Pathetic Fallacy

Lear and the storm. The storm not only reflects what Lear is experiencing in his own mind and life, but in fact confirms the chaos of it all.

Discussing the idea of pathetic fallacy in both of the plays. The role the environment plays and how it affects the psyche of Lear and George.

This is the poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature, inanimate objects, or animals. The practice is a form of personification that is as old as poetry, in which it has always been common to find smiling or dancing flowers, angry or cruel winds, brooding mountains, moping owls, or happy larks.

Ruskin's Discussion of pathetic fallacy.

When Modern Painters III (1856) explains that emotional distortion characterizes the art and literature since the Romantics, Ruskin places major emphasis upon the fact that "an excited state of the feelings" makes a person "for the time, more or less irrational"(5.205). From this awareness of the effect of the emotions comes his definition of the pathetic fallacy: "All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the 'pathetic fallacy'"

KING LEAR & MKGIII: 28 April

LEAR

Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs)--Lear's mental momentary lapses/slip-ups. A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is an episode in which a person has stroke -like symptoms for less than 24 hours, usually less than 1-2 hours.

A TIA is often considered a warning sign that a true stroke may happen in the future if something is not done to prevent it.

Symptoms begin suddenly, last only a short time (from a few minutes to 24 hours), and disappear completely. They may occur again at a later time. Symptoms usually occur on the same side of the body if more than one body part is involved.

A TIA is different than a small stroke. However, the symptoms of TIA are the same as a stroke and include the sudden development of:

• Muscle weakness of the face, arm, or leg (usually only on one side of the body)
• Numbness or tingling on one side of the body
• Trouble speaking or understanding others who are speaking
• Problems with eyesight (double vision, loss of all or part of vision)
• Changes in sensation, involving touch, pain, temperature, pressure, hearing, and taste
• Change in alertness (sleepiness, less responsive, unconscious, or coma)
• Personality, mood, or emotional changes
• Confusion or loss of memory
• Difficulty swallowing
• Difficulty writing or reading
• Lack of coordination and balance, clumsiness, or trouble walking
• Abnormal sensation of movement (vertigo) or dizziness
• Lack of control over the bladder or bowels
• Inability to recognize or identify sensory stimuli (agnosia)

LEAR'S KNIGHTS:

They are such scruffy rabble of men. Think a gang of military guys. A useful cognate would be the group of gents in Dogfight. Their manner, behavior, and recreational habits are straight online with what we're looking for with Lear's knights. A bit of the mob mentality and the following of the intense aggressive energy. Mainly what was discussed today and keeps re-surfacing is the casual attitude toward violence which underpins the play. (start at 9:26--youtube)

Specificity with Lear's Knights and their responses to Goneril are key. We learn by the end of the scene at Goneril's that 50 of the followers have left the fold and no one's mentioned it. The knights would not have left if they didn't feel Lear was losing it. He begins to be disrespected, disregarded and disobeyed by all of Goneril's people, including the princess herself.

CURAN AND GLOUCESTER'S MEN:

Establishing these guys as just having been out of a meeting with Gloucester, they know of the supposed threat Edgar poses and the dueling Dukes of A and C. Curan willingly lets more info on to Edmund than he needs or has to.

MKGIII

The best website ever with historically accurate images of bloodletting/BLISTERING instruments etc.: CLICK HERE. Select images below.

Blistering bulbs/cups and "burners".

Also: scarificators--devices with spring-loaded blades used to cut patients to bleed them.

18th cent. back-rest.

There was that brief but highly topical tangent into the classics/strange deaths...

LULLY died when he put his conductor's staff through his foot, it became gangrenous, and he refused to have it amputated.

AESCHYLUS was killed by a tortoise falling from the talon's of an eagle flying overhead.

SOCRATES was poisoned, it was not, in fact, a tortoise.

DIOGENES lived in a barrel.

DINE OUT FOR LIFE

Dear All:

This Thursday (practically tomorrow) is Dine Out For Life in San Diego (And potentially other places but I don't know. I haven't researched this as in depth as I have say levees or bloodletting). This is the fourth annual Dining Out for Life San Diego. 100 participating restaurants, bars, coffee houses and nightclubs in San Diego will donate a minimum of 25% of sales to HIV/AIDS services and prevention programs.

I've made a reservation at THE TRACTOR ROOM--delicious foods and beverages--(best. place. ever.) for 8:00pm. I will have lil printed out sheets with the Tractor Room's address on it for Thursday if you want/need directions.

http://www.diningoutforlife.com/sandiego

http://www.thetractorroom.com/

Your social chair,

Gina

MKG III: Asylums

Around the same time period (1780s-1820s) there was a distinct French parallel to many aspects of English life. This included the treatment and care of the mentally ill.

Charenton Charenton was known for its humanitarian treatment of patients, especially under its director the Abbé de Coulmier in the early 19th century.

Abbé de Coulmier as a French Catholic priest and abbot, and the director of the Charenton insane asylum inFrance in the early 19th century. He was often criticized for his "overly liberal" methods of treatment, as he favored allowing patients the right to express themselves via art, and discouraged the more primitive habits of crude physical restraint and punishment of mental patients of the day.

