Group Presentations: Day 3

Group 5: Dolce Domum (To Arrive Where we Started)

As we walked into class on Monday, we were greeted by the warm glow of candle light in the classroom. This was the setting for Group 2's presentation. They too incorporated a video into their presentation, although unlike the preceding groups they had a mixture of video feed and live performance. One thing that I found interesting was that the video was not of themselves, but clips taken from various movies that each individual felt in someway connected to different parts of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Along with the video segments they each read different quotes from the section that they were embodying. Each section had to do with the idea of dolce domum, or returning home or going back to an original state, as well. I liked how they too used elements of low brow to depict high brow literature. I recognized almost all of the movies, and some of my favorite clips came from "Gladiator," "American Psycho," and "American History X." There were a couple of quotes from "Gladiator" that I felt really resonated with the class. One was, "What we do in life echos throughout eternity." This fits perfectly with the idea of dolce domum as well as other themes of the class. Another was, "I knew a man that said death smiles at us all, and all we can do is smile back." Although this quote does not perhaps pertain to the class as much as the other, it is still strong and meaningful quote. One of the other clips that I found funny was the one from Hercules. It is interesting how such different kinds of clips can depict such similar issues and themes. The ending, "Fin....Again" taken from Finnegans Wake was perfect as well.

Group 6: Myth of the Eternal Return (again)

Group 6 was, ironically I may add, the second group to present on the myth of the eternal return. I thought it was funny when they mentioned that they had thought about repeating our play, therefore literally returning back to the first presentation, but decided not to. Their idea was a great one as well though, an probably much less boring than it would have been if they had done the same presentation all over again. Their presentation dealt with the rising and setting of the sun. There were three different main groups of people: the Godlike people, the heroes and the stoners. This was an obvious reference to Vico's ideas regarding the deterioration of language and humanity. The God, Aaron, gave speech that reminded me a lot of Shakespeare, and the mention of "pale fire" made me think of Timon of Athens. His advanced language continued to become obviously worse as it made it to the stoners, who were fluent speakers of the "dude language." Although everyone wrote their own parts, they all incorporated aspects (as well as quotes) from the novels we have read in class. This in a way represents eternal return as well, because as Maximus said in the Gladiator, "What we do in life echos throughout eternity." Words of great writers can be seen in echoing throughout the texts of their predecessors. This was a very funny presentation, and the reference to Dr. Sexon as a drug dealer again made me laugh. In fact, every part was humorous while educational to a degree.


Overall, I really enjoyed the presentations this semester and look forward to hearing everyone's individual presentations.