literally backing up a bit in a quest for the truth

These are some class notes from November 16th - our last class meeting before we began the group presentations. I can't get as detailed as I usually do b/c this was 2 weeks ago and some of my notations "literally" no longer make sense.

Frye Chapter 24 -

P 244 - from the descriptive intention the truth emerges
Harvey (one of my personal faves) and Alice in Wonderland have a change of verbal structure (talking to rabbits) but the truth emerges

Nabokov first translated "Alice" into Russian - he also invented the first crossword puzzle

Aritstotle said that poets are always telling The Truth; historians tell the truth, which led to John's observation that the poet Richard Hugo (Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg) said, "academic writers want to be right; poets want to be honest."

Frye 245 - story and history were the same word, but they split into "fancy" and "truth" "Literacy" is a sensitivity to the meanings and usage of language. Frye says that the Bible is "literally true" but every sentence has been redacted/edited and he (Frye) doesn't agree with Bloom that the Bible has a distinct voice. The Bible literally means just what it says, and a "literal" reading of the Bible is to take it at face value.

I have to laugh at the use of the word "literal" - I remember at the beginning of the semester Dr. Sexson warned us against using the term, ie "I literally died when he said that." Now, here we are at the near end of the semester, and it's peppering our lecture and my blog. So, English 211, like the Bible, has a U shape and we have been "literally" restored.