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Thread: Are we reading the same text?

  1. #31
    Old Student Peripatetics's Avatar
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    Ma chere amie,
    vous devrez attendre mon à argument conformé (espoir d'I que je peux faire un). J'espère que vous l'accepterez dans un esprit d'une discussion et ne le regarderez pas comme attaque personnelle.
    Pour le moment «*let's cool it*» (un idiome américain), pour la crainte d'I que maintenant il y a trop d'émotion dans l'argument.
    Si je peux donner quelques conseils – abstient de la lecture. Je suis sûr que vous ne prévoyez pas tels mais il donne une impression de condescendance.
    Last edited by Peripatetics; 02-05-2009 at 09:16 AM. Reason: correction

  2. #32
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Mon cher,

    Pour moi, et pour plusieurs Européens, c'est une reproche ou même un insulte d'être accusé d'interpréter quelque chose dans un context religieux quant il n'y a pas de preuve. Si je peux vous donner un conseil aussi: éviter ce genre d'argument. Dis: je ne suis pas d'accord, parce que... mais pas: tu interprète dans un context idéologique ou religieux et il n'y pas d'indication.
    Une accusation comme celle-ci est égale à une accusation d'être fondamentaliste, qui est un synonyme pour stupidité et naiveté (Bush).
    Au reste il n'y a pas de problème de discuter autour d'une question comme celle-ci, même si on n'est pas d'accord, pourvue qu'on ne résulte pas en coller un ticket d'idéologie. Ca c'était la seule chose que je voulais éclairer avec l'argument Américain.
    Si j'ai donné l'impression d'être enragé, je le regrette et je m'excuse, car ce n'était pas mon intention. Si j'ai offensé je m'excuse également.
    Avec les croisades on a touché un point difficile et je suis conscient de l'opinion populaire, qui est au reste pas mauvais. Je voulais les mettres en cadre. Heureusement on a passé les temps comme celles-là , certainement avec Obama. Je suis sûr que les membres du forum religieux seraient très contents de continuer la discussion .
    J'espère que j'ai éclairé la chose.

    Je me mets dans mon frigo pendant l'attente...
    salutations,
    k
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

  3. #33
    Old Student Peripatetics's Avatar
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    Are we in sync?

    Quote Originally Posted by kiki1982 View Post
    Pour moi, et pour plusieurs Européens, c'est une reproche ou même un insulte d'être accusé d'interpréter quelque chose dans un context religieux quant il n'y a pas de preuve.
    Ma chere amie,
    J'ai presque terminé mon essai, portant sur les motifs, où nous nous différencions de nos interprétations du roman. Pour ce faire, j'ai eu à lire vos messages avec beaucoup d'attention et sont arrivés à la conclusion que votre interprétation n'est pas seulement un argument intellectuel, mais une déclaration de valeurs personnelles.
    Je crains que vous ayez mal compris l'expression "let's cool it". Je n'ai pas dire que vous devraient s'abstenir d'afficher vos opinions, mais seulement que je ne voudrais pas répondre pour le moment, je le cas où vous compris que je ignore vos messages.
    Pour envoyer mes retort, mai vous causer des douleurs et je ne tiens pas à le faire. Nous pourrions peut-être expliquer les différences dans le secteur privé, en utilisant les Private Messages lorsque vous vous connectez à la poste? Je vous avait envoyé une note sur 12.18.2008 sur une extension de Firefox qui est utile pour la recherche académique, mais vous n'avez pas de réponse. En conséquence, je ne suis pas certain que vous savez de cette option pour des communications privées.
    Cordialement.

  4. #34
    Old Student Peripatetics's Avatar
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    On Interpretation

    Kiki1982, as many other critics, notes that Jane Eyre is permeated with Biblical allusions. I agree but where I differ is her interpretation: “The book even ends with these words: 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’. And according to critics not only because they come from a clergyman (St John), but also because they are the essence of the book”, that the essence of the novel is religious.
    I am more sympathetic to Virginia Woolf's observation that Jane Eyre is prose-poetics. In the essay One Rochester One Jane I'll attempt to substantiate this argument. Unfortunately it is diametrically opposed to Kiki1982's Mr. Rochester. We differ, but the examination of these differences, should not be construed as an attack on kiki1982's views. I admire and am grateful for her analysis. To say the least it is very interesting.

  5. #35
    liber vermicula Bitterfly's Avatar
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    You can interpret the end of the novel in dozens of ways... For the moment, I'm seeing it as an apocalyptic ending which gives a sort of key for the understanding of the rest of the novel, ie you can read it like the apocalyptic text, which is cryptic, full of symbols, and therefore can be interpreted in a myriad ways (which actually has a link with the title of your thread, Peripatetics!!!). I relate this to the reading problems Jane has - she doesn't understand all the signs at Thornfield, she reads Rochester wrong and that is why she is so disappointed etc. And that's because she expects to be able to read people like books (with phrenology, physiognomy...), whereas people wear masks. I know this idea can be extended much further, but am too tired to really go into detail!!

