We look at Yeats a little more, then "Michael Field," and then Housman's poem about Wilde and other poems about his own sexuality, and about the intense, Horatian ephemerality of life.  A class in part about why I hope poetry, or some poems, will matter to the students throughout their lives.

Wilde in prison, or in Dante's hell, and the differences and similarities between the grimness of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and the charming, dazzling self-delight of his earlier self-presentations, in a class guest-taught by Princeton's Professor Jeff Nunokawa.

A couple of poems by Patmore, a somewhat tedious excursus into propositional attitudes and game theory, then the rest of "Goblin Market."

Blake's view of Wordsworth, as reported by Henry Crabb Robinson in a letter to Dorothy Wordsworth and in his reminiscences.  Robinson on Wordsworth's technical death in 1814: his indifference to tyranny after the fall of Napoleon.  Return to the Intimations Ode and the subtle new start manifested in stanza 5.

This ended up being a class on common knowledge -- that is on games (and puzzles) with complete information.

We start with the Intimations Ode, which means we really start with "My Heart Leaps Up" -- and after the fourth stanza, which is where Wordsworth broke it off, we go to the glad preamble of The Prelude.  Some attention to echoes between Coleridge and Wordsworth.

Since no one had read The Gambler, this class was a kind of summing up of thinking from Mandeville to Kant under the rubric of Mauss -- how credit, gratitude, obligation bring in other minds and differentiate our credit with them from the way money is a bookkeeping measure.

Basically a class where we rush through "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," with a little reference to a couple of Shakespeare sonnets Wordsworth was probably thinking of -- 73 and 104.

In which we go over the answers to the midterm -- you don't need to read it, since I read the questions out.  A little discussion Merchant of Venice: paying with all my heart, and of Ulysses: Leopold Bloom's joke advertising jingle, "Tell me where is fancy bread? At Burke's the Baker's, it is said."

Using the game show Golden Balls, we look at some Prisoner's Dilemma situations, and discuss Golden Balls as a more classic PD than it might seem at first (it's certainly at the least a modified PD).  Episodes for watching are available here (an anthology) and here ("Weirdest split or steal every").  Different ways of valuing, different ways of strategizing.

Wordsworth on Gray in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.  Like Blake he channels Milton's view that poetry is something other than artifice, and like Blake he corrects the Miltonic example.  Home at Grasmere vs. Paradise Lost.

Adam Smith on utility and beauty -- revealed preference as a tautology -- utilitarianism -- Smith on how preference isn't a tautology -- different from Mandeville.  Smith on utility here.  This will lead to Smith on self-command.

Mostly Wordsworth and the mysterious power of the absurdly great "We Are Seven," as well as a consideration of "Lines Written in Early Spring" and "Two April Mornings."

We conclude our discussion of D.G. Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel," paying particular attention to the passages in parentheses and the subtlety of what they suggest about the speaker's sense of the Blessed Damozel's perception of him.  We then move on to begin reading "Goblin Market," trying not so subtle account of its subtle sexuality -- or maybe it would be better to say a subtle account of its not so subtle sexuality 

More about ballads and their relation to the supernatural, in a discussion of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.   Some exemplary ballads. "Goody Blake and Harry Gill" as an example of an apparently supernatural ballad which isn't one.  Beginning of "We are Seven," with Coleridge's collaborative first stanza.

A little more on Mandeville and the line that leads from him through Hutcheson (whom I didn't mention by name) to Hume and Smith.  The nature of inflation, due to money's only having exchange value, and the nature of stimulus, as analyzed by Hume.  A beginning of a discussion on the beauty of utility, according to Smith.

