English Composition 121

Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? (Post for 4/17)

That which can be seen is the integration of the shadow self into the prologue along with further clarification about some aspects of the arguments made by the disparate voices. And there is also the point made about being clear about whether or not the Platonist is the same as the poet alongside the idea of showing a continuation from the sampler to the Platonist. Finally, I see the lack of clarity that the story has for the professor.

I believe I need to restructure or eliminate the story. This draft was a very rough way of putting my ideas to paper and consequently I am profoundly dissatisfied with the condition of the structure of the writing as I did not intend it to be so linear. In fact, I believe I need to rearrange it and spread the discrete poetry over the length of the paper so as to maximise the effect and keep a common thread as I cycle through different voices: as seen by the Platonist, the beginning of the rational, the psychologist, the continuation of the Platonist, and the individual, lost and in despair over the desire to express themselves in a society that frowns upon such demonstrations. But the irrational nature of the poetry is, from the Platonist perspective, a way of indulging in the appetitive aspect of a person’s soul rather than the rational aspect. In this way, the appetitive is equated to the irrational. This is the tying into Plato’s takedown of grief as he cites it in Homer’s “Iliad”, which is the connecting thread. Hence why the Platonist is very angry in his statement that such poetry does not belong in the kallipolis, Plato’s ideal city from The Republic (cited in Greek for further obscurity). Thus, it may behoove me to explain it further, but I am not so certain I want to make this such an obvious statement, for the thesis of the work is shrouded in indirection, for obvious reasons. I may choose to write a different story in the place of the introductory one, but the shadow self, in its inception as a Jungian idea, is one meant to show the synthesis of the man in despair and conflict with the Platonist embrace of the rational while being pulled by the natural inclination to the absurd, or the irrational, represented by the dreadful poetry meant to be a transition between sections.

In such ways, I may want to elaborate further on what I’ve stated here, but I feel it would take away from the ultimate reason I have written this piece: the embrace of the absurd and the reader choosing to take what lessons they may choose to take from it. Thus, I do not want such clarity as I have been sneaking toward, at least in the non-Platonist and psychological sections as they are meant to be intelligible to the reader, though they may not be if I choose a twist of irony to make what is familiar unfamiliar. I haven’t decided as I’m not so sure I wish to save the story from itself and may want a different one that is better written, though the consequence is this structure completely departs from the structure provided, I believe out of necessity.

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