[To post your response to the questions I've posed in the material below, return to the Discussion 2 Follow-up thread in the Discussions board. Enter that forum and use the Reply button.] As I mentioned previously, this discussion is a bit more challenging than the first. The greatest challenge (for most of you) probably derived from the two Modernist works. That isn’t surprising, since the abstraction frequently found in Modernist works can be challenging or even confusing at times, and at the very least requires some effort to come to grips with. I’ll start by taking a moment to say something about each of the four works. To begin with the paintings, many of you seem to have noticed and pointed out the similarity of subject matter between Delacroix's Massacre at Chios and Picasso's Guernica, the similarity being a setting of warfare or violent conflict, with the violence in question perpetrated by the powerful against the powerless. In the case of Massacre at Chios (painted in 1824), Delacroix wished to address the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire's actions two years earlier to suppress the independence efforts of ethnic Greeks on Chios and other Greek­inhabited islands in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. In the case of Guernica (painted in 1937), Picasso’s subject was the bombing of Guernica, a small city in northern Spain, earlier that same year. The bombing was carried out by aircraft from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy during the Spanish Civil War and took place at the request of General Francisco Franco, a Spanish general trying to overthrow the elected government of Spain, who had allied himself with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini (who were the leaders of Germany and Italy, respectively; Franco was eventually successful at seizing control of the Spanish government). Delacroix’s Massacre at Chiosis considered one of the first significant paintings in the Romantic style, and it played a major role in initiating the Romantic style in Western painting. It had an extremely controversial reception when first exhibited, both because of its subject matter and because of its rejection of Neoclassical aesthetic principles. Picasso’s Guernica, while it did not initiate any new developments in Western painting (all of the stylistic elements that Picasso draws upon for the painting had been developed years earlier, either by him or by other artists), the painting itself is considered one of the most significant Western paintings of the 20th century because of its powerful anti­war sentiment. (A reproduction of Guernica can be found in the entry lobby of the United Nations building, an organization founded after World War II in an effort to prevent future global conflict.) In the case of the poems, while the poems themselves and their creators are both prominent in the literary world, they don’t hold quite the same status as their painting counterparts. Poe was a skilled poet but, while a few of his poems (such as ‘Annabel Lee’ and ‘The Raven’) are widely known and well-liked by many readers, most literary scholars would say that his most important contribution to 19th century American literature lies not in his poetry but in the role he played in the development of the modern short story. Cummings, in turn, while considered to be a significant 20th century American poet, would not usually appear in most literary scholars’ “Top 10” lists. Nevertheless, as with Poe, there are a handful of Cummings’s poems (such as ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town’ and ‘she being brand’) that are highly prized by many readers. (Of the four works, the Cummings poem probably posed the most difficulty for many of you. If you’re interested, at the bottom of this document I’ve added a brief discussion of some of the thornier technical aspects of his poem.) ________________________________________________________ In what comes below, my follow­up questions are bolded to make them easier to see. As I mentioned at the beginning, it’s clear that the use of abstraction poses challenges to the viewer of an artwork or the reader of a poem. The two Modernist examples, which utilize abstraction much more extensively than the Romantic examples, tended to be more difficult to grapple with. That raises the question, “Why use abstraction?” and especially why use it to the extent that many of the Modernists writers, painters, poets, music composers, dancers and other artists did. If, as a creative artist, I risk confusing or pushing away some of my potential audience, where is the gain in using abstraction? Some of you implied a connection between the abstract approach and the viewer's or reader's imagination. This is an important element of abstraction's appeal, but there's also more to it. Artists of all types, whether visual or literary or performing artists, are usually attempting to convey something about the reality of human experience to their audiences. However, ‘reality’ as humans experience it has a wide range of dimensions, all of which are of interest to the artist or creative writer. Certainly, physical reality is one of those dimensions, and visual reality is one aspect of physical reality. But there's also emotional reality, perceptual