My cultural object has turned up to be more of an objectification of a repetitious character in history: the destitute, the forlorn, the addict, the prostitute. The question then is how does Whitman sympathize, or, in other words, communicate with these objectified subjects to make the both individual and part of a whole?
Read Leaves Of Grass. Write about the poem in a sort of free response. What compels you, if anything? What turns you off? What characters caught your eye? What objects caught your eye? What do you feel you need to know to further engage in the poem?
In the first stanza of the poem, Whitman asserts that "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." In class, after the reading and the free-write of the poem, we will think about this powerful assertion and if he accomplishes it through the rhetoric that makes up his poem.
I will then give a brief lecture on how I came to attempt to answer a preoccupation I had with the poem. I am concerned, that is, with the reconciliation of the self and the whole. How can they be unique and at the same moment connected a an "atotomic" level? I found my inquiry directed toward the interplay between cultural objects and the subjects that populate that culture. That is, I am interested in the humanizing of the opium eater and the prostitute and the President. But those "characters" are also operating as cultural objects that might lead to other inquiry.
The paper assignment might be something that asks the students to pick out a character who has been objectified or an object that has been characterized. What was the cultural significance of these objects or these characters at the time Leaves of Grass was published? How does the interplay between object and subject lead us to an understanding of Whitman's larger preoccupations? Does it?
After students had written papers we would take as many classes as necessary to talk about the images, characters, and objects they had explored and what they found therein and if they felt they had gained a greater understanding of the poem. If engagement is sincere and ongoing the turning in of the paper will be optional.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Your kind of central question about reconciling the self and the whole is something my assignment is focused with too--except with the reconcilation between the mind/soul and body, a part and a whole...ect. I think these are really good questions to direct toward an assignment.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have to say that I'm still wondering about this interplay between subject and object and how it helps me understand the rest of the poem.
Indeed. I'm not sure how the relationship between subject and object illuminates this particular poem, though I do think it suggests something about what poetry is capable of.
ReplyDeleteOK - -this is a good start. I especially liked you previous post on the opium eaters. In that post, I could see/you made visible the way you approach a motif in the poem: isolating a piece of text, exploring contexts (historical, urban, poetic), and then proposing some ideas for how Whitman takes up the opium eaters and their cultural meanings within the poem.
ReplyDeleteHere, however, you seem to let go of that work - - which for me is a great model of how "expert" learners engage with the poem. In your assignment: where and how can students learn and practice this same kind of engagement?
You note that:" I will then give a brief lecture on how I came to attempt to answer a preoccupation I had with the poem. I am concerned, that is, with the reconciliation of the self and the whole." Why not encourage and support the students or readers to explore this preoccupation or their own preoccupations - - using your engagement with the opium eaters as a model? Rather than telling - -why not show and practice? How would you recreate or simulate your process of engagement as a model or guide for the students?
Later, you say: "What was the cultural significance of these objects or these characters at the time Leaves of Grass was published? " That is a key question in this experiment, but it raises many other questions: how do we understand "cultural significance'? what skills do students need to decode the "cultural significance" of objects and characters? how can they perform or represent their understanding of these cultural objects? and how do they connect cultural object to poem? what kind of work is involved in this process?
I really think your engagement with the poem, and your careful exploration of this "preoccupation," is a model of inquiry, and a model that once shared could be a powerful means for students - - less used to poems and critical inquiry - -to both engage with the poem and develop all kinds of practices, skills, dispositions, etc.
I'd also be interested in looking at specific passages rather than letting students pick out their own characters from the poem... Perhaps direct them to some passages/catalogues that Whitman has in the poem? Looking at the catalogues where Whitman lists a number of different occupations and how they function with the rest of the poem will be an interesting way of reading the poem as well... and finding out how the structure plays into your question of making objectified objects part of a whole...
ReplyDelete