Rewriting - Pastiche – Parody : how do literary works echo one another?
Le 8 Mars 2012
We have started a new session talking about writers and writing.
We fisrt learnt some definitions :
- an autobiography is a text in which the author is the narrator and she/he tells her/his story.
- a first person narrative is a text in which one of the characters is the narrator.
- a third person narrative is a text in which the narrator is outside the story.
We also talked about the fact that authors love having fun. For example, they play with words and invent words as Jarry, Boris Viand or Queneau. Moreover, they play with homophones or with the setting of the text. They can also write distorded text, parodies or pastiches.
It's interesting to know some other definitions.
- Parody : an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
- Pastische : a piece of art, music, litterature, etc... which intentionally copies the style of someone else's work or is intentionally in various styles, or thepractice of making art in either of these ways.
- Intertextuality : the relationship between texts, especially literary ones.
Le 8 Mars 2012
Now if you wanna learn about Poe's life you can have a look on this website :
http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php
Resume:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an unnamed narrator who insists he is sane but suffering from a disease (nervousness) which causes "over-acuteness of the senses". The old man with whom he lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old man, though the narrator states that he loves the old man, and hates only the eye. The narrator insists that his careful precision in committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, a process which takes him a full hour. However, the old man's vulture eye is always closed, making it impossible to "do the work".
On the eighth night, the old man awakens and sits up in his own bed while the narrator performs his nightly ritual. The narrator does not draw back and, after some time, decides to open his lantern. A single ray of light shines out and lands precisely on the old man's eye, revealing that it is wide open. Hearing the old man's heart beating unusually and dangerously quick from terror, the narrator decides to strike, jumping out with a loud yell and smothering the old man with his own bed. The narrator dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the floorboards, making certain to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to report to the police. The narrator invites the three arriving officers in to look around. He claims that the screams heard were his own in a nightmare and that the man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the old man's room, right on the very spot where the body is concealed, yet they suspect nothing, as the narrator has a pleasant and easy manner about him.
The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder, the narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. The sound increases steadily, though the officers seem to pay no attention to it. Shocked by the constant beating of the heart and a feeling that not only are the officers aware of the sound, but that they also suspect him, the narrator confesses to killing the old man and tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body.
Publication history:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" was first published in January 1843 in the inaugural issue of The Pioneer, a short-lived Boston magazine edited by James Russell Lowell. Poe was likely paid only $10 for the story. Its original publication included an epigraph which quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life". The story was slightly revised when republished in the August 23, 1845, edition of the Broadway Journal. This edition omitted Longfellow's poem because, Poe believed, it was plagiarized. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was reprinted several additional times during Poe's lifetime.Analysis:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator. The exactness with which the narrator recounts murdering the old man, as if his stealthy way of executing the crime is evidence of his sanity, reveals his monomania and paranoia.
The narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is generally assumed to be male. However, some critics have suggested a woman may be narrating; no pronouns are used to clarify one way or the other. The story starts in medias res, in the middle of the event. The opening is an in-progress conversation between the narrator and another person who is not identified in any way. It is speculated that the narrator is confessing to a prison warden, judge, newspaper reporter, doctor or psychiatrist. This sparks the narrator's need to explain himself in great detail. What follows is a study of terror but, more specifically, the memory of terror as the narrator is relating events from the past. The first word of the story, "True!", is an admission of his guilt. This introduction also serves to immediately grab the reader's attention and pull him/her into the story. From there, every word contributes to the purpose of moving the story forward, possibly making "The Tell-Tale Heart" the best example of Poe's theories on a perfect short story.
The story is driven not by the narrator's insistence upon his innocence but by insistence on his sanity. This, however, is self-destructive because in attempting to prove his sanity he fully admits he is guilty of murder. His denial of insanity is based on his systemic actions and precision—a rational explanation for irrational behavior. This rationality, however, is undermined by his lack of motivation ("Object there was none. Passion there was none."). Despite this, he says the idea of murder, "haunted me day and night". The story's final scene, however, is a result of the narrator's feelings of guilt. Like many characters in the Gothic tradition, his nerves dictate his true nature. Despite his best efforts at defending himself, the narrator's "over acuteness of the senses," which help him hear the heart beating in the floorboards, is actually evidence that he is truly mad. Readers during Poe's time would have been especially interested amidst the controversy over the insanity defense in the 1840s.
The narrator claims to have a disease which causes hypersensitivity in his senses. A similar motif is used for Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and in "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841). It is unclear, however, if the narrator actually has very acute senses or if he is merely imagining things. If his condition is believed to be true, what he hears at the end of the story may not be the old man's heart but death watch beetles. The narrator first admits to hearing death watches in the wall after startling the old man from his sleep. According to superstition, death watches are a sign of impending death. One variety of death watch beetles raps its head against surfaces, presumably as part of a mating ritual, while others emit a ticking sound. Henry David Thoreau had suggested in 1838 that the death watch beetles sound similar to a heartbeat. Alternatively, if the heart beating is really a product of the narrator's imagination, it is that uncontrolled imagination that leads to his own destruction.
