2202234 Introduction to the Study of English Literature        

Semester I, 2010   

Wednesday, July 7, 2010    

Weekly 5        

Replenished Language

1.   Consider Ives’s stage directions of stopped clock, “no change” sign, and ringing bells.  Why would the bells open and end a segment that consists almost exclusively of the set of words spoken before and after it?  What is the purpose of the single loaf of bread?

2.   At the singular point of the story where Glass first recounts his encounter with the second woman, a trio of voices, reminiscent of the Greek chorus, comments on the composer’s tale (304).  Why characterize Glass as “quite serious” and “need[ing; italics mine] a loaf of bread” (297) and “some change” (313)?

3.   Philip Glass’s repetitive structures use a minimum of notes to create music.  Ives recasts this technique in his short play by making relatively few words express a wide range of existing and new meanings.  How does Ives manage repetition that is not static?  For instance, look at the first woman’s and Glass’s thrice repeated “a” (299) and the second woman’s “is/is?” (299, 300).  Compare appearances of certain words or phrases at different points in the story and see if there is any transformation of meaning with each recurrence.

4.   I strongly suggest you finish reading Ives’s Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread before watching the three video clips of different productions of the play whose links are given below and on our course detailed schedule page.  What are the strong and weak aspects of each production?

·        Santa Cruz production <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeXisIhdhPI>

·        Wichita State University <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri2a_GkVsmM>

·        Loyola University <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VFhd9uW__Q>

Get together with six friends and put together your version of Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread.  You might explore how different parts of the play urges varying pace in delivery, how altering the tone of voice changes the meaning of the same word spoken, how each character’s lines portray that character and reflect his or her state of mind over the course of the play, how character positions on the stage affect audience perception of the sounds being orchestrated.

5.   While Glass’s unique style of musical composition enriches Ives’s play, a natural voice inspires Les Murray’s poem, “Bats’ Ultrasound.”  Listen to Murray reading the poem at http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=218 (you will need RealPlayer for this).  With the help of a dictionary, see if you can translate the last six lines of bat sonar.  What might be a paraphrase of what the bats are saying beyond our normal range of perception?  

6.   Why is the bats’ “tee” described as detailed compared to “re”?  How does Murray map the various sounding and hearing ranges of the different animals?  What links the four stanzas of the poem? 

7.   In Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner’s two-minute poem, “Need,” what is the role of Lerner’s voice to Cook’s signing?  If you close your eyes and only listen to Lerner, what do you lose?  Why is it significant for non-signers to both see the ASL and hear the translation of “fish,” “ship,” “need” and “oil”?

8.   In Martory’s “Bastille,” how does the name of a jail as the title relate to the poem that follows?  Consider, for example, the French phrase “faire la java.”  What does it mean?  How does java in the sense of (not coffee or island, but) fête or celebration elaborate on the poem title?

9.   What do the words “cuffs” (l. 2), “night” (l. 3), and “closed” (l. 5) suggest?  What stylistic devices does Martory use to structure the simultaneously intimate and distant, loose and stifling feel of the poem?

10. Valerie Bloom’s “Two Seasons” begins with a “we” that seems to be set against “dem” but this dichotomy appears to disintegrate as the poem progresses, with “dem” in the last stanza no longer reproducing the us vs. them opposition.  What other patterns parallel this disintegration?

11. How does Bloom characterize the Jamaican seasons?  Why does she describe the rain in stanza one as “whisper[ing] to de young cane to wake,” the heat in stanza two as “a dancin’ dervish,” and the hurricane in the final stanza as “come callin’ / fe borrow de roof”?