On: Why Sir Philip Sidney Would Tell You To “Give a hoot – Read a book” or
The Superiority of Literary Learning According to Sidney [is this owlish advice?]
Andrea
EN 385-50
Sir Philip Sidney begins his essay An Apology For Poetry with a story. By intimating the tale of his pompous equine loving friend, Sidney demonstrates the very principles he later goes on to recommend.
First of all, how is literature valuable? Why would one want to study it? Sidney might say, in order to Purify our Wit! Or, as Marshall W. Gregory writes in his essay Humanism’s Heat, Postmodernism’s Cool, “…reading widely can make people smarter at recognizing a greater variety of human situations and motives and feelings than they would ever be able to recognize based solely on firsthand experience….in one or twenty lifetimes (p10).” In other words, we must expand our horizons, because we are but a tiny speck in an elephantine world, and entropy surrounds us. In order to make sense of our world, we must see it from as many views as possible, literature helps us to do this, as well as make sense of the entire puzzle, and which piece we are in relation the whole. In addition, once we walk in another’s shoes for a proverbial day, we then have the ability to take on these memories as our own, and apply them to our own lives. Sidney’s example of this in the horse story is at the conclusion. He sees the Horseman’s narrow-mindedness, “if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse (p 135),” and assures the reader he is aware his work can be seen as such, and that he has taken all precautions to avoid such a pitfall.
So much for why one might study literature. As a sort of follow up question, one might say, so now I know that Sidney believes literature to be important. What does the study of literature teach? Again, Sidney comes up with an answer. To Enable our Judgment and better our sense of Conceit. Sidney says the study of literature expands our judgment in two important ways. It helps us break from our everyday routine, and learn from others’ experiences and localities that we may never have known existed. These vicarious experiences can be applied to our lives, and apply them to situations in which we might find ourselves, whether we want the outcome of the real to parallel the literary, or to achieve the polar opposite. Also, taking on this second (or third or fourth) view, we take away any personal interest we might have in a situation, and see the consequences in behaving selfishly or narrow-mindedly before irretraceable acts are committed. We can practice applying our judgment to literary situations before we are actually faced with them in real life. Once again, Sidney does this with his horsey story, we can see how narrow minded and illogical the Horseman is, and therefore be more cautious as we embark upon Sidney’s words on the world.
As far as conceit, Sidney bases his view of the imagination loosely upon Plato’s worldview. We have a mental idea of the world, the World we Know, that we have imagined, and the World we Experience, our material world that we, thanks to our imagination, want to improve. One must have imagination to go beyond this world, and we spend our lives in constant pursuit of the ideal world, as perhaps Plato’s dialectics might. Literature helps us develop our imagination, by showing us ways the world can be, providing a runway for the airplane of the imagination upon which we can launch fancy, metaphor, insight, the list goes on and on.
Finally, our last question. How does literature teach? Sidney must first make one thing clear. We cannot learn unless we want to learn. He is open to other ways of learning, but discusses and rejects them. The historian is too factual, and the philosopher too broad and ideological. The poet (writer of literature) is the only writer who combines the three to tell a story. Would one be more likely to remember Sidney’s story of the Horseman, or a dry factual account of history through the ages? The poet is “the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges (Sidney, p135).” Without literature, everything is at stake. We need literature to show us how others experience, to see a better world. Without knowledge of a better world we will not improve ourselves, we will remain in the moulds of our forefathers, we will be automatic, and robot like, and above all, lose our self. Without literature, we are without that which makes us human.

AParr728: you need anything?
andreaninetoes: hi dm
AParr728: just got home from work
andreaninetoes: oooo
andreaninetoes: i just got home from the grocery store
andreaninetoes: i need bike clothes
andreaninetoes: cuz i only have one jersey here
AParr728: i packed your backpack to mail tomorrow - it will take a few weeks
AParr728: mom said "OK"
andreaninetoes: ooo
andreaninetoes: excellent on the backpack
andreaninetoes: i have two pairs of shorts, so if she doesnt have any to spare, i'll be okay
AParr728: it won't be ready until your summer class starts
andreaninetoes: well i can use it then
andreaninetoes: or something
andreaninetoes: i like my new backpack
andreaninetoes: i talked to my manager at work about the summer
andreaninetoes: he wanted me to work 40 hours a week there
AParr728: no way
andreaninetoes: i told him i thought i'd have to go to school some times
andreaninetoes: and that 20 would be the most i could do, for the part of hte summer that i am t here
AParr728: 20 hours tops
andreaninetoes: zactly
AParr728: you want good grades - thats hard to do if you're working 40 hours at Paneras
andreaninetoes: right
andreaninetoes: no good
andreaninetoes: no dice mr bossman
AParr728: its time for lights out - you better study more, though
andreaninetoes: yah, i will
andreaninetoes: snack break
andreaninetoes: night night dm
AParr728: bye
andreaninetoes: say 'night to mom for me!
andreaninetoes: ps need puppy chow