The relationship between the old man and the narrator is ambiguous, as are their names, their occupations, and where they live. In fact, that ambiguity adds to the tale as an ironic counter to the strict attention to detail in the plot. The narrator may be a servant of the old man's or, as is more often assumed, his son. In that case, the "vulture" eye of the old man is symbolizing parental surveillance and possibly the paternal principles of right and wrong. The murder of the eye, then, is a removal of conscience. The eye may also represent secrecy, again playing on the ambiguous lack of detail about the old man or the narrator. Only when the eye is finally found open on the final night, penetrating the veil of secrecy, is the murder carried out. Regardless, their relationship is incidental; the focus of the story is the perverse scheme to commit the perfect crime.
Former United States Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur has suggested that the tale is an allegorical representation of Poe's poem "To Science". The poem shows the struggle between imagination and science. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the old man represents the scientific rational mind while the narrator is the imaginative.
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Le 25 Mars 2012
The Black Cat.
We study by pairs different short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe.
Here the links to all these stories ... If you feel ready to read !!
I have personnaly studied The Black Cat with Pascaline Bertout, Samantha Soletti, and Morgane Marrand.
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One can find many of these works and his biography on the following website:
Le 7 Avril 2012.
The Black Cat
The Black Cat is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was published for the first time on the front page of the August 19, 1843 edition of the weekly magazine The Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia.
This new takes the form of a first-person narrative whose narrator is an unreliable witness. According to his account, he loved animals since childhood. With his wife, he has many pets, including a black cat named Pluto, which is particularly linked affection for years. However, the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, as he returns home drunk, he gets carried away by anger against her cat: he takes it under his arm, pulls out his knife and it comes out of the eye orbit
From there, the cat began to flee in terror, when his master approach. First remorseful, it regretted his actions. But this feeling soon gives way to irritation. One morning, he grabbed the cat and hangs at the branch of a tree, where he leaves him to die thinking that it would be better, so her cat so loved. During the night, the house mysteriously caught fire, forcing the narrator to escape with his wife and servant.
The next day, the narrator returns to visit the ruins of his house, where he discovered, on the one wall that has survived the fire, the shape of a gigantic cat, tied a rope around his neck.
First, this picture terrifies him. But gradually, he finds a logical explanation: someone will be thrown from outside the body of the cat in the bedroom to wake him up during the fire. Some time later he found a cat similar to a tavern. It has the same size and same color as the original and, like him, he lost an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the breast of the animal. The narrator takes it home, but soon turns to hate, and even to experience fear in its place. After a moment, the white patch begins to take shape, which seems to the narrator that of a gallows.
One day the narrator and his wife visit the basement of their new home, the narrator takes in the cat's feet and falls down the stairs. Taken with fury, the man grabbed an ax and attempts to kill the cat, but his wife stopped him. In his anger, he kills it in him piercing the skull with the ax. To conceal his crime, he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, place the body behind the hole and blocked again.
A few days later, the neighbors, not seeing their neighbor called the police, ...
The narrator is he guilty or not?
Le 8 avril 2012
The black cat, a critical analysis:
The short story entitled, “The Black Cat”, written by Edgar Allen Poe is a dark and twisted tale of a man who commits an evil deed early in his life that he is never able to forget or forgive himself for. There are many supernatural elements in this story, such as references to apparitions, God, and inescapable acts. It is the latter that is the theme of the story and the strongest reference to unmentioned, unseen forces. This unmentioned force is a strongly believed Buddhist belief, called Karma. Belief in Karma implies that a person who commits good, just acts will be rewarded with better life conditions in their next incarnation. Unjust acts lead to worse conditions in their next life. This story deals with a modified version of that belief, and that is that horrid, unjust acts, like those committed by the narrator of the tale, cannot go unpunished forever.
In his early years, the narrator seems like any other man. He falls in love, marries that special girl, and they decide to get a few pets. Some of these pets appear to be quite unusual, but they seem happy and therefore to each his own. They end up with birds, goldfish, a dog, rabbits, and a black cat. This black cat proves to be the man’s faithful companion in his youth, and he and the cat quickly become very attached to one another.
