Poet and Pilot

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Poet and Pilot
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Lesson Objectives

• To compare and contrast
• Romantic, poetic view
• Scientific, utilitarian view of life

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Lesson Objectives

• Examine 4 ectopsychic functions of self
• sensing
• thinking
• intuiting
• feeling

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Lesson Objectives

• To express personal ideas in writing
• learn to write a holistic essay

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Mark Twain

• Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• Riverboat pilot
• Reporter
• Writer

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Romantic View

• Poet and Pilot
• Twain's book
• Life on the Mississippi

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Using the Ectopsychic Functions

• Function Sensing / Seeing
• Romantic tone
• Discussion
• What is gained and what is lost by the shift in
  perspective?

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First Person Narration

• What did Twain accomplish with the technique?
• How would the piece change if another technique
  were used?

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Language of Senses

• See next reading
• Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshwalis poem Sunset
• Changing meaning
• New interpretations

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Discussion

• Why has Twain's description of the river changed?

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Reasoning

• Do you agree that the way we perceive things is
  often influenced by the discipline or career we
  have chosen?

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Symbolizing

• What did water mean to Twain?

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Symbolizing

• What does water mean to us?

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Specialized Language and Symbolizing

• Do you think that all places and occupations have
  this specialized language? Explain.

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Valuing Viewpoints

• Scientific
• Poetic

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Pilot and Poet

• Conflict between
• Being
• Doing

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Place of Language

• James Dickey
• Utilitarian?
• Hectic living
• Career pressures

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Apply your Learning

• Is the language of your friends utilitarian or
  poetic, or both.
• Write a description of actual conversation that
  you hear.

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Place of Language

• Charm?
• Romance?
• Robert Pirsig

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Place of Language

• Essay
• priceless
• bring no money if sold on the market
• Prizes versus gifts

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Additional Resources

• Mark Twain

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Additional Resources

• Mark Twain
• Print Media

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Additional Resources

• Seeing

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Additional Resources

• Romanticism

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Themes for Discussion and WritingSensing
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Writing Sensing

• 1. A. What effect is gained in the narration by
  the emphasis upon seeing as opposed to the other
  senses that are not even mentioned in the
  passage?

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Writing Sensing

• 1. B. There is a lot of movement, even an acute
  sense of danger, in the scene but sounds at best
  are merely implied, the puffing of the steamboat,
  the swirling of the water. Quietness reigns. Why
  would the mention of sound appear intrusive in
  such a place?

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Writing Sensing

• 1.C. Why is first-person narration appropriate
  here rather than third?

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Writing Sensing

• 2. Discuss the use of lighting and shadows in the
  passage.

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Writing Sensing

• 3. Tone might best be described, at least
  briefly, as the attitude of the writer toward the
  subject. Compare and contrast the romantic tone
  of the visual imagery in the first paragraph with
  the more detached, unemotional tone in the second
  paragraph. Does the initial description hint at
  the later one?

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Writing Reasoning

• 1. What is the function of the questions in the
  last paragraph? How would you answer the last
  question? What evidence would you use?

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Writing Reasoning

• 2. A. The way we look at things is often
  influenced by the discipline or career we are in,
  as Twains view of the world sprang from his
  experiences. How is your world view shaped by the
  academic major you have chosen or are thinking
  about choosing?

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Writing Reasoning

• 2.B. What expectations do you have in terms of
  meaning of the career you want to establish? What
  reasons shape these expectations? Compare and
  contrast a job and a career?

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Writing Reasoning

• 3. Twain observed that the difference between the
  right word and the near right word is the
  difference between lightning and lightning bug.
  Without doing any research on the terms, define
  what Work, labor, play mean to you at this point
  in your life and share and discuss your views
  with others in the class.

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Writing Reasoning

• 3.B. Why do we speak of lifes work but daily
  labor? Can you work and play at the same time?
  Can you labor and play at the same time? Infer
  Twains responses to these questions from a close
  reading of the text.

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Writing Symbolizing

• 1. A. What does Twain mean by the term language
  of this water? Do all places and occupations
  have a specialized language that somehow makes us
  blind to the glories and charms of the larger
  world, what Twain called the moon and the sun and
  the twilight wrought upon the river's face?

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Writing Symbolizing

• 1.B. Does your home, farm, neighborhood have a
  language? If so, describe that language if
  there is no such language of place or sense of
  place, why is that the case?

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Writing Symbolizing

• 2. Why does what we call jargon usually seem
  specialized? Is there any jargon in the Twain
  piece? If so, compare and contrast that language
  with the poetry Twain uses.

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Writing Symbolizing

• 3. A. Water is an important symbol in all
  cultures. Dream analysts, Jungian psychologists,
  storytellers, and religious leaders frequently
  comment upon its symbolic significance. Can you
  infer what water means to Twain other than a
  means of transportation?

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Writing Symbolizing

• 3. B. What does water mean to you other than a
  substance necessary for physical survival?

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Writing Symbolizing

• 4. The Native Americans spoke of the Mississippi
  as The Father of Waters and the novelist-critic
  William Dean Howells called Mark Twain the
  Lincoln of our Literature? Do both of these
  metaphors seem apt?

