Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Notes for THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES | EYEGASM | ENGL 220 | SPRING 2015 | SDSU | W. Nericcio

Notes 

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
#refer to page numbers in the NORTON CRITICAL EDITION

3. FANCY VERSUS NOVEL


fancy (n.) Look up fancy at Dictionary.com
mid-15c., fantsy "inclination, liking," contraction of fantasy. It took the older and longer word's sense of "inclination, whim, desire." Meaning "the productive imagination" is from 1580s. That of "a fanciful image or conception" is from 1660s. Meaning "fans of an amusement or sport, collectively" is attested by 1735, especially (though not originally) of the prize ring. The adjective is recorded from 1751 in the sense "fine, elegant, ornamental" (opposed to plain); later as "involving fancy, of a fanciful nature" (1800). Fancy man attested by 1811.
fancy (v.) Look up fancy at Dictionary.com
"take a liking to," 1540s, a contraction of fantasien "to fantasize (about)," from fantasy (n.). Meaning "imagine" is from 1550s. Related: Fancied; fancies; fancying. Colloquial use in fancy that, etc. is recorded by 1813.
fantasy (n.) Look up fantasy at Dictionary.com
early 14c., "illusory appearance," from Old French fantaisie, phantasie "vision, imagination" (14c.), from Latin phantasia, from Greek phantasia "power of imagination; appearance, image, perception," from phantazesthai "picture to oneself," from phantos "visible," from phainesthai "appear," in late Greek "to imagine, have visions," related to phaos, phos "light," phainein "to show, to bring to light" (see phantasm). Sense of "whimsical notion, illusion" is pre-1400, followed by that of "fantastic imagination," which is first attested 1530s. Sense of "day-dream based on desires" is from 1926. In early use in English also fantasie, phantasy, etc. As the name of a fiction genre, from 1949.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fancy




3. Hawthorne's goal in the novel.

5. Note the Narrator's tone--personable, talking to us!

5. House has a face.Faces and Pictures are motifs of the novel! 

7. Colonel Pyncheon vs Matthew Maule--the curse!!!!

9. Literature and Empire--note Hawthorne's goal in writing the novel; to create a mythology for the United States... nation = narration...  also note, Maule's son! builds the cursed house!

12-13: Keep your eye on the picture!!!!  the framed portrait...


 16-17: Not just the portrait, but now the mirror, and, in a few pages, the waters of Maule's well.... all are looking glasses embodying corruption!!!  a house of mirrors and portraits and more

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mesmerism



mesmerism (n.) Look up mesmerism at Dictionary.com
"hypnotism," 1802, from French mesmérisme, named for Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), Austrian physician who developed a theory of animal magnetism and a mysterious body fluid which allows one person to hypnotize another. Related: Mesmerist.






OED




  A therapeutic doctrine or system, first popularized by Mesmer, according to which a trained practitioner can induce a hypnotic state in a patient by the exercise of a force (called by Mesmer animal magnetism); the process or practice of inducing such a state; the state so induced, or the force supposed to operate in inducing it.Mesmer's claims were not substantiated by a scientific commission established by Louis XVI in 1784 including Benjamin Franklin and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. His techniques, however, had great popular appeal and were variously developed by other practitioners in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, ultimately forming the basis of the modern practice of hypnosis.

 
 21. Maule's family as DREAM controllers!

23-24. Meeting Hepzibah!!!  Yes, you need to know how to spell her name!! Note the Narrator again--narrator as protagonist/ghost/presence.... Note also, the Daguerrotypist, Holgrave, Daguerrotypes/Like the camera in Boucicault's OCTOROON!!!!

25. Hepzibah's fetish object--the picture of Clifford Pyncheon!!!!!

29. in the 1800s, US like UK--class boundaries are barbedwired!!!! Thou shall not cross--Hepzibah's fall to shopkeeper epic!

35. Look up the old words--they matter

anathema

anathema, n.

View as: 
Quotations: 
Pronunciation:  /əˈnæθɪmə/
Forms:  Pl. anathemas; also, in sense 3, anaˈthemata.
Etymology:  < Latin anathema an excommunicated person, also the curse of excommunication, < Greek ἀνάθεμα , originally ‘a thing devoted,’ but in later usage ‘a thing devoted to evil, an accursed thing’ (see Rom. ix. 3). Originally a variant of ἀνάθημα an offering, a thing set up (to the gods), n. of product < ἀνατιθέναι to set up, < ἀνά up + τιθέναι (stem θε- ) to place. Compare anathem n., and anatheme n.(Show Less)
 I. From ecclesiastical Greek and Latin.

