Category: Echoes

Art is coming face to face with yourself

Select one of the following quotations and write an essay explaining how one of the texts you have studied does or does not support the quote.

“Art is coming face to face with yourself.” – Jackson Pollock

“When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.” – Henry Miller

“The subject matter of art is life, life as it actually is; but the function of art is to make life better.” – George Santayana

A Marriage Proposal

Read Anton Chekhov’s A Marriage Proposal.

Meaning

  1. Identify the object of Chekhov’s satire in this play. Support your interpretation with a specific reference to the text.
  2. Why do you think Chekhov included the character to Chubukov in the play? What functioin does he serve?

Form and Style

  1. The play has a strong emotional tone. Explain how both the structure of the play and the punctuation of the text contribute to the emotional tone. Cite specific examples to support your answer.
  2. Melodrama is defined s “a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions.” Comment on how Chekhov uses melodramatic techniques to create humor in this piece.

Exploring Content

  1. What information about life in Czarist Russia do we learn from this script? Explain how this information creates the context of the drama in the play.

Creative Extension

  1. Choose a segment of the play and rewrite it in a narrative (short story) form. Be prepared to discuss changes you needed to make to transpose one form to another.
  2. Prepare a readers’ theatre presentation of a portion of the script. Focus on capturing the emotional tension created through the dialogue. Record your presentation (audio or video) and share it.
  3. Read Chekhov’s monologue On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco. Using this monologue as a model, write a script for a monologue given by one of the characters from A Marriage Proposal: Chubukov on the dangers of domestic champagne, Natalya on the dangers faced by women at harvest, or Lomov on the dangers of modern fabrics … and so on and so forth and all that.

Introduction to Modernism Research Topics

Modernism
Modernism Introduction
Modernism Themes

Make It New: The Rise of Modernism

30-1:
Research these thinkers: Karl Marx, the naturalist Charles Darwin, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. What were their most important insights? What previous explanations did their writings reject? How do their ideas affect the world today?

30-2:
Most of the important modernist writers were born between 1880 and 1900, and most of them died in the 1960s. The world changed dramatically in the intervening period. In 1890 what were the world’s great powers? Who were its important leaders? What were the important issues in international relations? What products did people use? How did people travel from place to place? Compare the answers to these questions to what the world looked like in 1965.

30-4:
Modernism evolved as an artistic reaction to dramatic changes in politics, culture, society, and technology. Research some of the technologies that were developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s that might have literally changed the world. Some of the inventions you might want to investigate might be the technologies that captured and recorded reality (photography, sound recording, film), the technologies of communication, the technologies of transportation, and the technologies of weaponry.

Tips: connect the ideas you develop to course focus questions on the human condition.

Extras:
Snowflakes: Philosophy
Snowflakes: Thought Experiments

A Personal Connection to Art

Identify a work of art that for you holds a personal connection or significance. Select one of the following quotations and write an essay explaining how your chosen work of art does or does not support the quote.

“Art is coming face to face with yourself.” – Jackson Pollock

“The task which the artist implicitly sets himself, is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment, so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life.” – Henry Miller

“The subject matter of art is life, life as it actually is; but the function of art is to make life better.” – George Santayana

Alienation and Helplessness

Many twentieth century artists have explored humankind’s shared feelings of alienation and helplessness. Identify a modern song that you think helps to illuminate Prufrock’s character or some of the ideas in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.

Quote the lyrics of the song and write an explanation of how the song reflects the character of Prufrock or the poem’s themes.

Help with analysis of Prufrock:
Summary
etext of poem with a few hyperlinks
The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock Study Guide
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Study Guide & Essays
The Prufrock Papers
THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT: 1948 Nobel Laureate in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1948:
T.S. Eliot
A Study of T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Literature Essay
Help finding song lyrics:
eLyrics

Help with quibbling about the human condition:
recall Honour and Certainty in Hamlet

Help with Modernism:
Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Nu descendant un escalier), 1912

Prufrock Worksheet

Introduction to Modernism Research Topics

Inside Poetry

[youtube video=”jCIzLOUja2o”]

Artist: Crash Test Dummies
Title: Afternoons & Coffeespoons

What is it that makes me just a little bit queasy?
There’s a breeze that makes my breathing not so easy
I’ve had my lungs checked out with X rays
I’ve smelled the hospital hallways

Someday I’ll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I’ll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Times when the day is like a play by Sartre
When it seems a bookburning’s in perfect order –
I gave the doctor my description
I tried to stick to my prescriptions

Someday I’ll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I’ll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons and T.S. Eliot

Maybe if I could do a play-by-playback
I could change the test results that I will get back
I’ve watched the summer evenings pass by
I’ve heard the rattle in my bronchi …

Someday I’ll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I’ll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons and T.S. Eliot
(2x)

The Artist in Society – Alone, Isolated, and Alienated

Northrop Frye, the famous Canadian literary critic, said “…we may come to realize that two essential facts about a work of art — that it is contemporary with its own time and that it is contemporary with ours — are not opposed but complementary facts.”

Tennyson‘s “Lady of Shalott” and Elton John‘s “Candle in the Wind” reinforce this statement.

Write a persuasive essay convincing the reader that the plight of the artist in society has not changed over the centuries — that to be a master in a field is to be alone, isolated, and alienated.

The Lady of Shalott: Study Guide

The 5 Paragraph Essay (template)

Separation from a Loved One

Compare and contrast how the following two poems deal with the theme of separation from a loved one:

Focus on such aspects as imagery, symbolism, archetypes, mood, and characterization. Quote directly from the poems to support your points.

Intro to John Donne

Forbidden Morning: Study Guide

Inside Poetry

The River Merchant’s Wife: Study Guide
The River Merchant’s Wife: Better Study Guide

The River Merchant’s Wife: Example Critical Essay