tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18051438009493663192024-03-28T11:45:36.756-07:00Poetry on the Loose . . . floating on the ocean of words . . .William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.comBlogger596125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-36241387321920113632024-03-01T04:18:00.000-08:002024-03-01T04:18:50.343-08:00Index<p><b>The index has grown to the point of becoming unwieldy, leading me to offer first a brief sketch of its contents.</b></p><b>For the most part the site contains literary criticism with topics ranging around the globe and through the centuries. There are also other essays, translations, travel stories, a few memoirs, a few political comments. With rare exceptions (mostly early) I do not post my poetry here.<br /><br />In the literary essays I am willing to discuss virtually anything. This site is strong on literary theory, the idea of the avant-garde, ancient Greek, medieval European, and Asian literatures, and includes a series of treatments of blues songs as poetry.<br /><br />Some of the essays are technical and include academic jargon, probably indigestible to a lay reader. Others are directed toward a general audience. Perhaps the most accessible are those in the Every Reader’s Poets series (section 5G below) which assume no background knowledge. </b><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The index now features hypertext connections. Simply click on any title below to read it.<br /><br />Though this listing serves, I think, a clear purpose, not every posting falls easily into the categories. One essay might equally be placed under literary theory or medieval texts while another might fit under memoir, politics, or travel. Translations with comment might be either criticism or translation. Poke around a bit.<br /><br />The categories are:<br /><br />1. speculative, familiar, performance pieces, and other essays<br /><br />2. literary theory<br /><br />3. Greek texts (and a few Latin)<br /><br />4. medieval European texts<br /><br />5. other criticism<br />A. 16th-19th century<br />B. 20th century to the present <br />C. Asian texts<br />D. songs<br />E. Notes on Recent Reading<br />F. Rereading the Classics<br />G. Every Reader's Poets<br /><br />6. translation<br /><br />7. poetry<br /><br />8. politics<br /><br />9. memoirs<br /><br />10. travel</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Speculative, familiar, performance pieces, and other essays</span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/10/agnostic-credo-and-vita.html">Agnostic Credo and Vita (October 2015)</a><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/12/american-taste-at-mid-century.html">American Taste at Midcentury (December 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/10/should-any-reader-turn-to-this-page.html">Axiology and Subjectivity (October 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/08/annual-report.html">Annual Report (August 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/12/beards.html">Beards (December 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/11/biking.html">Biking (November 2009)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/04/biking-as-spiritual-discipline.html">Biking as a Spiritual Discipline (April 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/06/cell-phones.html">Cell Phones (June 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/08/confidence-games.html">Confidence Games (August 2022)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/03/contronyms.html">Contronyms (March 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/04/cookbooks.html">Cookbooks (April 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/02/dead-reckoning.html">Dead Reckoning (February 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/deer.html">Deer (December 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/03/documents-of-first-surreal-cabaret.html">Documents of the first Surreal Cabaret (March 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/06/surreal-cabaret-2.html">Documents of the second Surreal Cabaret (June 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/10/documents-of-third-surreal-cabaret_1.html">Documents of the third Surreal Cabaret (October 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/07/documents-of-fourth-surreal-cabaret.html">Documents of the fourth Surreal Cabaret (July 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/02/documents-of-fifth-surreal-cabaret.html">Documents of the fifth Surreal Cabaret (February 2015)</a><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/01/dreams.html" target="_blank">Dreams (January 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/06/drugs-and-religion.html">Drugs and Religion (June 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/11/dust-meditative-riff.html">Dust: a meditative riff (November 2009) </a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/11/euphemism-as-metaphor.html">Euphemism as Metaphor (November 2019)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/02/an-evening-at-soulshine.html">An Evening at Soulshine (February 2024)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/12/food-for-gods.html">Food for the Gods (December 2011)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-golden-age-of-paperbacks.html">The Golden Age of Paperbacks (March 2024)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/10/high-peaks-of-european-cuisine.html">High Peaks of European Cuisine (October 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/04/hippie.html">Hippie (April 2011)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-hipsters-epigone.html">The Hipster's Epigone (September 2021)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/05/hitchhiking.html">Hitchhiking (May 2019)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/09/holy-gibberish.html">Holy Gibberish (September 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/07/holy-nudity.html">Holy Nudity (July 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/07/immortality.html">Immortality (July 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/12/iowa-communards.html">Iowa Communards (December 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/10/knowing-and-not-knowing.html">Knowing and Not Knowing (October 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/05/librarys-commonplaces-and-curiosities.html">A Library’s Commonplaces and Curiosities (May 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-mannerly-hedonist.html">The Mannerly Hedonist (February 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/10/morning-glories-on-make.html">Morning Glories on the Make (October 2022)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/06/notes-and-inserts.html">Notes and Inserts (June 2016)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/12/pearls.html">Pearls (December 2022)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/02/planetary-motions.html">Planetary Motions (February 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/11/playing-cards.html">Playing Cards (November 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/11/polka.html">Polka (November 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/09/on-pronunciation-and-pedantry.html">On Pronunciation and Pedantry (September 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/11/in-praise-of-bias.html">In Praise of Bias (November 2014)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/03/sea-shells.html">Sea Shells (March 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-shelf-of-imaginary-books.html">A Shelf of Imaginary Books (July 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/02/skipping-over-surface-of-things.html">Skipping over the Surface of Things (February 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-social-meaning-of-witchcraft.html">The Social Meaning of Witchcraft (July 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/11/spit.html">Spit (November 2021)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/11/still-biking.html">Still Biking (November 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-structural-view-of-certain-oracles.html">A Structural View of Certain Oracles (August 2015)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/09/suburbs.html">Suburbs (September 2019) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-supermarket.html">Supermarkets (October 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/06/a-survey-of-early-christian-heresies.html">A Survey of Early Christian Heresies (June 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-sweetness-of-first-fruits.html">The Sweetness of First Fruits (May 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/11/taking-off.html">Taking Off (November 2009)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/09/i-know-title-is-what-one-would-expect.html">This and That (September 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/09/this-and-that-2.html">This and That 2 (September 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-uninformed-take-on-ballet.html">An Uninformed Take on Ballet (June 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/02/walking-via-negativa.html">Walking the Via Negativa (February 2018)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/06/water.html">Water (June 2023) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/06/worn-tools.html">Worn Tools (June 2013)</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Literary theory</span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/04/afloat-on-ocean-of-words.html">Afloat on the Ocean of Words (April 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/03/allusion.html">Allusion (March 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/03/art-as-play.html">Art as Play (March 2024)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/12/conservatism-and-popular-art.html">Conservatism and Popular Art (December 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/04/lament-for-loss-of-avant-garde.html">Art and the Marketplace (April 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/07/efflorescences-of-female-poets.html">Efflorescences of Female Poets (July 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/03/false-and-homophonic-translation.html">False and Homophonic Translation (March 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-familiar-note-in-poetry.html">The Familiar Note in Poetry (January 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/04/formation-of-christian-rhetoric.html">The Formation of a Christian Rhetoric (April 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-and-why-to-signify-or-how-to-make.html">How and Why to Signify (July 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/01/idea-of-comedy.html">Idea of Comedy (January 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/05/rhetorical-critical-theory-of-geoffrey.html">The Inconsequential Bayonets of Art: Militant Rhetoric and the Avant-Garde (May 2010) </a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/09/on-intrusion-of-non-aesthetic-criteria.html">On the Intrusion of Non-aesthetic Criteria in Value Judgements about Art (September 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/lament-for-loss-of-avant-garde.html">Lament for the Loss of the Avant-Garde (March 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/08/millenarian-rhetoric-and-avant-garde.html">Millenarian Rhetoric and the Avant-Garde (August 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/07/on-proper-ends-of-literary-study.html">On the Proper Ends of Literary Study [James Seaton] (July 2014)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/06/one-hundred-poets.html">One Hundred Poets (June 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-phantom-of-artistic-truth.html">The Phantom of Artistic Truth (May 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/10/placing-popular-in-structure-of.html">Placing the Popular in the Structure of Literature (October 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-pleasures-of-familiar-in-literature.html">The Pleasures of the Familiar in Literature (June 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/12/poetry-amid-fierce-chaos-of-world.html">Poetry Amid the Fierce Chaos of the World (December 2009)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/04/poetry-and-magic-spells.html">Poetry and Magic Spells (April 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-exchange-between-rene-wellek-and-f.html">Prof. Wellek, Prof. Leavis, and Prof. de Man (December 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-question-of-literary-value.html">The Question of Literary Value (August 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-range-of-visual-poetry.html">A Range of Visual Poetry (December 2017)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/03/riddles-and-poetry.html">Riddles and Poetry (March 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/04/signifying-monkey-talks-literature.html">The Signifying Monkey Talks Literature (April 2010)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/11/sincerity-and-other-virtues-in-poetry.html">Sincerity and Other Virtues in Poetry (November 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/10/some-notes-toward-theory-of-avant-garde.html">Some Notes Toward a Theory of the Avant-Garde (October 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/10/song-lyrics-as-poetry.html">Song Lyrics as Poetry (October 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/09/sontags-against-interpretation.html">Sontag's "Against Interpretation" (September 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/11/sweet-treason-translating-lyric-poetry.html">Sweet Treason: Translating Lyric Poetry (November 2009)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/03/thoughts-on-mythology.html">Thoughts on Mythology (March 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/08/towards-typology-of-collaborative-poetry.html">Toward a Typology of Collaborative Poetry (August 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/08/transformation-of-convention.html">Transformation of Convention (August 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/02/what-is-literature.html">What is Literature? (February 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-is-poetry.html">What is Poetry? (February 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/05/fragment-from-winged-words-notes-on.html">Winged Words: Notes on the Oral Performance of Poetry (May 2010)</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Greek texts (and a few Latin)</span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/08/aphrodites-bed-love-in-homeric-hymn.html">Aphrodite’s Bed: Love in the Homeric Hymn (August 2010)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-apotropaic-priapos-and-male.html">The Apotropaic Priapos and Male Sexuality (October 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/01/birth-of-erato-lyric-vision-and-spread.html">The Birth of Erato: Lyric, Vision, and the Spread of Writing (January 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/02/dionysos-and-pirates.html">Dionysos and the Pirates (February 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/05/ekphrasis-in-apollonius-jasons-cloak.html">Ekphrasis in Apollonius: Jason's Cloak (May 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/02/gorgias-of-lentini.html">Gorgias (February 2010)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-greeks-meet-yogis.html">The Greeks Meet the Yogis (December 2018)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/03/hermes-and-art-of-poetry.html">Hermes and the Art of Poetry (March 2013)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/07/hesiods-muses-study-in-polysemy.html">Hesiod's Muses: a Study in Polysemy (July 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/04/korinna-and-choral-lyric.html">Korinna and the Choral Lyric (April 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/05/longinus-sublime.html">Longinus' Sublime (May 2012)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/03/loving-lists-in-greek-anthology.html">Loving Lists in The Greek Anthology (March 2-021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/04/mimnermus-on-old-age.html">Mimnermus on Old Age (April 2022) </a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/06/notes-on-pan.html">Notes on Pan (June 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/07/oedipus-and-meaning-of-polysemy.