After completing the third reading, “Renaissance Self - Fashioning,” I can start to picture more clearly what AP Lit will be like. I imagine we will spend a lot of time reading and discussing texts that contain many debatable topics. These topics will surround broad ideas like identity, culture, connection, and human nature. I assume that these will be heated conversations because they will surround age old unanswered questions. I am both excited and curious about the challenges ahead. In my Common Place Book, I attempted to explore some of the ideas laid out by Greenblatt. The first thing that struck me was the the quote from Geertz which said, “There is no such thing as a human nature independent of culture.” My gut reaction was to argue with this statement because of how definite it is, but in reality, I somewhat agree. If not read quite literally, it is true that no matter what, we cannot escape cultures influence on our being. Even if we choose to defy cultural norms, we are choosing to do so because of culture and therefore it is influencing us. But if you were to decipher the quote in a more literal way, would you argue that we are all just a piece of a tapestry under the illusion that we have some sort of freedom? At what point can we consider ourselves free from culture and independent? I believe this is where art comes into effect. Art plays the role of making us feel alive. Greenblat says, “Among artists is the will to be the culture’s voice - to create the abstract and brief chronicles of the time - in a common place, but the same may extend beyond art.” I believe that art does just this. It records the power shift within cultures. As art has become more accessible, its value is determined by many, but what is valuable becomes more difficult to determine. This is why I am lead to believe that in this day in age, we tie our likes and dislikes so closely to our identity. As Greenblatt says, it is a sort of self - fashioning, and this self - fashioning is almost like an escapism. If we can choose what we like in an oversaturated world, we begin to believe we can create our own identity. Greenblatt says this when he says, “We need such a drama because our own lives are saturated with experience artfully shaped.” He later goes on to explain that we look for art that can “both reward intense, individual attention and promise access to larger cultural patterns.” This is fascinating because even when we search for a sense of self or independence in art, it is also still in our nature to seek connection and understanding. This makes me wonder if people really want to feel like an individual or if they just want to feel a sense of control. The story within the epilogue touched on this human yearning for control. After hearing the story of the man sitting next to him, Greenblatt was unable to help the man with even a simple favor because he felt it went against his identity. He said, “ To be asked, even by an isolated, needy individual to perform lines that were not my own, that violated my sense of my own desires, was intolerable.” This leads me to question if Greenblatt simply was insecure in his own being. By helping this man and saying words he would not otherwise have picked, he for a moment would have to give up the idea that he has complete control of his identity. He would have to play a character which he did not develop, and that is scary to him because it makes him realize that he is simply a character in a bigger picture. He affirms these thoughts with his concluding words. “I want to bear witness at the close to my overwhelming need to sustain the illusion that I am the principal maker of my own identity.” It is at this point, Greenblatt realizes complete self fashioning does not exist.
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AuthorElizabeth Finley is a 12th grade AP Lit student. She enjoys theater, dance, singing, playing the piano, and watching movies. If she could only do three things before she died, she would go on a Safari, sky dive, and visit her grandparents at church and help them work in daycare. Archives
December 2019
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