Students, below appears an example of the six- to eight-page longer paper, discussed on the course website here. In this case, it is derived from the earlier contrast paper, although you are not obliged to expand upon your own contrast papers to put yours together. When formatted as it ought to be for submission as a paper--which it is not on the blog--it is of a good length for submission.
As in previous semesters, I color-code to highlight various parts. The text brought straight over from the earlier version appears in white, as it did before. New material in support of my thesis is in blue. The counter-argument and its materials are in red, while the rebuttal and its are in green. Please do not color-code your own papers; I do so as a convenience for you.
The typifying features of good citizens are their normal adherence to and participation in the structures of public order coupled with a willingness to set aside those structures when they become unduly oppressive or otherwise untenable. Both Corran Horn from the Star Wars Expanded Universe and the Asimovian Hari Seldon are figured as good citizens by their respective authors. Of the two, however, Seldon is clearly the superior example of good citizenship.
Of course, there is not consensus that good citizenship is in something as simple as participating in public order while being willing to step outside of the structures that support it. In one sense, criminals and villains--who are not normally considered good citizens--appear to be good citizens when good citizenship is measured by the rubric of participation in structures of public order and the willingness to set aside those structures. Certainly, they fit the latter; crime is, by definition, a transgression of the prevailing social contract, a setting-aside of public order, so that criminals by their very criminality begin to adhere to at least one definition of good citizenship. And in doing the latter, they can be argued to do the former. One of the things that any structure requires to define itself is something in opposition to which to define itself; we know what we are as much by what we avoid as by what we do. Criminals and villains provide a foil for public structure, and in so doing, they support those structures by giving them something against which to align. So to label citizenship merely as participation in public structure coupled to willingness to step outside of it appears to be overly simplistic, and therefore a poor basis for judgment.
Appearance, however, is not necessarily truth. Although it is true that by their actions, criminals and villains provide a useful focus for the structures of public order and therefore help to guide and focus them, such participation is not typically considered "normal," a status for which the earlier definition calls. Also, being willing to step outside requires that there be a common state of being inside the structures, and criminals and villains are generally not regarded as being within the systems that they oppose. And in any event, the definition of citizenship as participation in and selective exception from the structures of public order accords with a summary of definitions of citizenship reported in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Dominique Leydet, who labels citizenship as membership in a political community along with the assumption of the rights and duties thereto appertaining. One of the duties commonly understood as attendant upon membership in a group is to work to maintain and enrich that group, which from time to time means that the group's practices and policies must be evaluated--which can only be done from outside. There is thus a prevailing concept of citizenship that requires the ability to stand outside the system to support it.
There is admittedly no question that Corran Horn is a good citizen, thusly defined, in the Star Wars universe. Certainly, he participates actively and amply in the structures of public order across a significant span of time. His initial in-storyline appearance is as an officer of a local constabulary, one conducting an investigation into a kidnapping (Stackpole, Omnibus); as a member of the constabulary, he is necessarily a participant in the structures of public order, since it is in many respects law enforcement groups who are the primary points of interaction between the general populace and governmental structures. When he reappears in the story, he does so as a commissioned officer in the armed forces of the New Republic, one seeking entry into an elite unit (Stackpole, X-Wing 1-28); commissioning as an officer is a specific and somewhat rarefied recognition of status among the structures of public order, being a position of command in the vital maintenance of the public against external enemies. Both his positions and the actions he takes within them quickly assert his deep engagement with the structures of public order, showing him as willing to offer his skills and his life at some of the highest levels of performance and utility to an underpinning of public order. Some years of storyline after his attempt to enter an elite New Republic force, Horn is a ranking officer in that same force, showing that he has remained engaged with it in a substantially acceptable way (Stackpole, I 10). Horn’s ranking as a captain, and therefore position of command within an elite unit, represents his display of significant ability in the support of public security and order, and therefore engagement with them.
Most importantly, Horn accepts his role as a Jedi, taking a place among "the foundation of stability in the galaxy" (Stackpole, I 482). In doing so, he lodges himself firmly as a member of the core proponents of order in the Star Wars universe, so that his involvement in the supporting structures of the public is absolute. And he does more in that regard; he rises, in time, to the rank of Master in the Jedi order, speaking on behalf of the Jedi to various interplanetary governments (Allston 8). In doing so, he displays himself as participating in high levels in the structures of public order, since diplomacy cannot be conducted absent those structures, and it is not carried out by the mean. By occupying a position of command among the very underpinnings of public order, therefore, Corran Horn cements himself as a participant in them.
Just as there is no question of Horn’s participation in civic structures, there is no doubt the he does, at times, set aside his participation in them to serve other ends. During his constabulary service, he deliberately misleads an overseeing officer from higher governmental authority. Not much later, he participates in a firefight to protect people who are themselves engaging in illegal activities, not only protecting them, but also inflicting property damage on non-combatants and allowing those he protected to escape any consequences for their participation in illegal actions (Stackpole, Omnibus). In neither case does he adhere fully to what his participation in social structures would require--as a peace officer, he should not aid and abet illegal activity, and he certainly ought not to violate the rights of others in doing so--although in both cases his actions serve the greater good. The same is true of an incident in his service among the military elite of the New Republic--an outgrowth of an illegal rebellion whose legitimacy was still contested (Stackpole, X-Wing 99). In the incident, he effectively commandeers a squadron for a run on an enemy, a contravention of military protocol and in fact a violation of direct orders (Stackpole, X-Wing 229-35, 241-42). Even though charges against him for his breach of discipline are dropped (Stackpole, X-Wing 259-60)—itself something which smacks of a detachment from social structures, since the maintenance of public order requires that deviations from it be dissuaded, typically through punishment for transgressing—that they are brought is an indication that Corran Horn is willing to set aside the structures of public order, even though he more commonly is an avid supporter of them. Taken together, they validate him as a good citizen.
The Asimovian Hari Seldon, however, is a better citizen than is Horn. For instance, his participation in civil structures occurs at higher levels and is more varied than that of Horn, so that it can be spoken of as stronger. In Asimov’s Forward the Foundation, Seldon begins as the head of the mathematics department at a major research university in the governing seat of a galaxy-spanning empire (6-7). The position is one of some responsibility, not only in teaching--which is itself a significant civil structure, since it is through teaching that social structures are inculcated into new participants in them--but in research and in administration; it is itself an iteration of and privileged position within a social structure, so that Seldon’s tenancy in it situates him as participating in the structures of public order. Later in the novel, he is appointed from that position to the highest non-hereditary post in the empire, that of First Minister (112). In a very real sense, in his appointment as First Minister, he becomes the structure of public order, so that he necessarily is a powerful participant within it, and to a degree much greater than any warrior in service, however skilled the warrior or elite the cadre in which the warrior serves. Moreover, much later, Seldon serves as the founding editor of an encyclopedia described as being a comprehensive collection of the knowledge and understanding of the galactic empire (Asimov, Forward 456-61). The attempt to encapsulate the sum of a society’s knowledge for its preservation cannot be anything but an intimate engagement with the structures of public order, since public order is built upon a society’s knowledge of itself.
The encyclopedia Seldon founds serves as a cover for a deeper and more vital work of maintenance of the structures of public order. The research he had done as a department head was directed towards that work, as well. For Seldon had become aware that millennia of progress were being negated and much that was good being lost, with a dark age of thirty thousand years to follow the dozen or so millennia of stable society at the end of which Seldon stood (Asimov, Foundation 36-37). The encyclopedia project served to hide a nucleus for the immense reduction of the scope of the dark age, a seed from which galactic civilization could regenerate itself in one thousand years instead of thirty times that many (93-96). The system relies on his ability to predict future events with mathematical rigor, dealing in broad probabilities in a manner analogous to that in which the behavior of subatomic particles can be predicted en masse (Prelude 15); the system therefore relies on a stable foundation (if the pun may be pardoned). By setting up a system which would allow the structures of public order which he had served to renew themselves in a thirtieth of the time it would otherwise take them to do so, Seldon makes of himself something of a messianic figure, one who comes to be in fact the focal figure for systems of public belief (Foundation 158; Edge 7, 16). Even more than during his stint as First Minister, then, he is an embodiment of public order, making his participation in its structures manifest.
At the same time, Seldon is regarded as setting aside normal social conventions. Apart from common accusations that the professoriate is removed from public life or, worse, that it is aligned against civic structures, Seldon is viewed as a threat to public order. In Prelude to Foundation, Seldon spends quite some time as a fugitive from Imperial officials, which is hardly an alignment with the usual standards of participation in civil structures. Further, while on the run, he violates a number of the socio-cultural norms of the populations which agree to hide him. Most notably, he violates the sanctity of the Mycogenian Sacratorium both in terms of entering it as an outsider and in bringing a woman where women are forbidden, which hardly rings of going along with cultural expectations, espeically since his doing so is a capital offense (237-41, 259-65). The death penalty is not capriciously handed out, so that the assignment of it to Seldon serves as a marker of just how far he has stepped outside the normal bounds of good conduct in order to further his scholarly mission. Certainly, he goes further outside of it than Horn, who is up for rebuke but not for any kind of major punishment by the society against which he transgresses--and a disciplinary rebuke is far less than execution, so that the latter indicates a more grievous offense.
