Things I think are going to be on the Final

After going through my blogs, the following things are some of the items that I think are going to be on tomorrow's final. All of these items Dr. S mentioned in relation to the final at one point or another in the past month.

1. "Telling stories is not a demonstration of talent; it is always a matter of life and death."
2. What famous landmark did Robert Flood make into one of his memory theaters?
1. Globe Theater
3. Julio Camillo was attacked by what animal?
1. Lion; his memory theater protected him
4. Song is the ___________ of songs sung.
1. remembrance
5. What is a talisman?
1. A magical object
6. What was Bruno's talisman?
1. lion
7. What field was not considered seriously in academics until the 20th century? 
1. English Literature
8. Ongs says Western culture created ________ while orality refers to it as ______. (Found on page 166)
1. Structure
2. Memory
9. Chapters of Ong
1. Patterns
2. Maps
3. Boundaries
4. Dreams
5. Complimentarity
6. Context
10. Modern writing uses ______ characters while primary orality uses _______ characters.
1. round
2. flat
11. Ong believed that literature was ______ based where Derrida thought that literature was ____ based.
1. oral
2. text
12. In Yates, how was Simonides represented on Bruno's memory wheel?
1. A figure of a man
13. From the Kane book, Myths are not only stories about the gods but about _____.
1. Nature
14. What term does Levi Strauss saw was should replace primitive with in the context of oral people?
1. without writing
15. Which letters of the alphabet are in Lull's memory system?
1. B-K
16. Look at the presentations that you missed
1. Rio's Blog
17. 5 Museyrooms
1. Nick of the Poptarts: Where's Waldo
2. Jennifer of the Falling Waters: Novela
3. Ashley Kicker of Puppies: Memorable Books (6 books)
4. Sweet & Spicy Shelby: Blog Boxes (nestings)
5. Cassidy Uterpe: Epistotary Memory Theater (Revolving Doors & Letters)
18. 5 items incorporated into Museyrooms
1. Pen
2. Rock
3. Seashell
4. Moon
5. Rabbit

Museyroom Explanation/Class Summary

Personally, I have loved seeing all of the Museyroom presentations these past few weeks. I think that everyone in our class is brilliant and deserves a big "A"! What was really intriguing is that all of us had the same assignment but have all taken it in amazingly different directions. This is a key aspect of why Lit majors are so great. All of us have listened to the same lectures, read the same books, and had the same assignments but all of us have found different avenues to channel our inspiration. Even though, I explained my Museyroom during class, I don't think that I did it justice. So here goes another shot at doing a better job....

 I initially chose to use a purse because I felt that doing a regular poster would not be as much fun as I could have with this assignment. But after I decided how to do, I just couldn't decide what to put in/on my Museyroom. I wanted to do something that was going to be significant to me but also something that wouldn't be boring to everyone else. The inspiration for the content of my Museyroom came in a flash. With my presentation, I was hoping to incorporate the see, say, and experience but I don't think it worked quite as well as I had hoped. Everyone definitely saw what I wanted them to see, I don't think they experienced it as I did. But then I think that is the point of the Museyrooms. The point is that it means something to its creator, and not necessarily to its secondary audience. In that sense, my Museyroom was an absolute success!
  When I started this blog, I was going to post all of the pictures that I put on my purse but on further reflection, I just want to put the words because my pictures don't really matter. Yours do!

• Illusion
• Demeter
• Persephone
• Wheat/Agriculture
• Hades
• Tartarus
• Death
• the Seasons
• Initiation
• Soul
• Muses
• Hero
• Mythology
• the Gita
• Romance
• Naive
• Eleusinian Mysteries
• See
• Say
• Experience
• Orubourus
• Life

To me these words contain the entire universe and if we have them in our memories, we have the entire world. Even though, everyone who reads this blog will know what all of these things are, everyone will have different images in their mind when their inner voice says the words. Everything in life can fit into at least one if not more of these words. Because that is the true memory system. The one that allows us to all build connections within our minds. These connections must be lasting, vital, and strong in order to survive. But if they are, then they will last forever. Just like the ideas of all of the words above have lasted for centuries and will last much longer than the memories of the you, me, or anyone else that we may come into contact with during our life. 

