English 630 Post-Mortem

Thus begins my final post for English 630 (not to mention to the concluding post to my first and only blog). Sigh... But let's not get blogged down and get right to it: overall this was a great class, both in terms of subject matter as well as class format. We spent a whole semester on Whitman and I feel like we could have spent a semester more and there would be gargantuan amounts left untackled. The beautiful part is that I now feel prepared to tackle remaining questions on my own and I am certain that I will given how my interest in Whitman bloomed throughout the semester. In terms of class format, I enjoyed the blog initiated class discussions and, despite my general abhorrence for all things "social media," creating a blog and a twitter account was not all that bad in the end. The class did a nice job of making me come out of my comfort zone and be more creative about how I discussed and presented my learning of Whitman (the insanely boring "3-5 paper" being my typical comfort zone). So is there anything to be critical about? Not really, but in the interest of balanced commentary, let me offer the following knit pickings. While we hit most of the classics, there were a few others that I would have loved some to hear some class discussions on (Sleepers, I Sing the Body Electric, etc.). Maybe a "make-up" Tuesday in class meeting would have helped create a few more discussion hours to work with? In terms of grading, there's not much to go on since there were no periodic check +/-'s to go on (arbitrary as they may be). For an Open University quasi-student who doesn't care too much about his grade such as myself, this was easy to deal with, but I can imagine for others it might be more challenging! Overall though, I had a great time and learned a lot. I give this class an A.

This Machine Kills Facists - Woody Guthrie and Whitman

Nice post on Guthrie.  I have had minimal exposure to Guthrie and enjoyed both passages in your prompt.  It seems to me that Guthrie, like Whitman, loves the “idea” (or potential) of America but is dismayed by the “execution” of America (by execution I mean the manner of performance, not putting to death).  Start with the Pastures of Plenty lyrics.  I feel a number of competing sentiments embedded within the song.  While Guthrie highlights the diversity and fecundity of the land, you feel a sense of him being controlled by the land, or by those that control the land.  In some ways, the song feels like a slave work song, particularly the opening lines.  The “you” in the lyrics seems to stretch beyond its initial meaning of America or individual states, and to individual owners of certain pieces of the land.  When Guthrie sings “We’ll work in this fight and we’ll fight till we win,” the target of this fight is nebulous but my sense is that Guthrie is lamenting the intermediation of the proverbial “man” in his association with the land of America.  Thus when he speaks of the freedom he is willing to fight for in the closing lines of the song, he is not referring to foreigners or other outside forces but those among us who look to disturb the natural connection between humanity and our desire to work.  This Land is Your Land works in a similar manner.  The song begins with an ode to the land of America and a celebration of our shared identity with the land, and ends by questioning the current status of that identity.  He again ends the song with a statement of defiance (“Nobody living can ever stop me”) as he looks to reestablish that which, in his mind, made the land of America great in the first place.