Class test questions...explicated

Hi everybody. We all have the same notes for class (I copy and pasted these from Chris's blog, so thanks), but I thought I'd expand on them just a bit. Not that any of the expansion will be on the test, but it might help to jog your memory if we can make a few connections and get past the esoterica of abstractions. One question I would have like to have seen is "If you want somebody to grow up to be a thief you call them a.....thief! A question that represents the power of suggestion in either a primarily oral or a literate culture--or a secondarily oral culture.

1. Nietzsche says we are all walking dictionaries
I never actually got this question from the Ong text, but from Jack Goody's "The Consequences of Literacy". You'll notice that Ong often cites Goody. The idea behind the fact that we are all walking dictionaries can be found throughout Ong, most notably on page 104 and 123ish, where he describes the modern vocabularies as "magna-vocabularies". There's so much information out there in the print culture that no longer are our means of communication aggregative, but actually very exclusionary. There is a lot of individual choice involved in reading--what you want to learn and read, and what you don't. As such, this can be an overwhelmingly alienating feeling because, as opposed to an oral culture where everyone in a particular milieu know the same things, the print culture read and relates only one the individual wants.

2. Off Sutter's Talk of Ramone Lull, name these terms for given to him: Motion, No Images, Non-Corporeal, Ladder, Tree.
Brandon's initial question was what are Thomas Acquinas's four rules of memory, and which ones were used by Lull. On Yates pg. 85, Acquinas's rules are: that the man trying to remember should dispose those things which he wishes to remember in a certain order, the second is that he should adhere to them with affection, the third is that he should reduce them to unusual similitudes, and the fourth is that he shuld repeat them with frequent meditation. Lull focused on this last rule of memory, in addition to introducing motion to memory. This is important because rather than the similitudes being stagnent, Lull uses the 9 attributes of God arranged in a circle (like an alethiometer) and moves the circle like you would a combinatorial lock. The stairs Lull uses to ascend to heaven and his tree to help memorize the abstractions. The stairs and the tree are images in and of themselves, but they are used to memorize not individual items, but Lulls memory schematisation in general. The memorization of abstractions, not similitudes, becomes visual.

3. Ong Chap. 6 - Triangle vs. Box (questions will go along these.... remember Fritag Triangular form as reference to Aristotle's Poetics vs. Mis-en-Abyme (into the abyss) Box within Box form of Orality)
This is probably one of my favorite questions that we could ask. The narratives of a literate culture form a triangle with a rising action, a climax, and a denoument (sp*). The box within a box tells the story of frames, infinite reflexivity, and endless allusion. Mis-en-abyme literally translates to "into the abyss", but, more generally, represents endless reflection and interplay between multiple narratives. It is a story within a story. For those of you who are unfamiliar or encountering this term for the first time, get to know it well--with all great literature you should find yourself in an abyss.

4. The Protestant Reformation = Printing Press
This is Snake-haired Kayla's question and its a great one. I just finished reading a book called "Wide as the Waters" by Benson Bobrick--very enlightening, with an overall point that the translation of the King James Bible from Latin (originally translated into Latin by St. Jerome) was an integral part in the founding of American Democracy. But, interestingly enough, why was the printing press so important to the Protestant Reformation? Because THE BOOK became THE WORD. No longer was faith placed in the church (as the clergy themselves couldn't hardly read Latin), but people bypassed unfrequented churches and went directly to the book and everyone was able to have a special relationship with God through text rather than use the corrupt clergy as the middleman to salvation. The Protestant Reformation essentially symbolizes faith in the book, in literacy.

5. Mandala - Squaring of the Circle

6. Democratic/Alphabet

7. Ong 142 - Gesang ist dasein. (Means "song is existence" in German)

8. Ong 130 - Finality and Closure (print)
This one is pretty self explanatory. When you put something on a page, it remains. When you say something orally, it vanishes, gone forever with the wind (but, after all, tomorrow is another day), lost as soon as its spoken. By being closed off, a work of print and text seems to be an entity unto intself, unable to interact with the reader or carry on an antagonistic, flyting tone. However, I do think there's is plenty of free play in text--websites are under construction, and by the time you read this I will probably have corrected myself a few dozen times. These corrections are allowed in text, but tend to be counter-productive in speech whereby the speaker loses credibility each time he corrects himself.