Andrea Peeling Potatoes For Easter Dinner

Andrea iPod

JR221 Group Presentation #2 – Charlie Brighteyes
ABCC Corporation of Indianapolis

Ben
Andrea
Catherine
Chrissy

Around the eye care community, a buzz has been going around about a huge new breakthrough in aesthetic ophthalmology. This innovative product, which has recently been developed by Charlie Brighteyes, will represent complete upheaval in the colored-contact world. Since this product is new, and word on the street about it is nothing more than a rumor, we need to get the true brand message out to society and our consumers. First and foremost, we want to stress the ease of eye color change and the aesthetic quality it can bring to the user’s life. Secondly, we want to convey the safety of the product. Many new medical products are sometimes seen as “snake oil” and untrustworthy. However, the FDA has approved our product, and we want customers to be aware of this information. Also, there is such a wide range of brilliant color choices available, that we want to display them as well as possible.
We can’t market to everyone, unfortunately, and we have narrowed our target audience down to a fairly specific target audience for our first step in marketing the product. Specifically, we’re focusing on young, fashionable females (teenage years through twenties). These young women see themselves as average, yet with a touch of elegance. As a side note, males who also like to look good are our secondary audience, whom we can perhaps focus on at a later date.
We want to heavily stress the difference between our product and colored contacts (our main competitor). Our product can quickly and easily change the color of the user’s eyes. No other product can do this. Charlie Brighteyes’ creation is fast, easy, image defining and temporary.
We expect to run into cynics, naturally, but stand firm behind our eyedroplets. The two concerns we expect to hear the most include safety and effectiveness. We hope to clear these worries with our FDA approval, and as far as effectiveness, one can literally see the results.
After much deliberation, we have decided to name our product FreshVue. The goal is to convey the new start users can bring to their lives. It embodies the exciting change to the mundane while expressing a feeling of medical safety.
Most everyone has wanted a change once in his or her lives. Yet many are reluctant to take the initiative. Huge changes in habit or personal image can be traumatizing, especially if the results are not quite what you expected. FreshVue can help change a little something in a mediocre or once-exciting-now-turned-routine lifestyle into something a little different in one quick, easy step. It is an aesthetic changing modification but yet not permanent and not expensive, such as cutting one’s hair or buying a new wardrobe might be. It adds a little excitement to the ordinary. It has all of the benefits of colored contacts, yet there’s no high price, it’s easy to apply, and the color stays where it should (as opposed to the sometimes-drifting contacts).
Because we don’t want to section off the colored contacts users only, we will not target current customers of eye color modification products. Sometimes those who do not use glasses or contacts feel left out of the colored-eyewear world. They should know that they too could experience the enjoyment of iris color modification. Also, the target is to go for a younger audience, and many who use eye care products on a regular basis are older, since eyes go bad as time goes by. Perhaps through our targeting efforts towards our market area (teenage girls) we will also send the message to contact users as a byproduct. If the message were sent only to contact wearers then a large portion of our audience would be missed.
These people we have just described are also the highest demographic group for magazines such as Glamour, Allure, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen. We will focus heavily on publications in this genre, as well as television commercials aired during nightly programs aimed at their demographics. For our print and multimedia ads, we have developed a distinctive “brand,” complete with the integration of coordinated photos, FreshVue eye icon, and a font created exclusively for the product. After our brand has been established, we hope to also integrate a direct mailing program especially focused towards contact users. The thought behind this is the hope that those who use colored contacts, or have ever considered doing so, will try FreshVue. Also, lists of contact users are readily available from contact manufacturers, and perhaps even eyewear retail outlets.
FreshVue should not compete with cosmetics - FreshVue is an element of a complete eye care regimen. Therefore, FreshVue should be placed in the eye care section. We feel this makes the most sense, since colored contacts are our strongest (and some would say, only) competitor. Additionally, placing it in the health section rather than the cosmetic section will enhance our message of safety. Many cosmetics can be seen as garish and excessive. The FreshVue brand promotes the image (and lifestyle) of healthful full body maintenance. Also, many men do not ever enter the cosmetic aisle. Placing it there would section off our second largest target audience from ever seeing, much less trying, our product.
Have you, one day, ever decided to drastically change your lifestyle and then been disappointed with the results? For example, trying a trendy haircut and ending up looking like you were run over by a lawn mower. These traumatic events can be devastating and costly. Yet the need for change still remains. FreshVue can help. A 2 ounce Regular bottle of FreshVue costs only $19.99. We also plan to package the product in Multi-Packs, which include three 0.5 ounce bottles for $16.99. Customers can choose from a Multi-Pack of Turquoise-Cocoa-Ruby or Aquamarine-Gold-Violet. Also to be sold are Trial bottles, which are 0.5 ounces for $7.99. Anyone can change their appearance quickly and inexpensively. If the color chosen doesn’t match one’s outfit or haircolor, the longest one would have to wait to sample a different variety is 24 hours.
Instead of integrating ourselves into current eye care products; we want to create a new subcategory. Specifically, for those who wish to change the color of their eyes but do not wear contacts. Or, for those who use contacts but do not wish to pay large sums of money to change their eye color. The effect of colored contacts is similar, but the method of application is drastically different.
As we have mentioned before, there are many important features of the FreshVue product line. First of all, FDA approved safety. It is hoped this will bring peace of mind to the customers. Secondly, the hassle and high maintenance needs often associated with colored contacts disappear when using FreshVue. All you have to do is place a droplet in each eye – it’s that simple. At $19.99 for a 20-ounce bottle, FreshVue provides a brilliance of color for low cost that colored contacts could never hope to provide. The rainbow of colors offers wide selection. Ease of use gives ease of lifestyle change, and the cost is quite low.
FreshVue helps to invigorate a tired lifestyle. It is a healthy way to subtly change one’s appearance and increase self-esteem. After use one might feel refreshed, alive, attractive, confident … exotic. After all how often do you see someone with Ruby colored eyes? We liken the FreshVue experience to being Sarah Jessica Parker or Lucy Lu for 24 hours. Fun, refreshing and new, yet elegant and stylish.
Many young adults of today place high priority on personal appearance. They may not have large expendable budgets, but what little they have many are willing to spend. Many place high priority on personal appearance and are open to change. These eighteen to 24 year olds oftentimes are looking to re-define themselves, find their identities and refine their look. Or, at the younger end of our spectrum, some are looking to do so for the first time. Our largest category will be females, but males also make up an important target audience. FreshVue offers an easy, inexpensive, fun approach to drastically improve your aesthetic appeal in a no-nonsense, temporary way. FreshVue is, in essence, aesthetically pleasing eye care. Fresh Color, Refreshed look, FreshVue.