reality, social reality and so on, not to mention the imagination and the dream world, which combine the various dimensions of reality in ways that are different from everyday waking reality. How can we go about representing these various dimensions of human reality and the different ways of combining these dimensions of experience? One answer is that each requires different methods (‘languages’) of representation, and artists seek out and explore useful methods of representing each of these dimensions of human reality. “Abstraction” is one such method. To get a deeper sense of the role of abstraction in the creative arts, let’s explore more thoroughly the role of abstraction in the two Modernist works under our examination (the painting by Picasso and the poem by Cummings). First, consider the context in which Picasso and Cummings were working. What sort of changes took place in the social and cultural aspects of Western society between the time period in which Romanticism was the dominant style to the time period in which Modernism was the dominant style? (Your course reading materials might help with this.) Next, how might the social and cultural changes taking place in the Western world have affected the change in artistic emphasis between the time of the Romantic examples (completed between 1824 and 1849) and the time of the Modernist examples (completed in the late 1930's)? What might have compelled Cummings, for instance, to feel that he needed a more complex, more abstract, and more allusive style of language to capture meaning in the time and place he was writing? What, in turn, might Picasso have felt was gained in terms of representation, in the context of the 1930's, by presenting his subject in such a radically more abstract style than that of Delacroix? To put it another way, how might the reality of daily human experience in Western societies have changed over that hundred­year period in a way that could have contributed to the development of a more abstract ‘language’ for Western art and literature? Now, let's consider why Picasso and Cummings, respectively, might have chosen to make heavy use of abstraction in these specific works. Among other things, their choice implies that they wished to say something a bit different about their respective subject matters than was the case for their predecessors (that is, Delacroix and Poe). For instance, despite the similarity of subject matter between Massacre at Chios and Guernica, the two paintings obviously look and feel quite different. The two artists (Delacroix in the first case and Picasso in the second case) appear to be calling the viewers’ attention (our attention) to different aspects of these events. What is it, exactly, that’s more noticeable to you in each painting? What is it that each one causes you to be more aware of, or that stays with you after you’ve turned away? In other words, what does Picasso seem to want to show us (and have us remember) about Guernica that’s different from what Delacroix seems to want to show us about Chios? And how does the use of abstraction help Picasso to do this, to achieve this difference in impact? We can ask similar questions about ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town’ in contrast to ‘Annabel Lee’. To do that, it might be helpful to think of Cummings as telling multiple stories, with each of those stories running simultaneously through the poem, while Poe appears to be telling essentially one story. Two of the possible stories being told by Cummings depend upon the single word “noone.” Technically speaking, this word doesn't exist… it’s ‘invented’ by Cummings. In practical terms, it’s simply a ‘misspelling’ of “no one” (two words) that compresses it into one word. Since this ‘misspelling’ occurs multiple times, we can assume that it’s intentional on Cummings’s part. Knowing this, we can now read the word in two different ways ­­ as “no one” or as “noone.” Which way we choose to read it (interpret it) determines which of two possible stories we find in the poem. But, we aren’t restricted to reading it only one way: We can read it first one way, then the other, in which case we get a different story from the poem in two different readings. One of these stories we can think of as being about a town, the other we can think of as being about two people. In addition to the stories that depend upon “noone,” there is at least one other story we might find in the poem. This story (which one or two of you might have alluded to in your remarks) comes out of the repeated but rotating use of the seasons, as well as the rotating repetition of the celestial phenomena (“sun, moon, stars, rain”). This additional story derives from the juxtaposition of those recurring natural cycles with the human story or stories that run through the poem. How do the meanings of certain key words in “anyone lived in a pretty how town” change based upon which of the multiple stories you’re focusing upon? (As just one “for instance,” how does the meaning of the word “anyone” itself change?) How does Cummings’s use of abstraction enable him to cause those words to carry multiple meanings and thus to tell multiple stories simultaneously? And why do you suppose he would want to tell so many stories at the same time, in