9. Yates 224 - The Memory System of ______ would require the memory of a divine man, the Magus. Bruno
In one of my previous blogs (2/24/09) I have a video of comedian Bill Hicks. Watch it and I think he really explains what happens to people like Bruno when they have come up with something great. No man is allowed to attain God-head. Let us recall the fall of Babel, where God banished man into different languages to confuse him because he aspired to be God. But I say go ahead and try...its not like you would cause one tenth of one tenth of one percent of the destruction and chaos God does.

10. What does alithiometer stand for? A Truth Measurer
Quite literally, the prefix A-LITH means an "unforgetting". You'll recall that lethe (lethal) means a forgetting. If you ever happen to be in Hades, stay away from this river or you'll become a zombie. If you read blogs by Phillip Pullman, who wrote The Golden Compass in which an Alithiometer (as well as a subtle knife and an amber spyglass) is used to find the truth about dust. I'd love to go into this for a while, but I can't, but, like I was saying, Pullman used Francis Yate's book as a primary inspiration for his epic fantasy. An unforgetting is somehow different than remembering in that you are undoing your forgetfullness, preening your angel wings, ready to take flight through experience--and to forge something special in the smithy of your own soul.

11. 7 Pillars of Solomon's House of Wisdom - Camillo (The 7 Planets of Yore)
After Lull I needed a break and haven't worked with Camillo yet, but this is on Yates page 138. Its all about astral science and the celestial world which I know nothing about...yet.

12. Iliad - "Such was the funeral rights of Hector, The Tamer of Horses"
I keep a horse on my patio. Not really, but it reminds me of this line, as well as the first and last lines of Richard III, which Wise Wandering Shannon knows well. Ask her, she'll recite some lines for you, she's really good at it.

13. Ong Chap. 4 - How many times was the alphabet invented? Once

14. What are the chances of something happening? 1 in 3 (The longer you live and the older you
get, you just realize that coincidences are always happening because you realize they do.)

15. What did Tai and Robert use for their memory systems? Their Bodies
Does anybody know Jesse Stolba, or anyone else with wonderful sleeves of tatoos and worded limbs? If my father would let me, I might get corporealities tattooed all over myself.

16. FW Article - Before writing their was speech, and before speech their was gesture.
The bottom line: reading preceeds writing.

17. Yates 188 - Lull and Cabala - System that arose from this
I believe the Cabal is all about word mysticism

18. FW Article - Hypertext & Portmanteau - (James Joyce and Cyberspace language)
Great question. A Portmanteau is a compartmentalized suitcase, or a word that means multiple things. If you ask Humpty Dumpty about it, he'll tell you that one word can have multiple meanings (or in Joyce's and the internet's case, dozens of meanings and links) because he "pays it extra" when it has to do a lot of work. Click here for some examples of portmanteaus as well as a link to Jabberwocky..."Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe!"

19. Ancient Hebrew language was lacking what? Vowels. LTRTR NGLSH

21. Yates 203 - What is Bruno doing when he's said to be crazy and unrestrained? Bruno rushes out of convent/Divination of Man through memory

22. Ong 126 - Tristram Shandy's Silence - Blank Space
23. George Herbert's Poem "Easter Wings" (Hourglass Shape + Butterfly Wings) - Ong 126
We're talking about the exploitation of the typographic space. Blank lines on a page meaning silence, a new meaning given to the phrase "read between the lines". Click here to read Herbert's poem.


24. The most notorious book that nobody reads? FW
This is a fine question. Dr. Sexson asked if anyone has read FW and everybody raised their hands. Actually, from what I understand, no one "reads" FW, they sing it, they dance it. Dr. S said that all literature aspires towards FW, but we know that all art aspires to the condition of music. So, when we say "gesang est dasein", life and are are music. Nietzsche also said he would never worship a God who didn't dance. The words of FW dance of the page, and each time you reread a word it does a different dance. I can't wait to graduate so I can spend the better part of my unemployment singing FW. Like Brandon wants more question from Kane, I would have liked a few more from Sexson's article.

25. Myths are repository for practical knowledge.
Brandon felt compelled to do Kane justice. If I were Kane, I'd appreciat it. In an oral culture in which there were nothing but myths, the knowledge had to be practical or else it was thrown out and unneeded by the community. So there is no reason why an oral culture with mythologize something that was not of use to them.

26. The ability to hears colors? Synesthesia
Don't think you don't have the ability to hear colors, taste movement, or feel sound. I was once walking with a friend and he said, "I hear music." and I said, "You're not special, there's no other way to apprehend music." I love to be wrong.