Also, in Foundation, he is brought up on charges of treason, not least because he asserts from the knowledge given him by years of socio-mathematic study that the empire in which he lives and which he once served so prominently is doomed to die (31-38). As a result, he is exiled along with his followers to a world at the end of the galaxy, one appropriately named for being at the end of it (42). Whatever the reason for his making the assertion--and he is correct in making them, it must be admitted--the mere facts of his statements serve to undercut broad belief in the stability of social systems, so that in making the statements, Seldon is disengaging from the structures of public order. More than simply disobeying orders as Horn does, he is undermining confidence in the ability of society to endure, which is a much stronger detachment from the structures than is bucking the chain of command. Seldon therefore goes farther afield from the normal dictates of society than does Horn, even as he is more thoroughly engaged in those structures during his long life—even to the point of being a messianic figurearound whom systems of belief are built. He is therefore clearly a superior example of a good citizen.
That Seldon is the better image of good citizenship serves as a reminder that older works—and Asimov’s novels of Seldon are older than Stackpole’s works with Horn—yet have much to teach. They provide useful standards for judgment yet, and so they ought not to be set aside blithely.
Works Cited
~Allston, Aaron. Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi--Outcast. New York: Del Rey, 2010. Print.
~Asimov, Isaac. Forward the Foundation. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Print.
~---. Foundation. New York: Bantam, 1991. Print.
~---. Foundation's Edge. New York: Del Rey, 1982. Print.
~---. Prelude to Foundation. New York: Bantam, 1991. Print.
~Leydet, Dominique. "Citizenship." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford U, 1 August 2011. Web. 5 March 2012.
~Stackpole, Michael A. Star Wars: I, Jedi. New York: Bantam Spectra, 1998. Print.
~---. Star Wars Omnibus: X-Wing Rogue Squadron. Vol. 3. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2007. Print.
~---. Star Wars: X-Wing--Rogue Squadron. New York: Bantam, 1996. Print.
Showing posts with label Longer Paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Longer Paper. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sample Longer Paper
Students, below appears an example of how to expand your own shorter papers into the six- to eight-page longer paper that the course requires. In this example, which is the bare minimum allowable length for your own papers, I work from my earlier option 1 classification paper. The material that I bring straight over from it appears in white. The added counter-argument appears in red. The rebuttal is in green. New material supporting my thesis is in blue. Sources for each are in the Works Cited according to the color of what they support (the source for the counter-argument is red, for example).
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together. Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.
Also, I am well aware that I give Le Morte d'Arthur where the source I reference gives Le Mort d'Arthur. The spelling of the title varies from edition to edition, and I use the one with which I am most familiar.
The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means. Typically, the Arthurian knight Sir Gawain is not lumped in with such figures as stand to define the anti-hero type. A close examination of his attributes, however, reveals that he very much fits the model.
For him to fit the model, however, necessitates that the model is correctly formed, and there is not agreement that this is the case. Indeed, scholars disagree on the nature of the anti-hero. For instance, in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, J.A. Cuddon defines the anti-hero as "A 'non-hero', or the antithesis of a hero of the old-fashioned kind who was capable of heroic deeds, who was dashing, strong, brave, and resourceful" [sic] (42-43), a definition which would seem to belie the contention that the anti-hero attains fair ends by foul means. Similarly, Chris Baldick, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, defines the anti-hero as "A central character in a dramatic or narrative work who lacks the qualities of nobility and magnanimity expected of traditional heroes and heroines in romances and epics." Both sources speak to a disagreement with the idea of the anti-hero as performing heroic deeds by means of evil actions, and to a prevailing scholarly disagreement as to the nature of the anti-hero, generally.
That the two sources disagree and thereby suggest a lack of scholarly consensus, however, has problematic implications. Both sources are reputable and are therefore likely the result of sound study. The two, insofar as they disagree, cannot both be correct; if one of them is right, the other cannot be, since they differ. That one of them must be wrong, despite being reputable, raises the possibility that both are wrong; if one of the two reputable sources can be in error, then the other might be, as well. More problematic, however, is that both definitions attempt to say what an anti-hero is by discussing what it is not. While it is helpful to do some work in defining by negation, as it allows for a restriction of examination to a reasonable extent rather than the wide-open field of inquiry that otherwise exists, not all definition can be done by negation. The antithesis of a hero can be a villain as surely as an anti-hero, so that Cuddon's definition is incomplete. Also, central epic characters such as inform Baldick's definition can be noble yet far from heroic, as Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost attests. Cuddon's definition is too narrow, and Baldick's too broad, to be accurate. Room exists, therefore, for another view of the anti-hero, and for judgments based upon that view.
As a knight of the Round Table, the highest order of traditional chivalry in English-language literature, and a close kinsman of King Arthur, the legendary paragon of royal virtues, Sir Gawain would be expected to be a fairly common sort of hero. A common image of the Arthurian knight is one of an ennobled warrior riding a white horse while wearing shining armor. The knight is almost always a man--only in Spenser's Faerie Queene does an active female knight appear in a traditional English-language Arthurian context. He is seen rescuing maidens from unjust captivity and battling against evil creatures given to laying waste to the peaceful countryside and its population of simple farmers who would otherwise sing merrily as they go about their honest work of tilling fields and husbanding livestock. Sir Lancelot is often regarded as the exemplar of the type, although he is not as good an example in the standard text of English-language Arthurian legend, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, as is often perceived. The knights who achieve the Holy Grail in Malory's text--Sir Bors, Sir Percival, and most especially Sir Galahad--are better representatives. Bors fights for right despite the sure knowledge of his peers' condemnation for his doing so (2.324). Galahad is in fact so pure an example of noble knighthood that he is translated directly to heaven (2.314). Both typify the common conception of Arthurian chivalric conduct.
Sir Gawain falls far short of that standard. Even in a major work which centers on Gawain, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which he could be expected to show up as a pure example of heroism, he ends up coming off as committing less-than-good acts. In the work, Gawain enters into a wager with Sir BertilakBertilak; she threatens to trap him in bed on the first day and on the second, she kisses him while he is still abed (ll. 1211-25, 1504-07). Gawain makes his trades to Bertilak, gaining in exchange an abundance of venison on the first day (ll. 1372-82). On the second day, his trade gains him the meat of a boar hunted at great personal risk; even an average boar is more than capable of disemboweling a person in short order, and it "was massive and broad, greatest of all boars, / ... / For three men in one rush he threw on their backs" before maiming several hunting dogs and charging at the hunting party as he shrugs off volleys of arrows (ll. 1439-67); Gawain gains a dearly-bought prize. On the third day, however, Gawain betrays his vow, keeping from Bertilak an enchanted belt or sash he receives from Lady Bertilak (ll. 1679-1947). The lie is bad. That the lie takes the form of contravening hospitality oaths is far worse, violating an ancient and widely-respected code--and that it comes after Gawain has gained so much from it only compounds the ill. That it occurs over the receipt of a gift given in bed by another man's wife is perhaps worst of all. That Gawain does so marks him as enacting evil.
He does worse yet. In Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Gawain errs gravely in his first mission as a knight in Arthur's service. He moves to slay a knight who was attempting to yield himself, actively denying the plea despite the fact that "a Knight that is without mercy, is without worship [sic]"; he intemperately kills the knight's lady, instead, as he is unable to check his sword-swing when she throws herself over her knight in an attempt to protect him--"he smote off her head by misadventure" (Malory 1.119). In failing to show mercy to a foe who had conceded defeat, and in failing to control his martial abilities, particularly as they befell a noblewoman, Gawain violates the Round Table Oath to which all those of the high chivalric order were sworn not just at their induction, but annually (1.134). Violating one's sworn oath is, again, generally regarded as an action good people do not perform; even worse yet is killing those who have yielded or who are not in a position to defend themselves. Gawain's commission of both acts is marked as evil.
So, too, is an action taken late in his chivalric career. After Arthur, responding to a papal command, seeks to reconcile himself with Lancelot, Gawain intervenes, declaring blood feud against Lancelot (3.417). It skirts the commands of the Vicar of Christ, which comes perilously close to the active commission of evil. That he shortly refuses Lancelot's offer of penance takes it even closer--certainly, it smacks of the kind of harshness commonly associated with villains. That he compels Arthur to join him in his feud, shattering the fellowship of the Round Table as he does so and setting up the potential for a coup against Arthur in which Camelot is overthrown makes his feud very much a venue for evil (3.422). Thus, Gawain situates himself as enacting evil, helping him to qualify as an anti-hero despite the initial impression of him as a wholly noble Arthurian knight.
