Critics- Individual presentations

I must say that all of the individual presentations for the critics were great and very creative!
During these first few presentations I jotted down as many points as possible as did everyone else. I was happy to see that the way in which these critics were presented were humorous to say the least and definitely caught my attention...as Dr. Sexson would say, "The bar has been raised."

Samuel Johnson- (Dustin)
Poetry should be simple and easy to understand, while biographies should be exactly the truth and not praise. Everyone should read and try to understand literature. Manuscript is good and original. We must remember though that what is good is not original and what is original is not good.

Longinas- (Kari)
Deeply influential, Longinas focuses on the sublime and wrote a piece titled just that ("On the sublime") in response to Cecilias. Literature should be judged on whether or not it reaches the sublime. The sublime is that which cannot be expressed. Homer and the poet Saco (Spelling?) are examples of those that reach the sublime- memory grasps onto. The sublime is an exulted expression of language, control of metaphor. It is a flash of lightning that's always there...that is the sublime

Michel Foucault- (French) (Erika)
Emphasis upon social institutions and the modern world. Interacted with prisons and prisoners. Some consider him to be a structuralist or post- modernist, but he considers himself neither. His repression hypotheses focuses on the history of sexuality. Some consider the history of sexuality to be the history of regression, but Foucault thinks otherwise. We define ourselves through our sexuality and are not regressing anything. We should not categorize or define anything. Another great literary work by Michel Foucault would be "Archaeology of Knowledge".

Julia Kristeva- (Jake)
From Southern Bulgaria, a psychoanalyst. Moved to France in the 60's, the age of structuralism. Structuralism, considered to be similar to Frye's archetypal. Semiotics- everything has absolute truth to it.
-Seminalysis
-Intertextuallity- applied to text, but not words

Helene Cixous- (Heather)
Began with contemplation of the verb "to be", what does it mean? She had a jewish father and a german mother, this experience led her to writing perhaps. Her work could be classified as feminist, but she aimed to combine masculinity and femininity. She believes that the miniscule makes a great difference. She wrote "L'ecriture feminine". Writing itself embodies humans.

Wolfgang Iser-
He studied literature and received a Ph.D.. He focused upon the exploration of contemporary philosophy and literature, loved travel and culture as well. He came up with and studied the "reader response theory". This focused upon the reader's contact with the text, process of the first reading. Dialogue and text work together.

Sigmund Freud-(Kyle N.)
He started the psychoanalytic school and was very into the interpretation of dreams. Freudian criticism was also obviously thought of by Freud himself. Freud is an egocentric character. The fallic symbol in the text can be conscious or unconscious. Freud was also interested in the Oedipus Complex and how it may play into text.

Edward Said- (Jiwon)
~Difference between Eastern and Western
~Any history is not standardized, but something dynamic
~Holding general public by act of persuassion unconsciously
~Provide Foundation- Civilization