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oedipus</span> and the Meaning of Polysemy (July 2011)</a><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/11/parmenides-and-perennial-philosophy.html" target="_blank">Parmenides and the Perennial Philosophy (November 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/01/pindars-athlete-in-pythian-8.html">Pindar's Athlete in Pythian 8 (January 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/07/poetrys-long-memory.html">Poetry's Long Memory [Horace] (July 2016)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/06/praxilla.html">Praxilla (June 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/12/professors-kick-willy-bobo.html">Professors Kick the Willy Bobo [on Athenaeus] (December 2009)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/02/role-of-rhetoric-in-theocritus-idyll-v.html">The Role of Rhetoric in Theocritus (February 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-role-of-wine-in-nonnus-dionysiaca.html">The Role of Wine in Nonnus' <i>Dionysiaca</i> (February 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/12/sapphos-holy-tortoise-shell-eros-and.html">Sappho’s Holy Tortoise Shell: Eros and Poetry in Ancient Greece (December 2009)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/02/scholarship-as-recreation-in-aulus.html">Scholarship as Recreation in Aulus Gellius (February 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/seneca-elder.html">Seneca the Elder (March 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-skeptics-faith-sextus-empiricus.html">A Skeptic's Faith [Sextus Empiricus] (January 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-take-on-platos-parmenides.html">A Take on Plato's Parmenides (April 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-structural-view-of-ephesiaca.html">A Structural View of the Ephesiaca (April 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/two-brief-notes-on-daphnis-and-chloe.html">Two Brief Notes on <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> (May 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/06/two-passages-from-marcus-aurelius.html">Two Passages from Marcus Aurelius (June 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/06/web-of-myth-in-hymn-to-heracles.html">The Web of Myth in the Hymn to Heracles (June 2012)</a><br /><br /><br /><b>4. Medieval European texts</b><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/07/aesthete-of-desire-lancelot-and-courtly.html">The Aesthete of Desire: Lancelot and Courtly Love (July 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-aesthetics-of-ambiguity-in-medieval.html">The Aesthetics of Ambiguity in a Medieval Lyric (December 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/07/aesthetic-principles-of-middle-english.html">Aesthetic Principles of the Middle English Romance (July 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/02/appropriation-of-biblical-narrative-in.html">Appropriation of Biblical Narrative in <i>Patience</i> (February 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/09/bernart-and-music-of-ideas.html">Bernart and the Music of Ideas (September 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/buddha-in-europe-apologue-of-man-and.html">The Buddha in Europe: the Apologue of the Man and the Unicorn in <span style="font-style: italic;">Barlaam and Ioasaph</span> (January 2011)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-charm-of-underdetermined-in-maiden.html">The Charm of the Undetermined in "Maiden in the Moor Lay" (June 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/buddha-in-europe-apologue-of-man-and.html"></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/06/chaucers-version-of-myth-of-golden-age.html">Chaucer’s Version of the Golden Age (June 2011)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/02/construction-of-values-in-nibelungenlied.html">Construction of Values in the <i>Nibelungenlied </i>(February 2024)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/09/conventional-ending-in-middle-english.html">A Conventional Ending in a Middle English Romance (September 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/08/courtly-love-in-romance-of-rose.html">Courtly Love in Romance of the Rose (August 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/08/distant-rhyme-in-two-medieval-english.html">Distant Rhyme in Two Medieval English Lyrics (August 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/06/early-english-carol-and-play-of.html">The Early English Carol (June 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/01/figures-of-love-in-lydgates-temple-of.html">Figures of Love in Lydgate's <i>Temple of Glas</i> (January 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/06/formal-play-in-canso-by-cercamon.html">Formal Play in a Canso by Cercamon (June 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/02/functions-of-alliteration-in-thirteenth.html">Functions of Alliteration in Thirteenth Century Lyrics (February 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/04/gamelyn-outlaws-ethics.html">Gamelyn: An Outlaw's Ethics (April 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/04/rhetorical-critical-theory-of-geoffrey.html">Geoffrey of Vinsauf (April 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/thematic-and-structural-function-of.html">Hypermetric Lines in <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> (January 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/01/icelandic-antinomies-in-grettis-saga.html">Icelandic Antinomies in the <i>Grettis saga</i> (January 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/01/introduction-to-troubadours.html">An Introduction to the Troubadours (January 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-knot-of-dialectic-in-bryd-one-brere.html">The Knot of Dialectic in "Bryd one brere" (August 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/08/lands-of-all-play-and-no-work-cockayne.html">Lands of All Play and No Work: Cockayne and the Abbey of Thélème (August 2023)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/07/transformation-of-convention-in.html">Mechthild von Magdeburg (July 2010)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-look-at-jaufre-rudel-amor-de-lonh.html">A New Look at Jaufré: <span style="font-style: italic;">Amor de Lonh</span> as Criticism (December 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/12/odin-and-poetry.html">Odin and Poetry (December 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/07/openings-in-middle-english-romance.html">Openings in the Middle English Romance (July 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/11/pearl-poets-use-of-link-rhyme.html">The <span style="font-style: italic;">Pearl</span>-Poet’s Use of Link-Rhymes (November 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/03/phoetics-and-semantics-in-last-line-of.html">Phonetics and Semantics in the Last Line of <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> (March 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/10/piers-plowman-and-man-in-moon.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Piers Plowman</span> and the Man in the Moon (October 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/03/prima-etade-of-literary-ambition.html">The <span style="font-style: italic;">Prima Etade</span> of Literary Ambition [Petrarch] (March 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/10/sir-isumbras-and-functions-of-fabulous.html">Sir Isumbras and the Functions of the Fabulous (October 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/03/varieties-of-tone-in-middle-english.html">Tone in Middle English <i>Double Entendre</i> Songs (March 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/04/transformation-of-convention-in-early.html">Transformation of Convention in Early <span style="font-style: italic;">Minnesang</span> (April 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-transvestite-knight-ulrichs.html">The Transvestite Knight: Ulrich’s <i>Frauendienst</i> in Performance (May 2020)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/08/tristans-world.html">Tristan's World (August 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/10/two-early-ballad-tales-of-robin-hood.html">Two Early Ballad Tales of Robin Hood (October 2014)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-use-of-convention-in-floure-and.html">The Use of Convention in "The Floure and the Leafe" (April 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/11/uses-for-dead-child-in-chaucer-livy-and.html">Uses for a Dead Child in Chaucer, Livy, and Ancient Israel (November 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-uses-of-monstrous-chaucers-anelida.html">The Uses of the Monstrous: Chaucer's "Anelida and Arcite" (October 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/09/william-ix-study-in-transformation-of.html">William IX (September 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/06/who-is-piers-ploughman.html">Who is Piers Ploughman? (June 2013)</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Other criticism</span><br /><br />A. 16th-19th century</div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/07/on-alexander-popes-art-of-sinking.html">On Alexander Pope's "Art of Sinking" (July 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/03/ambivalence-in-thomsons-castle-of.html">Ambivalence in Thomson's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Castle of Indolence</span> (March 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-archaeology-of-grays-progress-of.html">The Archaeology of Gray's "The Progress of Poetry" (November 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/06/argument-by-images-in-keatss-sleep-and.html">Argument by Images In Keats' "Sleep and Poetry" (June 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/12/voluptuous-ascetics-in-anatole-frances.html">Ascetic Voluptuaries in Anatole France's <i>Thais</i> (December 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/07/baudelaires-painter-of-modern-life.html">Baudelaire's "Painter of Modern Life" (July 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/11/big-bill-otters-sprees-and-frolics.html">Big Bill Otter's Sprees and Frolics (November 2013)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-bloody-venus-of-marlowes-hero-and.html">The Bloody Venus of Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" (November 2018)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/05/coleridges-dialectic-of-art.html">Coleridge's Dialectic of Art (May 2019)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/02/confronting-impotence-in-seventeenth.html">Confronting Impotence in Seventeenth Century Verse (February 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-contradictions-of-minstrelsy-jim.html">Contradictions of Minstrelsy: Jim Crow, Zip Coon, and Gumbo Chaff (September 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/04/convention-and-innovation-in-stephen.html">Convention and Innovation in Stephen Duck's "The Thresher's Labour" (April 2021)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-decadents-dilemmas.html">A Decadent's <i>Dilemmas</i> [Dowson] (March 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/04/dialectical-rhetoric-in-puttenhams-arte.html">Dialectical Rhetoric in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (April 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/02/does-crabbe-look-forward-or-back.html">Does Crabbe Look Forward or Back? (February 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/09/dolces-aretino.html">Dolce's Aretino (September 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-double-plot-of-salem-chapel.html">The Double Plot of <i>Salem Chapel</i> (December 2016)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/03/enoch-arden-as-popular-literature.html"><i>Enoch Arden</i> as Popular Literature (March 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-fate-of-melvilles-pierre.html">The Fate of Melville's <i>Pierre </i>(May 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-framing-of-brontes-professor.html">The Framing of Charlotte Brontë's The Professor (November 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/01/frances-trollope-triumph-of-snobbery.html" target="_blank">Frances Trollope: The Triumph of Snobbery (January 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/09/gascoignes-notes-of-instruction.html">Gascoigne's "Notes of Instruction" (September 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/09/godwins-theatre-of-calamity.html">Godwin's Theatre of Calamity (September 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-gypsy-gentleman-george-borrow.html">The Gypsy Gentleman [George Borrow] (October 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-hazardous-lives-of-sonneteers.html">The Hazardous Lives of the Sonneteers (August 2021)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/03/hazlitt-on-nature-of-poetry.html">Hazlitt on the Nature of Poetry (March 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/09/herrick-divine.html">Herrick the Divine (August 2014)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/01/nature-in-popes-essay-on-criticism.html">The Idea of Nature in Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (January 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/04/an-image-for-art-in-conrads-preface-to.html">An Image for Art in Conrad's Preface to <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus </i>(April 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-ironic-is-mackenzies-man-of-feeling.html">How Ironic is Mackenzie's <i>The Man of Feeling</i>? (April 2020)</a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/09/irvings-soft-romanticism.html"><br />Irving's Soft Romanticism (September 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/11/keats-thing-of-beauty.html">Keats' "Thing of Beauty" (November 2016)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/06/kleists-zoroaster.html">Kleist's Zoroaster (June 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-limits-of-howells-realism-in-theory.html">The Limits of Howells' Realism in Theory and Practice [<i>A Modern Instance</i>] (June 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-lost-world-of-allusion.html">A Lost World of Allusion [Nicholas Breton] (May 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/04/marius-epicurean-as-modern.html">Marius the Epicurean as a Modern (April 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-meaning-of-art-for-arts-sake.html">The Meaning of Art for Art's Sake (November 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/01/moby-dick-and-density-of-aesthetic-text.html"><i>Moby Dick</i> and the Density of the Aesthetic Text (January 2016) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/07/monk-lewis-mr-coleridge-and-popular.html">"Monk" Lewis, Mr. Coleridge, and Popular Taste (July 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/12/moreas-symbolism.html">Moréas’ Symbolism (December 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/12/versions-of-jaufre-rudel-transformation.html">Nineteenth Century Versions of Jaufre Rudel (December 2021)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/09/one-of-most-significant-attempts-to.html">A Note on Dryden and "Dramatick Poesy" (September 2012)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-note-on-radcliffes-italian.html">A Note on Radcliffe's <i>The Italian</i> (October 2012)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/08/paradise-lost-as-popular-culture.html">Paradise Lost as Popular Culture (August 2023)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/06/paters-renaissance.html">Pater's Renaissance (June 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/05/pierce-penniless.html">Pierce Penniless (May 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-play-of-convention-in-shakespeares.html">The Play of Convention in Shakespeare's Sonnet 153 (April 2017)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/02/poes-plate-articles.html">Poe's Plate Articles (February 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-pose-of-naturalism-in-zolas-germinal.html">The Pose of Naturalism in Zola's Germinal (March 2023)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-primacy-of-poetry-in-sidneys-defence.html">The Primacy of Poetry in Sidney's <i>Defence</i> (February 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-problem-with-swinburne.html">The Problem with Swinburne (June 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-question-about-john-pomfret.html">A Question about John Pomfret (November 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-question-of-tone-in-mill-on-floss.html">A Question of Tone in The Mill on the Floss (August 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-radical-aesthete-oscar-wildes-soul.html">The Radical Aesthete: Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (March 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-rather-abstract-charm-of-diderots.html">The Rather Abstract Charm of Diderot’s <i>La R</i><i>éligieuse </i>(June 2023)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/10/rimbauds-use-of-montage.html">Rimbaud's Use of Montage (October 2016)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/01/scandals-of-romantic-poets.html">Scandals of the Romantic Poets (January 2022)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-second-look-into-northanger-abbey.html">A Second Look into <i>Northanger Abbey </i>(February 2019)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/05/shelleys-ode-to-west-wind-as.html">Shelley”s “Ode to the West Wind” as Structuralist Charm (May 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/09/sir-thomas-norths-moral-philosophy-of.html">Sir Thomas North's <i>The Moral Philosophy of Doni</i> (September 2013)</a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-skeptico-semiotico-mystic-carlyles.html"><br />The Skeptico-Semiotico-Mystic: Carlyle's <i>Sartor Resartus</i> (June 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/02/skepticism-and-poetry-in-keats-eve-of.html">Skepticism and Poetry in Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes" (February 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-structural-view-of-merediths-ordeal.html">A Structural View of Meredith's <i>The Ordeal of Richard Fever</i>el (June 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/05/subjectivity-in-edward-young.html">Subjectivity in Edward Young (May 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/10/texture-of-trahernes-religious-thought.html">The Texture of Traherne’s Religious Thought (October 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/11/thematic-continuity-in-development-of.html">Thematic Continuity and Development in the Poetry of Christopher Smart: the <span style="font-style: italic;">Jubilate Agno</span> and the Minor Poems (November 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/09/thematic-instability-in-balzacs-la.html">Thematic Instability in Balzac's La Rabouilleuse (September 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/01/thomas-brownes-religion-of-sensibility.html">Thomas Browne's Religion of Sensibility (January 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/08/thomas-love-peacock-and-end-of-poetry.html">Thomas Love Peacock and the End of Poetry (August 