Even so, Gawain is able to come to fair resolution. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, after his perfidy with Bertilak, Gawain faces the Green Knight, whom he had earlier attacked as part of a wager in Arthur's court (ll. 381-456). In facing the Green Knight, Gawain knows that he is putting his own head under the axe:
Sir Gawain does manage to meet his end well. When his brothers, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, are killed by Sir Lancelot as he rescues Queen Guinevere from being burned at the stake, Gawain vows vengeance upon him (Malory 3.406). Given the dictates of the warrior culture in which all four lived, it is a wholly appropriate response, the more so because Gawain is the eldest brother and therefore the patriarch of the Orkney royal household; Gawain's actions thus read as well performed. He does eventually have the opportunity to attempt that vengeance, and fights an extravagant, pitched battle against Sir Lancelot, receiving a head-wound in the process (3.426-30). Any battle with Lancelot is a perilous situation, given Lancelot's long history of inflicting grievously fatal injury upon his opponents (see 3.379-80 for an example; Lancelot splits Meliagraunce's head open while one hand is literally tied behind his back), so that Gawain's entry into it speaks to his innate heroism. Complications from that injury lead to Gawain's death. On his death-bed, though, he forgives his recent foeman, absolving him of guilt for his death; "I Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but it was mine own seeking." He recalls the greater good of Arthur's realm above his own personal vendetta; "come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayest, with thy noble Knights, and rescue my noble King that made thee Knight, that is my lord and uncle, King Arthur." He even refers to Lancelot as "Flower of all noble Knights that ever I heard or saw in my days," which is high praise (3.435). Gawain dies as a result of performing his duties, which is admirable, and he forgives his enemies as he dies, which is the mark of a particularly noble soul. He ends his life in line with the promise of his chivalric calling. He passes on as a hero. And that he does so after engaging in such foul deeds as that with which he begins his chivalric career firmly establishes him as an anti-hero.
That the Arthurian Sir Gawain functions as an anti-hero becomes obvious upon consideration of his knightly career. Since Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte d'Arthur occupy positions of singular importance in English-language Arthurian legend, serving as the key example of medieval romance and the primary reference text for Anglophone Arthuriana, their portrayals of the knights of the Round Table and their deeds underpin much other writing in the English language and indeed of productions in other media. The anti-hero that figures so prominently in many of them is thereby shown to have much older iterations than is commonly realized, showing that what goes on now is very much of a piece with what has gone on for a long, long time. It illustrates that our past can yet teach us much about our present selves.
Works Cited
~Baldick, Chris. "Anti-hero." Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UP, 2011. Web. 14 November 2011.
~Cuddon, J.A. "Anti-hero." Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. Rev. C.E. Preston. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
~Malory, Thomas. La Mort D’Arthur. Ed. Joseph Haslewood. 3 vols. London: R. Wilks, 1816. Print.
~Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.
~Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. and trans. James Winny. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview P, 2005. Print.
~Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Edmund Spenser's Poetry. 3rd ed. Comps. and eds. Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together. Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.
Also, I am well aware that I give Le Morte d'Arthur where the source I reference gives Le Mort d'Arthur. The spelling of the title varies from edition to edition, and I use the one with which I am most familiar.
The anti-hero can be defined as a character who achieves heroic ends by carrying out actions that are themselves generally considered evil; they attain fair ends by foul means. Typically, the Arthurian knight Sir Gawain is not lumped in with such figures as stand to define the anti-hero type. A close examination of his attributes, however, reveals that he very much fits the model.
For him to fit the model, however, necessitates that the model is correctly formed, and there is not agreement that this is the case. Indeed, scholars disagree on the nature of the anti-hero. For instance, in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, J.A. Cuddon defines the anti-hero as "A 'non-hero', or the antithesis of a hero of the old-fashioned kind who was capable of heroic deeds, who was dashing, strong, brave, and resourceful" [sic] (42-43), a definition which would seem to belie the contention that the anti-hero attains fair ends by foul means. Similarly, Chris Baldick, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, defines the anti-hero as "A central character in a dramatic or narrative work who lacks the qualities of nobility and magnanimity expected of traditional heroes and heroines in romances and epics." Both sources speak to a disagreement with the idea of the anti-hero as performing heroic deeds by means of evil actions, and to a prevailing scholarly disagreement as to the nature of the anti-hero, generally.
That the two sources disagree and thereby suggest a lack of scholarly consensus, however, has problematic implications. Both sources are reputable and are therefore likely the result of sound study. The two, insofar as they disagree, cannot both be correct; if one of them is right, the other cannot be, since they differ. That one of them must be wrong, despite being reputable, raises the possibility that both are wrong; if one of the two reputable sources can be in error, then the other might be, as well. More problematic, however, is that both definitions attempt to say what an anti-hero is by discussing what it is not. While it is helpful to do some work in defining by negation, as it allows for a restriction of examination to a reasonable extent rather than the wide-open field of inquiry that otherwise exists, not all definition can be done by negation. The antithesis of a hero can be a villain as surely as an anti-hero, so that Cuddon's definition is incomplete. Also, central epic characters such as inform Baldick's definition can be noble yet far from heroic, as Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost attests. Cuddon's definition is too narrow, and Baldick's too broad, to be accurate. Room exists, therefore, for another view of the anti-hero, and for judgments based upon that view.
As a knight of the Round Table, the highest order of traditional chivalry in English-language literature, and a close kinsman of King Arthur, the legendary paragon of royal virtues, Sir Gawain would be expected to be a fairly common sort of hero. A common image of the Arthurian knight is one of an ennobled warrior riding a white horse while wearing shining armor. The knight is almost always a man--only in Spenser's Faerie Queene does an active female knight appear in a traditional English-language Arthurian context. He is seen rescuing maidens from unjust captivity and battling against evil creatures given to laying waste to the peaceful countryside and its population of simple farmers who would otherwise sing merrily as they go about their honest work of tilling fields and husbanding livestock. Sir Lancelot is often regarded as the exemplar of the type, although he is not as good an example in the standard text of English-language Arthurian legend, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, as is often perceived. The knights who achieve the Holy Grail in Malory's text--Sir Bors, Sir Percival, and most especially Sir Galahad--are better representatives. Bors fights for right despite the sure knowledge of his peers' condemnation for his doing so (2.324). Galahad is in fact so pure an example of noble knighthood that he is translated directly to heaven (2.314). Both typify the common conception of Arthurian chivalric conduct.
Sir Gawain falls far short of that standard. Even in a major work which centers on Gawain, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which he could be expected to show up as a pure example of heroism, he ends up coming off as committing less-than-good acts. In the work, Gawain enters into a wager with Sir BertilakBertilak; she threatens to trap him in bed on the first day and on the second, she kisses him while he is still abed (ll. 1211-25, 1504-07). Gawain makes his trades to Bertilak, gaining in exchange an abundance of venison on the first day (ll. 1372-82). On the second day, his trade gains him the meat of a boar hunted at great personal risk; even an average boar is more than capable of disemboweling a person in short order, and it "was massive and broad, greatest of all boars, / ... / For three men in one rush he threw on their backs" before maiming several hunting dogs and charging at the hunting party as he shrugs off volleys of arrows (ll. 1439-67); Gawain gains a dearly-bought prize. On the third day, however, Gawain betrays his vow, keeping from Bertilak an enchanted belt or sash he receives from Lady Bertilak (ll. 1679-1947). The lie is bad. That the lie takes the form of contravening hospitality oaths is far worse, violating an ancient and widely-respected code--and that it comes after Gawain has gained so much from it only compounds the ill. That it occurs over the receipt of a gift given in bed by another man's wife is perhaps worst of all. That Gawain does so marks him as enacting evil.
He does worse yet. In Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Gawain errs gravely in his first mission as a knight in Arthur's service. He moves to slay a knight who was attempting to yield himself, actively denying the plea despite the fact that "a Knight that is without mercy, is without worship [sic]"; he intemperately kills the knight's lady, instead, as he is unable to check his sword-swing when she throws herself over her knight in an attempt to protect him--"he smote off her head by misadventure" (Malory 1.119). In failing to show mercy to a foe who had conceded defeat, and in failing to control his martial abilities, particularly as they befell a noblewoman, Gawain violates the Round Table Oath to which all those of the high chivalric order were sworn not just at their induction, but annually (1.134). Violating one's sworn oath is, again, generally regarded as an action good people do not perform; even worse yet is killing those who have yielded or who are not in a position to defend themselves. Gawain's commission of both acts is marked as evil.
So, too, is an action taken late in his chivalric career. After Arthur, responding to a papal command, seeks to reconcile himself with Lancelot, Gawain intervenes, declaring blood feud against Lancelot (3.417). It skirts the commands of the Vicar of Christ, which comes perilously close to the active commission of evil. That he shortly refuses Lancelot's offer of penance takes it even closer--certainly, it smacks of the kind of harshness commonly associated with villains. That he compels Arthur to join him in his feud, shattering the fellowship of the Round Table as he does so and setting up the potential for a coup against Arthur in which Camelot is overthrown makes his feud very much a venue for evil (3.422). Thus, Gawain situates himself as enacting evil, helping him to qualify as an anti-hero despite the initial impression of him as a wholly noble Arthurian knight.
Even so, Gawain is able to come to fair resolution. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, after his perfidy with Bertilak, Gawain faces the Green Knight, whom he had earlier attacked as part of a wager in Arthur's court (ll. 381-456). In facing the Green Knight, Gawain knows that he is putting his own head under the axe:
He bent his neck and bowed,That Gawain works to fulfill a vow despite the deep-rooted belief that doing so will cost him his head speaks well in his favor. So, too, does the valorization offered him by Arthur and Arthur's other knights, that they mimic his dress with a green belt, "And whoever afterwards wore it was always honoured" (l. 2520). Enjoying the renown of the Round Table can easily be regarded as a fair end, and Gawain comes to it through less-than-honorable means, situating him as an anti-hero.
