Author Archive | garruzzoae

I’m not sure that I could recount well all that I’ve learned from Intro to English Studies. What bars me isn’t simply the fact that it’s always a challenge to succinctly put to words what’s gained by education. Also, it’s because I consider this class to be more skill than knowledge oriented; that’s to say, […]

  “Nature Hates Calculators”: Emerson and the Essay Anthony Garruzzo   There is no denying the humility behind the name essay, which originally simply meant an attempt. The history of the term begins with Montaigne, who, as a moderate skeptic, would wade into subjects with wariness and self-doubt, always willing to admit the narrowness of […]

I found the talks from today both interesting and insightful. Conscious of being in an intro to English studies class, I found myself assessing the presentations less in terms of the cogency of a particular point or argument and more in terms of whether I agreed with the approach to the primary text as a […]

Anthony Garruzzo Dr. Vander Zee ENGL 299 3/28/16   Assaying the Essay: Emersonian Innovations on the Essay Form   There is no denying the humility behind the name essay, which originally simply meant an attempt. The history of the term begins with Montaigne, who, as a moderate skeptic, would wade into subjects with wariness and […]

The Tropic of Orange readings for today have had me thinking about realism: what it means and the extent to which it is an outdated literary prejudice. The novel started me thinking on these questions because, in these last two sections, it has markedly shifted further towards the surreal or magical and away from standard […]

One thing that immediately stood out to me in reading the beginning of Tropic of Orange was the very first image with which the novel opens. The scene described is of Rafaela Cortes, as she is sweeping aside the bodies of animals both dead and alive, tidying up Gabriel’s house. The image is so striking, […]

In The Theory Toolbox, on page 177 there is a prompt asking about whether or not “political correctness” has so deeply penetrated literary criticism to the point of being its ultimate goal. To demonstrate a possible answer to this question, the text cites a critic named Frank Lentricchia who decided to opt out of the […]

It seemed to me that the chapter “Culture” of The Theory Toolbox tended towards a very deflating relativism. I got this impression particularly from the authors’ attack of the imposed division between high and popular culture, posting the observations of Allan Bloom as a sort of quintessential example of conservative misconstruements of the very concept […]

What stood out to me in the chapter “Author/ity” was a distinct distrust of the notion of the Western canon. Obviously the writers think much of Foucault’s hegemonic conception of discourse, as the chapter seemed to be largely founded upon its implications. While I don’t feel as though I have any right, having never read […]