Italian Aristocrats, Syrian & Egyptian Aristocrats & Frames
The author of The Decameron, with his idol Dante Alighieri and his contemporary Petrarch, made major contributions to Italian culture.
What is making a version of Tuscan dialect the official language of Italy,
ennobling the amusing comical tale told as a respectable literary form,
or creating Frame tale structures in which the occasion (escaping the plague for the countryside) is the frame of the narratives within that narrative?
According to Poe, a successful story has to have several qualities.
According to "The Philosophy of Composition" what are
being short enough to be read in a single sitting (a half hour)
closely focusing on ONE and only ONE emotional effect
invoking melancholy "the most beautiful of feelings"? '
choosing psychological disturbance at least as much as dramatic physical action
(he does not say so, but hate, revenge, and class envy are favorites of his too)
Bulgakov's novel suggests that The Master knows the Truth about a famous story.
What is the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth?
But, of course, the novel suggest that there are multiple truths about the narrative and, for humans, no simple truth will replace all the other possible truths.
In Donald Barthelme's "The Balloon," New York City is invaded by an inflatable that tells us...
Bulgakov believed we had to keep searching for truth.
Barthelme thinks we are prisoners of the limited perspectives that language can express.
The Barber's Tale in The Thousand and One Nights unites humor and frustration when a character refuses to perform a simple act, for a customer until he makes multiple digressions...
He keeps delaying the cutting of his customer's hair. (The title of the tale is a good clue.)
This is an archetypal example of the type of story in which digression and alternative stories are the method for creating a frame. The massive hit TV series Lost (2004-2010) uses this technique.
"The Black Cat" has its narrator provide a self description that appears to be opposite of his actions.
What is being a lover of animals and kind to them versus torturing and killing a cat, or what is claiming to have a peaceable marriage then murdering one's wife?
What is the effect on the reader of such apparent opposites?
The novel has many candidates for the main character, the protagonist, among them...
Jesus, Pilate, the Master, Ivan, Woland, even The Cat
The murder of physicists suddenly disrupts what seems like a mundane ordinary narrative about the death of a beloved dog and life in a university physics office, the motivation of the murder is...
What is Disrespect? Exclusion of "Outsiders"? The lack of purity of inquiry in science?
Vladimir Propp, the Russian linguist, literary theorist, and expert on folk tale storytelling, concentrated on one special element of folk tales.
What is the plot, and how many plots can be characterized as The Hero's Journey.
The journey is a framing stucture that contains the actions of the storytelling.
Poe had notable disadvantages in his life and career.
What is
being an orphan, then adopted by a foster father who grew to despise him
Class envy and anger
Genius but only sporadic recognition
Addiction
Poverty despite workaholic productivity?
The "carnivalesque" elements of the novel come to the forefront in several scenes.
What are the party at the Writer's Union, the performance by Woland, the "party" thrown by Woland, and, tragically, the highly formalized brutal trial and crucifixion.
The story of a beloved father who suffered from alcoholism was written by an unexpected Spanish-language writer.
Who is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor?
Claude Levi-Straus, the French anthropologist, and a key figure in creating the analytical approach known as Structuralism, had a nasty public quarrel with Vladimir Propp, and insisted that another storytelling element was the true key to affective narratives.
What is character development, more of an internal change and growth than a reaction to or participation in actions of a plot.
Note Bene: Neither Propp or Straus were "right." Obviously plot and character are both central, but they teach us to work on those things, when possible one at a time, and to make sure both move the heart and mind.
The Goth and the Gothic can be strongly contrasted if we consider their components and origin as terms.
Gothic--aristocratic, massive and enduring, religious in inspiration
Goth--Germanic " barbarians" and, today, deliberate rebels and outsiders against bourgeois rules
As a love story, The Master and Margarita suggests that love is...
Margarita's complete faith in her love, Jesus's sacrifice of his life for Truth, love, and the eventual disappearance of authoritarian empires and nations.
The Native writer Louise Erdrich's "Fleur" bestows extraordinary powers on the woman whose name is the title of the story.
What is surviving three drownings, exceptional physical strength, expertise playing cards, the ability to fight off rapists, possibly being a wendigo.
The ending of the novel The Street "breaks character" in several ways, and can be accounted for by...
What is self-defense against rape, a psychotic episode that unleashes accumulated rage, a response to exhaustion from facing infidelity, racism, sexism, verbal and physical attacks, desperation.
True New Yorkers and storytellers will travel to a certain place to pay homage to Poe.
What is the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, where Poe's child bride died as did Poe, a real world testimony to the poverty and hopes that can befall a brilliant, tirelessly creative, hard-charging, bitter writer and star editor of small journals where stories were told.
Bulgakov's opinion of censors and his vision of the best role of artists is complex, but among its key features are...
Censors and "officials" and critics are greedy, hypocritical, talentless, and absurd.
Artists exist to tell Truths that few want to hear
Magic, Miracles, and History are connected to one another, but Truth will vanquish evil and state power in the end.
Woven is a braided story and frame story because of its structure...
The near murder of a girlfriend, the three husbands who resemble the narrator's father, the Water Spirit who protects children inside the frame of the present- day story of surviving the attack and becoming a writer.