 1. Anything accursed, or consigned to damnation. Also quasi-adj. Accursed, consigned to perdition.

1526   Bible (Tyndale) 1 Cor. xvi. 22   Yf eny man love not the lorde Jesus Christ, the same be anathema maranatha. [ Wyclif, Be he cursid, mara natha. 1611 Let him bee Anathema Maranatha. 1881 ( Revised) Let him be Anathema. Maranatha.]
1625   Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 71   He would wish to be an Anathema from Christ, for the Saluation of his Brethren.
1634   J. Canne Necessitie of Separation iii. 146   Delivered over unto Satan, proclaimed Publicans, Heathens, Anathema.
1765   A. Tucker Light of Nature II. 299   Saint Paul wished to become anathema himself, so he could thereby save his brethren.
 
 2. The formal act, or formula, of consigning to damnation.

 a. The curse of God.

a1631   J. Donne Βιαθανατος (1647) iii. iv. §10   Which Anathema..was utter damnation, as all Expositors say.
1756   E. Burke Vindic. Nat. Society 81   The Divine thunders out his Anathemas.
1877   J. B. Mozley Univ. Serm. ii. 37   To strike with His anathema those who made a gain of their virtues.
 

 b. The great curse of the church, cutting off a person from the communion of the church visible, and formally handing him over to Satan; or denouncing any doctrine or practice as damnable.

1590   H. Swinburne Briefe Treat. Test. 60   Vnlesse he be excommunicate with that great curse, which is called Anathema.
1642   T. Fuller Holy State v. xi. 404   The Donatists, whilest blessing themselves, cared not for the Churches Anathema's.
1726   J. Ayliffe Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani 256   An Anathema..differs from an Excommunication only in respect of a greater kind of Solemnity.
1769   W. Robertson Hist. Charles V III. viii. 71   Against all who disclaimed the truth of these tenets, anathemas were denounced.
1844   W. E. Gladstone Gleanings V. xlv. 114   The Pope..has condemned the slave trade—but no more heed is paid to his anathema than to the passing wind.
 

 c. Any denunciation or imprecation of divine wrath against alleged impiety, heresy, etc.

1782   J. Priestley Inst. Relig. II. 80   The Mohammedans denounce anathemas against unbelievers.
1850   W. E. Gladstone Gleanings V. xiv. 182   To deliver over to anathema the memories of our forefathers in the Church.
 

 d. A curse or imprecation generally.(The weakening of the sense has accompanied the free use of anathemas as weapons of ecclesiastical rancour.)

 43. Note when we meet Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, the narrator thinks of an encounter between him and a portrait maker--Hawthorne means for you to be thinking  of the portrait of the ancestor, Colonel Pycheon, and of the Colonel who died beneath his facsimile!

the play of facsimiles is at the heart of the THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES....

44. Narrator says that portrait painters capture the soul of the sitter!!!  Read THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY over the summer if you dig books that explore this idea!

49. Keep your EYES on Hawthorne's similes! the analogies he draws with the words AS and LIKE...  'like the teasing phantasms'


51. Names are important--Phoebe, one of the first titan daughters, associated with the moon, but also, with light... dark light, bringing light to dark, watch what Phoebe brings to THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES...


Phoebe (mythology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Phoebe (disambiguation).
In ancient Greek religion, "radiant, bright, prophetic" Phoebe (/ˈfb/; Greek: Φοίβη Phoibe), was one of the original Titans, who were one set of sons and daughters of Uranus and Gaia.[1] She was traditionally associated with the moon (see Selene), as in Michael Drayton's Endimion and Phœbe, (1595), the first extended treatment of the Endymion myth in English. Her consort was her brother Coeus, with whom she had two daughters, Leto, who bore Apollo and Artemis, and Asteria, a star-goddess who bore an only daughter Hecate.[2] Given the meaning of her name and her association with the Delphic oracle, Phoebe was perhaps seen as the Titan goddess of prophecy and oracular intellect.















62. the "Hipster" Mr. Holgrave, hanging out with all kinds of progressive movements!!!!  also a mesmerist!!!! the idea that people that paint or take pictures are bound up with the occult--think here of the frieze that norbert loves, think here of gregor samsa's precious magazine picture of the lady with the muff, think here of theodore with his hot OS...  Holgrave is of the ilk that conjure these manifestations, these facsimiles of the human, that mesmerize!!!!

67.  Holgrave shows daguerreotype of Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon to Phoebe--she thinks it is the Colonel, Colonel Pyncheon... augury

68. Clifford's womanly face! + 78 79 82

69. the poison of Maule's well... do not drink/do not look!!!!

86/87: shape shifting judge pyncheon!!!!

88/89: Colonel/Judge both have misogyny issues... misogyny and male violence...

87 GABLES as treaty on Aesthetics/Beauty and the Ugly/Grotesque... poor Hepzibah!

110: Maule's Well as mirror!