The final point that I wish to stress at this time is that what I have just said above is no different than what anyone else has said or shown with their Museyroom. We have all shown how the universe makes sense in our minds and how there are concepts that we deal with everyday that will live much longer than our personal memories or legacies. 

• Quinten did this using the brain, not in its typical form but as a memory tool
• Jenny did this by immortalizing aspects of people in the class but only the parts of us that related to her memory and not necessarily our own memories
• Shelby did this by making a boxes of blogs. She had the entire universe in those boxes because it showed the infinite possibilities of what could be written on the walls
• Parker gave us a demonstration of the powers of association with the unfamiliar
• Levi took us back to our childhood when the whole world existed in our bedroom from the world of Narnia to the White House

These are just a few of the wonderful examples of how the entire world can be contained in such small things. I could have picked any person's Museyroom and been able to show how it contained the entire universe and was the same as everyone else's. But I think that we have not mentioned my next point as much as we should have. On Monday, Dr. S mentioned "our collective memory theater", which is a concept I want to explore. We have indeed built a collective memory theater as our theaters are starting to become interchangeable as Seth pointed out. He might have heard someone else's memory theater but he saw his own in his mind. Through this class, we have all combined our memories to a collective theater or even more accurately named, Dr. Sexson's Museyroom. All of us, as students of Lit 337 Spring 2012, have contributed to helping make Dr. Sexson's Museyroom a reality but we have just manifested it in our own ways but have all demonstrated the same things. We have demonstrated that everything in the world can be contained within our memories, even if we do not know exactly what everything is. Then to further compact the universe, we are able to give life to inanimate objects to make them contain the world with the use of words. This is the importance of the Oral Tradition. It is not to tell stories but to give us the power to have the entire universe at our fingertips if only we realize the power that we hold and figure out how it meshes with the various ways each and everyone of us sees through the illusion of reality. 

Complimentarity

COMPLIMENTARITY STORY

The Assembly of the Wondrous Head

The Assembly of Branwen and Matholwch

The Men who Went to the Other World

Bran the Blessed, son of Llyr, was king over us, the people of the Island of the Mighty. His brothers were Manawydan of Llyr, Nissyen and Evnissyen. Nissyen was a man who could make peace between mortal enemies while his brother Evnissyen could make loving brothers want to fight to the death. These brothers had a sister, Branwen, daughter of Llyr. She was one of the Three Great Matriarchs of the Island of the Mighty and the most beautiful woman in the world.

            One day, a great fleet of thirteen ships, greater than anything anyone had ever seen before, came to the Island of the Mighty. It was Matholwch, the King of the Other. He had come to ask for the hand of Branwen to unite the Island of the Mighty and his own realm of power, which would make both prosper. So at daybreak, the chiefs of the Island of the Mighty held council and it was decided that Branwen would marry Matholwch. All agreed except for the querulous brother Evnissyen. After the marriage that would unite the two kingdoms, a magnificent feast was held. All partook with the festivities with the exception of Evnissyen. In revenge, he maimed all of Matholwch’s horses. How he maimed them was in the following manner: He cut their lips through to the teeth, and their ears back to their heads, and he cut their tails off--- and when he could get his hands around them, he cut their eyelids right back to the bone. Upon hearing the news, Matholwch left for his ships immediately, proclaiming his regret over his new marriage. In order to once again create peace, Bran offered Matholwch “a sound horse for every horse that was maimed, his honor-price a silver staff as thick as his little finge and a plate of gold as broad as his face”.  After conferring with his chiefs, Matholwch decided to accept his peace offering and once again the kingdoms were allies. One of the other gifts given to Matholwch was a cauldron which was given so Bran would not have to kill his treacherous brother. Upon receiving his gift, Matholwch and Bran started discussing the origins of the remarkable caldron.