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/11/transformation-of-plot-in-several.html">Transformation of Plot in Several Stories by Aphra Behn (November 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/04/travelers-marco-polo-twain-robert-byron.html">Travelers [Marco Polo, Twain, Robert Byron](April 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/trollopes-appeal.html">Trollope's Appeal (December 2012)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/08/trouble-in-elysium-carews-rapture.html">Trouble in Elysium: Carew's "A Rapture" (August 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/07/two-notes-on-hawthornes-blithedale.html">Two Notes on Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance (July 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-use-of-nostalgia-in-georges-eliots.html">The Use of Nostalgia in Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life (August 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-victorian-in-arabia-deserta.html">A Victorian in Arabia (January 2024)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/03/what-use-is-princess-madame-de-la.html">What Use is a Princess? [Mme. de La Fayette] (March 2023) </a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/07/william-morriss-revolutionary-narratives.html">William Morris's Revolutionary Narratives (July 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/12/zolas-nana-and-conundrum-of-sex-work.html">Zola's Nana and the Conundrum of Sex Work (December 2022)</a><br /><br />B. 20th century to the present<br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/06/another-look-at-seven-lively-arts.html">Another Look at <i>The Seven Lively Arts</i> (June 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/07/another-look-at-vachel-lindsay.html">Another Look at Vachel Lindsay (July 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-anti-aesthetic-aesthetic-of.html">The Anti-Aesthetic Aesthetic of Farrell's <i>Stud Lonigan </i>(May 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/11/apologia-for-fondness-for-pound.html">Apologia for a Fondness for Pound (November 2012)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-appeal-of-new-york-times.html">The Appeal of the <i>New York Times</i>' "Metropolitan Diary" (June 2022)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/12/archives-of-first-majority-gallery.html">Archives of the First Majority Gallery (December 2018)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/04/are-uncle-toms-children-bound-by-history.html">Are Uncle Tom's Children Bound by History? (April 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/01/art-and-life-in-haight-ashbury.html">Art and Life in the Haight Ashbury (January 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-artist-as-demiurge-seligmann-on.html">The Artist as Demiurge: Seligmann on Space (December 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/12/voluptuous-ascetics-in-anatole-frances.html">Ascetic Voluptuaries in France's <i>Thais</i> (December 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/03/banjo.html">Banjo (March 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/07/buntings-ambiguous-ars-poetica.html">Basil Bunting's Ambiguous <i>Ars Poetica</i> (July 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-bohemian-poetry-of-ernest-hemingway.html">The Bohemian Poetry of Ernest Hemingway (July 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/02/negritude-is-movement-of-francophone.html">A Brief History of Negritude (February 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/11/burns-and-lovicks-vietnam.html">Burns' and Lovick's Vietnam (November 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/07/celebrities-of-performance-poetry.html">Celebrities of Performance Poetry (July 2018)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/02/funny-papers.html">Comics (February 2010)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/03/comic-strips-and-absurd.html">Comic Strips and the Absurd (March 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-comic-world-of-flip-frog.html" target="_blank">The Comic World of Flip the Frog (November 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/06/conrads-shadow-line.html">Conrad's Shadow-Line (June 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/01/critical-palimpsest-black-african.html">The Critical Palimpsest: Black African Literature through White American Eyes (January 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/04/dada-in-america.html">Dada in America (April 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/04/eisensteins-strike-and-problem-of.html">Eisenstein's <i>Strike</i> and the Problem of Realism (April 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/05/epiphanies-in-dubliners.html">Epiphanies in <i>Dubliners</i> (May 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/10/an-explication-of-stevens-primitive.html">An Explication of Stevens' "A Primitive like an Orb" (October 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/08/false-translations.html">False Translations (August 2016)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-fetish-of-primitive-in-twentieth.html">The Fetish of the Primitive in Twentieth Century Art (April 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-few-films.html">A Few Films (November 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/03/few-proletarian-writers.html">A Few Proletarian Writers (March 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/11/flash-reviews-of-thirty-african-novels.html">Flash Reviews of Thirty African Novels (November 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/05/flyin-with-muse-kirpal-gordons-eros-in.html">Flyin’ with the Muses: Kirpal Gordon’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Eros in Sanskrit</span> (May 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/11/hells-house.html">Hell's House (November 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-hip-aesthetic-of-invisible-circus.html">The Hip Aesthetic of the Invisible Circus (January 2024)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/11/john-brown-speaks-to-us.html" target="_blank">John Brown Speaks to Us [W. E. B. Du Bois] (November 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/kerouacs-redemptive-fault.html">Kerouac’s Weakness and Strength (January 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/11/kurt-seligmanns-moderate-surrealism.html">Kurt Seligmann's Moderate Surrealism (November 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/10/kurt-seligmann-and-poets.html">Kurt Seligmann and the Poets (October 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/03/kurt-seligmanns-riddlesome-symbols.html">Kurt Seligmann's Riddlesome Symbols (March 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-last-poets.html">The Last Poets (March 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-legacy-of-beats.html">The Legacy of the Beats (March 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/09/lola-ridge-as-agitprop-modernist_1.html">Lola Ridge as Agitprop Modernist (September 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-lyricism-of-ugly-celines-mort-credit.html">The Lyricism of the Ugly: Celine's Mort à Crédit (December 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-man-with-golden-arm-and-friend-with.html"><i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> and a Friend with Six Seeds (January 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/09/on-marinettis-avant-garde-fascism.html">On Marinetti's Avant-Garde Fascism (September 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/01/mike-jurkovics-mooncussers.html">Mike Jurkovic's <i>Mooncussers </i>(January 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/05/misunderstandings-of-travel-waugh-byron.html">Misunderstandings of Travel (May 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/03/norriss-visionary.html">Norris's Visionary (March 2018)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/09/not-quite-jackpot-erskine-caldwells.html">Not Quite a Jackpot: Erskine Caldwell's Short Stories (September 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/09/notes-on-buddhism-and-poetry.html">Notes on Buddhism and Poetry (September 2021)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/12/o-henrys-novel-novel.html">O. Henry's Novel Novel (December 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/02/onitsha-market-literature.html">Onitsha Market Literature (February 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/05/pig-and-possum-teach-poetry.html">Pig and Possum Teach Poetry (May 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-play-and-exhibit-in-city.html">A Play and an Exhibit in the City (May 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/09/poet-will-nixon-author-of-my-late.html">A Poem by Theodore Roethke (September 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/12/poetry-1968.html">Poetry 1968 (December 2018)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-power-of-picassos-sculpture.html">The Power of Picasso's Sculpture (November 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/04/in-pursuit-of-pearl-in-james-merrills.html">In Pursuit of the Pearl in James Merrill's First Poems (April 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/08/reading-john-ashbery-on-for-john-clare.html">Reading John Ashbery [On "For John Clare"] (August 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/07/remarks-on-grassroots-poetry-scene.html">Remarks on the Grassroots Poetry Scene (July 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/05/rilkes-dubious-advice-to-young-poet.html">Rilke's Dubious Advice to a Young Poet (May 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/04/sakis-novels.html">Saki's Novels (April 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/02/sartres-black-orpheus.html">Sartre's "Black Orpheus (February 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/03/situationism-remembered.html">Situationism Remembered (March 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/some-poetry-reviews.html">Some Poetry Reviews (December 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/07/sound-poetry-and-edith-sitwells-facade.html">Sound Poetry and Edith Sitwell's <i>Facade</i> (July 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/09/steven-hirschs-demon-commuter.html">Steven Hirsch's Demon Commuter (September 2023)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/11/tarkingtons-vulgarian-hero-plutocrat.html">Tarkington's Vulgarian Hero [<i>The Plutocrat</i>] (November 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/02/tristan-tzara-poet-of-manifestos.html">Tristan Tzara, Poet of Manifestos (February 2018)</a> <br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/05/two-graffiti.html">Two Graffiti (May 2011)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/02/two-versions-of-end-of-world.html">Two Versions of the End of the World (February 2024)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/05/very-funny-fellow-donald-lev.html">A Very Funny Fellow [Lev] (May 2012)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/09/visions-of-vorticism-wyndham-lewis-and.html">Visions of Vorticism: Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound (September 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/08/watching-birth-of-nation-today.html">Watching The Birth of a Nation Today (August 2020)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/06/whartons-undine.html">Wharton's Undine (June 2018)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/07/william-morriss-revolutionary-narratives.html">William Morris's Revolutionary Narratives (July 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/10/w-m-spackmans-fantasyland-of-fine-words.html">W. M. Spackman's Fantasyland of Fine Words (October 2021) </a><br /><br />C. Asian texts</div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-ankle-bracelet-ancient-tamil.html">The Ankle Bracelet: An Ancient Tamil Narrative (May 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/01/book-as-object-copy-of-taishang-ganying.html">Book as Object: A Copy of the <i>Taishang Ganying Pian </i>(January 2023)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-floating-world-of-ihara-saikaku.html">The Floating World of Ihara Saikaku (May 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/02/friendship-and-romance-in-ming-stories.html">Friendship and Romance in Ming Stories (February 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/12/han-shan.html">Han Shan (December 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-heart-of-hinduism.html">The Heart of Hinduism (September 2018)</a> <br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/12/journey-to-north.html">Journey to the North (December 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/10/liezi.html">Liezi (October 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/10/lu-xun.html">Lu Xun (October 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/01/monkey-rides-again.html">Monkey Rides Again (January 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-on-liu-xie.html">Notes on Liu Xie (August 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/08/shakuntala.html">Shakuntala (August 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-popularizer-of-chinese-culture-notes.html">Tang Stories (April 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-and-tone-in-kokoro.html">Theme and Tone In Kokoro (September 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-tibetan-novel.html">A Tibetan Novel (March 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-trials-of-lady-ochikubo.html">The Trials of Lady Ochikubo (April 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-view-from-ten-foot-square-hut.html">The View from a Ten-Foot-Square Hut [Chomei] (February 2018)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/10/wang-wei.html">Wang Wei (October 2021)<br /></a><br />D. songs</div><div><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="line-height: 17.12px; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-appeal-of-indeterminacy-in-corpus.html">The Appeal of Indeterminacy in the Corpus Christi Carol (December 2020</a>)</span><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/03/blind-lemon-jeffersons-anatomy-of.html">Blind Lemon Jefferson's Anatomy of Melancholy (March 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/05/blind-willie-johnson-preaches.html">Blind Willie Johnson Preaches (May 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/11/bukka-whites-limpid-lyric-clarity.html">Bukka White's Limpid Lyric Clarity (November 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-cutty-wren.html">The Cutty Wren (August 2018)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/04/derangements-of-love-in-two-early.html">Derangements of Love in Two Early French Folk Songs (April 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/10/down-dirt-road-blues.html">"Down the Dirt Road Blues" [Charley Patton] (October 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-elasticity-of-myth-in-la-llorona.html">The Elasticity of Myth in "La Llorona" (December 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/10/fishing-blues.html">Fishing Blues [Henry Thomas] (October 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/07/foggy-dew-as-symbol.html">Foggy Dew as Symbol (July 2012)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/02/harry-mcclintock-and-hobo-ethos.html">Harry McClintock and the Hobo Ethos (February 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-heart-of-blues.html">The Heart of the Blues [Robert Johnson] (January 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-imagery-of-blues-hokum-songs.html">The Imagery of Hokum Blues Songs (July 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/07/jelly-roll-mortons-murder-ballad.html">Jelly Roll Morton's "The Murder Ballad" (July 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/11/lady-maisry.html">"Lady Maisry" (November 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/05/moon-goin-down-charley-patton.html">"Moon Goin' Down" [Charley Patton] (May 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-mule-in-blues-imagery.html">The Mule in Blues Imagery (August 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/04/nottamun-town.html">"Nottamun Town" (April 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-paraklausithyron-blues.html">The Paraklausithyron Blues (May 2016)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-poetry-of-blues.html">The Poetry of the Blues (August 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/11/preachin-blues-son-house.html">"Preachin' the Blues" [Son House] (November 2018)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/10/red-hot-love-in-robert-johnson.html">Red Hot Love in Robert Johnson (October 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-red-rooster.html">"The Red Rooster" [Willie Dixon] (March 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/09/robert-johnson-and-devil.html">Robert Johnson and the Devil (September 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/05/skip-james-blues-imagery.html">Skip James' Blues Imagery (May 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/03/smokestack-lightning.html">Smokestack Lightning [Howlin' Wolf] (March 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/12/spoonful-and-accretion-of-meaning.html">“Spoonful” and the Accretion of Meaning (December 2012)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-subversive-wit-of-jerry-leiber.html">The Subversive Wit of Jerry Leiber (December 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-three-ravens.html">"The Three Ravens" (August 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/04/trinidadian-smut.html">Trinidadian Smut (April 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/11/truckin.html">Truckin' (November 