for oneself, not where two characters are unified. Finally with that said, Frye's thoughts of the Descent got me thinking that such a place of madness and chaos and sin is, so to speak, the belly of the beast. So in order to go up you might, furthermore, have to do the reverse and find verily the bottom. There is where our hero is excreted bottom of the belly and here has become "a god-born devil's dung" (119). Here is where we clean things up a bit.