All posts by Josue Garzon

Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3

 

  1. One idea that strikes me as important regarding the relationship between language and meaning is how Culler defines meaning. He states that language and meaning have to evoke an effect on the reader. The effect being solving the “puzzle” that text is presenting for the reader. Stories and poems can both have parts that can engage the reader “in a process of puzzling..” I believe that this is important because it is very true. Language does produce meaning and such language can be what the parts of the story or poem can provoke. This, too, is also a part of the “meaning” of the text.
  2. There is one poem that shows one of the four rhetorical language techniques, being irony, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche, which is the brain is wider than the sky by Emily Dickinson. Emily uses the rhetoric device metaphor to emphasize how special our human brain is and its capabilities, hence being “wider” than the sky. This is importance because Cullers poetic technique has the reader dig deeper into texts, such as this one, and has us find the true meaning behind that text. Culler specifically wants us to find the meaning of the text, think of it as having a structure of its own, and the provocations of the text. This helps shape the poem as a whole.

Fictional Literature

Blog Post #2

When Culler defines literature from several different angles, he brings about the angle of “literature as fiction”. This stood out to me the most because with fiction stories comes the imagination and mind. With fictional stories, you have to think about the context of the story, the complexities of the characters in the story, the plot, what the author meant by a certain line, or, as a whole, what he wanted out of the story, or the main idea. With fictional literature comes all of these ideas and questions which makes it more intriguing for the reader to continue on observing and reading for himself because reading fictional literature is very useful. Analytical skills come into play and you always have the question yourself because the story can be very complex and misunderstood. Plus, fictional stories are very immersive and fun to read.

Blog Post #1 Emily Dickinson

Blog Post #1, Blog posts

In the poem written by Emily Dickinson “The brain- is wider than the sky-” Emily writes about the importance of the brain and what it is capable of. In the first line of the poem Emily states that the brain is wider than the sky. At first glance, you could catch a small glimpse of what Emily is trying to say about the brain. As you continue to read the rest of the poem, you could understand almost all of the poem and what Emily is trying to say about the capabilities of the brain. This sentence implies that the subconscious person has the ability to think, perceive, and create, implying that the mind can accomplish everything it sets its mind to. In other terms, the brain’s imagination is boundless. The sentence ‘The Brain—is wider than the Sky—’ offers a crucial significance, indicating that the brain when it comes to thought and imagination is wider than the open space in the air. This jumps out to me as being important to the question of “what is literature” because it contains the rhetorical device metaphor and this piece of work written by Emily is a form of art, poetry, and can be instantly recognizable through the use of literature. The poem continues on to metaphorically talk about the brain capabilities as she states that the “brain is deeper than the sea.” Again, Emily writes this line as a way to show how the brain is deep in the sense of gaining knowledge. Dickinson’s symbolic analogy of the brain to the sea suggests that humans are capable of profound insights. The speaker of the poem goes on to explain that the mind is capable of observing, absorbing, and processing a large amount of information by comparing the brain to a sponge that soaks up a bucket of water. The use of language that is written in this line makes it easier to grasp and understand and has us the reader distinguish characteristics of the poem which leads to the importance of the question “what is literature?”