This page contains materials intended to facilitate class discussion
(excerpts from readings, outlines of issues, links to resources, etc.). The materials
are not necessarily the same as the instructor's teaching notes and are not designed
to represent a full exposition or argument. This page is subject to revision as
the instructor finalizes preparation. (Last revised 1/12/00)
- Supplementary Resources for
Class
- Other Works That May Be Mentioned:
- Schwenger, Peter, "Agrippa, or, The Apocalyptic Book," South
Atlantic Quarterly 92 (1994): 617-2
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Course Web Site:
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/courses/liu/english236/
Course Mechanics:
Reflections on "the Mechanism":
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William Gibson, Agrippa (A Book
of the Dead) (see Schwenger, pp. 617-18 for physical
description of the work):
(ll. 1-36)
(ll. 98-125)
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This poem is about "the mechanism." Usually we think
of mechanism as determined and determinative—programmed.
What is the significance of the fact that for Gibson, one can
only truly approach "the mechanism" through accident?
Consider these interrelated motifs in the poem:
What is the significance of history in the poem? |
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Gibson: (ll. 296-305)
Wordsworth: (ll. 35-49, 93-102)
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What does it mean at the end of the Gibson poem that the red
lanterns are "laughing in the mechanism," and does that
have anything to do with Wordsworth's "joy" in "nature"?
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Research Initiatives:
- technology vs. technique
- the technology of accident
- the romanticism of mechanism / the mechanism of romanticism
- machines and play (joy, laughter)
- memory and virtuality
- "information" and joy: (Wordworth, ll. 118-33)