Laughter and the Humanities Exam 1

A common poetic element is comparison. A poem might put forward that the beloved is like the sun, a butterfly, or a flower.

Some poems play with this tendency. How do Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun) and Billy Collins’ “Litany” play with the comparison element of some poems?

• Sonnet 130 uses a bunch of beautiful metaphors and then says his beloved is nothing like them. But then at the Volta he changes to say that his love is beautiful and rare. Showing that the poems are outlandish and you don’t need to have those things in order to be in love

• Litany references the first 2 lines of an actual comparative poem “you are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine” but then he continues on with the poem and uses ridiculous metaphors such as “maybe the pigeon on the generals head”. then after the comparisons of beloved, he uses even more irony to say that “I am this” and then uses more metaphors to describe himself.

As we will see in the class, some works of art are laugh-out-loud funny. Other works are clever and witty, making you sort of

smile in your mind. In Carol Ann Duffy’s take on King Midas in her poem “Mrs. Midas,” what are elements that make this view of Midas interesting, clever, witty, and poignant (“poignant” means touching or emotional)?

• it is a unique take on a very classic and traditional story. it was a new POV in a new time period.

• there is a plentitude of imagery used to enrich the story such as “the teeth of the rich came falling out” “the tomb of Tutankhamun”.

• this crazy situation that occurs in the story is treated almost casually as if it is just another martial fight. FIND EXAMPLES

• there is a lot of clever play on words which adds to the casualness of the situation “everyone has a wish; granted. not every one has a wish granted.”

• at the end, the touching part comes in where she says that the one thing she misses is the warmth of his touch. which is ironic and touching because his touch is now deadly

How does Billy Collins play with the traditional elements of a sonnet as well as self-referentiality to make his poem “Sonnet”

surprising, clever, fun, and thought-provoking?

• pokes fun at the amount of lines “now there’s 13” “only 10 left now”

• makes from of “iambic bongos” and how its easy unless you follow the rules of ellizabethean English and the rhymes

• references the “final turn” which is the Volta of the sonnet where they then reference Petrarch and his wife. he makes fun of the overarching and beautiful and detailed sonnets but then says that Petrachs wife would tell him to get naked and come to bed

1. What happens in Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus? What is Polyphemus like, how is he defeated, and what is the outcome of the encounter?

• Polyphemus is strong, stupid, and doesn’t respect the gods (despite being posiedons son)

  • eats men bc he is mad they assumed he would give them gifts bc of zeus rule)

• Odysseus gets him drunk on the wine as a gift, stabs him, blinds him, and then escapes on the bellies of the sheeps

  • tell him his name is nobody (clever and tricky)

  • shows odyesseus clever

  • odysessues has to tell him his name, showing his pride

  • gets them cursed by Poseidon, ends up killing all his men

Two interesting events in The Odyssey are the Katabasis in Book 11 and the encounter with the Sirens in Book 12. What happens in each of these events? How do they advance the poem’s heroic journey?

• Katabis is when odysessus travels to the underworld to meet the prophet who can see the future. circe tells him to do so. he meets with people who died in the war and also with his men

  • makes him want to get home so that he can honor them

  • gets information about the sirens and also the sun gods island with the pigs/cows (this foreshadows the men eating the pigs and then never returning home)

  • this information changes him from a lost traveller to a wise leader

• The encounter with the sirens shows odysessues curiousoity. he wanted to hear the sirens so badly, he made his men tie him up instead of just putting in ear plugs like everyone else

  • shows that he struggles to control his urges

What does Odysseus seem like to you? What is noble and heroic about him? What is clever and resourceful about

him? How might he not be that heroic or noble? What evidence in the poem supports these conclusions?

• odysessu seems very clever (escape scylla, sirens, Polyphemus), has courage in battle, loyal and wants to get home to his family

• flaws: slept with circe and calypso, cruelty (shows little mercy to Polyphemus), bragging (to Polyphemus).

1. There is a Katabasis in The Odyssey. How could the scene when Everett and Delmar go to the “picture show” be like a Katabasis? What is similar, insightful, and funny about the Coen Brother’s version?

The movie is a dark room in which they enter and they need to gain knowledge. Similar to the odyssey. Pete then arrives (whom they think is dead) and tells them that they cant go find the treasure, similar to how the dead tell oddesyseus what to do in the odessey. It is funny that they just bought tickets to a movie theatre, versus odysseus literally traveling ot the underworld which is much more intense. The comparison makes it insightful and funny.

2. The Coen Brothers seem to count on the audience knowing about The Odyssey to understand some elements of the movie. What are key similarities and differences between the movie and the epic poem? What are similarities and differences between Odysseus and Everett?

• Katabis and the Movie theatre

• Blind prophet and the underworld prophet 

• Women washign clothes and the sirens

• The sheriff and supernatrual enemies liek posideon

  • Continuously causing issues on their journey, seems to have cursed them

• Translates the myth into actual american culture

• Set in great depression insteaad of the trojan war

• Everett and odeyssesus are both leaders, but odysessues is set as being heroic and everett is more selfish

  • Both are trying to get home to their wives

  • Odysseus has supernatural powers to an extent

3. What are key similarities and differences between Polyphemus and Big Dan Teague, including their characters, what they do, and their relationship with the protagonist?

• Both are large, with one eye

• Both protagonists are trying to get either money or gifts from the antagonists

• Both kill/injure some of the men

• Trapped in the cave/the picnic

• Mythological monster vs human 

• Both are killed eventually, polpyheus is outsmarted by oddysesys and big dan is killed in a KKK meeting-sort of by responsibility of everett