We've been told what the topic for the class term paper will be: an apolgy for literature, subtitled : What's the Point of Stories That Aren't True?" This shall prove doubtless to be a challenging, intriguing paper. Doubtless one will pick up some of the quatations from Northrop Frye that are availble online.

We were also presented with a quote from DH Lawrence that is rather pertinent to the class: "Trust the tale, not the teller." Yet again this assertion that the work be judged by itself, not for the author or what the author intended. But if one is a teller of good tales, people do end up being more inclined to trust you, in addition and because of, the tales. Oddly paradoxical it seems to me, like a great many other things in this world.

We also discussed Idea of Order at Key West, and its relation to myths of cosmogony, or the birth of the world. In particular the creation myth contained in the very beginning of the Bible , wherein the act of speaking brings about creation(the almighty Logos is wielded, and then there was light). This lead to an interesting comment about how metaphors can be applied to nature, by logic. The sea, or sun or moon or whatever other natural entity that one can think of, doesn't really stand for might or pain or limiltess possibilty or whatever else is being applied to it. No; it is one's imagination and language construction that makes it have this meaning. And when the singer stops singing, the sea-waves continue to go in and out continuously, as they always have and how they will ever afterward.

Really quite a fascinating notion.