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/09/this-is-meant-as-personal-and.html">The Verbal Dance of the Blues (September 2020) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/12/walkin-blues-son-house.html">“Walkin’ Blues” [Son House] (December 2011)</a><br /><br />E. Notes on Recent Reading<br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/09/notes-on-current-reading.html">Notes on Recent Reading [Melville, Greene, and Whalen] (September 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-notes-on-recent-reading.html">Notes on Recent Reading 2 [Crane, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Crowning of Louis</span>, Thornlyre] (October 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/11/notes-on-recent-reading-3-kipling-san.html">Notes on Recent Reading 3 [Kipling, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Lynn’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Tao-te-ching</span>] (November 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/01/notes-on-recent-reading-4.html">Notes on Recent Reading 4 [Sarah Scott, de La Fayette, Wharton] (January 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/01/notes-on-recent-reading-5-deeds-of-god.html">Notes on Recent Reading 5 [The Deeds of God in Rddhipur, Burney, Cooper] (January 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/02/notes-on-recent-reading-6-jewett.html">Notes on Recent Reading 6 [Jewett, Addison, Crabbe] (February 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/04/notes-on-recent-reading-7-nabokov.html">Notes on Recent Reading 7 [Nabokov, Austen, Grettis Saga] (April 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/05/rabelais-and-his-world-bakhtin-bakhtins.html">Notes on Recent Reading 8 [Bakhtin, Lewis, Brown] (May 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/06/notes-on-recent-reading-9-plutarch.html">Notes on Recent Reading 9 [Plutarch, Tacitus, Williams](June 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/07/notes-on-recent-reading-10-voltaire.html">Notes on Recent Reading 10 [Voltaire, France, Dryden](July 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/08/notes-on-recent-reading-11-wright.html">Notes on Recent Reading 11 [Wright, Kerouac & Burroughs, Gilbert] (August 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/09/notes-on-recent-reading-12-huxley.html">Notes on Recent Reading 12 [Huxley, Norris, Dōgen](September 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/11/notes-on-recent-reading-13-mirabai-wood.html">Notes on Recent Reading 13 [Mirabai, Wood, Trocchi] (November 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/01/notes-on-recent-reading-14-algren.html">Notes on Recent Reading 14 [Algren, Hauptmann, Rolle] (January 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/02/notes-on-recent-reading-15.html">Notes on Recent Reading 15 [Hemingway, Orwell, Gaskell]{February 2013}</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/04/notes-on-recent-reading-16-howells-ford.html">Notes on Recent Reading 16 [Howells, Ford, Mann] (April 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/07/notes-on-recent-reading-17-mccarthy.html">Notes on Recent Reading 17 [McCarthy, Chang, Snorri](July 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/10/notes-on-recent-reading-18-radcliffe.html">Notes on Recent Reading 18 [Radcliffe, Stendhal, Erasmus](October 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/02/notes-on-recent-reading-19-powers-zhang.html">Notes on Recent Reading 19 [Powers, Zhang Ji, Vietnamese folk song] (February 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/05/notes-on-recent-reading-20-rowe.html">Notes on Recent Reading 20 [Rowe, Stevenson, Issa] (May 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-norton-book-of-travel-edited-by.html">Notes on Recent Reading 21 [Fussell, Mahfouz, Watts] (August 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/10/notes-on-recent-reading-22-waugh-belloc.html">Notes on Recent Reading 22 [Waugh, Belloc, Okakura] (October 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/01/notes-on-recent-reading-23-naipaul.html">Notes on Recent Reading 23 [Naipaul, Dinesen, Spillane] (January 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/06/notes-on-recent-reading-24-fielding.html">Notes on Recent Reading 24 [Fielding; Izumo , Shōraku, and Senryū; Plath] (June 2015)<br /></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/07/notes-on-recent-reading-25-baskervill.html">Notes on Recent Reading 25 [Baskervill, Gissing, Capote] (July 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/11/notes-on-recent-reading-26-tuchman.html">Notes on Recent Reading 26 [Tuchman, Premchand, Cocteau] (November 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/01/notes-on-recent-reading-27-forster.html">Notes on Recent Reading 27 [Forster, Sackville-West, Capote] (January 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/03/notes-from-recent-reaading-verne-waley.html">Notes on Recent Reading 28 [Verne, Waley, Hurston] (March 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/10/notes-on-recent-reading-achebe-jewett.html">Notes on Recent Reading 29 [Achebe, Jewett, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam] (October 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/04/on-plymouth-plantation-bradford-though.html">Notes on Recent Reading 30 [Bradford, Scott, Marquand] (April 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/08/notes-on-recent-reading-31-marlowe.html">Notes on Recent Reading 31 [Marlowe, Trollope, p'Bitek] (August 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/10/notes-on-recent-reading-32-morrison.html">Notes on Recent Reading 32 [Morrison, Cary, Kawabata] (October 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/12/notes-on-recent-reading-33-tourneur.html">Notes on Recent Reading 33 [Tourneur, Peacock, Greene] (December 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/01/notes-on-recent-reading-34-hawthorne.html">Notes on Recent Reading 34 [Hawthorne, Huncke, Bentley] (January 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/08/notes-on-recent-reading-35-scott-norris.html">Notes on Recent Reading 35 [Scott, Norris, Jacobs] (August 2018)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/11/notes-on-rec-ent-reading-36-norris.html">Notes on Recent Reading 36 [Norris, Rexroth and Laughlin, Sand] (November 2018)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/01/notes-on-recent-reading-waley-wharton.html">Notes on Recent Reading 37 [Waley, Wharton, London] (January 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/06/notes-on-recent-readin-38-london.html">Notes on Recent Reading 38 [London, Vonnegut, Cather] (June 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/09/notes-on-recent-reading-39-aristophanes.html">Notes on Recent Reading 39 [Aristophanes, Machiavelli, Braddon] (September 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/01/notes-on-recent-reading-40-saunders.html">Notes on Recent Reading 40 [Saunders, Adichie, Radhakrishnan] (January 2020)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/07/notes-on-recent-reading-41-mccarthy.html">Notes on Recent Reading 41 [McCarthy, Priestley, Ehirim] (July 2020)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/09/notes-on-recent-reading-42-bulgakov.html">Notes on Recent Reading 42 [Bulgakov, Tedlock, Wlliams] (October 2020)</a> </div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/02/notes-on-recent-reading-43-bellamy-roy.html">Notes on Recent Reading 43 [Bellamy, Roy, Melville] (February 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/06/notes-on-recent-reading-43-bellamy-roy.html">Notes on Recent Reading 44 [Trollope, Eliot, Lee] (June 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/09/notes-on-recent-reading-45-williams.html">Notes on Recent Reading 45 [Williams, Muir, Waugh] (September 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/07/notes-on-recent-reading-46-kleist.html">Notes on Recent Reading 46 [Kleist, Didion, Soupault] (July 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/04/notes-on-recent-reading-47-colette.html">Notes on Recent Reading 47 [Colette, Alegria, Xenophon] (April 2023)</a></div><div><u><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/11/notes-on-recent-reading-48-huxley.html">Notes on Recent Reading 48 [Huxley, Cossery, de Maupassant] (November 2023)</a></u><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/07/notes-on-recent-reading-46-kleist.html"><span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></a><div><br /></div><div>F. Rereading the Classics<br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/11/rereading-classics-burton.html">Rereading the Classics [Burton] (November 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/08/rereading-classics-gogol.html">Rereading the Classics [Gogol] (August 2012) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/12/rereading-classics-goldsmith.html">Rereading the Classics [Goldsmith] (December 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/02/rereading-classics-kleist.html">Rereading the Classics [Kleist] (February 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/12/rereading-classics-montaigne.html">Rereading the Classics [Montaigne] (December 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/12/rereading-classics-rabelais.html">Rereading the Classics [Rabelais] (December 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/02/rereading-classics-rochester.html">Rereading the Classics [Rochester] (February 2019)</a><br /><br />G. Every Reader's Poets<br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/05/every-readers-blake.html">Every Reader's Blake (May 2017)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/05/every-readers-browning.html">Every Reader's Browning (May 2022)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/01/every-readers-byron.html" target="_blank">Every Reader's Byron (January 2021)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/03/every-readers-coleridge.html">Every Reader's Coleridge (March 2024)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/04/every-readers-donne.html">Every Reader's Donne (April 2018)</a> </div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/02/every-readers-dryden.html">Every Reader's Dryden (February 2023)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/08/every-readers-herbert.html">Every Reader's Herbert (August 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/12/everymans-herrick.html">Every Reader's Herrick (December 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/05/everymans-hopkins.html">Every Reader's Hopkins (May 2016)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/08/every-readers-keats.html">Every Reader's Keats (August 2020) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/01/every-readers-poets-milton.html">Every Reader's Milton (January 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/05/everymans-pope.html">Every Reader's Pope (May 2015)</a> <br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/11/everymans-shelley.html">Every Reader's Shelley (November 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/01/every-readers-sidney.html">Every Reader's Sidney (January 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/03/everymans-skelton.html">Every Reader's Skelton (March 2016)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/10/every-readers-tennyson.html">Every Reader's Tennyson (October 2023)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/10/every-readers-wordsworth.html">Every Reader's Wordsworth (October 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/12/everymans-wyatt.html">Every Reader's Wyatt (December 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/01/everymans-yeats.html">Every Reader's Yeats (January 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-read-poetry.html">Why Read Poetry? (May 2018)</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Translation </span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/01/alkaios-happy-hour.html">Alkaios' Happy Hour (January 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/10/bechers-someone-stands-up.html">Becher's "Someone Stands Up" (October 2012)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-belated-eroticism-of-agathias.html">The Belated Eroticim of Agathias Scholasticus (October 2020)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/10/catullus-currency-of-kisses-new.html">Catullus' Currency of Kisses (October 2023)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/nine-poems-from-greek-anthology.html">Christian and Dedicatory Epigrams from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Greek Anthology </span>(March 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/12/deaths-beauty-in-tyrtaios.html">Death's Beauty in Tyrtaios (December 2023)</a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/nine-poems-from-greek-anthology.html"><br /></a><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/05/der-von-kurenberg.html">Der von Kürenberg (May 2020) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/02/emmy-hennings.html">Emmy Hennings (February 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/11/emmy-hennings-more-translations.html">Emmy Hennings Poems (More from <span style="font-style: italic;">Die Letzte Freude</span>) (November 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/03/erotic-old-english-riddles.html">Erotic Old English Riddles (March 2018)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-few-stabs-at-li-bai.html">A Few Stabs at Li Bai (November 2021) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/01/four-poems-from-german-of-richard.html">Four Poems from the German of Richard Huelsenbeck (January 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2022/02/four-political-poems-by-heinrich-heine.html">Four Political Poems by Heinrich Heine (Februry 2022)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/01/four-quatrains-by-wang-wei-though-i.html">Four Quatrains by Wang Wei (January 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/04/translations-from-hans-arp.html">Hans Arp (April 2010)</a></div><div><a href="“Rückschau” and “Weltlauf”">Heine's “Rückschau” and “Weltlauf” (September 2023)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/02/homeric-hymn-to-dionysos.html">The Homeric Hymn to Dionysos (February 2012)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/07/horace-i21.html">Horace I.21 (July 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/07/two-poems-by-hugo-ball.html">Hugo Ball (July 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/08/homeric-hymn-to-aphrodite.html">Hymn to Aphrodite (August 2010) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/06/hymn-to-heracles-lion-hearted.html">Hymn to Heracles the Lion-Hearted (June 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/03/novalis-first-hymn-to-night.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn to the Night</span> [Novalis](March 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/07/hymn-to-night-ii-novalis.html"><i>Hymn to the Night</i> II [Novalis] (July 2012)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/10/kleists-poets-letter-to-another.html"></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/05/hymn-to-pan.html">Hymn to Pan (May 2014)</a><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/10/kleists-poets-letter-to-another.html">Kleist's "A Poet's Letter to Another" (October 2020)<br /></a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/12/kleists-anecdotes-and-fables.html">Kleist's Anecdotes and Fables (December 2021)</a></div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/06/kleists-zoroaster.html">Kleist's Zoroaster (June 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/05/leonidas-of-tarentum.html">Leonidas of Tarentum (May 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-mixed-bag-of-german-translations.html">A Mixed Bag of German Translations (August 2014)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-orphic-hymn-to-hekate.html">The Orphic Hymn to Hekate (July 2019)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/07/platonic-love.html">Platonic Love (July 2020)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/06/praxilla.html">Praxilla (June 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/03/rimbauds-lice-pickers.html">Rimbaud's "The Lice-Pickers" (March 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/09/rot-by-johannes-becher.html"></a><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/09/rot-by-johannes-becher.html">"Rot" by Johannes Becher (September 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/02/seven-poems-from-leon-gontran-damas.html">Seven Poems from Léon-Gontran Damas (February 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/08/some-anonymous-middle-high-german.html">Some Anonymous Middle High German Lyrics (August 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/11/three-horatian-odes.html">Three Horatian Odes (November 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/09/two-poems-by-william-ix-duke-of.html">Translations of William IX (September 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/03/two-poems-by-mellin-de-saint-gelais.html">Two Poems by Mellin de Saint Gelais (March 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/07/wordsworth-speaks-german.html">Wordsworth Speaks German (July 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/06/yet-two-more-versions-of-wang-wei.html">Yet Two More Versions of Wang Wei (June 2011)<br /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. Poetry </span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/08/nigerian-songs.html">African poems (August 2010) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/06/domestic-incidents-from-life-of-lama.html">Domestic Incidents from the Life of the Lama Swine Toil (June 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-be-poet.html">How to Be a Poet (June 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-liturgies-of-lama-swine-toil.html">The Liturgies of the Lama Swine Toil (September 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/09/poems-composed-in-mexico.html">Mexican poems (September 2010) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/07/three-glimpses-of-new-mexico.html">Poems from New Mexico (July 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/12/poems-from-planetary-motions.html">Poems from <i>Planetary Motions</i> (December 2020)</a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/06/cabinet-of-turkish-curiosities.html">Poems from Turkey (June 2010) </a></div><div><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/05/produce-basket.html">Produce poems (May 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-soap-opera-of-pair-who-forgot.html">The Soap Opera of the Pair Who Forgot Themselves, but only Temporarily (August 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/04/some-sonnets.html">Some Sonnets (April 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/08/three-poems-from-peru.html">Three Poems from Peru (August 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/01/two-lyrics-on-death-from-central.html">Two Lyrics on Death from Central America (January 2012)<br /></a><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/04/two-political-pieces.html">Two Political Pieces (April 2019) </a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/03/words-with-images.html">Words with Images (March 2019)</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8. Politics</span> <br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/08/black-lives-matter.html">Black Lives Matter (August 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/07/economic-democracy.html">Economic Democracy (July 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/06/fiftieth-anniversary-of-port-huron.html">The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Port Huron Statement (June 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/09/hard-rain-still-fallin-more-thoughts-on.html">Hard Rain Still Fallin’ (September 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-get-serious-about-fighting-crime.html">How to Get Serious about Fighting Crime (January 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/05/local-politics.html">Local Politics (May 2015)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/02/marxisms-limits.html">Marxism's Limits (February 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/10/in-memory-of-my-generations-peoples.html">In Memory of a Generation's People's Heroes (October 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/06/nationalism.html">Nationalism (June 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-wall-street.html">Occupy Wall Street (November 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/06/pestilential-times.html">Pestilential Times (June 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-defense-of-useless-higher-education.html">The Role of Higher Education (November 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-socialist-martin-luther-king.html">The Socialist Martin Luther King (February 2016)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/12/socialist-parties-of-united-states.html">Socialist Parties of the United States (December 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-revolution.html">The Triumph and Tragedy of Revolution (December 2016)</a> <br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/09/two-exemplary-anecdotes-from-sixties.html">Two Exemplary Anecdotes from the Sixties Student Movement (September 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/11/throughout-history-peoples-social.html">Utopia (November 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/10/voluntary-poverty.html">Voluntary Poverty (October 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-i-am-socialist.html">Why I am a Socialist (March 2010)</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9. Memoirs </span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/04/baby-boomer-reads-beats.html">Baby Boomer Reads the Beats (April 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-brief-literary-life.html">A Brief Literary Life (September 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/07/edouardo.html">Edouardo (July 2018)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/12/garland-of-greek-professors.html">A Garland of Greek Professors (December 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-glimpse-of-robert-bly.html">A Glimpse of Robert Bly (August 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/12/grandparents.html">Grandparents (December 2009)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/02/my-hats.html">My Hats (February 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/08/higbh-school.html">High School (August 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/hip-poets-of-seventies-san-francisco.html">Hip Poets of Seventies San Francisco (January 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-i-came-to-work-at-scott-foresman.html">How I Came to Work at Scott Foresman (July 2017)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-i-was-hired-to-teach-in-nigeria.html">How I Was Hired to Teach in Nigeria (May 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/04/iww.html">IWW (April 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/12/march-in-cicero.html">March in Cicero (December 2009)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-memorable-roomer.html">A Memorable Roomer (June 2014)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2021/08/menus.html">Menus (August 2021)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-most-politically-active-year.html">My Most Politically Active Year (February 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/03/nova-academy.html">Nova Academy (March 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/03/pestering-allen.html">Pestering Allen [Ginsberg] (March 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/09/poetry-on-loose.html">Poetry on the Loose (September 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-scholars-debut.html">A Scholar's Debut (October 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/08/sherman-paul.html">Sherman Paul (August 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/11/suburbanite-in-city.html">Suburbanite in the City (November 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/03/tim-west.html">Tim West (March 2013)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/10/vignettes-of-sixties.html">Vignettes of the Sixties (October 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/06/vista-trains-me.html">VISTA Trains Me (June 2011)<br /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">10. Travel </span><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2015/08/arrival-in-nigeria.html">Arrival in Nigeria (August 2015)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/05/acadiana.html">Acadiana [Lafayette, Louisiana] (May 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/12/an-armenian-family-in-bordeaux.html">An Armenian Family in Bordeaux (December 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/05/carnival-portugal.html">Carnival [Portugal] (May 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/10/cookie-man.html">Cookie Man [Morocco] (October 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/10/creel.html">Creel (October 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/05/dame-fortuna-in-portugal.html">Dame Fortuna in Portugal (May 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/04/dinner-with-mrs-pea.html">Dinner with Mrs. Pea [Thailand] (April 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/01/election-day-in-chichicastenango.html">Election Day in Chichicastenango (January 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/07/evening-in-urubamba.html">An Evening in Urubamba (July 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/07/favored-places.html">Favored Places (July 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/01/festival-in-ogwa.html">Festival in Ogwa [Nigeria](January 2011)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2020/04/fictional-destinations.html">Fictional Destinations (April 2020)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-ganges-shore.html">On the Ganges' Shore (August 2013)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-genial-parking-lot-attendant-costa.html">A Genial Parking Lot Attendant [Costa Rica] (January 2024)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-guru-of-guinness.html">The Guru of Guinness (July 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/07/coffeehouse-in-haarlem.html">Haarlem (July 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/09/hitchhiking-in-algeria.html">Hitchhiking in Algeria (September 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/01/hitchhiking-in-france.html">Hitchhiking in France (January 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/12/hungarian-food.html">Hungarian Food (December 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/06/introduction-to-rourist-snapshots.html">Introduction to Tourist Snapshots (June 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/12/jemaa-el-fna.html">Jemaa el Fna (December 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2014/02/knee-deep-in-history.html">Knee-deep in History [Vietnam, Cambodia] (February 2014)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/09/najibes-stories.html">Najibe’s Stories (September 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/03/nigerian-given-names-and-road-mantras.html">Nigerian Names and Vehicle Slogans (March 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/12/palm-wine-shack.html">A Palm Wine Shack [Nigeria] (December 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/10/pictures-from-floating-world-anonymous.html">Portraits from a Floating World: Anonymous (October 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/02/two-pictures-from-floating-world.html">Portraits from a Floating World: Najibe and Sandro (February 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/06/two-more-portraits-from-floating-world.html">Portraits from a Floating World: Gahlia and Jack (June 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-portraits-from-floating-world.html">Portraits from a Floating World: Leslie Spector and Pa’ahssyzy (August 2010)</a></div><div><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2023/01/portraits-from-floating-world-passage.html">Portraits from a Floating World: A Passage from Africa to Europe (January 2023)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/06/problem-on-border.html">A Problem on the Border [Algeria] (June 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2009/11/reading-in-kathmandu.html">A Reading in Kathmandu (November 2009) </a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/02/sacred-space-as-sideshow.html">Sacred Space as Sideshow [Prague] (February 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/04/st-josephs-day-at-laguna-pueblo.html">St. Joseph’s Day at the Laguna Pueblo (April 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-stroll-around-lake-bled.html">A Stroll around Lake Bled (May 2013)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/10/strong-stuff-marrakech.html">Strong Stuff [Marrakech] (October 2012)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/11/tetouan.html">Tetouan (November 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2012/04/theory-of-souvenirs.html">The Theory of Souvenirs (April 2012)</a><br /><a href="https://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2019/01/travel-pictures.html">Travel Pictures (January 2019)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-trip-to-india.html">A Trip to India (January 2016)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/08/two-parades.html">Two Parades [India and Peru] (August 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2010/03/valley-of-beautiful-women.html">The Valley of Beautiful Women [Eger, Hungary] (March 2010)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/03/vignettes-of-sunny-nigeria.html">Vignettes of Sunny Nigeria (March 2011)</a><br /><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2011/02/we-left-market-at-ourika-driving-on.html">A Waterfall near Marrakech (February 2011)</a></div></div></div></div>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-27694053671421325592024-03-01T04:14:00.000-08:002024-03-01T04:14:09.121-08:00Every Reader's Coleridge <p> <b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> This is the eighteenth in a series of essays meant to introduce (or re-introduce) non-scholarly readers to the work of important poets. Consult the Index for the current month under Blog Archive on the right. An introduction called “Why Read Poetry?” is available at </b><a href="http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-read-poetry.html" style="color: #5588aa; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-read-poetry.html</b></a><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">. </b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> In this series I limit my focus to the discussion, often including a close paraphrase, of only three or four of each writer’s best-known works while providing a bit of context and biography, eschewing most byways and all footnotes. </b><b>The poems discussed are all readily available on the internet. </b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p> Samuel Taylor Coleridge is known to most readers through a few poems so widely anthologized and reprinted in textbooks that students often encounter them in classrooms. Then, too, he has a reputation both as a poetic innovator, the founder with Wordsworth of the theory and practice of English Romanticism, and as a drug addict. <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>, the ground-breaking book that proclaimed the new style in 1798 included poems by both writers. In the introduction Wordsworth, the nature poet who was said by his friend De Quincey to be addicted not to drugs or alcohol but to hiking, declared his aim “to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature.” They agreed that Coleridge would adopt the complementary technique: to write about the supernatural “yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief [the first use of this term] for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” Wordsworth meant to defamiliarize commonplace experience by seeing deeply into it, while Coleridge would indicate the symbolic relevance of the exotic and extraordinary.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Times may have changed, but in my day at least, it was all but impossible to avoid getting “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” in school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its emphatic, if somewhat muddy, moral theme and its archaizing trappings (including the spelling of the title and the marginal notes) made it popular among pedagogues and its narrative ballad-like stanzas seemed more approachable than odes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folksong, which had been dismissed as sub-literary, was embraced by the Romantics such as Bishop Percy and Robert Burns in Britain and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano in Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The form particularly suited Coleridge’s project because the supernatural often plays a role in English ballads, though his own story is recognizably in the "gathic" style of the late eighteenth century and has little in common with the Middle Ages. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This passage includes perhaps the poem’s most well-known lines (“Water, water, every where,/ Nor any drop to drink”) before indulging in horror movie scares in which “slimy things” dance about in lurid special effects.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Day after day, day after day,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">We stuck, nor breath nor motion;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">As idle as a painted ship<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Upon a painted ocean.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Water, water, every where,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">And all the boards did shrink;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Water, water, every where,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Nor any drop to drink.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The very deep did rot: O Christ!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">That ever this should be!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Upon the slimy sea.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">About, about, in reel and rout<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The death-fires danced at night;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The water, like a witch's oils,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Burnt green, and blue and white. (115-130)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The poem invokes a kind of Calvinist divine judgement in which the mariner is punished for his violence against the albatross, though, of course, the crew also perishes in collateral damage, while the protagonist goes on to work out his cursed destiny rather like the Wandering Jew. The moral, when it arrives, seems facile:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">He prayeth best, who loveth best<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">All things both great and small;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">For the dear God who loveth us,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">He made and loveth all.