An experiment with regards to the essay I'm writing.

[Dok Zombie]

First a minor disclaimer, I really don't intend this post as some sort of arrogant "look at all the big words I know" sort of thing, I'm genuinely interested in peoples opinions.

Basically I'm sat writing an essay about the James Joyce novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and Modernism in general and it got me thinking. When I see notes or essays written by/for people studying something I have no idea about they might as well be written in Greek for all I can understand them, like if I go into a classroom/lecture theatre and notes from the previous lecture are still on the board, I usually have absolutely no idea what they are about.

So basically my point is this, the following is an extract from a textbook I'm using, to me (and my friends studying the same course) this makes perfect sense, what I want to know is, does anyone who isn't in the same position as me (a final year English literature student) understand it?

"Modernism is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual?s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarisation, rhythm and irresolution."

Also, can you post anything, be it a scientific terminology or a mathematical problem etc... that you don't think anyone else will understand?

 

[Deleted]

"...so I said to him, that's not a Gorilla, thats my Mother!"

Seriously though, I don't know the context that tidbit you showed is in, I also don't get what it means. But I know its from a textbook since you told me

 

[Ace of Spades]

*scratches head* You kinda lost me there...

 

[David Bray]

If you're doing final year English don't forget those commas and apostrophes.

Sadly, I can't answer because I myself am a 3rd year English student. However, Joyce rocks the shizzle and is the king of Modernism. Sadly, a lot of Modernism is awful like Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf. Oh god.

 

[Trivun]

I have absolutely no idea what that means. Then again, I do Maths at university. I probably know plenty of maths theorems and formulae and so on that none of you mere mortals will ever understand . Speaking of which...

State the Rank and Nullity theorem.

Spoiler: Answer for those who don't know anything about basic Linear Algebra, BSc level

Take a linear transformation K: U --> V. Then the rank and nullity theorem states that:

dim(Ker(K)) + dim(Im(K)) = dim(V)

Yeah, I'm guessing very few people here will understand that. And since explaining it would require plenty of time and a lot of space, and I'm lazy, I'm not going to explain it... Everyone would only be more confused (Anoia knows I was when I first learned it...)

 

[Dok Zombie]

It's kinda like how, I really want to find XKCD funny, but I'm usually at a loss because I suck with anything physics or maths related.

 

[Dok Zombie]

If you're doing final year English don't forget those commas and apostrophes.

Sadly, I can't answer because I myself am a 3rd year English student. However, Joyce rocks the shizzle and is the king of Modernism. Sadly, a lot of Modernism is awful like Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf. Oh god.

I liked Mrs Dalloway, but to The Lighthouse sucked a fat one. As for The Mark On The Wall... SPOILER it was a snail the whole time.

 

[Berethond]

"...serve as a pattern of substitutions for the ii-V-I progression (supertonic-dominant-tonic) and are noted for the tonally unusual root movement down by major thirds, creating an augmented triad."

I lost just about everyone.

 

[Garaw]

Uh...I can sort of understand what that is saying. I guess the key is to take Realism and Modernism as the names of literary eras and not for their literal meanings. I don't know much about either era but I assume they're both reactions to things like Enlightenment thinking where the world is orderly and very cut-and-dry morally. I also recognize most of the literary techniques on that list, but had no idea they were particularly Modernist.

 

[Nincompoop]

"Modernism is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual?s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarisation, rhythm and irresolution."

Modernism tries to explain how the human mind works and reacts in specific situations. Maybe even showing character flaws that lead to dislikable character. The perspective often being from a single persons view, via thought monologue.

This is what I got from it.

 

[Dok Zombie]

"Modernism is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual?s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarisation, rhythm and irresolution."

Modernism tries to explain how the human mind works and reacts in specific situations. Maybe even showing character flaws that lead to dislikable character. The perspective often being from a single persons view, via thought monologue.

This is what I got from it.

Yeah that's pretty much it, the idea that you can create a more realistic character through unconventional literary techniques.

 

[aseelt]

I understand it. I don't think I'd be able to explain it in layman's terms, but I get the point.

I'm supposed to be writing a dissertation myself at this point and I have this for you:

"Free radical initiated auto-oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids has been implicated in numerous human diseases including atherosclerosis and cancer"

That would probably be an easy one. Things get more technical after that.

 

[cheese_wizington]

I'm thirteen.

God no.

 

[Nincompoop]

"...serve as a pattern of substitutions for the ii-V-I progression (supertonic-dominant-tonic) and are noted for the tonally unusual root movement down by major thirds, creating an augmented triad."

Hmm... Music o.o... I'm not familiar with that.... Specific... Whateverthahellthatis thing. We have learned a bit about how specific music genres use specific harmonic steps, but I can't say I know what ii-V-I is. Btw is supertonic also called tonic-parallel?

 

[Godavari]

While I'm not clear on the meanings of some of the words, I get the basic gist of what's being said. It's defining modernism through example and contrasting it with realism.
And I'm a high school sophomore, if that helps.

 

[atalanta]

"Modernism is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual?s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarisation, rhythm and irresolution."

Engineering and music here, still pretty sure I got that. Well, except for tunnelling. (There's a dumb pun involving bookworms in there.)

Uh, I could write up something about species counterpoint or atonality or something, but that seems kind of unfair -- everyone posting on this board is literate and speaks English and I'm betting most have taken some kind of algebra or calculus course, but the arts are apparently not important enough to be taught, so fewer people have had exposure to that sort of thing.

 

[Nincompoop]

"Modernism is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual?s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarisation, rhythm and irresolution."

Modernism tries to explain how the human mind works and reacts in specific situations. Maybe even showing character flaws that lead to dislikable character. The perspective often being from a single persons view, via thought monologue.

This is what I got from it.

Yeah that's pretty much it, the idea that you can create a more realistic character through unconventional literary techniques.

imma smart.

I'm not much for literature, but if any, modernism is the most interesting one.

 

[aseelt]

"...serve as a pattern of substitutions for the ii-V-I progression (supertonic-dominant-tonic) and are noted for the tonally unusual root movement down by major thirds, creating an augmented triad."

I lost just about everyone.

Piano?

 

[paragon1]

I understood it, but then I've taken a few college English courses myself.

Here's a bit of fun from my symbolic logic text:We have claimed that a truth-functional expansion has the same truth-value as the unexpanded sentence on any interpretation on which each member of the UD is named by at least one of the constants used in the expansion.