Mything the News

"Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular" -Aristotle, "Poetics"

When Aristotle uses the term "poetry" in poetics, it is in reference to a wide medium of artistic expressions including literature and drama, like the stories that we're reading in class. Isn't it ironic that underneath the "particulars" of history ("what's new", at the present) lurks poetry ("what's old)? For instance, to continue with the example of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, that we've been using in class: at surface level, it's all particulars. But beneath the catchy (or lame) headlines, a universal story springs. No matter how particular these publications get, or how many details they relate about what's current, there's something poetic at it's core.
We can acknowledge the headlines and the words when we peruse the newspaper, but at a deeper, more human level, we can be moved by the stories that we know, the universal elements of the daily news; and that is the poetic feature underlying historical events. Thoreau said "Read not the Times. Read the eternities". Times = history= particulars. Eternities= poetry= the universal.

We see in the Bozeman Daily Chronical a manifestation of ideas and themes that are very universal; truths that relate to all of mankind. We are hopelessly human, and so are our publications: writing our present reality from our past.

Micheal Sexson- "Man Reading"

For all those who were inspired and impressed by the short story Micheal read in class on Wednesday, here is a link to it (we could all benefit from a second reading!)

http://www.mississippireview.com/1996/msexson.html

For the laughs...

I thought a good observation was cited in class on Monday about how in our modern society, a person can get away with so much bs under the guise of "comedy" that would be completely taboo under any other circumstances. I wouldn't have thought that ancient societies operated the same way; I was under the impression that our tolerance levels for what is inappropriate are getting looser and and looser as time and technology advance. But it is clear just looking at the covers of the classic literature we're going to be digging into this semester that comedians have always been allowed to bend the rules a bit. The first of many clear examples of the "back to the orgins" theme we'll be exploring in this class... a theme I am very intrigued by and feel strongly about. I am positive that, in true Sexson form, English 213 will have me discovering coincidences abound. I expect to start mentally tracing every aspect of my life back to it's core, and finding that life springs from the "originary". Let the epiphanies begin!