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(614-617)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A careful reader is likely to find this an inadequate theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely the story suggests not only a deep love for the entire creation, hence pacifism and vegetarianism and true Christian nonresistance, but also the unknown impact of casual choices, a sort of tragic fate or ἀνάγκη..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the mariner shoots the albatross, no motive is given.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The act is as gratuitous as Meursault’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>killing in <i>The Stranger</i>, yet, once done, it determines his entire destiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is as much of the absurd as there is of retributive justice in the story.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact the supernatural element, not the theme, is the heart of the poem’s appeal. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “special effects” quoted above are expanded to cover a prolonged agony in which the crews’ souls go whizzing by as they die one by one, apparently having become mere aspects of the mariner’s punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The image reminds me of the skeleton sent over the heads of his audiences for showings of <i>House on Haunted Hill</i> [1959]).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in spite of the mariner’s repentance, he must ever wander on, cautioning others to have compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very like William Castle’s modern horror movie, the creepy and mysterious thrills are the principal point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The supernatural is replaced by the fabulous and exotic in “Kubla Khan,” all the more fascinating when the author notes that its origin was “a sort of Reverie brought on, by two grains of Opium.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here Kubla Khan’s “pleasure-dome” is not just a luxury resort with its gardens and “many an incense-bearing tree”; it is at the same time “a savage place,” “haunted” and “filled with wails,” where tumultuous movements of the earth occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He hears then the melody of the “Abyssinian maid” whose song, if he could but remember, would allow him to “build that dome in air,/ That sunny dome! those caves of ice!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the music is not purely pleasurable; the sublime insights of art are menacing as well, even those from the most profound source. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fruits of divine inspiration here seem dangerous, wrought about with magical protective ritual (“Weave a circle round him thrice”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, just as in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” the primary significance is not in theme at all, but rather in the creation of a tone, a mood of dramatic portent, and the writer’s providing a strange and marvelous setting, a second-hand account of an obscure passage brought to life in a drug dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “person from Porlock” who interrupts his reverie is in fact oneself, the reader, for whom the poem was set down, the spectator who may experience the weird at second-hand. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, the poem’s primary appeal is like that of science fiction or fantasy, the appeal of the strange.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though “Dejection: An Ode” deals with the natural phenomenon of depression, it associates the author’s low spirits with storms and opens with an archaizing, folk prognostication of impending severe weather from a stanza of an old ballad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his earlier poem “The Eolian Harp” (1796) the device (a passive musical instrument like wind chimes) had produced “a soft floating witchery of sound” which suggested. to him a magnificent song of the whole creation “Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,/ At once the Soul of each, and God of all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here, however, the strains of the harp “better far were mute,” since, like the ominous moon, they presage disaster and thus “better far were mute.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem proceeds to specify the sensations of a mind sunk in depression with vivid imagery.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> <span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></o:p>A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> In word, or sigh, or tear— (21-24)<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> My genial spirits fail;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> And what can these avail<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"> (39-41)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>Coleridge is very much the modern neurotic, a member of the “poor loveless ever-anxious crowd.” (52) Though he gazes at nature, it is with “how blank an eye” (30) and his mood is unrelieved. He can only “see, not feel” (38) the charms of the creation. He come then to realize that he “may not hope from outward forms to win/ The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.” (45-46) The appreciation of the world is a reciprocal affair, “we receive but what we give,” (47) In the end</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">from the soul itself must issue forth<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enveloping the Earth—<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(53-55)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To regain access to the divine “Joy” love provides a route.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,/<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> This beautiful and beauty-making power” (62-63) arrives with a spiritual “wedding” (68).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We in ourselves rejoice!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All melodies the echoes of that voice,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">All colours a suffusion from that light.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(72-75)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>The poet finds refuge in love from the “viper thoughts, that coil around my mind/ Reality's dark dream!” (94-5), though these may arise from real conditions, the “groans” of “trampled men, with smarting wounds” that suffer “pain, and shudder with the cold.” (112-113) He is thus able to conclude with a victorious wish for the high spirits of his beloved; in the warmth of human love he finds melancholy’s remedy.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With light heart may she rise,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">To her may all things live, from pole to pole,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Their life the eddying of her living soul!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O simple spirit, guided from above,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(132-139)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This conclusion in felicity is often lacking in Coleridge, a man of decidedly depressive tendencies who served an addiction for much if his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His somber and intellectual vision is not to everyone’s taste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet Coleridge contributed to the modern style by his objections to neo-Classicism including his insistence that poetry should not stray too far from the ordinary spoken language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His fondness for the both the quaint and the tumultuous have aged less well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of his work is too philosophical for many sensibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hostile critic once accused him of over-emotionalism, labeling him a member of "the School of whining and hypochondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes," but his poetic descendants have been only more self-interested and neurotic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the reader may make of his poetry, Coleridge is undeniably a substantial critic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though philosophers may differ on his significance in the history of ideas, in literature his <i>Lectures on Shakespeare</i>, <i>Biographica Literaria</i>, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>other criticism offer many influential ideas, not least the concept of the "willing suspension of disbelief" and the distinction between "imagination" and "fancy."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His adaptation of Schelling’s notion of <i>Ineinsbildung</i> for which he devised the ungainly term "esemplastic power" exemplifies at once the somewhat opaque vulnerability of his ratiocination and its accurate reflection of the poetic mind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Coleridge is quite certain to be read in the future for his role in literary history, he is surely no less certain to impress new readers every year, even some who encounter him in classrooms, with his fondness for the strange fey quality he found provided<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bit of the sublime, and for his pronounced rhythms that render his work always cadenced even when irregular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The curious may visit Coleridge’s grave in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St. Michael’s Church in London to read the poet’s epitaph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The verses are at first glance entirely conventional with the request for passers-by to pray for the departed and the author’s own hopes for salvation.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">A poet lies, or that which once seemed he.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.;<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">That he who many a year with toil of breath<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Found death in life, may here find life in death!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">He asked, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, the reader is likely to be struck by the fact that Coleridge has here adopted the role of the Ancient Mariner, accosting others to awake them to truths more easily avoided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here the equivalent of the Mariner’s curse is life-long depression (“death in life”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He expresses also a radical skepticism over his career and even his identity (“or that which once seemed he”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The close inquirer will observe that the initials in the fourth line are not used solely for the convenient rhyme they allow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The three English letters sound very much like the Greek word ἐστηση, “he has stood” and the same sounds echo repeatedly throughout the verses beginning with the first line (“Stop, Christian” and “Stop, child”) and continuing to the end ( “through Christ . . .same”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The given name and the proximity to death suggest the book of Samuel in which David says (as part of the affecting story of his relationship with Jonathan) “there is but a step between me and death” (1 Samuel 20:3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later David laments his beloved friend, saying “How are the mighty fallen!” (II Samuel 1, 23-27).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David’s grief is ameliorated, however, by his Biblical confidence in the order of things, a certainty Coleridge may have desired, but never attained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so the poet elaborated his simple expression of desire, not so much for everlasting life as for a purchase on a certain truth, with elaborate flights of thought, sound patterns, word-play, and allusion, as though with art he could lift himself into the sublime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his weaknesses perhaps even more than in his strengths Coleridge was a harbinger of our belated age.</p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-30865793131391239052024-03-01T04:08:00.000-08:002024-03-01T04:08:14.153-08:00Art as Play <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dramatic
performance is aptly called a play, though a sonnet or a sonata might deserve
the name no less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All art is a form of
play, though not all play is art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
goat kids tussle and cats knock a ball around, they are playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their end is amusement, just as opera-goers
and sonnet-readers are pleasantly passing the time, though art aficionados
might call what they are seeking beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All are enjoying recreation in a diversion from the pursuit of practical
goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dog slavering while pursuing
a stick and the gallery visitor cocking a discerning eye have a good deal in
common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play might be
defined as activity done for its own sake without any function other than the
satisfaction arising from the act itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Throughout the centuries those defending the arts from moralists who
regarded aesthetic pursuits as frivolous or hedonistic have maintained that
exposure to aesthetic objects makes the consumer more noble and more moral,
but, should it ever happen, this effect is incidental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same is true of more modest claims that
art increases sympathy or sensitivity, or, indeed, that its study benefits
general intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it is true
that art encodes and transmits cultural values and spiritual convictions, this
function, too, is nonessential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pleasure
is the chief and essential end of art, though critics yet today, in an odd
vestige of moralism, shrink from admitting it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This week’s <i>New
York Times</i> Opinion section, for instance, includes the promise that the
study of art will “improve your taste, your judgements, your conduct.” [1] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The notion that culture will sharpen both
cognitive and moral discernment, while broad and unqualified, seems modest when
juxtaposed to the article’s extravagant title “How to Save a Sad, Lonely, Angry
and Mean Society,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such claims are
likely to be in part defensive, reacting to today’s educational stress on
science and devaluation of humanities.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For centuries of
European criticism had accepted a compromise in the authoritative formula
“delight and instruct,” with the second term justifying and diluting the
first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet recognition of people’s
fondness for symbolic<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>representation
goes back to Aristotle who recognized this distinctive human taste, saying
“from childhood to imitate is inborn in people and in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this they differ from other animals,” since
“by nature we have an instinct for representation.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contemplation of such symbols or representations
or “imitations” in Aristotle’s term, brings us “pleasure.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[2]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in
the <i>Politics</i> Aristotle is quite clear about the uselessness of art,
saying that the young must not be taught skills that are merely functional (he
uses the term χρήσιμος, useful or serviceable), as his activities should not be
corrupted by what is “not free” (ἀνελεύθερος),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is, of course the basis for the value long placed on the “liberal
arts,” those of free men, unbound by compulsion, wages, or practical ends.
[3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sort of disinterested pastime is
a self-justifying activity, the highest human occupation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the ancients this noble purposelessness
characterized not art alone, but all intellectual activities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Schiller more
than two millennia later human beings are motivated by both a constantly
mutating sensuous drive (<i>sinnliche Trieb</i>) arising from physical stimuli
and an unchanging structural drive (<i>Formtrieb</i>) which, like mathematics,
leads toward the rational. [4]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him
the dialectic of these opposing tendencies is resolved through the play drive (<i>der
Spieltrieb</i>), which mediates between the world of phenomena and that of
ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sensuous
drive excludes all independent activity and freedom from its subject, the
passive receiver of sense data, while the structural drive, situated in the
conceptual realm, excludes all dependence and all pain from its purely formal
values. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The exclusion of freedom reflects
a physical reality, while the exclusion of suffering is a spiritual inspiration.
