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l. amsterdam's picture

Week 1 Reactions

Reactions to the images:

Image 1: It seems to be several variations on an arch. They are different (in color, size, etc), but really the same basic form. Some are bigger than others. I suppose this could be a representation of one idea of genre--different varieties that play off of each other, but all the same thing at the most basic level, a text.

Image 2: A book, turned by a hand/arm with no visible body (but seeming to wear a white robe). The book has flowers and butterflies blooming from it; the bright colors, contrasting strongly to the dull ones in the rest of the painting, make it the focal point. However, there is a figure, who seems to be uniterested in the book; the figure instead seems to have climbed a ladder so as to journey up the arm. Perhaps this is meant to convey the idea that what we focus on is the finished product (the text), but that in a more subtle way, we also get a reflection of the author within that (we climb up their arm and explore them, in a way). Wow, I think I gave way too much attention to such a silly picture.

To be honest, I found Freadman's essay a bit dense, and I probably would need to give it another reading (or two or three or four) before I could really take anything truly insightful from it. However, I did find the idea of genre as a game, requiring active participation (between two equals), versus something passive or restrictive like a recipe, very interesting. Knowing absolutely nothing about tennis, that metaphor was, for me, almost impossible to follow, and therefore not very useful. The idea of the importance of place was also interesting; it seems quite obvious in retrospect, but I feel that the obvious is too often overlooked.

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