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Writing Valuing

• 1. Twain says that he had lost something from the
  time when he knew every trifling feature that
  bordered the Mississippi. Do you think that the
  biologist who dissects a cat has lost his ability
  to be warmed when his own reddish-blonde kitten
  welcomes him to bed by curling up on his arm and
  purring in his ear?

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Writing Valuing

• 2.A. The difference between pilot and poet is to
  some extent the difference between doing and
  being which has constituted a philosophical
  problem from time immemorial. How has the
  conflict entered into your own life or the lives
  of your friends? Our nation? Our world?

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Writing Valuing

• 2.B. Mystics frequently speak of the goal of
  meditation as achieving into the realm of pure
  being. What, by contrast, is pure doing?

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Writing Valuing

• 3. Do the responsibilities of adulthood often
  obliterate, or perhaps overshadow, the fantasy
  world we knew as children? How can a serious,
  competent adult retain his ability to appreciate
  the charm and romance of life? Speculate about
  how Twain might respond.

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Writing Assignments

• 1. Write a paper about an experience in which the
  romance and beauty faded after a period of time.

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Writing Assignments

• 2.A. The poet James Dickey has said that we have
  sentenced language to the realm of the
  utilitarian or the useful. How did Twain express
  this same sentiment?

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Writing Assignments

• 2.B. Make a point to listen to the language of
  your friends and see whether the language you
  hear is utilitarian or poetic or both. Write a
  description on what you hear.

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Writing Assignments

• 2.C. Professional knowledge such as that of a
  steamboat captain or an airline pilot is regarded
  as useful while art and poetry are often
  considered useless. Comment upon this distinction
  by regarding useless in the old sense of
  priceless. Discuss how we assign value to the
  things that we love and enjoy.

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Writing Assignments

• 3. Recalling the poetic language that Twain used
  to describe the river and the craft of the river
  pilot, describe another endeavor or professional
  skill, such as baking a pie, painting a sign,
  gardening, selling insurance, using metaphors
  where appropriate to aid in understanding the
  process.

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Writing Assignments

• 4. Twain often wrote of the apparent conflict
  between technical skill and aesthetic
  sensibilities. Compare an electronic rendition of
  a favorite song with a recording by one of your
  favorite musicians. (continued on next slide)

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Writing Assignments

• 4. Most people would agree that the technical
  quality of electronic music is superior. Is the
  song more appealing in this form? Why? Why not?
  Can electronic music have emotional qualities?
  Write an essay in which you defend the technical
  perfection of electronic music or the freedom of
  artistic expression.

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Writing Assignments

• 5.A. Twains description of the challenges facing
  the riverboat pilot constitutes a technical
  language that was high tech in its day. Read a
  business magazine that uses modern high tech
  language. Is there an emotional quality to this
  language--or the lack of emotion?

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Writing Assignments

• 5.B. Will people of a high tech society become
  robots? The novelist Arthur C. Clarke, author of
  2001, has expressed the opinion that it is our
  evolutionary destiny to be replaced by machines.
  If this is to be the case, what happens to what
  we now call our aesthetic sense?

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Writing Assignments

• 5.C. How would Twain feel about the fate that
  Clarke predicts, judging from the passage
  entitled Poet and Pilot? How do you feel?

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Writing Assignments

• 6. Read The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne and
  compare and contrast the theme therein with the
  point Twain makes relative to the conflict, real
  or apparent, between beauty and professionalism.

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Writing Assignments

• 7. Other great American writers share Twains
  preference for romantic language. Read, for
  instance, Thomas Wolfe's Promise of America in
  his novel You Can't Go Home Again. From his
  description, the reader can imagine a bejeweled
  America the beautiful, much like Twains
  Mississippi River. (continued)

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Writing Assignments

• 7. Discuss the value of imagination in
  understanding Wolfe's concept of America and/or
  the future of America.

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Writing Assignments

• 8. By skills in creating colorful language, Twain
  places the burden of imagination on the reader.
  Perhaps some modern artists reverse this process.
  (Continued on next slide)

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Writing Assignments

• 8. MTV combines music with visual imagery so that
  music lovers no longer listen to their favorite
  artists and imagine now television supplies the
  images. Will listeners lose their imagination if
  the music is always accompanied by screen images?
  Defend your opinion in an argumentative paper.

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Writing Assignments

• 9. Write a research paper on some instrument of
  high-technology, computer, communication
  satellite, robot, etc.--explaining how it has
  changed for good or ill some phase of industry or
  the people who work with it daily.

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Writing Assignments

• 10.A. In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
  Maintenance, Robert Pirsig suggests that the
  romance and beauty of the river were not really
  lost. Comment on this thought.

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Writing Assignments

• 10.B. Did the moon lose its charm after humans
  walked on its surface? Does the person who does
  the walking on the moon have a bearing on our
  romantic reactions to the event? For example, if
  the walker were a known criminal, does this
  knowledge change the romantic character of our
  view?

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