LAKE OF THE CAULDRON PART

            From this battle, there were seven survivors of the Island of the Mighty. These seven who returned to the Island of the Mighty were Pryderi, Manawydan, Glifieu son of Taran, Talyessin, Ynawg, Gruddyeu son of Muryel, and Heilyn the son of Gwynn the Old. Bran the Blessed did not survive. He was slain by a poised spear that he took in the foot. Before his demise, he told his men to “take my head and carry it with you to Gwynfryn- the White Mountain. And bury it with its face towards the east. You will be a long time upon the road. At Harlech you will feat for seven years and the Birds of Rhiannon will be singing to you there. And the head will be as good company to you as it ever was when it was minee. Then after, you will be at Penvro eighty years and my head will not decay; only until one of you opens the door towards Aber Henvelen will you stay there. But when that door is opened, you cannot stay longer- then you must you east to the White Mountain to buyr the head. But now- now it is time for you to sail home to the other side” On the journey home, Branwen’s heart broke and they buried her on the shore of the Alaw. The men finally arrived in Harlech were a boundless feast awaited them. After feasting for 7 years, they left to the royal hall at Penvro. Here they felt no sorrow for all they had lost until Heilyn opened the door that gazed toward Aber Henvelen. After he opened this forbidden door, all the sorrow and pain came back as if they were once again experiencing it.  After leaving the Hall, the seven reached Gwynfryn and buried the head as Bran the Blessed had decreed. After the burial of Bran, no plague bothered the Island of the Mighty.

            Back in the Other World, no one survived the battle except for 5 women in a cave in the wilderness, all of whom were pregnant. All five bore sons who then took turns sleeping with each other’s mothers. The five men divided the realm equally and each ruled their own domain which prospered with them as leaders.

SUMMARY OF Celtic Four Branches of the Mabinogi

Essentially the point of a complimentarity and the role that it plays within the Oral Tradition is that all stories are a process. And these processes are unending. Kane states it in this manner “it is a mistake to speak of two equivalent states called “light” and “dark”. Instead, light is an aspect of the prior and enduring state which is darkness. And so the state of light and the state of dark are present at the same time to the myth teller, like the light and dark phases of the moon.”  This means that in order for the light or dark to exist, the other must exist as well. The two states are dependent on each other in every manner possible. “Each kind of power makes the other kind possible; the potentials of one compensate for the limitations of the other.” (172) Within the story of Bran the Blessed, the two forces are the Island of the Mighty and the Other world of Matholwch, who are each related in some aspects to gods.  Each has their own powers that amplifies and highlights the powers of the other side. As you are sure to see in the story, Matholwch is the more cunning while Bran is more in-line physical prowess. So listen up carefully while we tell you a story of the tricks gods play on each other…..

            One of the main concepts that Kane talks about is the Celtic Four Branches of the Mabinogi. The four branches refer to separate tales of the hero. The first branch shows how powerlessness affects each side of the teeter totter of complimentarity. Bran is powerless to control his brother while Matholwch is powerless to save his horses. By using the other as a resource, each are able to find a solution to their problem. Matholwch is able to get new horses while Bran finds a way around to control his brother through manipulating the situation. The main point of the first branch is that each side needs the other to fix its own problems.

            The second branch is shown as a tale of youthful exploits which is exemplified by Matholwch’s quest to gain Branwen’s hand in marriage. The truly interesting part of this branch is that it involves a certain amount of double-thinking. Using this form of logic, it is interesting to consider that Branwen may not have been the prize that Matholwch was truly seeking but instead the cauldron was his true aim. Here Kane refers to the people of the Other Kingdom to be gods or at the very least to be god-like. This part of the story suggests the gods ineptness and how they need the mortals to get them the Cauldron of Rebirth. This relates back to complimentarity because neither would have been able to have access to the Cauldron without the other truly making it the double-thinking of the story.

            The third branch focuses on the banishment of the hero. This branch is described by the quest of the seven men. It starts from when they have Bran’s head to the time that they open the door and once again feel all the sorrow they have avoided. In this part, they have lost all fertility from the death of Branwen and thus all hope for the human race. Even though they are not feeling the sorrow of life, they are truly banished from even the emotion of the Island of the Mighty or the Kingdom of the Other.

            The fourth and final branch depicts the very end of the story when the five female gods are found to be alive and pregnant. It is also apparent in the burial of Bran the Blessed’s head which causes an end to all plagues in the Island of the Mighty. This has created a circular trend for each kingdom. But this is only possible when the story collapses upon itself and then grows out of the ashes like a phoenix!