Mandeville's analysis of acting for reputation -- does it, can it, make sense, and if so how?  Here's the fascinating passage we began looking at:

 

The Soldiers, that were forc’d to fight,

If they surviv’d, got Honour by’t; [p. 22, l. 1]

 

[From Mandeville’s notes:] The Man of Manners picks not the best but rather takes the worst out of the Dish, and gets of every thing, unless it be forc’d upon him, always the most indifferent Share. By this Civility the Best remains for others, which being a Compliment to all that are present, every Body is pleas’d with it: The more they love themselves, the more they are forc’d to approve of his Behaviour, and Gratitude stepping in, they are oblig’d almost whether they will or not, to think favourably of him. After this manner it is that the well-bred Man insinuates himself in the esteem of all the Companies he comes in, and if he gets nothing else by it, the Pleasure he receives in reflecting on the Applause which he knows is secretly given him, is to a Proud Man more than an Equivalent for his former Self-denial, and over-pays to Self-love with Interest, the loss it sustain’d in his Complaisance to others.

If there are Seven or Eight Apples or Peaches among Six People of Ceremony, that are pretty near equal, he who is prevail’d upon to choose first, will take that, which, if there be any considerable difference, a Child would know to be the worst: this he does to insinuate, that he [72]looks upon those he is with to be of Superior Merit, and that there is not one whom he wishes not better to than he does to himself. ’Tis Custom and a general Practice that makes this Modish Deceit familiar to us, without being shock’d at the [79] Absurdity of it; for if People had been used to speak from the Sincerity of their Hearts, and act according to the natural Sentiments they felt within, ’till they were Three or Four and Twenty, it would be impossible for them to assist at this Comedy of Manners, without either loud Laughter or Indignation; and yet it is certain, that sucha Behaviour makes us more tolerable to one another than we could be otherwise.

It is very Advantageous to the Knowledge of our selves, to be able well to distinguish between good Qualities and Virtues. The Bond of Society exacts from every Member a certain Regard for others, which the Highest is not exempt from in the presence of the Meanest even in an Empire: but when we are by our selves, and so far remov’d from Company as to be beyond the Reach of their Senses, the Words Modesty and Impudence lose their meaning; a Person may be Wicked, but he cannot be Immodest while he is alone, and no Thought can be Impudent that never was communicated to another. A Man of Exalted Pride may so hide it, that no Body shall be able to discover that he has any; and yet receive greater Satisfaction [73]from that Passion than another, who indulges himself in the Declaration of it before all the World. Good Manners have nothing to do with Virtue or Religion; instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the Passions. The Man of Sense and Education never exults more in his Pride than when he hides it with the greatest Dexterity;1 and in feasting on the Applause, which he is sure all good Judges will pay to his Behaviour, he enjoys a Pleasure altogether unknown to the Short-sighted, surly Alderman, that shews his Haughtiness glaringly in his Face, pulls off his Hat to no Body, and hardly deigns to speak to an Inferior.

 

 

After a snow day, a special guest leads a class on Blake's Milton and the dynamics of the relations among the Immortals.  We focus in particular on Milton himself and Urizen and how Milton overcomes his own spectre.

Some discussion of sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, poker strategy, the doubling cube, Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" and more Mandeville.

Mandeville on the advantages of self-dealing and selfishness. Discussion of morality of plane flight,  since that's all the rage these days, from a Kantian and from a game-theoretical point of view. Free riding and problems of collective action.  Mandeville compared and to some extent contrasted with Rand.

We discuss Blake's mythology in general, then his America, fairly briefly, and then some of The Book of Urizen, in particular the coming into separate being of Urizen, the coming into being of Los as the allegory of Urizen's separation from him, and the binding of Orc with the chains of jealousy.

More on gift-giving and its manifest and latent content.  Obligation and acceptance of obligation.  The gift as pure use value -- at least manifestly.  A bit more on The Merchant of Venice.

We try to sort out some preliminary confusions about who's who in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  I try -- stumblingly -- to give an account of the Romantic idea that loss is (as Harold Bloom puts it) "shadowed gain."

Given the sheepish coughing you'll hear, by people acknowledging they weren't keeping up with the reading, this turned into an exposition mainly of Marcel Mauss's great work The Gift, along with some mention of Joel Waldfogel's notorious article "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas."