Showing his flesh all bare,
And seeming unafraid;
He would not shrink in fear. (ll. 2255-2258)
Sir Gawain does manage to meet his end well. When his brothers, Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, are killed by Sir Lancelot as he rescues Queen Guinevere from being burned at the stake, Gawain vows vengeance upon him (Malory 3.406). Given the dictates of the warrior culture in which all four lived, it is a wholly appropriate response, the more so because Gawain is the eldest brother and therefore the patriarch of the Orkney royal household; Gawain's actions thus read as well performed. He does eventually have the opportunity to attempt that vengeance, and fights an extravagant, pitched battle against Sir Lancelot, receiving a head-wound in the process (3.426-30). Any battle with Lancelot is a perilous situation, given Lancelot's long history of inflicting grievously fatal injury upon his opponents (see 3.379-80 for an example; Lancelot splits Meliagraunce's head open while one hand is literally tied behind his back), so that Gawain's entry into it speaks to his innate heroism. Complications from that injury lead to Gawain's death. On his death-bed, though, he forgives his recent foeman, absolving him of guilt for his death; "I Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, but it was mine own seeking." He recalls the greater good of Arthur's realm above his own personal vendetta; "come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayest, with thy noble Knights, and rescue my noble King that made thee Knight, that is my lord and uncle, King Arthur." He even refers to Lancelot as "Flower of all noble Knights that ever I heard or saw in my days," which is high praise (3.435). Gawain dies as a result of performing his duties, which is admirable, and he forgives his enemies as he dies, which is the mark of a particularly noble soul. He ends his life in line with the promise of his chivalric calling. He passes on as a hero. And that he does so after engaging in such foul deeds as that with which he begins his chivalric career firmly establishes him as an anti-hero.
That the Arthurian Sir Gawain functions as an anti-hero becomes obvious upon consideration of his knightly career. Since Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte d'Arthur occupy positions of singular importance in English-language Arthurian legend, serving as the key example of medieval romance and the primary reference text for Anglophone Arthuriana, their portrayals of the knights of the Round Table and their deeds underpin much other writing in the English language and indeed of productions in other media. The anti-hero that figures so prominently in many of them is thereby shown to have much older iterations than is commonly realized, showing that what goes on now is very much of a piece with what has gone on for a long, long time. It illustrates that our past can yet teach us much about our present selves.
Works Cited
~Baldick, Chris. "Anti-hero." Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford UP, 2011. Web. 14 November 2011.
~Cuddon, J.A. "Anti-hero." Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4th ed. Rev. C.E. Preston. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
~Malory, Thomas. La Mort D’Arthur. Ed. Joseph Haslewood. 3 vols. London: R. Wilks, 1816. Print.
~Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 2nd ed. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.
~Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. and trans. James Winny. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview P, 2005. Print.
~Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Edmund Spenser's Poetry. 3rd ed. Comps. and eds. Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott. New York: Norton, 1993. Print.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sample Longer Paper
Students, below appears an example of how to expand your own shorter papers into the six- to eight-page longer paper that the course requires. In this example, which is the bare minimum allowable length for your own papers, I work from my earlier contrast paper. The material that I bring straight over from it appears in white. The added counter-argument appears in red. The rebuttal is in green. New material supporting my thesis is in blue. Sources for each are in the Works Cited according to the color of what they support (the source for the counter-argument is red, for example).
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together. Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.
An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal. The household chores of doing laundry and of washing dishes both perform antagonistic functions. Of the two, the more antagonistic is the dishwashing.
There are, admittedly, reasons to think it strange to call doing laundry and washing dishes antagonistic. One is that having household chores to do necessitates that there is a household for which to do them, and it is certainly the case that having a household, a secure place in which to live and carry out personal and familial affairs, is an end-goal held by many. The support of that goal would definitionally fail to be antagonistic, and since chores support that goal, they cannot be antagonistic. Another is that household chores are honest work. It has been held for quite some time and in several cultures that simple physical labor has a beneficial effect on those who do it. For example, the Bhagavad-Gita reports that "Work is more excellent than idleness; / The body's life proceeds not, lacking work." Similarly, comments about the life of St. Isidore speak to divine favor--the receipt of which is widely considered good--attending upon manual labor (World). The idea, according to Bob Hoover, was even voiced in the inauguration of President Obama. It becomes clear, then, that the notion of work as a good thing has substantial sanction.
Even so, "substantial sanction" is not the same thing as "total sanction" or even "prevailing sanction"; it would be folly to say that work such as washing clothes or dishes is considered good. The contrary can, in fact, be amply demonstrated. For instance, Mark Edmundson equates a desire to be a carpenter with "no real worldly ambitions" (57); trade labor is devalued in the equation, and household chores are not typically regarded as well as trade labor, so that to devalue trade labor necessarily also devalues household chores. It is true that people seek to be valued, so that if household chores are devalued, those who perform them tend to be similarly devalued, and that devaluation would tend to inhibit a person's ability to pursue a specific goal, making it antagonistic. Prevailing depictions of custodial and housekeeping staff tend to support the idea that cleaning up is not a good thing to have to do; it is oppositional to advancement, and so antagonistic.
That antagonism does manifest in doing laundry. For example, for many in New York City and the surrounding urban sprawl, as well as in other major metropolitan areas, the chore requires an excursion to a laundry facility, which effectively prevents at-home relaxation; clothes must be gathered up and carried or carted down the street, or they must be thrown into a car and driven, both of which take time and take the laundry-doer out of the home. As home is generally a desirable place to be, that which removes a person from home is typically antagonistic.
Even if a person lives in a building with its own laundry rooms, as is the case with many college dormitories and some apartment buildings (particularly those with higher rents and land-values), that person is obliged to remain with the laundry while it is being done, lest the clothes be stolen or thrown aside in favor of another person's wash. In addition, then, to hindering many people's at-home relaxation--a goal common to a great many people and almost-universally regarded as a good thing--laundry day invites other persons to act as antagonists, thereby admitting the possibility of its own prevention. This makes the task doubly antagonistic; it is a hindrance to the laundry-doer, and it inhibits others who face the task themselves, so that one load of laundry potentially serves to antagonize multiple people.
Further, laundry facilities are often expensive. It is not uncommon for a single-load washer at a laundromat to require the insertion of a dollar to work. It is also not uncommon for a single-load dryer to require a quarter of a dollar to work for ten minutes, and for it to take thirty minutes to dry a load of clothing, so that each load requires $1.75 to complete. For someone who changes clothing completely each day, with a set of clothes being two undergarments, socks, pants or skirt, and shirt, one load of laundry is filled every other day, so that laundry costs some $3.50 every two days--in addition to the costs of detergent and fabric softener. Meeting those costs has the effect of taking money away from being spent on more favored pursuits and thereby acting antagonistically financially.
For those who are fortunate enough to have washers and dryers in their homes, laundry is still antagonistic. Because the machines are in the home, they intrude upon the home-dweller's awareness to a greater extent than does the laundromat walked by on the way to the bus stop or subway station. That intrusion tends to inhibit enjoyment of other activities that take place in the home. Since most such activities are regarded as desirable to undertake, that which inhibits them is antagonistic.
Also, the presence of machinery in the home opens up the possibility of mechanical malfunction in the home. Specifically, washing machines can flood the rooms in which they sit, causing water damage to floors, walls, and other surrounding objects. The flooding also opens up to possibility of electrical hazards, since washing machines tend to have electric motors which can short out and present electrocution hazards. Dryers can cause fires; electric dryers can short out even as washing machines, producing sparks that can ignite flammable materials, and gas dryers always offer the potential for catastrophic gas leaks. All are generally considered to be detrimental to the conduct of other household activities, and since those activities are typically desirable end goals, insofar as the equipment needed to do laundry inhibits them, the task is antagonistic.
Dishwashing is hardly an enjoyable task. Since dishes become dirty primarily through use, and the use of dishes typically involves foodstuffs, dirty dishes are commonly festooned with unused food and drink. Being largely organic, that food and drink begins to corrupt soon after it is set aside, and corrupting foodstuffs have an unfortunate tendency to stink. Bad smells, particularly those associated with decay and corruption, are typically regarded as inhibiting enjoyment, and enjoyment is a prized end-goal of a great many people. Washing dishes necessitates exposure to that unused food and the foul odors that soon begin to issue from it, so that it obliges the dishwasher to suffer bad smells, thereby inhibiting the dishwasher's enjoyment. Since dishwashing tends to create a situation in which an end-goal is inhibited, it also tends to be antagonistic.