Sounds a lot like Willis' place in Lincolnshire.

Watch Quills. It's a good movie.

Greatford: The most famous use of Greatford Hall was as the abode and private asylum for Dr . Francis Willis.

Dr. Francis Willis.

The inscription on Willis' bust in Greatford Hall: Sacred to the memory of the Revd. Francis Willis M D who died on the 5th December 1807 in the 90th year of his age. He studied at Oxford, was Fellow and sometime Principal of Brasenose College, where in obedience to his father he entered Holy Orders; but pursuing the bent of his natural taste and inclination he took the degree of Doctor of Physic in the same University and continued the practice of his profession to the last hour of his life. Initiated early into the habits of observation and research he attained the highest eminence in his profession: and was happily the chief agent in removing the malady which afflicted the present majesty in the year 1789. On that occasion he displayed an energy and acuteness of mind which excited the admiration and produced for him the esteem of the nation. The kindliness and benevolence of his disposition was testified by the tears and lamentations which followed him to the grave.

MKGIII and LEAR: The Four Humors

if you click on the chart it'll get bigger.

The Four Humours were how people understood the functioning of their own bodies and emotions. These ideas which seem crude and rather archaic to us were the incontrovertible scienctific fact of the time. For HUNDREDS of years. It was all about the Four Humours til we got to the development of modern medicine via the invention of the microscope/microscopic instruments in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were a theory of medicine and a psychological typology. The ideal person would have a body and spirit that kept each humor in control; balanced humours. The explanation therefore of an excited emotional state or an atypical physical state was regarded as an imbalance in the humors: eg an excess of yellow bile is causing someone to act rather violently--things of that nature.

I found this interesting but it may be a bit too detailed for some...

Digestion and Four Bodily Humors

Mouth takes in food and drink

First digestion

To Stomach
Usable parts are acted upon by
digestive fluids. (Unusable parts go
to large intestine and are
emitted as excrement.)

To Small Intestine
Becomes chyme by mixing with
digestive juices and fluids of meal.
(Travels through mesenteric veins, portal vein.)

To Liver

Second digestion

BLOOD HUMOR ARISES
(Hot & Moist)

Superior nutrients are taken in via
bloodstream to heart and dispersed to
cells via general bloodstream.

Third digestion

Less choice parts become

PHLEGM HUMOR
(Cold & Moist)

Normal digestion converts into mucus,
saliva, and gastric and intestinal mucus.
Abnormal digestion causes excess mucus,
classified as sweet, sour, thick, thin, etc.

Remaining nutrients become

YELLOW BILE (BILIOUS) HUMOR
(Hot & Dry)

Normal bile is formed in liver, affects
blood, and acts in small intestine.

Abnormal humor causes destructive changes in bile.

Sediments of precipitates of digestive nutrients become

BLACK BILE (ATRABILIOUS) HUMOR
(Cold & Dry)

Normal humor affects spleen and blood,
and mixes with phlegm humor.

Fourth digestion

Abnormal humor is passed out as ash
or admixes with blood humor and other
humors, producing morbid conditions.

MKGIII: Resources on things from rehearsal yesterday.

Georgie boy: Looks like you would get naked at your levée but not get out of bed until you had your day-shirt on. Levée: a ceremonial daily dressing of the king attended by many members of the court.

William Hogarth. The Countess's Morning Levee.1743.

William Hogarth. The Rake's Progress: The Rake's Levee. 1732.

For a larger version of this image, click here.

George III: as Man, Monarch, and Statesman. Google Book--with many references to all the historical characters. Ooh lala.

WARMING PAN filled with Welsh Coal from the cellar!

(ok and for the record there is an episode with a warming pan in Pirates of The Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl. Lookit: Start at 9:50 and watch to the end of the clip. Kiera's boss.)

LEECHES!

Packet Boat.

Parliament.

Privy Council: historically, the British sovereign’s private council. Once powerful, the Privy Council has long ceased to be an active body, having lost most of its judicial and political functions since the middle of the 17th century. This atrophy was a result of the decline of the sovereign’s responsibility for political decisions as power moved from the monarch to the prime minister and the cabinet. In modern times, meetings of the Privy Council are held for the making of formal decisions.

House of Lords: It processes and revises legislation: Bills have to go through various stages in both houses before they receive Royal Assent and become Acts. The Lords spends about

two-thirds of its time revising or initiating legislation.

It acts as a check on government: Members question the Government orally or

by written questions and they debate policy

issues.

It provides a forum of independent expertise: Specialist committees use Members’ wide-ranging expertise. The majority of committee meetings are open to the public.

Basic Info on how they work!

http://www.parliament.uk/lords/index.cfm

House of Commons: popularly elected legislative body of the bicameral British Parliament. Although it is technically the lower house, the House of Commons is predominant over theHouse of Lords, and the name “Parliament” is often used to refer to the House ofCommons alone.