one poem, in the first place? (For this question, keep in mind my earlier questions about the cultural context of Cummings’s time period.) _______________________________________________________________________ In light of the challenges many of you faced with the Cummings poem, I’ve added here some technical points regarding “anyone lived in a pretty how town”: Although I’ve called out the importance of the word “no one” above, that’s just one instance of the abstract way in which Cummings uses language in his poem. In general (as some of you noted), the strongest abstract effects comes from Cummings’s intensive, and sometimes peculiar, manipulation of syntax (the way in which parts of speech are arranged) as well as his heavy use of pronouns – anyone, someones, everyones, they, their, he, his, she, her – of which “noone” is a special case. (How many of you had ever considered how very abstract pronouns are?) When he does use a noun to refer to people, it’s a collective noun (women, men, children, folk, etc.) not an individual noun. Regarding the manipulation of syntax, what’s usually happening is that Cummings is using words that we normally encounter as one part of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.) as a different part of speech. For instance, when Cummings writes, “he sang his didn’t he danced his did,” the words “didn’t” and “did” (which we almost always encounter as verbs or auxiliary verbs) are being used as nouns. This is unusual, and a little disorienting, but not strictly wrong. In fact, we do this ourselves sometimes, especially when talking about a word as a word. But even in more common situations, we sometimes do it. For example, suppose you hear an athletic coach telling his or her team, “I don't want to hear any coulda, shoulda, woulda ... I just want to see focus and execution.” The coach here is using “coulda, shoulda, woulda” (a more emphatic way of saying “excuses”) as nouns, even though we more commonly encounter those words as auxiliary verbs (which in their expanded, fully correct form would be “could have, should have, would have”). In other words, coach is speaking metaphorically in that moment, as is Cummings in his poem. The difference is that Cummings is doing this more intensively, more densely, in a relatively short span, than we would typically do in normal writing or conversation, and it’s this intensity or density that we find a bit disorienting. When Cummings does this is, it allows him to get double duty out of his words (similar to what he does with “noone”). He gets to use the word as the part of speech needed in that particular moment, but he also gets to borrow the connotations that the word carries over from its more usual part of speech. For instance, we can read “he sang his didn’t he danced his did”in two different ways. In one reading, “didn’t” and “did” are nouns that carry the suggestion of action or inaction, completion or incompletion. In another reading, we can treat “didn’t” as a verb and stop after the second ‘he’, which makes the partial line into a question: “he sang his didn't he?” So which reading is the correct one? As it turns out, that’s probably the wrong question. If Cummings only wanted one possible reading, I doubt he would have written it this way. There are some situations where Cummings is simply juxtaposing two thoughts or concepts that we don’t typically associate with each other – for example, “laughed their cryings.” At the most basic level, this is “metaphor” (see Poetry Vocabulary Lesson); it’s what poets do. Of course, even this bit of oddness in the poem is not completely foreign to us: We’ve all heard someone exclaim, “I laughed till I cried,” right? Cummings doesn't mean the same thing here, exactly, but it demonstrates that the juxtaposition – the metaphor – is not unknown to us. In other cases, Cummings uses words that are present primarily for their sound, or for the visual images they evoke, or even for the aural (sound) images they evoke, such as “up so floating many bells down,” which I’m sure has many possible meanings or interpretations, but one of which, for me, is the hypnotic and lyrical effect of the sound of church bells carrying across the summer air in a small town. (Note also the multiple possible connotations of “bells” in the context of the various stories in the poem.) Finally, there’s the issue of structure, which some of you might have addressed in terms of rhythm or rhyme rather than organizational structure. Although it’s true that Cummings is “breaking rules” to some degree in much of what he does in this poem, his rule­breaking doesn’t really extend to structure or rhythm or rhyme. Structurally (and I think one or two of you might have mentioned this), Cummings’s poem is quatrains (four­line stanzas) from beginning to end. His adherence to a single structure is even more consistent than Poe’s, whose stanza lengths vary in Annabel Lee. (To be fair, Poe probably has specific reasons for that variance.) In terms of rhyme, Cummings’s poem has about the same amount of rhyming as Poe’s. In both cases, about two­thirds of the line­endings use either perfect rhyme or near rhyme. Poe probably feels to us as if he rhymes more because he makes greater use of perfect rhyme (mostly through the repetition of “sea” and “Lee”), whereas Cummings uses a larger portion of near rhyme (such as “same”/”rain” and “summer”/”more”). Modern Western poetry makes no qualitative distinction between perfect rhyme and near rhyme. As for rhythm, the rhythm and pace (or meter) of the Cummings poem is as regular and persistent as a drumbeat. Cummings uses a four­beat line (meaning, there are four stressed syllables in each line) throughout the poem, just as he uses four­line stanzas all the way through… and, for that matter, just as he consistently uses those four­part images – one for the seasons and one for the heavens – to signify the passing of time. (It turns out that “four” is an important ordering principle in the poem.) Skeptical? Try this: read the poem through aloud, just once, without worrying about what the words mean, and simply allow yourself to pronounce the words as they would normally be pronounced. Treat them purely as sound (remember the Yeats quote from the Poetry Vocabulary Lesson that poems are made out of “a mouthful of air,” meaning that they are first and foremost constructions of sound). Read along at a comfortable pace and pay attention to the rhythm that your voice falls into as you do so (as long as you don’t throw yourself off by stopping to figure out the meaning). Chances are, you’ll start to hear the music that lives in Cummings’s poem.

Discussion 1: Physician-Assisted SuicideDeath is defined as the cessation of (1) heartbeat, (2) breathing, and (3) electrical activity in the brain. It is possible for death to be postponed through life support; death can also be accelerated through refusing food and water, which are things needed for survival. A “good” death is considered one that includes physical comfort, support from loved ones, acceptance, and adequate medical care.A relevant issue to consider is the topic of euthanasia, which refers to the act of painlessly ending the lives of persons who are suffering from incurable diseases or have severe disabilities. Another term used for euthanasia is mercy killing. In considering euthanasia within the context of the lifespan, what are our rights at the end of our lives? What are the laws in the United States and other countries? Where does public opinion stand on the issue?There are three types of euthanasia, and the distinction between each is very important: Active euthanasia involves deliberately and directly causing a person’s death. This can be done, for example, by administering a lethal dose of drugs. The ethics of active euthanasia are hotly contested. Passive euthanasia involves allowing a terminally ill person to die of natural causes by withholding lifesaving treatments. This can be done, for example, by taking someone off of life support. In the United States today, there is a trend toward acceptance of passive euthanasia. Assisted suicide, which is usually “assisted” by a physician, lies somewhere in the middle. It does not involve actively killing someone, but it does involve making available to a person who wishes to die the means by which she or he may do so. Assisted suicide is illegal in most states of the United States (as of 2017), except Montana, Washington, Vermont, California, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington, DC. Attempts to legalize assisted suicide, however, have resulted in many legislative bills within individual states over the past 20 years.Oregon was the first state to make physician-assisted suicide legal when it passed the Death With Dignity Act in 1997. The Death With Dignity Act allows terminally ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose. It is up to qualified patients and licensed physicians to implement the act on an individual basis. Doctors must report when it is done so that the state can keep track of its frequency.To qualify for Death With Dignity, a patient must be: 18 years of age or older A resident of Oregon Capable of making and communicating health care decisions for himself/herself Diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six (6) months Again, it is up to the attending physician to determine whether these criteria have been met. The patient must then find another doctor licensed to practice medicine in Oregon who is willing to give them the life-ending drugs. Not all physicians are willing to administer these drugs to patients, even if they do meet the above criteria. The law does not require the presence of a physician when a patient takes lethal medication. A physician may be present if a patient wishes it, as long as the physician does not administer the medication himself/herself.For this Discussion, you analyze the Death With Dignity movement through a cultural lens. You examine cross-cultural perspectives on death and dying and use them to make an evaluation about whether a chosen culture would likely be supportive of assisted suicide.To Prepare: Choose one culture and research that culture’s perspectives on death, dying, and assisted suicide. Research any applicable laws as well. By Day 3Post the name of the culture you selected and a description of that culture’s perspectives on dying in general. Given those beliefs and attitudes, would this culture likely be supportive of assisted suicide? Support your argument with scholarly references to the literature.