Fernando de Rojas's "Celestina" (Week One)

These questions serve as a guide to the reading – you may answer some or none, but I would like you to have a short, coherent argument about “Celestina” that speaks to the themes of love and desire about which we have been discussing in class. Also try to bring in the supplemental reading into your discussion.

1. Analyze the opening scene in Melibea’s garden. Why a garden? What might a garden signify? How do you interpret the words of Calisto and Melibea? Why does Melibea react in this manner? Can we read these words as genuine?

2. Discuss Calisto and Sempronio’s conversation in Act I. How do you interpret Calisto’s illness? His discussion about Melibea? The discussion about women? What occurs here? Use quotes and specific examples for the text to support your answer.

3. What are our initial impressions of Celestina? What type of character is this? What does she say which influences your analysis? What about her later exchanges with Parmeno? (And this back history with Parmeno’s mother – what do you think happens here?)

4. Analyze Parmeno’s long speeches concerning Celestina. What is her history, profession, etc.? What do you think she represents within the text? How does the entire community view this woman? Why? Use specific examples from the text to support your answer.

5. Analyze the speech of these characters (you can point to specific examples to formulate your answer). What type of speech is this? Why?

6. We will talk more in class about Areusa and her illness in Act VII, but how do you interpret Celestina's actions with Areusa (maybe even apart from her illness)? What might these actions have to say about Celestina? What insight do we gain about her character here?

7. How do you explain Areusa and Elicia's comments about Melibea in Act IX? Is this mere jealousy or is something more going on here? (Or, you can comment about this entire scene within Celestina's house -- what does this scene reveal about this house and what occurs here?)

8. Analyze the scene between Melibea and Celestina in Act X. What do you think Melibea experiences here? Why? Try to focus on the language she uses and the imagery to which she makes reference. How, for example, do you interpret Melibea's comment that her "breast is full of serpents"?

Slavoj Žižek: "Why be happy when you could be interesting?"

Bernard de Ventadour: "When I See the Lark"

NYT Article on Mirrors

An excellent article in the New York Times from a few years ago on what we see when we look into a mirror. It deals with many of the same issues we discussed in class last week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/22angi.html?pagewanted=all

Troubadour Poetry, Slavoj Žižek, and Buñuel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire”

For the poetry by Bernard de Ventadorn and the Žižek essay:

What are the ways in which the poetry and essay bring up themes we spoke about last week (problems of desire, imagery, alienation, etc.). What new ideas do you see here that further complicate or elucidate issues involving love and/or desire? Use specific quotes from the poetry and the essay to support your comments.

-----------

Here are some things to contemplate as you watch the film (you do not need to answer any of these questions directly, but part of your blog posting for next week should involve a discussion of some aspect of the film).

1. Why do you think the film is titled “That Obscure Object of Desire”? What is this “obscure object”? How does the film present it as such (imagery, characters, dialog, etc.)? How might this “obscure object” relate back to our discussion of Narcissus and Lacan?

2. Why is terrorism an ever-pervasive background to the events of the film?

3. Why do you think there are two actresses to play the part of Conchita? Refer to specific scenes in the film if you discuss this.

4. What do you make of the animal imagery in the film (the mouse and fly)?

5. Why do you think Mattheiu is the narrator of the film? Why is most of the film a flashback? (Think about who is sitting next to Mattieu on the train).

6. Do you have an interpretation of the final moments of the film? (The sewing, the music – which “Liebestod” or “Love-Death” is from Wagner’s opera “Tristan and Isolde,” the explosion)

Song of Songs, Narcissus, and Lacan's "Mirror Stage"

These three readings, though seemingly disparate, all have something to say about the relationship of the "self" and the "other" (or lover and beloved). Please answer at least one question for each reading.

For the "Song of Songs":

1. How does this poem present the relationship between lover and beloved? What specific vocabulary does it employ? What images are created through the use of this language?

2. This relationship is specifically an erotic one - why do you think  we have such a fundamentally erotic text within a broader theological context (the "Song of Songs" forms part of the Old Testament)?

For Narcissus:

3. Do a close reading of the conversation between Narcissus and Echo. Do you find anything strange here? Is Echo simply an "echo"? What does and echo do and what should an echo not do? How does Narcissus reply to her "request for love"? Why?

4. Deceptively simple question: With what or whom does Narcissus fall in love? (Hint - Narcissus does NOT fall in love with himself - this is a common misreading of the myth.) What is the problem with this? Many writers see in this myth the foundation of love found in all relationships - what does this myth have to tell us about love and the nature of human desire? Point to specifics in the text in your answer.

For Lacan (and yes, as I said in class, this text will seem to be an impossible read, but try at least):

5. Do you take anything from this reading? What? Many scholars see this as a psychoanalytic rewriting of the Narcissus myth - might you see any parallel between the two? What?