Mid Term Take Home Essay Assignment
EN 385-50
Andrea
In the literary criticism world, nestled between the idea that all theories are good (aka Open-Ended Eclecticism) and the idea that there is only one valid approach or theory (Dogmatism) lays Critical Pluralism. This is the idea that although not all theories on a piece of work are correct, there may be more than one. How you see the text depends upon which direction you approach it, and there are many paths to each text. However, at all times one must be standing SOMEwhere in relation to a text. Over time, four basic theories have developed: formal, mimetic, expressive and pragmatic. In this essay, we will discuss the latter two, and leave the former for another time.
The first little ledge we might stand on from which to view a piece is given the name “Expressive Criticism.” Expressive criticism evaluates a text upon its terms of relation to its author; how well it reflects them and their ideas. Does it accurately reflect their psychological nature? Or rather, is it an authentic portrait of the artist and their internal workings? This authenticity is the most important criteria when judging a text as an expressive critic. The reader of a “good” text, from the view of an expressive critic, is shown and made to feel the exact emotion the author felt at a given time.
Ethical criticism takes a slightly different standpoint. It views the quality of a work by the effects it has upon the reader. First and foremost, ethical critics believe we, as readers, must be convinced to allow the text to make us feel. We use three different effects to decide this value. The first is its intellectual effect, how does it change our understanding of the world; does it provoke any thought altogether? Is it convincing enough for us to assent to its validity? Or at least, is it engaging enough so that we will suspend our disbelief. The second is the text’s emotional effect. Does the text convince us to feel a certain way, and to what extent? And the third is the work’s ethical effects. Were the characters right or wrong to feel as they did? We judge the characters and their actions as we read along, and are we made to emphasize? These questions are all taken into consideration when a work is viewed from a pragmatic standpoint.
These two theories are similar in that their goal is to move the reader to feel. Although expressive begs the reader to feel as the author, and pragmatic asks them to feel as the characters, the commiseration of emotion must be present in either case. Neither views a work as successful unless it convinces the reader to assent to be entertained; and to entertain a perhaps different point of view than their own.
At first glance, expressive criticism may seem to be the more egotistical of the two. To write about one’s own experiences, does that mean they are somehow inherently better than anyone else’s? But, upon examination, a pragmatic author singles out a character as well, highlighting their imagined emotions as well. Both want the reader to experience something they otherwise might not, to subscribe to a point of view, if only for the duration of the novel.
Where the two differ is in the matter of authenticity. An expressive critic based on the criteria of how close it mirrors the author’s real, psychological emotions. A pragmatic critic may not get an emotion spot on, their goal is to make the reader empathize. If they do that, the text is successful.
Henry James was an expressive critic. In his essay, The Art of Fiction, although he mentions other types of criticism, he is most deeply motivated by the mind of the author, in fact, they are his target audience. He describes a writer’s experiences as a spider web, even if they do not endure an event completely, any hint of an occurance affects them so deeply that it travels directly to their soul. They take to heart all that they see, and they see all, since they are vibrantly sensitive, due to their enlarged imaginations. If one wants to be a good writer, James says, “try to be one of the people upon whom nothing is lost (p441)!” His ideas are best summed in the conclusion of his paper. He can put it no more plainly: it is “the very obvious truth that the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer (p447).” If the writer has an unimaginative mind, then their work can never be a good representation of true psychology.
On the other side of the fence, we have Mikhail Bakhtin. In his text, Discourse in the Novel, he relates his views as an ethical critic. He propounds his favor of the novel as a literary device, saying it is the best way to portray real, human emotions. There they can engage in discourse, and be least hindered by an author dictating the conclusion of a discussion. He says “the tendency to assimilate others’ discourse takes on an even deeper and more basic significance in an individual’s ideological becoming, in the most fundamental sense (p532).” In other words, we take what we read into ourselves, and it changes, albeit ever so slightly, our way of approaching the world. How we view our lives is a compilation of literary experiences. In other words, “the ideological becoming of a human being, in this view, is the process of selectively assimilating the words of others (p532).” We cannot do this, however if the author stands in the characters’ way. If the author impedes the text, we cannot be truly made to feel, or to judge, or take the work properly to heart.

