On Friday we we're forbidden to read Nick's blog, and I now know why: it would make the rest of us feel that it would be futile to write again, so completely complete is his definition of epiphany.We must also read Jennie Lynn's blog about chaos.

The predominant discussion of class today was the issue of forgetting: why does the great god of Nature have Rat and Mole forget that they saw him? Some in class have taken this to mean that Grahame thinks epiphanies should be forgotten and that this is wrong. The question than became, perhaps the emphasis really falls not on forgetting, but on remembering. And that the great epiphany isn't forgotten, but is around us all the time and we must seek to remember that it is there. Which ties in with anagnorisis , which is actually something that I had been wondering about, if it had a connection with epiphanies or not. Well, lo and behold Sam posted a quote from Northrup Frye from page 130 of Northrup Frye on Milton and Blake: "Epiphany is the theological equivalent of what in literature is called anagnorisis, or "recognition." This is what the Joycean epiphanies in Dubliners are like.

For those who have some exposure to Classical mythology will know, anagnorisis is frequently an extremely painful thing, such as when Oedipus realizes he killed his father and married his mother, or when Agave realizes its her son's head and not a lion's that she's bearing in her hands.
This perhaps ties in with a phrase that was brought up today: via negative, or the negative way, which means attempting to describe God by negation. Basically, everything falls short and is therefore horrible to some extant or another.

This is something that Dante was aware of, in his compositon of The Divine Comedy, where he witnesses all of these horrifing things before finally beholding a vision of a rose at the highest point in heaven. Clearly TS Eliot was heavily influenced by Dante, as the lotus clearly suggests.

I'll close this entry with mentioning a tiny epiphany I had yesterday afternoon while meeting with my group the Cokers. Douglas was talking about how the poem seemed to be written in different poetic voices, and then a little light bulb clicked on: different voices, the "they" in the poem. Because it is their voices! It was a nice bright winged brief moment.