In addition, dishwashing exerts a number of physical ill-effects upon those who do it. The aforementioned corrupting food also, as it is corrupting, invites the generation of disease and the presence of vermin such as flies, roaches, mice, and rats. The diseases themselves, as well as those carried by the vermin, present clear hazards to human health; impaired health necessarily keeps people from doing all they would wish to do, thereby serving as an antagonist. In addition, the vermin themselves tend to cause damage to the houses in which people live; since, as has already been noted, the home is a place of desired relaxation, it follows that damage to it restricts relaxation, thereby inhibiting the achievement of desire and serving once again as antagonist.
Also, dishwashing involves sticking one's hands into water through which one cannot see. Knives, forks, graters, and the occasional broken glass appear among the dishes that are concealed by such water; each has sharp edges or points, and so sticking one's hands into it invites cuts, punctures, abrasions, and other injuries. The injuries are possible even with the use of "protective" devices such as the dishwashing gloves sold at many grocery and retail stores; they are latex, and latex is easily pierced by metal or cut by sharpened steel or jagged-edged glass. Indeed, many of the things that end up in the dishwater are specifically designed to cut, tear, pierce, or shave off things with much greater integrity than latex. Such injuries tend to rupture the skin as well; knives and forks are designed at least in part to cut apart and poke into meat, which has at least as much strength as human flesh. Injuries incurred by hidden pointy bits expose the dishwasher's blood to the potential diseases and vermin-waste in the dishwater--for bugs and mice excrete even as they eat, often onto the very things they seek to eat, and it is because they view it as food that they are drawn to corrupting materials. Thus, in addition to the injuries themselves, there is an increased potential for infection of the dishwasher, with such antagonistic consequences as are noted above.
Even leaving aside such directly concrete instances of harm, washing dishes requires repetitive wrist motions. Such repetition commonly results in carpal tunnel syndrome, as noted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which notes in addition that carpal tunnel syndrome "can lead to numbness, tingling, weakness, or muscle damage in the hand and fingers" ("Carpal"). Each of these will prevent people from effectively performing any number of manual tasks. Since many of the things that are enjoyed (such as playing video games, handling electronic devices, sports, cooking, eating, reading, and others) are done with the hands--and, as noted before, enjoyment is a common end-goal--that which prevents the use of the hands is necessarily antagonistic.
Similarly, the height of a sink typically requires that the dishwasher either bend over repeatedly or assume a hunched position. This is a form of twisting, which the National Center for Biotechnology Information relates can cause chronic lower back pain ("Low"). Chronic pain, by making many activities painful that would otherwise not be, has an antagonistic function; people tend to avoid things that are painful, and causing avoidance of an activity the performance of which is otherwise desirable is very much antagonistic. In its potential to promote such circumstances as keep people from doing things because they hurt when they ought not to do so, dishwashing has a markedly antagonistic aspect.
Worse yet, dishwashing is a frequently-necessary activity, needing to take place daily or more often. Unless it does, the chances of stink becoming unacceptable or vermin and disease growing in the house increase immensely. As such, each of the annoyances and inhibitions of enjoyment that it provokes happen every single day in many households; in some, it is even more frequent, taking place after each of the traditional "three square meals a day" and, from time to time, brunch or afternoon tea. Admittedly, it may be argued that the intensity of annoyance and degree of hindrance offered by a single instance of dishwashing is equivalent to that of a single instance of doing the laundry. Certainly, laundry does require bending and twisting and hand motions, and if it does not entail quite as much potential for direct injury as does dishwashing, it does offer opportunities for injury to occur by other means. But because dishwashing takes place so much more frequently than doing the laundry--and laundry is commonly regarded as a weekly occurrence among household chores--the intensity and degree of dishwashing antagonism are amplified to a much greater level than is the case for laundry, making dishwashing far more of a hindrance to the focal character in people's lives--the people themselves--than caring for the linens.
In truth, it is difficult if not impossible for any one person to fully maintain a household of more than one person, so that the division of chores becomes a necessity in short order. Certainly, among siblings and among roommates and families, much attention is paid to who does what and how hard each thing is. Knowing which chores are most onerous, then, has a direct effect on the harmony of many households, and that harmony is a thing which ought well to be protected.
Works Cited
~"Chapter III: Of Virtue in Work." The Bhagavad-Gita. Sacred-Texts.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 July 2011.
~Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65. Print.
~Hoover, Bob. "Inauguration Poet Praises Virtue of Work." Post-Gazette.com. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 February 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~National Center for Biotechnology Information. "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." PubMedHealth, 25 May 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~---. "Low Back Pain." PubMedHealth 10 July 2009. Web. 13 July 2011.
~World Youth Day. "Saint Isidore, a Farmer Who Found God through His Work." WYD 2011 Madrid Official Site. World Youth Day, 2011. Web. 13 July 2011.
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together. Please note also that, as with the earlier paper, the topic of the example is not one you may use.
An antagonist is anything that hinders or prevents a focal figure or focal figures from pursuing an end goal. The household chores of doing laundry and of washing dishes both perform antagonistic functions. Of the two, the more antagonistic is the dishwashing.
There are, admittedly, reasons to think it strange to call doing laundry and washing dishes antagonistic. One is that having household chores to do necessitates that there is a household for which to do them, and it is certainly the case that having a household, a secure place in which to live and carry out personal and familial affairs, is an end-goal held by many. The support of that goal would definitionally fail to be antagonistic, and since chores support that goal, they cannot be antagonistic. Another is that household chores are honest work. It has been held for quite some time and in several cultures that simple physical labor has a beneficial effect on those who do it. For example, the Bhagavad-Gita reports that "Work is more excellent than idleness; / The body's life proceeds not, lacking work." Similarly, comments about the life of St. Isidore speak to divine favor--the receipt of which is widely considered good--attending upon manual labor (World). The idea, according to Bob Hoover, was even voiced in the inauguration of President Obama. It becomes clear, then, that the notion of work as a good thing has substantial sanction.
Even so, "substantial sanction" is not the same thing as "total sanction" or even "prevailing sanction"; it would be folly to say that work such as washing clothes or dishes is considered good. The contrary can, in fact, be amply demonstrated. For instance, Mark Edmundson equates a desire to be a carpenter with "no real worldly ambitions" (57); trade labor is devalued in the equation, and household chores are not typically regarded as well as trade labor, so that to devalue trade labor necessarily also devalues household chores. It is true that people seek to be valued, so that if household chores are devalued, those who perform them tend to be similarly devalued, and that devaluation would tend to inhibit a person's ability to pursue a specific goal, making it antagonistic. Prevailing depictions of custodial and housekeeping staff tend to support the idea that cleaning up is not a good thing to have to do; it is oppositional to advancement, and so antagonistic.
That antagonism does manifest in doing laundry. For example, for many in New York City and the surrounding urban sprawl, as well as in other major metropolitan areas, the chore requires an excursion to a laundry facility, which effectively prevents at-home relaxation; clothes must be gathered up and carried or carted down the street, or they must be thrown into a car and driven, both of which take time and take the laundry-doer out of the home. As home is generally a desirable place to be, that which removes a person from home is typically antagonistic.
Even if a person lives in a building with its own laundry rooms, as is the case with many college dormitories and some apartment buildings (particularly those with higher rents and land-values), that person is obliged to remain with the laundry while it is being done, lest the clothes be stolen or thrown aside in favor of another person's wash. In addition, then, to hindering many people's at-home relaxation--a goal common to a great many people and almost-universally regarded as a good thing--laundry day invites other persons to act as antagonists, thereby admitting the possibility of its own prevention. This makes the task doubly antagonistic; it is a hindrance to the laundry-doer, and it inhibits others who face the task themselves, so that one load of laundry potentially serves to antagonize multiple people.
Further, laundry facilities are often expensive. It is not uncommon for a single-load washer at a laundromat to require the insertion of a dollar to work. It is also not uncommon for a single-load dryer to require a quarter of a dollar to work for ten minutes, and for it to take thirty minutes to dry a load of clothing, so that each load requires $1.75 to complete. For someone who changes clothing completely each day, with a set of clothes being two undergarments, socks, pants or skirt, and shirt, one load of laundry is filled every other day, so that laundry costs some $3.50 every two days--in addition to the costs of detergent and fabric softener. Meeting those costs has the effect of taking money away from being spent on more favored pursuits and thereby acting antagonistically financially.
For those who are fortunate enough to have washers and dryers in their homes, laundry is still antagonistic. Because the machines are in the home, they intrude upon the home-dweller's awareness to a greater extent than does the laundromat walked by on the way to the bus stop or subway station. That intrusion tends to inhibit enjoyment of other activities that take place in the home. Since most such activities are regarded as desirable to undertake, that which inhibits them is antagonistic.
Also, the presence of machinery in the home opens up the possibility of mechanical malfunction in the home. Specifically, washing machines can flood the rooms in which they sit, causing water damage to floors, walls, and other surrounding objects. The flooding also opens up to possibility of electrical hazards, since washing machines tend to have electric motors which can short out and present electrocution hazards. Dryers can cause fires; electric dryers can short out even as washing machines, producing sparks that can ignite flammable materials, and gas dryers always offer the potential for catastrophic gas leaks. All are generally considered to be detrimental to the conduct of other household activities, and since those activities are typically desirable end goals, insofar as the equipment needed to do laundry inhibits them, the task is antagonistic.