A brief introduction to Pre-Raphaelite poetry and painting: the perceptual psychology that it brings us to notice.  A close reading of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's amazing "Woodspurge."  A little bit on his "Blessed Damozel," followed, via a Mr. Magoo-inflected reading of Lewis Carroll's "Mad Gardener's Song," by a more general consideration of rhyme and in Victorian poetry and the question of its prominence or lack thereof: important as well to "The Blessed Damozel," but we ran out of time and may not get to discuss this next class, when we will certainly do Christina Rossetti.

Mainly the Merchant of Venice, with discussion of its Biblical source: Jacob as trickster; Laban as trickster; Shylock as trickster; Portia as trickster; much about Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and the man Jacob wrestles with; the meaning of the turquois ring and the pound of flesh.

NB: this coming week is vacation so no updates till the week of Feb 25.

A last class on Blake's Book of Thel, with much attention given to the Clod of Clay's line: "I ponder and I cannot ponder."

NB: February vacation next week, so no new episodes till the week after.

A class mainly about interest, usury, compounding of interest vs. Malthusian limits to biological growth -- the interesting fact that if Judas had invested his 40 pieces of silver at prevailing rates of compound interest, he'd own an amount of silver more greater than the entire volume of the earth (so that Christ's redemption, compounded over two millennia, would indeed more than repurchase the entire world).

With a quotation from Blake's description of his (lost) painting "A Vision of the Last Judgment":

I assert for My self that I do not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action it is as the Dirt upon my feet No part of Me. What it will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look thro it & not with it.

 

(February 11, actually, but I think if I change the title I may change the link.) We start with Earle Stanley Gardner on writing by the word -- then on to Kawabata and the spookiness of the story.  Then The Merchant of Venice, and the significance of the rings and their value.  The reason Shylock is a stranger, and that all the Jews in Venice are: because Deuteronomy permits lending at interest to a stranger, so the Christians wanted to be strangers to the Jews so made the Jews strangers to them.  The stranger in Simmel mentioned: "The wanderer [the merchant] is he who comes today and goes tomorrow; the stranger is he who comes today and stays tomorrow."  At least I am sure it may be so in Venice.

In particular "The Garden of Love" and "London," "To the Evening Star," and a touch of The Book of Thel

Buying and selling based on predictions of what others will buy and sell: Keynesian Beauty Contests (cf. "Family Feud") and what they have to do with narrative interaction.   An in class demonstration in which a student wins a dollar!  Some discussion of other manipulative games.

NB that previous episode was mistitled as Monday's: It was actually Wednesday's....

Functions of money.  Ripping a bill in half.  A little more on the etymological background of interest as breeding. Usura Canto in Pound, with youtube audio of him reading it. Kinds of wealth in The Merchant of Venice, following James Buchan.

Some discussion of "There is no Natural Religion" and then some Songs of Experience: "The Chimney Sweeper," the two versions of "Holy Thursday," "The Clod and the Pebble," and -- a Song of Innocence -- "The Little Black Boy."

Some discussion of the Super Bowl, and of game theory at the end of the game.  Then a return to Aristotle on the three functions of money, and on interest -- and the Greek word's etymology as breeding or procreation (from the word τόκος , ὁ, [tokos] = childbirth from (τίκτω [titko]) meaning to give birth, whence also τεχνη, craft, i.e. the art of producing objects, which word Aristotle uses elsewhere in discussing the unmoved mover).

What amours de voyage are.  What it means to idealize what Keats calls "The fair creature of an hour," as Claude does.  How such idealizations derive from "Juxtapositions."  What it means to see through one's own idealization, by understanding its biochemical substrate.  What's wrong with seeing through that idealization.  With examples from Proust (and his differences from Freud).  All relevant tangents, or so I think.  With some interesting information about Andrea Aguyor.

A class where we end up going into the labor theory of value -- average abstract labor time being what produces equilibria among different commodities.  We were going to talk about Kawabata, and about interest, but that's TK.  We did talk about Aristotle -- and therefore a bit about Adam Smith -- on the functions of actual money: medium of exchange, bookkeeping measure, store of value, and also a bit on how these can be confused with each other.