House Mouse Captured!
The small gray mouse that has plagued members of The House has at last been apprehended. At 2:54 AM, it entered a Hav-A-Hart trap just outside the McLaughlin room, and emitted a loud squeal. Joey promptly arrived at the scene of the incident, and seeing the animal in no harm, returned to bed. The rodent was relocated to a nearby field the following afternoon. First spotted two weeks ago in the Dye Room, the little pest apparently traveled through the Dell/Stockham room and was sighted several times in The Kitchen. It was also spotted in the Parrott Room and was finally caught attempting to enter the McLaughlin room. Although this mouse has been detained, the possibility of a return is high, and all steps should be taken to prevent such a situation. Residents of The House are advised not to leave food sitting out, as well as to vacuum often. Strict adherence to the Door-Lock policy is mandatory. This ensures against blowing open and possible rodent entry. If another mouse is sighted, please set your trap immediately and inform the other residents so they may do the same. Always make sure your trap is in good, clean, working condition.
New Door Lock Policy Enacted
In light of recent events, residents of The House will now be required to be more strict in their personal door locking habits. Under new regulations, residents will be required to keep both the front door and back entry locked and secured at all times. Room doors are exempt, and in fact encouraged to remain ajar. This promotes camraderie and cleaner air for your environment. The policy will be enacted one week from today (Wednesday, February16), to give residents time to adjust to a routine of constant key-carrying. As usual, The House Government is committed to their (ironically titled) Open Door Policy. We desire to let all residents know the intents and purposes behind all changes to by-laws and plolicies. The reasons for the door lock rule enactment are many and vary vastly. However the primary reason is economy. The outside doors blow open quite easily, and several times residents awoke to find doors wide open and snow swirling in. If your mothers were anything like ours, you will remember the motto drilled into your head as a youth: you don’t want to heat the entire neighborhood. Other reasons include an increase of crime in the Butler-Tarkington area. Although The House has a security alarm, it is always better to be safe than sorry. Also, as you know there has been a recent mouse-infestation and one identified possible point of entry was a waywardly open door.