Dishwashing is hardly an enjoyable task. Since dishes become dirty primarily through use, and the use of dishes typically involves foodstuffs, dirty dishes are commonly festooned with unused food and drink. Being largely organic, that food and drink begins to corrupt soon after it is set aside, and corrupting foodstuffs have an unfortunate tendency to stink. Bad smells, particularly those associated with decay and corruption, are typically regarded as inhibiting enjoyment, and enjoyment is a prized end-goal of a great many people. Washing dishes necessitates exposure to that unused food and the foul odors that soon begin to issue from it, so that it obliges the dishwasher to suffer bad smells, thereby inhibiting the dishwasher's enjoyment. Since dishwashing tends to create a situation in which an end-goal is inhibited, it also tends to be antagonistic.
In addition, dishwashing exerts a number of physical ill-effects upon those who do it. The aforementioned corrupting food also, as it is corrupting, invites the generation of disease and the presence of vermin such as flies, roaches, mice, and rats. The diseases themselves, as well as those carried by the vermin, present clear hazards to human health; impaired health necessarily keeps people from doing all they would wish to do, thereby serving as an antagonist. In addition, the vermin themselves tend to cause damage to the houses in which people live; since, as has already been noted, the home is a place of desired relaxation, it follows that damage to it restricts relaxation, thereby inhibiting the achievement of desire and serving once again as antagonist.
Also, dishwashing involves sticking one's hands into water through which one cannot see. Knives, forks, graters, and the occasional broken glass appear among the dishes that are concealed by such water; each has sharp edges or points, and so sticking one's hands into it invites cuts, punctures, abrasions, and other injuries. The injuries are possible even with the use of "protective" devices such as the dishwashing gloves sold at many grocery and retail stores; they are latex, and latex is easily pierced by metal or cut by sharpened steel or jagged-edged glass. Indeed, many of the things that end up in the dishwater are specifically designed to cut, tear, pierce, or shave off things with much greater integrity than latex. Such injuries tend to rupture the skin as well; knives and forks are designed at least in part to cut apart and poke into meat, which has at least as much strength as human flesh. Injuries incurred by hidden pointy bits expose the dishwasher's blood to the potential diseases and vermin-waste in the dishwater--for bugs and mice excrete even as they eat, often onto the very things they seek to eat, and it is because they view it as food that they are drawn to corrupting materials. Thus, in addition to the injuries themselves, there is an increased potential for infection of the dishwasher, with such antagonistic consequences as are noted above.
Even leaving aside such directly concrete instances of harm, washing dishes requires repetitive wrist motions. Such repetition commonly results in carpal tunnel syndrome, as noted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which notes in addition that carpal tunnel syndrome "can lead to numbness, tingling, weakness, or muscle damage in the hand and fingers" ("Carpal"). Each of these will prevent people from effectively performing any number of manual tasks. Since many of the things that are enjoyed (such as playing video games, handling electronic devices, sports, cooking, eating, reading, and others) are done with the hands--and, as noted before, enjoyment is a common end-goal--that which prevents the use of the hands is necessarily antagonistic.
Similarly, the height of a sink typically requires that the dishwasher either bend over repeatedly or assume a hunched position. This is a form of twisting, which the National Center for Biotechnology Information relates can cause chronic lower back pain ("Low"). Chronic pain, by making many activities painful that would otherwise not be, has an antagonistic function; people tend to avoid things that are painful, and causing avoidance of an activity the performance of which is otherwise desirable is very much antagonistic. In its potential to promote such circumstances as keep people from doing things because they hurt when they ought not to do so, dishwashing has a markedly antagonistic aspect.
Worse yet, dishwashing is a frequently-necessary activity, needing to take place daily or more often. Unless it does, the chances of stink becoming unacceptable or vermin and disease growing in the house increase immensely. As such, each of the annoyances and inhibitions of enjoyment that it provokes happen every single day in many households; in some, it is even more frequent, taking place after each of the traditional "three square meals a day" and, from time to time, brunch or afternoon tea. Admittedly, it may be argued that the intensity of annoyance and degree of hindrance offered by a single instance of dishwashing is equivalent to that of a single instance of doing the laundry. Certainly, laundry does require bending and twisting and hand motions, and if it does not entail quite as much potential for direct injury as does dishwashing, it does offer opportunities for injury to occur by other means. But because dishwashing takes place so much more frequently than doing the laundry--and laundry is commonly regarded as a weekly occurrence among household chores--the intensity and degree of dishwashing antagonism are amplified to a much greater level than is the case for laundry, making dishwashing far more of a hindrance to the focal character in people's lives--the people themselves--than caring for the linens.
In truth, it is difficult if not impossible for any one person to fully maintain a household of more than one person, so that the division of chores becomes a necessity in short order. Certainly, among siblings and among roommates and families, much attention is paid to who does what and how hard each thing is. Knowing which chores are most onerous, then, has a direct effect on the harmony of many households, and that harmony is a thing which ought well to be protected.
Works Cited
~"Chapter III: Of Virtue in Work." The Bhagavad-Gita. Sacred-Texts.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 July 2011.
~Edmundson, Mark. "Against Readings." Profession (2009): 56-65. Print.
~Hoover, Bob. "Inauguration Poet Praises Virtue of Work." Post-Gazette.com. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 February 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~National Center for Biotechnology Information. "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." PubMedHealth, 25 May 2010. Web. 13 July 2011.
~---. "Low Back Pain." PubMedHealth 10 July 2009. Web. 13 July 2011.
~World Youth Day. "Saint Isidore, a Farmer Who Found God through His Work." WYD 2011 Madrid Official Site. World Youth Day, 2011. Web. 13 July 2011.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sample Longer Paper
Students, below appears an example of how to expand your own shorter papers into the six- to eight-page longer paper that the course requires. In this example, which is the bare minimum allowable length for your own papers, I work from my earlier comparison/contrast paper. The material that I bring straight over from it appears in white. The added counter-argument appears in red. The rebuttal is in green. New material supporting my thesis is in blue. Sources for each are in the Works Cited according to the color of what they support (the source for the counter-argument is red, for example).
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together.
Progressive rock is a genre of music typified by songs significantly longer than the usual length for rock, intellectualized lyrics, orchestra- or older-style instrumentation, and unusual-for-rock rhythmic constructions. Both Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" and Kansas's "The Pinnacle" fall firmly under the heading of progressive rock. Of the two, though, "The Pinnacle" is the better example of the genre.
The superiority of "The Pinnacle" as an example of progressive rock depends largely upon the definition of the genre, and there is not necessarily agreement on that point. For example, Allan F. Moore, while writing for Grove Music Online, notes that progressive rock is a largely British thing, one "predicated on an achieved maturity of UK rock, divorced from American precursors." Under such a definition, the works of neither Kansas nor Boston can qualify as progressive rock, as both bands are wholly American in composition. Additionally, the initial releases of their respective "The Pinnacle" and "Foreplay / Long Time" are in 1975 and 1976, well after the 1967 beginning of the genre Moore cites. He additionally remarks that progressive rock was an attempt to legitimize rock, and by the time Kansas and Boston are playing, rock is as legitimate as it is going to be; accordingly, neither can be in search of legitimization, and cumulatively, neither can be progressive rock as defined by Moore.
It is not necessarily the case, however, that such restrictive definitions as Moore's are correct. Moore's own examples of the UK-centric nature of the genre, such as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and King Crimson's "21st-Century Schizoid Man," partake in the very American influences Moore derides. Susan Fast, also writing for Grove Music Online, notes the heavy influence of blues, an American musical genre, on Led Zeppelin. Also, by Moore's own admission, King Crimson employs jazz technique, and jazz is often called the only truly American art form. Moore's definition, then, falters in its particulars, even as its socially-exclusionary aspects seem to work against it in a more general sense; strident nationalism evokes closed-mindedness, which is hardly conducive to scholarship. A more open definition is called for, one which does not suffer from ethno-centric tendencies that the very music being classified as progressive rock seems to deny, as Fast notes of Led Zeppelin and as is evidenced in a number of other artists' songs in the genre. A more open definition, one more concerned with structural features and less prone to the generic fallacy, thus more authentic and appropriate, appears above.
As that definition notes, progressive rock largely relies on songs that play for significantly longer than is typical of rock music. Most rock songs play for three to four minutes. Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" runs for just less than eight minutes, or twice the length of the common rock song. It clearly exhibits the length expected of progressive rock. Kansas's "The Pinnacle," however, runs for just shy of ten minutes, close to three times as long as a more mainstream rock song. As such, its length is well in excess of Boston's song, and so it more fully fits the expected length of progressive rock.
Intellectualized lyrics typify the genre. That is to say, the lyrics of progressive rock songs exhibit some of the features traditionally associated with "high art," such as references to literary canons and historical events, complicated poetic forms, and epic-style storytelling, which reflects concerns of large-scale importance. Boston's lyrics open with a simple stanza of ababcdcd rhyme, but the chorus moves to a convoluted abcbadd pattern, and the song takes on an even more complicated rhyme scheme in later verses. Additionally, the metrical line-length shifts from an unusual trimeter to a common tetrameter and thence into an oscillating, irregular pattern that complicates scansion and suggests, with the subtlety associated with fine poetry, unease, rather than openly stating it; the complications of the matter being discussed are hinted at rather than thrust into the audience's perception. Thus, even though the lyrical content itself is simple, largely discussing the departure of a person from another, as after an evening's assignation, it is couched in a complicated metrical and rhyme structure that partakes of the most critically analyzed verse, thus demonstrating the intellectualism of its lyrics.