This was going to be on "The Songs of Experience" (watch this space), but in order to discuss what Blake meant by the word "experience" we took a look at his 1788 tract "All Religions Are One" (printed just before "The Songs of Innocence"), which led to a long discussion of the dialectic between Plato and Locke and a counter-dialectic in Blake against both Plato and Locke.

A class that spiraled outwards from a consideration of Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale to Maugham's parable of the appointment in Samara to parables in general, including the strange parable of the talents in Matthew.  The ontology of things in the world and death as not a thing in the world (in Chaucer, in Maugham).  How treasure or gold is like death -- a catalyst, a vector, something not itself (a marker for a return to Aristotle tomorrow).

Much on "The Lamb" (and a little on "The Tyger"), "A Cradle Song," "Infant Joy" and the Innocence version of "The Chimney Sweeper."  Innocence as privative (like "infant" and "innocuous")-- a contrast to the world as we know it. 

A class mainly on Mammon -- in Milton and in Spenser -- though we don't get that far, because we pause for an explanation of The Faerie Queene and of allegory in general -- e.g. Edward Gorey's Innocence, on the Bicycle of Propriety, Carrying the Urn of Reputation Safely over the Abyss of Indiscretion.  Hence some talk about the harmony of the virtues in Aristotle -- chastity vs. temperance.  Matthew 6:24 quoted -- you cannot serve both God and Mammon.

Aristotle on Midas, and then Ovid on Midas (Golding's translation), which is the just-so story of how the river Pactolus came to run with gold (or actually electrum), leading to the first coining of money under Croesus, with a little fumbling in class about what it was that Archimedes found bathing (that objects submerged in water displace their own volume).

More on the two versions of the Nurses Song, with some subtle narrative theory applied -- who is or are the real narrators of the two songs?  Then back to Paradise Lost: a little history, a little consideration of how it champions the proto-Romantic centrality of human judgment to our sense of the world and of morality.  (Luther on Pharaoh type of thing....)

More Aristotle, on the origin of actual money -- coin of the realm as Gutman will say in The Maltese Falcon (TK) -- and the meaning of the word "tender" in the phrase "legal tender."  Polonius's dumb pun on the word.  Aristotle, very briefly, on infinity (the unbounded) and its relation to goods and money.  Meatloaf's song "Paradise by the dashboard light" naturally comes up, as it most in most classes on Aristotle....

Discussion of a couple of Exeter riddles (you can find them on the original handout) and how they connect money to various other social interactions, prostitution in particular.  Then we broach Aristotle's Politics.

Second class: mainly an intro to Paradise Lost, followed by a return to the two versions of Blake's "Nurses Song."  Blake's illustrations here.

 

Mainly Clough, mainly a kind of intro to Amours de Voyage, with some historical (Mazzini, Garibaldi) and biographical context as well as context in narrative theory, especially of the epistolatory novel.  Clough the atheist and port-Darwinian, and his views of nature.  Then a quick and fun reading of "The New Decalogue," and a plan to return to Amours de Voyage next class.

A class mainly on Kay Ryan's poem "Money is a kind of poetry," a riff on Wallace Stevens' line (in his Adagia): "Poetry is a kind of money."  The class, of course, is about both.  Link to handouts (including this poem) available in previous episode or here.

This is the first class of a new course called "Imagining Money."  You can find a draft syllabus -- an aspirational one, since we'll never get through it all -- here.  There are handouts for the first three days: the short passage from Beckett we discuss first, a miscellany of poems and riddles about money, and a selection of passages from Milton, Ovid, and Ambrose Bierce.  The syllabus gives you the lines to read from Milton's Paradise Lost, viz. Book 1, ll. 674-751, and Book 8, ll. 1-178.  And here is the Kawabata story.

An introductory class for a course on the early Romantics.  Today we talked about the oxymoronic title of Lyrical Ballads, more about ballads than about lyrics; about Milton; about Blake's describing him as being of the devil's party without knowing it.  Syllabus TK -- watch this space.