The Past v. The Present

Greenblatt claimed that the past is not actually "the past".  Instead it is intermingled into the present.  He believed that the past is everywhere we look.  We cannot escape it. 


To me, it also meant that if we were to go back in time we would actually discover current issues.  In World History at Northeast, my instructor, Mrs. Pam Floyd, always told us that history repeats because nothing is ever quite solved.

 For example, the religious wars have always been going on and they will probably continue far into the future.  Mrs. Floyd told us that if we ever find ourselves overwhelmed with the state of the world to just look into our history book.  She said that it would not take long for us to find another culture in another time struggling with the same issues.


The best way for me to illustrate Greenblatt's claim is to provide a few examples.  The following examples are quotes about the behavior of children.  As you will see, some of the same issues keep coming up.

"The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of
today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for
parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as
if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is
foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest
and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."
-Peter the Hermit, 13th Century AD

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."
-Socrates, 5th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders,
they disobey their parents. They ignore the law.
They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions.
Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"
-Plato,5th century BC

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"
-Hesiod, 8th century BC

 Today we see some of the same issues!  Actually, books are still being written about "kids these days...".  Take the following book for example:

Dr. Tim Elmore, a parenting expert, wrote this book to help us understand why our youth is slowly digressing.  He believes that children these days are "ahead of schedule in so many categories, yet behind in others."  By this he means that children/teens are biologically advanced, but their maturity levels are  still behind.  

So, Greenblatt knew what he was talking about!  The past is never truly our past.  Actually, fractions of the past are very similar to the present, as I have proven by using the "children these days..." example. 

Hyperreality

Baudrillard discussed the idea of the "hyperreal".  By hyperreal, he means anything that represents something that is real but yet never really existed.  This is a difficult concept and it is even more difficult to adequately define or explain, so I will include a few examples below:

 

Movies With High CGI Content

Avatar is a perfect example of the hyperreality that Baudrillard was talking about.  Avatar takes place on a foreign planet ad is inhabited with blue-skinned natives.  Although the natives move like monkeys and behave like the stereotypical native-American "Indians" of Western movies, they really have no reference point.

 

Gardens

Some gardens, such as the one above, are so manicured and symmetrical that they do not represent nature at all.  Instead, they take on a hyperreality.  They are obviously real - the grass in the photo above grows and needs cut occasionally - but they do not refer to "real" nature.

    

Disney World

Disney world seems to be created out of nothing.  The architecture itself is a hyperreality.  It gives the illusion of grandeur, but it is not actually grand.  Cinderella's castle, for example, is a large facade. 

  

Fruit Stands

Fruit stands or any retail store that is artificially stocked is an example of hyperreality.  Did you know that most supermarket fruits are artificially dyed a brighter, more eye-catching color?  This is yet another example of the hyperreal.  The fruit pictured above is absolutely real and edible, yet the color and staging makes it something that it is not.  I challenge you to take a supermarket tomato to your local Farmer's Market and compare the colors.  You will be amazed! 

 

Superhuman

The men pictured above are real, but their muscles fit into the "hyperreality" category.  These muscles were not made in any natural ways.  I'm sure these men have made a career out of proper diet, steroids, and intense training.  These men did not come to look like this in any "real" or "natural" way.

Dolls

In a recent House MD episode, House's patient is in love with a high-end sex doll.  This is both a representation of hyperreality - though the doll may look very real, it obviously is not - and it represents the dangers that Baudrillard mentions.  If we allow ourselves to be subject to too much hyperreality, it will actually become our reality and we will live in an illusion.

This hyperreality is fun and pleasant, but we must be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that the hyperreal is the real.  We could easily find ourselves fooled by the hyperrealities that flood the media. 

Frye's Cycles & Seasons

Frye's theory of cycles & seasons was very interesting to me.  As a writer, I love learning about archetypes, so his ideas really hit home.

Frye discovered a pattern that developed among several works of literature.  Writers were using (and continue to use) different seasons for certain things.  Spring was for comedy, summer was for romance, fall was for tragedy, and winter was for irony/satire.

Robert D. Denham, Ph.D., worded Frye's ideas wonderfully.  Denham received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and then proceeded to teach for over thirty-eight years.  He has devoted the majority of his professional life to Northrom Frye criticism.  Denham's professional blog has a ton of Northrop Frye information.  He has also published several books based on Frye's ideas.  Below is a screenshot of his blog which will link you to the exact post that I used while researching Frye.  I highly recommend checking it out if you are interested in Frye.

Below is an excerpt from Denham's blog in which he explains Frye's idea of seasons/cycles.  It is followed by a diagram that he created himself.  

"Frye’s method of argument at this point is based upon the similarities of “movement” between the seven categories of reality and the cyclical and dialectical processes of archetypes. Cyclically, the analogy produces four mythoi: comedy, romance, tragedy, and irony or satire (this latter also called “realism”). Dialectically, it produces an upward and downward movement between innocence and experience, apocalypse and nature, the ideal and the actual, the comic and the tragic."  Robert D. Denham 

The following diagram was created to represent these ideas:

I will try to break Frye's ideas down even further below.  I will using what I learned from reading EdWeb's breakdown of Northrop Frye. 

Spring: Comedy
Fyre uses "comedy" in the traditional sense of the word.  He does not mean that funny things happen in the spring.  He means that the hero starts at a low point and ascends.

Summer: Romance
During the summertime, the protagonist goes on minor adventures and sometimes finds love.  Occasionally, there will be a ritual death.

Fall: Tragedy
Again, Frye uses "tragedy" not to mean sadness, but instead to mean that the main character descends from the point where the story began.

Winter: Irony/Satire
Frye claimed that the winter was marked by content rather than structure, so it is difficult to give an example of exactly what happens.  However, the content during the wintertime was often ironic or satirical.

EdWeb also has a wonderful printable chart that you might like to look at.  It is a quick activity you can do to help yourself better understand Northrop's theories.  Don't be shocked that I am referencing material from a k-12 website.  Sometimes simplifying a theory is the best way to get a better grasp on them.  I know that reading this website helped me to understand what Frye was trying to say.  Then, I was able to read what Denham, a scholar, had to say about Frye as well.  

Here's a screenshot of the chart.  I thought it was a great way to lay out Frye's ideas without getting too technical:

 

The screenshot will open a .doc file that you can print.  The file has a list of spring/summer/fall/winter characteristics that you write on the chart.  I'm going to print mine on card-stock and keep it with my writing materials, because Frye's ideas are definitely something that I want to explore further.