Kansas's lyrics, however, display greater variety of metrical construction and rhyme. In addition, they make explicit reference to the prevailing canon of Western literary tradition and closely correspond to the traditionally-highest poetic form: the epic. Metrically, the lines open in iambic hexameter (six instances of a stressed syllable following an unstressed), which is an uncommon line-length in English prosody; far more common are the lines of iambic pentameter familiar from Shakespeare. Occasionally, one or two lines of an even more unusual heptameter are inserted, such as when the singer snarls "Lying at my feet I see the offering you bring / The Mark of Cain is on our faces, borne of suffering," and a similar structure of a tetrameter line followed by a trimeter is used to punctuate the lyrics. The metrical structure is unusual, typically found only in the most demanding reading--and that reading is almost invariably associated with higher intellectual pursuits.
In terms of rhyme, the lyrics of "The Pinnacle" open with couplets, though after a pair of couplets, the lyrics shift to displaying a pair of lines which do not rhyme together but do rhyme internally, a complicated structure that, since the internal rhymes accompany the tetrameter/trimeter construction, reinforces the punctuation of the lyrics. The unusual rhyming construction, because more difficult to put together, is taken as being a hallmark of "higher" levels of poetic form than simple couplets, which are all too often associated with doggerel verses and therefore not uncommonly held in disdain. Also, the aforementioned "Mark of Cain" referenced in the lyrics is an explicit reference to the book of Genesis and the consequences of the second human sin, which is a firm link to the prevailing Western intellectual tradition; reference to the Bible is a commonplace of the major works of the Western canon. In addition, the subject matter of the song is a conqueror expressing regret over the degeneration of a group of people and of (presumably) his own actions. Accordingly, the material of the song focuses on the actions of a single person which are then made significant to the group as a whole; that kind of material is a necessary feature--indeed, one of the defining features--of the epic. Epic poetry is often regarded as the highest literary art form in the Western world, so that when "The Pinnacle" invokes epic tropes, it alludes to the major examples of Western word-art. In making those references, as well as in utilizing complicated metrical and rhyme structures, "The Pinnacle" fits the requirements of progressive rock. As it does, it exceeds Boston's song's demonstration of the same features, and in exhibiting a greater degree of intellectualism than "Foreplay / Long Time," Kansas's song marks itself as a more prominent example of progressive rock.
The genre is also noted for its use of orchestra-style instrumentation. Boston, in "Foreplay / Long Time," largely relies upon the traditional rock trifecta of guitar, bass, and drums, but it does utilize organ, as well as what sounds like a low-end piano line, extensively; the former is particularly notable in the soft, gentle transition from the first section of the song to the second. As such, the piece does qualify as progressive rock in its instrumentation, though it cannot do so to the extent that Kansas does. Violin is integral to the sound of Kansas's "The Pinnacle," with the violin entering with the first note of the song and playing continuously for the first thirty seconds before engaging in trade-offs with other instruments and, eventually, taking a somewhat rubato melodic line in the long opening instrumental passage. The violin also provides a shimmering ornament to the vocal lines frequently in the song, as well as popping up with the melodic line during other instrumental passages. The manifestation of orchestral instrumentation in Kansas is therefore beyond doubt. Also, a number of rock bands employ piano and organs of various types, so that Boston's use of it is hardly exceptional for "regular" rock. Even accepting the validity of organ as a solidly orchestral instrument, however, highlights the superiority of "The Pinnacle" as a piece of progressive rock; Kansas uses a variety of organs to Boston's one or two, in addition to piano, thereby exceeding Boston's entry into more Classical-style instrumentation in that regard. That it adds violin, and thus another orchestra-style instrument, means that it uses more of the orchestra than does Boston, and so its song is a better example of progressive rock in that respect.
Progressive rock is marked by its use of unusual rhythmic constructions. Rock, and much other Western music, relies on a four-beat rhythm that divides in pairs. Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" has that fundamental pattern of four. It overlays that fundamental beat with triplet patterns in an oscillating rhythm that occludes the four-beat pattern, complicating it more than is easily done in the pair-patterns typical of rock music. Also, the song divides neatly into two movements bridged by an arrhythmic organ passage. The first is an extended, multilayered instrumental passage, one which iterates an initial theme and the proceeds to offer variations upon it, a maneuver unusual for mainstream but well within the parameters of progressive rock. The second movement is fairly standard rock, but even so, since it is led into by a soft organ interlude reminiscent of the rubato indulged by Classical soloists from an overture-like passage (indeed, "Foreplay" can be read as a pun on "prelude," which, in such forms as opera, is often an overture), it serves to provide a contrast to the more unusual constructions which precede it, according them importance and thereby increasing the degree to which they are marked. This, in turn, increases the degree to which Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" is marked as a piece of progressive rock.
Kansas's song also employs triplets extensively. Throughout the song, there are triplets in the rhythm section juxtaposed over beats three and four in the vocal and melodic lines. Also, the violin often adds triplet flourishes to the melodic and ornamental lines it carries in snippets throughout the song. In addition, as with many of Kansas's songs, the fundamental rhythm changes repeatedly in the introductory instrumental passage of the song, beginning in four and diving through a number of far less common meters such as seven, before settling into four for the ease of the singers. The many changes in fundamental measure structure serve to complicate the rhythmical content of the song in a way rarely paralleled even in the most complex progressive rock; it is difficult to find music in any genre that plays with beat-pattern quite so freely as does "The Pinnacle," making its rhythmic construction extraordinarily unusual.
Even when the song is in four, lyrical lines do not necessarily begin, as is common for rock, on the first beat or as a pick-up into that first beat. A number begin on beat three, such as the lines "The answer is that sweet refrain / Unheard, it always will remain / Beyond our reach, beyond our gain," and "Trapped in life's parade." The following line, "A king without a crown," actually begins on a pick-up to beat three, which staggers the sung lines over the played, creating an intriguingly confused rhythmic effect far different from the usual easily-danced patterns of rock. An instrumental interlude separates the principal sung sections, with rhythmic changes not unlike those in the beginning section, and a symphonic finale (with a marked diminution of volume in the long-held final chord, which proceeds to crescendo in a stereotypically symphonic fashion) ends the piece, forming a coda entirely uncommon to most rock but which pervades progressive rock. Even though the song does not divide into movements like Boston's, "The Pinnacle" does display greater rhythmic complexity than "Foreplay / Long Time," and so more fully exemplifies that part of the definition of progressive rock.
Kansas's "The Pinnacle," then, is a better example of progressive rock than Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time." As a more esoteric piece, it is one preferable for the usual audience of progressive rock; conversely, Boston's piece is more useful as a means to introduce new listeners to the genre. Both are well worth time and attention, and both reward repeated listening.
Works Cited
Boston. "Foreplay / Long Time." Boston. Epic, 2006. CD.
Fast, Susan. "Led Zeppelin." Grove Music Online. N. pag. Oxford Music Online. Web. 20 March 2011.
Kansas. "The Pinnacle." Masque. Epic, 2001. CD.
Moore, Allan F. "Progressive Rock." Grove Music Online. N.pag. Oxford Music Online. Web. 20 March 2011.
Please note that in your own papers, you are not to color-code; I do so in the example as a teaching device, showing you how the parts fit together.
Progressive rock is a genre of music typified by songs significantly longer than the usual length for rock, intellectualized lyrics, orchestra- or older-style instrumentation, and unusual-for-rock rhythmic constructions. Both Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" and Kansas's "The Pinnacle" fall firmly under the heading of progressive rock. Of the two, though, "The Pinnacle" is the better example of the genre.
The superiority of "The Pinnacle" as an example of progressive rock depends largely upon the definition of the genre, and there is not necessarily agreement on that point. For example, Allan F. Moore, while writing for Grove Music Online, notes that progressive rock is a largely British thing, one "predicated on an achieved maturity of UK rock, divorced from American precursors." Under such a definition, the works of neither Kansas nor Boston can qualify as progressive rock, as both bands are wholly American in composition. Additionally, the initial releases of their respective "The Pinnacle" and "Foreplay / Long Time" are in 1975 and 1976, well after the 1967 beginning of the genre Moore cites. He additionally remarks that progressive rock was an attempt to legitimize rock, and by the time Kansas and Boston are playing, rock is as legitimate as it is going to be; accordingly, neither can be in search of legitimization, and cumulatively, neither can be progressive rock as defined by Moore.