Both drives therefore involve the mind, the one through natural laws, the other
through cognitive operations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
play instinct both work together, and, when one is led both by inclination and
by reason to love another individual (or, likewise, an <i>objet d’art</i>) the
synthesis generates a playful attachment in which coercion has no part.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Building on these
conclusions in the twentieth century Johan Huizinga in his <i>Homo Ludens</i>
derives art from play while accepting the biological origins of a play instinct
in “the habitual tendency of every living creature to leap; and the human
creature, by acquiring, as we said, a sense of rhythm, generated and brought
forth dancing ; and since the rhythm is suggested and awakened by the tune, the
union of these.” For Huizinga “rhythm and harmony,” surely mathematical
elements Schiller would have considered “formal,” are “invariably accompanied
by pleasure.” (263) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He usefully
defines the nature of play, listing five distinguishing characteristics.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Play is free, it is in fact freedom.” (8)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Play is separated from the rest of experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a wholly voluntary activity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Play is isolated from other activities both in duration and location.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Play “creates order; it <i>is</i> order.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is invested with the noblest qualities we
are capable of perceiving in things: rhythm and harmony.” (10) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All play has its rules.” (11)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Play is connected with no functional end whatsoever beyond
recreation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It interrupts the
appetitive process.” (9)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this basis he
concludes that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poetry “is born in and as
play – sacred play, no doubt, but always, even in its sanctity, verging on gay
abandon, mirth and jollity.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(122)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He proceeds to provide anthropological data
to support the conclusion that myth, art, and religion are all founded in
play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While “Poiesis is, in fact, a
play function,” (119), he notes that poetry sometimes rises to the level of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“ideation and judgment,” but “music never
leaves the play sphere.” (158)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the
similarity is profound, distinctions remain between the frisking lamb and the
balletomane, the Superbowl fan and the cinemaphile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All may be said to be playing, but only the
film and dance aficionados are engaged with art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unique aspect of art is that its play
involves manipulating symbols and patterns rather than objects or other
creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this way art is
distinguished from such human activities with no end other than pleasure, such
as travel, gourmet dining, and certain sexual encounters, each of which depends
on stimuli more substantial than the play of images and ideas in the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In most music and much dance and abstract
painting the gap is even greater, as the formal design of the work dominates
while reference to the world of lived reality is absent or slight.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, whereas
in play one amuses oneself and only possibly fellow players or perhaps a
bemused parent, art is typically made by one individual (in a process that may
or may not be subjectively pleasant) and then consumed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Play is open-ended while art aims at a coherent unified object, finished
in some sense and an artifact thereafter whereas non-aesthetic play is
generally forgotten after it is enacted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Finally, the rules for art are remade with every work, while those of
chess or a game of catch are unchanging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Art, then, is a
recreational amusement, a way to pass the time while waiting to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its primary end is always pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this a play by Sophocles and the “playing”
of a violin resemble the “play” of bridge players or that of
frisking kids in a meadow of sweet grass. The painter may wish to make money
and the gallery goer may consider his purchase an investment, but art is in its
essence free of motive outside itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is born of
the exhilarating exercise of the human expertise at the manipulation of symbols
when done for its own sake, or rather purely for fun and, with the more sublime
works, perhaps some moments of that satisfying (if mysterious) sort of fun experienced as mental
equipoise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Artists build
symbolic structures in the chambers of the imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond giving pleasure the works they create
can, though their beauty and their order, serve as a “supreme fiction” (in
Stevens’ term) redeeming a world known imperfectly, in fragments, and too often
laden with suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Art may realize
that grand ambition or it may simply serve as diversion (doubtless itself a
useful goal).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a dark theater members
of the audience amuse themselves with the play of entering another
consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an easy chair one
reads a sonnet of Shakespeare and enjoys playing that, one day someone may
spoken such lines direct from the heart, though the reader knows it is all
make-believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The universality of both
play and the entire spectrum of art – poetry, drama, music, sculpture, dance,
and painting – throughout the world and in all ages, among hunter-gatherers and
among urbanites, demonstrates the critical value of such activities in making
human life livable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David Brooks, “How
to Save a Sad, Lonely, Angry and Mean Society,” <i>New York Times</i> January
28, 2024.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note the.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brooks, a Yale professor but not a literary
scholar, would have agreed for the most part with James Seaton’s <i>Literary
Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism</i> (2016), the most compelling
exposition of the humanistic value of literature in recent years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Poetics</i>
1448b μιμεῖσθαι σύμφυτον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ἐκ παίδων<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ἐστὶ καὶ τούτῳ διαφέρουσι τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων and
“κατὰ φύσιν δὲ ὄντος ἡμῖν τοῦ μιμεῖσθαι.” The word for pleasure, which appears
in this passage in several forms, is “ἡδύς.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Politics</i>
1337b.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note also the origin of school in
σχολή, meaning “leisure” or “that in which leisure is employed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such men could, of course, attain freedom
only by depending on slaves to perform the labor to support them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4. Friedrich Schiller, <i>Über die ästhetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen</i> (<i>On the Aesthetic Education of Man</i>),
letters twelve through Fourteen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
quoted lines are in letter fourteen. <o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-88925973366133773482024-03-01T03:48:00.000-08:002024-03-01T03:51:36.793-08:00The Golden Age of Paperbacks<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely the
nineteen-fifties, when I was setting out with the ambition of reading
everything, was the golden age of paperback books, when most of the world’s
classics were available for pocket change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first books I acquired,
toward the latter end of elementary school, were all in soft covers: Walt
Kelly’s Pogo collections, <i>The Pocket Trashery of Ogden Nashery</i>, <i>Subways
are for Sleeping </i>which appealed to my taste for eccentricity, as did <i>Auntie
Mame</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved Čapek’s <i>War with
the Newts </i>long before I knew who the author was, and read <i>On the Beach </i>before
seeing Stanley Kramer’s movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a
devotee of Judith Merrill’s annual collections of well-written science
fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By sixth grade my shelf held
Hendrik Willem van Loon’s <i>History of Mankind</i>, an exemplary book for children
which offers distinctive style, amusing drawings, and (in memory at least) no
condescension whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fledgling
literary interests were emerging, and I read and reread my volume of Poe’s
stories and poems, or a little collection of American short stories, or one of
the Untermeyer poetry anthologies -- <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>each of these sold for 25 or 35 cents. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had been entranced by my parent’s purchase
of the <i>Life</i> book of <i>The World’s Great Religions</i> and considered my
Mentor copy of <i>The Way of Life: Lao Tzu</i> translated by R. B. Blakney a
revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Its rhythms run still in my
mind, doubtless to my benefit.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when I became
somewhat older and able to go to Chicago by myself, my middle-class parents,
though frugal about nearly everything else, let me buy paperbacks freely in the
interest of education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could indulge
myself with reckless intemperance and my paperback library mushroomed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I would visit the Loop over sixty years
ago, I had several regular routes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
of them culminated in a visit to “the world’s largest bookstore,” Kroch’s and
Brentano’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I would not go there
directly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First I would stop by the Rose
Discount Record store on South Wabash to pick up classical sides and then proceed
a few blocks further south to Seymour’s Record store<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where Seymour Schwartz sold jazz and blues
from a decidedly unglamorous (and thereby hip) shop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had heaps of old 78s in the back for maybe
25 cents each.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would then stop by a
few favorite dusty old used bookshops and, I confess, toward the end, I would also
patronize also the Iwan Ries tobacconist (conveniently on Wabash as well) to
pick up a pack of smokes from some exotic and thus sophisticated country,
transforming me instantly from a callow youth to a cosmopolite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the tobacco was foolish, in the books
lay the very foundations of my education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Through my teen-age years I was never without a pile of paperbacks on
the floor by the head of the WWII army surplus cot on which I slept. (The stack
persists all these years later, though now, as I share my bed, it rests on the
table by the parlor sofa.).</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Most had been purchased at the climactic stop on my urban excursion when I entered the precincts of Kroch's, also on Wabash.<span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span>It was there that I spent by far the largest
sums I spent anywhere in those days (modest as they were). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the
exception of a few volumes in German, I never bought books on the main
floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Passing the carefully curated
record selection at the top of the stairs, mainly folk music and blues but offering
the old Caedmon spoken word albums as well, I would head down to the basement
where the paperbacks were kept, arranged in shelves by publisher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a glorious
new-found-land it was in which every region offered substantial rewards. From every side authors beckoned: Dante, Camus, Ben Jonson, Lady Murasaki, among hundreds of other worthies, a magnificent company!<span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span>To this day I recall in which corner I would
find the austere Penguins without cover art featuring reliable translations from
a variety of languages, the cheap little Mentors and often rather ugly Signets
for the general run of classics, the Doubleday Anchor books with their
marvelous designs by the likes of Edward Gorey and Leo Lionni, the larger
format grey-jacketed Scribner’s books for Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the
wondrous old reprints in hardy well-bound Dover editions (including many of Max
M<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ü</span>ller’s
Sacred Books of the East), the New Directions with their black and white covers
and avant-garde edge, even the Catholic Image books for Aquinas and Cardinal
Newman.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bookstore staff
seemed mostly composed of young men, perhaps working a while between
undergraduate and graduate school or else ABDs too educated to find any other
employment. At any rate, they seemed very knowledgeable about the arts, and
were rather intriguing to an adolescent shopper from the suburbs, still living
with his parents. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had
opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recall when my brother
bought a copy of <i>Naked Lunch</i> against the advice of the clerk, who told
him, “Don’t waste your money. For ten minutes you’ll be shocked, but it’ll be
nothing but boredom after that.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was surely due
to the influence of these young workers that Kroch’s had a decent selection of
small press books, not just City Lights, but Piet Hein’s <i>Grooks</i> and <i>Botteghe
Oscura</i>, and many more obscure titles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For years it seems they were trying to move the plain black copies of
Norman Mailer’s <i>Deaths for the Ladies</i>, which, though I was an
enthusiastic admirer of the author, struck me as aggressively off-hand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may have lived
in an insular little <i>haut bourgeois</i> suburb, but here was an entrance to
a far greater realm, providing access to people of all times and places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could be more exhilarating than to read
one’s way through the world’s greatest texts for the first time? I was quite
serious, making systematic surveys or movement and periods, noting marginal comments,
sometimes in German once I started learning the language. My granddaughter hears
such things and affectionately says, “You were such a nerd,” but to me it was the
epitome of cool. I wanted to read everything, though, of course, I had my
favorites.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Donald Allen’s <i>The
New American Poetry 1945-1960 </i>was a revelation and a delight. I wrote to
many of the small presses listed in the back to obtain books Kroch’s didn’t
offer. During high school I ostentatiously carried the book around — I
did the same with Spenser’s <i>The Faerie Queene</i> because I had read that he
was “a poet’s poet” — and got my reward when some prankster put chewing gum in my
anthology when I was away from my seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I became a missionary for Gary Snyder’s <i>Cold Mountain Poems</i>,
translations of Han Shan, which I photocopied and gave to friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from the Beats I tried to keep up with contemporary poetry, picking up paperbound
volumes of Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, Richard Wilbur, John Berryman, and
John Ashbery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fat Mentor
editions I worked my way through the turgid Russians – Dostoyevsky’s <i>The
Idiot</i> and Tolstoy’s <i>Anna Karenina</i>, though I preferred Gogol’s <i>Evenings
Near the Village of Dikanka</i> published by political refugee Frederick Ungar
whose company was strong in German translations (I had Lessing’s <i>Nathan the
Wise</i> and Goethe’s <i>Werther</i> from them) but also included such odd
works as Gladkov’s socialist realist novel with the dramatically uncompromising
title of <i>Cement</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kleist’s stories
fascinated me with their precise exacting weirdness in a Signet book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read Ovid’s <i>Metamorphoses</i> from
Collier translated by Sir John Harington, the Elizabethan inventor of the water
closet, and it never occurred to me to wonder how such a book could possibly be
issued in a popular edition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
Washington Square Press copy of Shakespeare’s <i>Sonnets, Songs, and Poems</i>
is dated 1960, cost thirty-five cents, and is yet today in serviceable
condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I very nearly wore out my
Muse’s Library edition of Thomas Wyatt’s poems while the Everyman’s paperback
of <i>Silver Poets of the Sixteenth Century</i> added Surrey, Ralegh, and Davies.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had, of course, <i>Howl</i> and <i>Kaddish</i>
(as well as Ferlinghetti, Corso, and Jack Hirschman’s <i>Artaud Anthology</i>)
from City Lights, while among my New Directions volumes from my high school
days were a half shelf of Henry Miller, Pound’s <i>Selected Poems</i>,
Williams’ <i>Paterson</i> and <i>Pictures from Breughel</i>, and novels by
Louis Fernand C<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, of
course, I had Evergreens from Grove Press<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just reread Melville’s
<i>The Confidence Man</i> (their first title), Lorca, Beckett, Aphra Behn and
Crashaw as well as essays by D. T. Suzuki.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I set out from home for university, I brought my Modern Library
College edition paperback of Plato as a talisman.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the golden age
I am celebrating has passed, the change may be due less to changes in the
publishing industry than to a decay in the public’s taste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my youth not only the professoriate but
people in general (especially, but not exclusively, those with some bit of
education), recognized the value of the liberal arts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To many it was obvious that to glimpse the
world through Plato’s eyes, even briefly, must surely broaden and enrich even a
banker’s view of the present day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor
was this belief entirely a class attitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Little Blue Books (an essay on the Blue Book phenomenon will soon be
posted to this site) indicate that the American autodidact, exemplified by
figures from Benjamin Franklin through Jack London and Malcom X, was a
sociological fact in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties when workingmen might read
Shelley’s poems or Will Durant on Aristotle in little booklets costing a nickel
or a dime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile in the United
Kingdom Penguin began selling quality books for two and a half (old) pence,
advertised as “the price of ten cigarettes.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During World War
II when the American government printed over a hundred million Armed Services
Edition books to distribute to troops, a project headed by former Pocket Books
executive Philip Van Doren Stern, the titles included bestsellers like <i>Anthony
Adverse</i> and the Hornblower novels, but Shelley, Poe, Conrad, Maugham,
Faulkner, and Fitzgerald as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the
nineteen-fifties there were plenty of trashy exploitation titles like those
from Gold Medal on the racks in bus stations and drugstores, the descendants of the pulp magazine of the
‘thirties, but they were often accompanied by a few classier titles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Sometimes a French classic, Zola, say, or D.