    I've also tried to reverse what feminist critics often have a problem with - the fact that Jane seems to lose her voice at the profit of a male one. I found you can also explain it by a desire of inclusion: Jane incorporates the biblican text and John's words into her own narrative, and they're not to be understood as parasites but elements she has managed to include in herself. It's a bit the same argument as the "flesh of my flesh" idea: that the body of the text is not grafted upon with other texts, but includes them. You can also relate this to the inclusion/exclusion dynamic that is present in the whole novel: how Jane shifts from exluded to included and finally to including. And you can even make this into a sort of feminist idea!!! By relating it to the image of the great all-encompassing mother, who's a figure of fear when represented by Bertha (the vampire, an avatar of the vagina dentata, the one who swallows men, who castrates them but also brings them back inside the womb) but has been tamed into the figure of Jane.

  6. #36
    Old Student Peripatetics's Avatar
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    Bitterfly Je suis ravi de vous entendre,

    Quote Originally Posted by Bitterfly View Post
    You can interpret the end of the novel in dozens of ways... For the moment, I'm seeing it as an apocalyptic ending which gives a sort of key for the understanding of the rest of the novel, ie you can read it like the apocalyptic text, which is cryptic, full of symbols, and therefore can be interpreted in a myriad ways
    Your ideas and imagery are astonishing but you will have to understand if I do not pursue the subject. We in the New World are a bit Puritanical, adroit at burning witches, than in discussing vagina dentata. Perhaps the Administrators would permit it in Latin but my proficiency stopped at Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.

    To a safer subject - “You can interpret the end of the novel in dozens of ways”, we do! Consciously or not since we all differ in experience. Since the two overlap I'll try to answer your question “There's no reason why an aesthetic understanding a novel should preclude a religious one.”
    Yes a religious understanding can be an aesthetic one. However if we differentiate analysis and understanding, in my view analysis requires a closer fidelity to the text than does understanding.
    If we cite a religious understanding, the problem becomes in defining the doctrinaire limits in the system of beliefs. The religious understanding for a Evangelical, for a Anglican, for a Quaker, for a Catholic, for a Buddhist, will obviously differ by the latitude of questioning of dogma tolerated. So the problem of incompatibility between religious and aesthetic interpretations can be rephrased in degree of freedom in interpretation.
    In the case of Jane Eyre, Charlotte wrote in a Victorian milieu and it is difficult to state with certainty how much of Charlotte's religiosity is reflected in the character Jane.
    For kiki1982 the question is answered by the circumstances of the father, a preacher and the number of Bibles in the library. The answer is 'like father, like daughter.' but when we take Emily into account: ” “ She sees Christians as 'wretches', 'howling' empty praise in a 'Brotherhood of misery' and their 'madness daily maddening' her. Brontë claims she stood in the glow of heaven and the 'glare' of hell and forged her own path between 'scraph's song and demon's groan'. Only 'thy soul alone' can know the truth, and her appeal to 'My thoughtful Comforter' is not an appeal to God, but to her enigmatic male muse which governs her spiritual belief. He is epitomised by the life-giving 'soft air' and 'thawwind melting quietly' and lovingly around her. She is grateful that her 'visitants' allow her 'savage heart' to grow 'meek' and allow her to conform to the role she is forced to play within an ordered Christian and patriarchal system. Her poetry focuses on the betrayals of mind and body, as she seeks to find answers to questions that her society does not permit her to ask. Brontë's religious symbolism and unique spirituality show a form of pantheistic atheism, although she continued to attend a church 'whilst sitting as motionless as a statue' and it seems that this careful passivity is juxtaposed with uncontained anger and frustrated passions (Chitham2, p. 156).”1“, then the answer is not so certain. Siblings do not necessarily follow parental values, at least in intellectual matters but more importantly imagination is not necessarily constrained by personal morality. Bloom describes Wuthering Heights as:”The furious energy that is loosed in Wuthering Heights is precisely Gnostic; its aim is to get back to the original Abyss, before the creation-fall. Like Blake, Emily Bronte identifies her imagination with the Abyss, and her pneuma or breath-soul with the Alien God, who is antithetical to the God of the creeds”

    Your notion, “ flesh of my flesh" idea: that the body of the text is not grafted upon with other texts, but includes them”, is fascinating. Why not just text but characteristics of personality -Rochester's in Jane's?
    Would you expanding it into an essay? I'm sure that other readers would find it so.
    Last edited by Peripatetics; 02-07-2009 at 06:17 PM. Reason: fancy

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