It is not necessarily the case, however, that such restrictive definitions as Moore's are correct. Moore's own examples of the UK-centric nature of the genre, such as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and King Crimson's "21st-Century Schizoid Man," partake in the very American influences Moore derides. Susan Fast, also writing for Grove Music Online, notes the heavy influence of blues, an American musical genre, on Led Zeppelin. Also, by Moore's own admission, King Crimson employs jazz technique, and jazz is often called the only truly American art form. Moore's definition, then, falters in its particulars, even as its socially-exclusionary aspects seem to work against it in a more general sense; strident nationalism evokes closed-mindedness, which is hardly conducive to scholarship. A more open definition is called for, one which does not suffer from ethno-centric tendencies that the very music being classified as progressive rock seems to deny, as Fast notes of Led Zeppelin and as is evidenced in a number of other artists' songs in the genre. A more open definition, one more concerned with structural features and less prone to the generic fallacy, thus more authentic and appropriate, appears above.
As that definition notes, progressive rock largely relies on songs that play for significantly longer than is typical of rock music. Most rock songs play for three to four minutes. Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" runs for just less than eight minutes, or twice the length of the common rock song. It clearly exhibits the length expected of progressive rock. Kansas's "The Pinnacle," however, runs for just shy of ten minutes, close to three times as long as a more mainstream rock song. As such, its length is well in excess of Boston's song, and so it more fully fits the expected length of progressive rock.
Intellectualized lyrics typify the genre. That is to say, the lyrics of progressive rock songs exhibit some of the features traditionally associated with "high art," such as references to literary canons and historical events, complicated poetic forms, and epic-style storytelling, which reflects concerns of large-scale importance. Boston's lyrics open with a simple stanza of ababcdcd rhyme, but the chorus moves to a convoluted abcbadd pattern, and the song takes on an even more complicated rhyme scheme in later verses. Additionally, the metrical line-length shifts from an unusual trimeter to a common tetrameter and thence into an oscillating, irregular pattern that complicates scansion and suggests, with the subtlety associated with fine poetry, unease, rather than openly stating it; the complications of the matter being discussed are hinted at rather than thrust into the audience's perception. Thus, even though the lyrical content itself is simple, largely discussing the departure of a person from another, as after an evening's assignation, it is couched in a complicated metrical and rhyme structure that partakes of the most critically analyzed verse, thus demonstrating the intellectualism of its lyrics.
Kansas's lyrics, however, display greater variety of metrical construction and rhyme. In addition, they make explicit reference to the prevailing canon of Western literary tradition and closely correspond to the traditionally-highest poetic form: the epic. Metrically, the lines open in iambic hexameter (six instances of a stressed syllable following an unstressed), which is an uncommon line-length in English prosody; far more common are the lines of iambic pentameter familiar from Shakespeare. Occasionally, one or two lines of an even more unusual heptameter are inserted, such as when the singer snarls "Lying at my feet I see the offering you bring / The Mark of Cain is on our faces, borne of suffering," and a similar structure of a tetrameter line followed by a trimeter is used to punctuate the lyrics. The metrical structure is unusual, typically found only in the most demanding reading--and that reading is almost invariably associated with higher intellectual pursuits.
In terms of rhyme, the lyrics of "The Pinnacle" open with couplets, though after a pair of couplets, the lyrics shift to displaying a pair of lines which do not rhyme together but do rhyme internally, a complicated structure that, since the internal rhymes accompany the tetrameter/trimeter construction, reinforces the punctuation of the lyrics. The unusual rhyming construction, because more difficult to put together, is taken as being a hallmark of "higher" levels of poetic form than simple couplets, which are all too often associated with doggerel verses and therefore not uncommonly held in disdain. Also, the aforementioned "Mark of Cain" referenced in the lyrics is an explicit reference to the book of Genesis and the consequences of the second human sin, which is a firm link to the prevailing Western intellectual tradition; reference to the Bible is a commonplace of the major works of the Western canon. In addition, the subject matter of the song is a conqueror expressing regret over the degeneration of a group of people and of (presumably) his own actions. Accordingly, the material of the song focuses on the actions of a single person which are then made significant to the group as a whole; that kind of material is a necessary feature--indeed, one of the defining features--of the epic. Epic poetry is often regarded as the highest literary art form in the Western world, so that when "The Pinnacle" invokes epic tropes, it alludes to the major examples of Western word-art. In making those references, as well as in utilizing complicated metrical and rhyme structures, "The Pinnacle" fits the requirements of progressive rock. As it does, it exceeds Boston's song's demonstration of the same features, and in exhibiting a greater degree of intellectualism than "Foreplay / Long Time," Kansas's song marks itself as a more prominent example of progressive rock.
The genre is also noted for its use of orchestra-style instrumentation. Boston, in "Foreplay / Long Time," largely relies upon the traditional rock trifecta of guitar, bass, and drums, but it does utilize organ, as well as what sounds like a low-end piano line, extensively; the former is particularly notable in the soft, gentle transition from the first section of the song to the second. As such, the piece does qualify as progressive rock in its instrumentation, though it cannot do so to the extent that Kansas does. Violin is integral to the sound of Kansas's "The Pinnacle," with the violin entering with the first note of the song and playing continuously for the first thirty seconds before engaging in trade-offs with other instruments and, eventually, taking a somewhat rubato melodic line in the long opening instrumental passage. The violin also provides a shimmering ornament to the vocal lines frequently in the song, as well as popping up with the melodic line during other instrumental passages. The manifestation of orchestral instrumentation in Kansas is therefore beyond doubt. Also, a number of rock bands employ piano and organs of various types, so that Boston's use of it is hardly exceptional for "regular" rock. Even accepting the validity of organ as a solidly orchestral instrument, however, highlights the superiority of "The Pinnacle" as a piece of progressive rock; Kansas uses a variety of organs to Boston's one or two, in addition to piano, thereby exceeding Boston's entry into more Classical-style instrumentation in that regard. That it adds violin, and thus another orchestra-style instrument, means that it uses more of the orchestra than does Boston, and so its song is a better example of progressive rock in that respect.
Progressive rock is marked by its use of unusual rhythmic constructions. Rock, and much other Western music, relies on a four-beat rhythm that divides in pairs. Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" has that fundamental pattern of four. It overlays that fundamental beat with triplet patterns in an oscillating rhythm that occludes the four-beat pattern, complicating it more than is easily done in the pair-patterns typical of rock music. Also, the song divides neatly into two movements bridged by an arrhythmic organ passage. The first is an extended, multilayered instrumental passage, one which iterates an initial theme and the proceeds to offer variations upon it, a maneuver unusual for mainstream but well within the parameters of progressive rock. The second movement is fairly standard rock, but even so, since it is led into by a soft organ interlude reminiscent of the rubato indulged by Classical soloists from an overture-like passage (indeed, "Foreplay" can be read as a pun on "prelude," which, in such forms as opera, is often an overture), it serves to provide a contrast to the more unusual constructions which precede it, according them importance and thereby increasing the degree to which they are marked. This, in turn, increases the degree to which Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time" is marked as a piece of progressive rock.
Kansas's song also employs triplets extensively. Throughout the song, there are triplets in the rhythm section juxtaposed over beats three and four in the vocal and melodic lines. Also, the violin often adds triplet flourishes to the melodic and ornamental lines it carries in snippets throughout the song. In addition, as with many of Kansas's songs, the fundamental rhythm changes repeatedly in the introductory instrumental passage of the song, beginning in four and diving through a number of far less common meters such as seven, before settling into four for the ease of the singers. The many changes in fundamental measure structure serve to complicate the rhythmical content of the song in a way rarely paralleled even in the most complex progressive rock; it is difficult to find music in any genre that plays with beat-pattern quite so freely as does "The Pinnacle," making its rhythmic construction extraordinarily unusual.
Even when the song is in four, lyrical lines do not necessarily begin, as is common for rock, on the first beat or as a pick-up into that first beat. A number begin on beat three, such as the lines "The answer is that sweet refrain / Unheard, it always will remain / Beyond our reach, beyond our gain," and "Trapped in life's parade." The following line, "A king without a crown," actually begins on a pick-up to beat three, which staggers the sung lines over the played, creating an intriguingly confused rhythmic effect far different from the usual easily-danced patterns of rock. An instrumental interlude separates the principal sung sections, with rhythmic changes not unlike those in the beginning section, and a symphonic finale (with a marked diminution of volume in the long-held final chord, which proceeds to crescendo in a stereotypically symphonic fashion) ends the piece, forming a coda entirely uncommon to most rock but which pervades progressive rock. Even though the song does not divide into movements like Boston's, "The Pinnacle" does display greater rhythmic complexity than "Foreplay / Long Time," and so more fully exemplifies that part of the definition of progressive rock.
Kansas's "The Pinnacle," then, is a better example of progressive rock than Boston's "Foreplay / Long Time." As a more esoteric piece, it is one preferable for the usual audience of progressive rock; conversely, Boston's piece is more useful as a means to introduce new listeners to the genre. Both are well worth time and attention, and both reward repeated listening.
Works Cited
Boston. "Foreplay / Long Time." Boston. Epic, 2006. CD.
Fast, Susan. "Led Zeppelin." Grove Music Online. N. pag. Oxford Music Online. Web. 20 March 2011.
Kansas. "The Pinnacle." Masque. Epic, 2001. CD.
Moore, Allan F. "Progressive Rock." Grove Music Online. N.pag. Oxford Music Online. Web. 20 March 2011.
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