However, as this man sunk into the depths of alcoholism, he quickly became intolerant with everything around him, everything including his wife, and his faithful companion, Pluto, which was the cat’s name. He constantly maltreated each of the animals, all except Pluto, whom he left alone because of their early friendship. However, Pluto could not understand that his master had changed and continued to try to stay close to the man, further and further aggravating the man, and eventually driving the man to a fit of madness that caused him to drive his pen into Pluto’s eye, effectively removing the eye from the socket. The cat obviously avoided the man from then on, but the man was so aggravated that he hung Pluto in a near by garden. The man’s house was then burnt to the ground, and because of the actions of one of his neighbor’s, Pluto’s dead body ended up saving the man’s life during the fire. Afterward, the man finds another cat, almost the same as Pluto, missing eye and all, with one distinguishable difference; this new cat was not all black. This cat’s presence drives the man to another fit of rage, during which buries an axe deep in the brain of his spouse, because she tries to stop him from burying the axe in the cat. The man is then arrested and convicted of the murder of his wife, and is in jail while retelling his tale.
The moral of this tale is that a person’s acts will eventually catch up to him. In this story, he tries to kill the second cat because of its relation to the first. He was ashamed of what he did to Pluto, and he was moved to another fit of rage by this new cat because of the things it forced him to think about. This new cat was like his conscience trying to speak through his madness. It forced him to think about things that he would rather just forget, just as one’s conscience would force someone to think not only of their actions, but who their actions are hurting, what the fruits of their actions are or might be, or even how any given action would either help or hinder any given situation. Many people believe that this is how one’s action’s ‘catch up’ with that person. There may or may not be a divine force at work, but the conscience of a person forces one to remember all deeds committed by them, not just the deeds that person wishes to recall.
http://www.mannmuseum.com/critical-analysis-of-quot-the-black-cat-quot-by-edgar-allan-poe/
Le 13 avril 2012
The pastiche and the parodie
Vocabulary:
Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds, usually at the beginning of words. Alliteration is marked in blue.
Assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds, usually within words. Assonance is marked in purple.
Internal rhyme - the rhyming of words within a line of poetry, not just at the end of the lines. Internal rhymes are marked in red.
Vocabulary words - This unit provides definitions for many words that may not be familiar to you. These words are marked in yellow.
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Here are some documents that explain the text:
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Here's how to write a pastiche with examples, and how to write a parody with a few examples:
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Then we saw various parodies of this poem. And a parody done by the Simpsons:
Similitude It's the same text except for a few stanzas wich are missing. Homer is scared.
The raven perches on the best of Pallas. | Differencies very colourfull the raven makes Poes book fall from the shelf
the atmosphere is comic and joyful
There's a sharp contrast between his fright and this harmless bird. |
This is more parody than a pastiche because the message of the end: "Gothic stories don't scare children anymore. They are used to watching scary movies, so gothic poems seem to be ridiculous.
Extract of Scary movies:
Le 12/05/2012
Axterix and Obelix, the 12 work
My presentation about Asterix and Obelix, the 12 works. This animated film is a parody of the 12 labors of Hercules (Heracles). Indeed, Hercules must perform 12 labors to forgive his mistake of killing his family has had a curse of Hera. The latter will thus perform 12 works that seem impossible to accomplish for a mother mortal. These works are: The Nemean lion, the Hydra of Lerna, the doe Cérynie, Erymanthus The Boar, The Augean Stables, The Birds of Lake Stymphales, The Cretan bull, mares of Diomedes, belt of Hippolyte, the herd of Geryon, The Garden of the Hesperides and the goalie. After completing these 12 labors, Hercules knows an eventful life still pursued by the Gods. At the end, Hercules is recognized as a hero and eat at the table of the gods. It thus becomes an immortal and a god.
In Asterix and Obelix, the 12 works, 50 BC In the Roman-occupied Gaul, one village still holds out against the invaders. Julius Caesar, who is reported that these indomitable Gauls were endowed with divine powers, then throws them a challenge. Asterix and Obelix will have to undergo twelve events (like the labors of Hercules). But the labors of Hercules being a bit "old fashioned" Caesar and his advisers have set up new events. If they succeed, Caesar promised to step down and hand it to Vitalstatistix, their leader. But if they lose one of these tests, they will experience the wrath of Caesar. The Roman Caius Pupus, impartial judge very small that walks like a pigeon, is sent with them to guide them and ensure they perform their work.
Thus the 12 shovels. The following is a list of work carried out by Asterix and Obelix.
Merino beat in the race
Olympic champion followed by Asterix (aided by the magic potion) accelerates, turns into a rocket, going three times the sound barrier. The champion, in its tracks to go faster Asterix, knocks himself against an apple tree. Asterix has fun throughout the race to show Merino mushrooms and flowers he has plucked, while following the Greek effortlessly while it makes a huge effort.
Throw the javelin farther than the Persian Kermes
This result does not seem that his right arm because it is disproportionate. It happens to throw the javelin as far as America, but Obelix, without apparent effort, throws his javelin so far that goes around the Earth, coming back from Persia and continues. (Incidentally, one can notice the presence of Oumpah-Pah in the Indian camp.)
Overcoming the Cylindric Germain in combat
The cylindric Germain is a martial arts expert and mainly in judo. (This is an anachronism, since judo was invented in 1882). Contrary to what suggests the huge door through which he must enter it is a little man (smaller Asterix) and is dressed in a kimono. Cylindric uses the force of Obelix (who wants to finish quickly) and its susceptibility of its size to send it to the edges of the arena and fight. Asterix prefer to use the trick: Cylindric he teaches the technique and its application Asterix finally tie a knot with arms and legs of Cylindric.
Facing the priestesses of the island fun
The two heroes must cross a lake that has at its center an enchanting island. This island, inhabited by the priestesses of pleasure, contains everything a man could want, except boars. It is through this lack comes to his senses and Obelix Asterix prevent falling, forever, in the hands of priestesses fun.
Bear the unbearable look of Iris, the wizard from Egypt
Iris is an Egyptian magician. He hypnotizes people and forces them to do to animals. As he tries to hypnotize Asterix for it to take a boar, it resists without apparent effort. Upset by his sarcasm, the mage finally use strong and asks him to repeat "I am a boar, I am a wild boar! "But Asterix replaced with" I "with" You're "Iris and self-hypnotizes himself as a boar. Iris has a certain resemblance to Dr. Septimus in Blake and Mortimer album The Yellow mark, especially because of the shape of her eyes and because of the presence of a lamp on his forehead.
Eat the meal prepared by the Belgian Mannekenpix, the cook of the Titans
Obelix (who gave Iris hunger with his tales of wild boar) eats in this test: a boar with fries, a flock of geese, a flock of sheep, an omelet of eight dozen eggs, an entire school of fish, an ox, a cow, two calves, a mountain of caviar (with his little toast), a camel, an elephant stuffed with olives. Mannekenpix but suggests that it is only the beginning because he said, "And before we move on," and then the scene cut. Mannekenpix finally out in tears because Obelix ate it all and there is strictly nothing in the kitchen. Obelix even surprised at this turn of events, because it comes shortly after Asterix asking where is the head, and adds: "He dropped me just after the appetizers"
Enter the belly of the beast
The two heroes must enter a cave accident in which an animal lives. They are then seen a game of tennis played with a skull face bat skeletons, eyes that come from nowhere and pop who meet for a few seconds in a Paris subway station (Alesia) before to be plunged back into darkness. It is ultimately the appetite of an ogre Obelix that will overwhelm the monster: indeed, at the exit of the cave, Caius Pupus asked: "The Beast, how it was? "Obelix then responds:" Oh, it was good! "Before ordering a drink at the server. This victory is however suggested that, because we see neither the beast nor how Obelix has settled his bill.
Get the pass A-38 in the House that crazy
This is a multi-storey building bureaucracy, where the staff (including some crazy), Asterix and Obelix redirects from one office to another to collect all necessary forms to get the pass A-38. After being disoriented and a brush with madness, Asterix pulls himself together and decides to take them at their own game by asking an imaginary form (A-39) according to a circular (B-65) which is equally important. All staff went in search of the new form, causing disarray in the building. Finally, Form A-38 is given "free" to make him leave and return order to the office.
Cross a ravine on an invisible thread, above the Nile crocodile
Arrived in the middle of the wire, lacking balance, the two heroes finally choose to give up and face the crocodiles, leaving them stunned swing on invisible thread.
Climb the highest mountain and answer the riddle of the Venerable Summit
After a difficult climb, the Venerable Summit challenge to find Asterix blindfolded which pile of laundry was washed with Olympus' Gods of the laundry that makes the soft, flexible "in a parody advertisement for laundry 1970s.
Sleeping on the plain of the Dead
The plain is haunted by the ghosts of Roman soldiers fallen in battle. This is not a pleasant place. Obelix tries to fight them, but it can not hurt ghosts. Asterix, woken by the commotion, they made a scene typical neighborhood noise at night ("You know what time it is?!?"), Which ends up scaring them.
Participate in the circus Maximus
Upon awakening, the two heroes find themselves in the city of Rome (without knowing how they got there) with their companions from their village to fight in the arena. After defeating the Gladiators (with the potion Getafix), the Gauls turn the Circus Maximus in modern circus, thanks to the lions, elephants, and bears.
After the success of the Gauls, Caesar acknowledges they are gods, gives them control of the Roman Empire, and retired with the queen Cleopatra in a small Roman house. Caius Pupus ask reward to retire on the Island of pleasure.
Thus, one can observe that this animated movie is a parody of the myth of Hercules. Indeed, after completing the 12 labors, Asterix and Obelix and their people is awarded the rank of divinity by Caesar and the Roman people. Thus, throughout history we can observe a nod to Hercules. Finally, it is a parody, because the director tries to make people laugh by putting comic scenes in the animated film.
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le 24/05/2012
Parody in Art
le 29/05/12
HALLOWEEN PARTY
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