H. Lawrence, received a cover as though it were a potboiler, resulting,
perhaps, in a mix of disappointed and delighted purchasers.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What has become
of these books, at once so good and so cheap?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Agatha Christie’s <i>The Murder of Roger Ackroyd</i>, one of the first Pocket
Books in the, now sells for over thirty times its ‘fifties price, and inflation
accounts for only a third of the increase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wilder’s <i>The Bridge at San Luis Rey</i>, which had been a good seller
in its Pocket Book form is presently available in editions costing between
thirty and sixty times that price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
price growth reflects the fact that these books are today bought almost
entirely by students to whom they are a classroom assignment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The casual purchaser has all but vanished;
very little remains of what had been a cherished common cultural patrimony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The allusions of filmmakers, poets, and
composers alike are lost to those unfamiliar with the artists’
predecessors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fancy that
there was then a lesser gap between low and high art, that the two could rub
shoulders in the marketplace, but the mass base for the
classics, such as it ever was, has largely evanesced as even most university
students, even the cleverer ones, choose to focus solely on vocational training
rather than the general intellectual practice – absorbing information,
analyzing it, and generating new ideas – that provided the center of the old
curriculum in which literature was essential and central. The change has affected more than just reading.<span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"> </span></span>A glance over a symphony audience will show a
sea of white hair, and the classical percentage of recorded music sales has
been declining for decades (as has the share of jazz).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even theater attracts elders for the most
part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was once a shared body of
cultural information has become a territory visited primarily by specialist
academics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The younger
generations has not, however, abandoned art by any means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They listen to hours of mostly digitalized
music, watch great amounts of television and a good number of movies and never
feel as though confining themselves to popular forms is any constriction at
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Critics will discuss a new pop
album or Netflix series, on NPR and PBS, mind you, as though the potential of
art had any scope in such productions, virtually none of which have proven
other than forgettable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The decline of
the paperback, which played an important role in the democratization of
learning, inevitably accompanies the abandonment of the liberal arts. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he founded
Penguin in 1935 Sir Allen Lane declared that he “believed in the existence of a
vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything
on it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His intuition proved true (and
profitable) both in the United Kingdom and the United States, but decades, now,
of devotion to iPhones and iPads, to Roku and Hulu, Spotify and Apple Music,
has eroded that market to insignificance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People today can be educated through the graduate level while never
acquiring cultural literacy and never, indeed, missing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I rue the end
of such cheap books of the very highest quality, still that loss is trivial
compared to the loss of the readership that once welcomed those old paperbacks
and with them came to take possession of their own literature, including poetry
so beautiful as to make the reader weak in the knees, drama so sublime as to
refresh the soul, and stories truer than the truth of everyday lived
reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who settle for an
episode of <i>Breaking Bad</i> or a tune from Taylor Swift will never, I am
afraid, know what they are missing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-40930507764020518802024-02-01T05:43:00.001-08:002024-02-01T05:43:37.753-08:00Construction of Values in the Nibelungenlied<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Numbers in brackets are endnotes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Citations from the poem specify the </b><b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Â</span>ventiure
</i>and the stanza (not line numbers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Translations of quoted phrases are my own.</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lists of “the
greatest” songs or films or dinner dishes are always a bit silly, but they do
reflect taste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fancy I do not stray
very far from common judgements, if, in surveying European medieval literature,
I present the blue ribbon for lyric poetry to the Occitanians, the prize for
drama to the British mystery plays, and that for epic to the Germans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, <i>Tristan<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Isolde</i>, and <i>Parzifal</i>, all
written within<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a few years of each other
at the beginning of the thirteenth century are, for me, far more beautiful and richer
in mythic implications and inventive rhetoric than the <i>Roland</i>, <i>The
Cid</i>, or the verse narrations of King Arthur’s career by Wace and Laȝamon. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three different
registers, or layers, of what might be called concurrent systems of values may
be distinguished in the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>, a fact which is doubtless due
in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>part to the long period during which
the story was transmitted before our text was composed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet it is also a reflection of the complex
nature of human psychology where the incongruous, the contradictory, and the
mysterious commonly occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact the
play of these simultaneous systems animates the poem and they seem to harmonize
just as such dissonances seem altogether natural in lived experience. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first of these
registers is the archaic one familiar from early myths and folk-tales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here morality is unrecognized; all that
exists are the primal facts, birth and death, love and aggression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the level of myth, encountered also
in dreams and in the preoccupations we see exaggerated in psychopathology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kronos’ eating his children, <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Ś</span>iva’s
self-castration, the human sacrifice of the Aztec and Mayan worlds represent
the aggressive side of this polarity, while Zeus’s rapes, Krishna’s multiple
lovers and wives, and the Nahuatl Tlazōlteōtl, the "Deity of Dirt"
are associated with the erotic side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the <i>Nibelingenlied </i>episodes like Brunhild’s hanging Gunther on the wall on
their marriage night and Hagen’s brutal murder of Kriemhild’s son employ this
elemental imagery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religion, politics,
and ideology of all sorts are foreign to the dramas of psychological power that
dominate here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While all archaic
myths seek to harmonize <i>eros</i> and <i>thanatos</i>, the heroic epics of a
somewhat later age emphasize social and human values, most particularly the
valor and integrity <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the male warrior
and the beauty and virtue of his female love objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this level then, the most praised
characteristics have to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with the
order<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of society and are clearly differentiated
by gender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas neolithic communities
were more likely to emphasize fertility and the life and death cycle of
vegetation and animal life, including humans, a later regal or imperial order
celebrated first of all the value of men in war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contemporary American ceremonies for
Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and the 4<sup>th</sup> of July indicate that such
values have considerable authority yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Similarly, the celebration of women as servers and “peace-weavers,” very
much secondary to the male power, is familiar from <i>Beowulf</i>, though in
the <i>Nibelungenlied</i> neither Brunnhild nor Kriemhild conforms to that
model, each retaining archaic aspects of frightening female potency. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the later
Middle Ages, around the time of this poem’s composition, aesthetic values, an
appreciation for beauty and for expertise as a lover, begin to accompany
martial skills and war in the heroic formula.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Galahad and Lancelot are lovers as well as fighters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No longer is power alone impressive;
elegance, taste, and sensitivity<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are
expected as well, reaching a high point three centuries after the <i>Nibelungenlied</i>
in authors like Castiglione.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus the
superlatives associated with Siegfried from his first introduction include both
prowess on the battlefield and “elegant clothes.” [1] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is “strong enough that he could bear arms
well” [2], but he also knew how to make love so well that it did honor to any
lady who might respond [3]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
munificence of the court magnifies every detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet says he knew of no court so
extravagant [4].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The expenditures
increase the mystique of the court as they do today when discussing high
society or Hollywood affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not,
however, money alone, that impresses the poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The plenitude made possible by wealth adds grandeur, but the display
must be refined and discriminating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
concern for discernment in all areas of life including relationships with women
is sometimes inextricably<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mingled with
the general praise of extravagance, a quality often conflated with nobility
itself, so that true beauty and even true virtue seem to thrive only along with
power, both political and economic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One set of values
is prominent in its absence: Christianity is hardly mentioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that the heroic Etzel remains a
pagan is irrelevant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is as cultivated
and worthy as the Christian nobles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
lack of even formulaic concession of the need to live a Christian life and the
primacy of the goal of salvation is all the more striking during a period in
which Christianity was hegemonic in Europe and the great majority of writing
concerned religious themes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet
describes Siegfried’s death, it is true, in distinctly Christian terms despite the hero's enthusiastic profession of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, he is struck on the sign of the
cross and dies a martyr who has remained “true” while Hagen has acted
dishonorably and thus immorally [5].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
delivers a dying complaint “you vicious cowards, what good has my service done
since you have killed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was always
true, for that I paid, you have done evil to your own kinsman.” [6]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all the imagery of the crucifixion
surrounding his murder, [7] the accusation against Hagen is not based on sin or
the Ten Commandments<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but rather on
ancient rules governing family and hospitality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> H</span>e, however, displays exemplary feudal loyalty in seeking to defend his mistress Brunnhild and he remains
a highly admired, even heroic, figure to the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, the revelation of Hagen’s guilt by
Siegfried’s bleeding corpse, while it may be rationalized as a Christian
miracle, is identical to pagan practices and Kriemhild’s leaving him in the
coffin<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for three days before opening,
while it reminds the reader of Christ once again, does not make the heroic
Germanic warrior into a pacifistic Christ. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the
vision of the poem reflects not the ultimately the hope of Christianity which
looks forward to the eventual arrival of a messiah but rather the notoriously
pessimism of Northern European mythology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
treacherous and tragic killing of Siegfried motivates the action and the final
disaster of the slaughter of the Nibelungs (at this point identified with the
Burgundians) hangs suspended over all the action just as the <i>G</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ö</span>tterd</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ä</span>mmerung
</i>haunts Germanic mythology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the
opening page Kriemhild was said to be “a beautiful woman," but one "for whom many brave
men must die” [8] and the poem ends with the understated words “here is the end of the story, this is the
trouble of the Nibelungs.” [9]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any
reader of Old English poetry will recognize the stress on stoic endurance,
hardship, suffering, and the recognition that life’s battle will always, in the
end, be lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortitude is required to
live in this harsh world as Bryhtwold says so memorably in “The Battle of
Maldon:” “Mind must be the harder, heart the keener, spirit the larger, as our
strength lessens.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These value
systems – the elemental, the heroic, and the aesthetic – trace a diachronic
development that retained earlier cultural levels as society evolved, just as
archaeologists find one layer beneath another in excavations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the listener or reader may also consider
them synchronically, as simultaneous, if sometimes dissonant, psychological
elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A warrior may at once feel a primal
instinct for survival, a drive toward valor motivated by pride, and a wish to
appear beautiful and sophisticated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, less dramatically, a modern person may feel simple lust or aggression at the same time as pride
in profession and a wish to be stylish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
fact that the <i>Nibelungenlied</i> gives full rein to each of these tendencies
allows the creation of fully three-dimensional figures, realistic in their
behavior even if their setting is in part mythological fantasy and the courts
in which they live altogether different from our apartments and ranch homes,
and the tournaments they enjoy foreign to all but rodeo cowboys today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are moved the more reading the <i>Nibelungenlied
</i>by the acceptance of various and even incompatible value systems among its
characters because we ourselves live amid similar contradictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mit kleiden
zieren” 2.26.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Sterke, daz er
wol w<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">â</span>fen
truoc.” 2.27.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Er begúndé mit
sinnen<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>werben sœníu wîp/ die trȗten wol
mit éren<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>des küenen Sîvrides lîp” 2.27.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ich wæn’ ie
ingesinde<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sô grôzer mîlte gepflac”
(2.41).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>16.981.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Dô sprach der verchwunde: "jâ ir b<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">œ</span>sen zagen, 989 <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">waz helfent mîniu dienest, daz ir
mich habet erslagen? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ich was iu ie getriuwe: des ich
engolten hân. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">ir habt an iuwern mâgen leider übele getân.” (16.989).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase “bread
and wine” occurs a few stanzas later in 928.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">8. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Si wart ein scœne
wîp,/ dar umbe muosen degene<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>vil
verlíesén den lîp” (1.2).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Hie hat daz m<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">æ</span>re
ein ende:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>daz ist der Nibelunge n<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ô</span>t”
(39.2379).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-19115703008257119132024-02-01T05:42:00.001-08:002024-02-01T05:42:52.294-08:00An Evening at Soulshine<p> </p><br />
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQftJro2l1SmTY3T5z2jMcWMXWNFDrGMSBsUUx4L4MZrprpBPnnEP-heDf16Vpx_sS2xZVJbhcKwTu7fJXsqp3OIo_cQTseNqbw3l8pYIqH-g13mRd_uA5GX9wpvqZNLfNDbuSgvbJwwveY6aJq0NMfLXuEKDrdGSnWKk970DYSzasLd3T7Nl8jQ0sZjcm/s1079/pogo%20poster.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="1079" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQftJro2l1SmTY3T5z2jMcWMXWNFDrGMSBsUUx4L4MZrprpBPnnEP-heDf16Vpx_sS2xZVJbhcKwTu7fJXsqp3OIo_cQTseNqbw3l8pYIqH-g13mRd_uA5GX9wpvqZNLfNDbuSgvbJwwveY6aJq0NMfLXuEKDrdGSnWKk970DYSzasLd3T7Nl8jQ0sZjcm/w372-h318/pogo%20poster.jpg" width="372" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The event was produced on December 20,
2023 at the Soulshine Market in Pine Bush, New York by James Pogo. Dan Andreana performed poetry scored like
music stretching words to their limit with expressive variation in pitch,
volume, and timbre. Then James Pogo and his
associate Kevin, performing as Flux Duo ++ passed out party hats and lay on
their backs shirtless with lit candles in their navels while playing a little
toy organ and leading the audience in “Happy Birthday.” The third portion of the program was a set of
simultaneous readings by me and Patricia.
The evening was concluded by Steve Roe who carefully set the stage,
lighted it, and performed a moving song dedicated to the children of Gaza.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Artist Tom Gargiulo, only just arrived from Florida, introduced the performers.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>document 1:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a sample of Dan Andreana’s texts<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Softly 1/8/19<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">nil ad sense a)voided <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">oh doze on the lid!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">brat shines boldly<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">bodily in every nigh(t<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">hangar shut down<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">with doug fir sprigs<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">needling the crossing guard.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">they sings the songs<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and sonnets of tar<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">burnt under a frond<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">like paper clippings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">your’sis hours in t)his.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a gradient of wan<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">to wax above<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">the rippled sea<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">in a gully of sand.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">she waits on the bar(d<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">expecting any moon<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for the path(age<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">over the moss.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">25#2 (2017)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">S take urn<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">table lego BL<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ox E blew shrill<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">tower over crow<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">D lighted my lift<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">on 47th teen strut<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">terd door from the Reich<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a champion rains on<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">foul ingot morsels<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">stuck to frozen lip edge<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">G oughtta rat a tat<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">sir man on the muonty<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">red queer queen a miss<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">blacking out the middle<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">slight offended shuffle<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">T rye red shot guzzler<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">shooting from hip<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">corner pocket<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">got a rocket in?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">lawn before the dawn<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">tossed out the water<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">grayer than black is white<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">just before going to work<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">she said why knot?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So we tied one on<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>document 2: William Seaton’s simultaneous
readings <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqjOF-iyLtzhq0E3_NGkxh4T_HGXySop7zFCv3mIAT7LzYsMvpoSMTy3T_Xcui9FDltFZf6YgxTAtXRI0n5mh0cjxSASsodIxDLTxulS2I0xdsYH8clK82Mhfx6jpAy7vmOtZLTGm-vJvNmaPooVVMfqfkLZx4-bQ9XcLnvJqfWoBCa7zJUQdtNfH3T6-/s2048/pogo%20event.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="463" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqjOF-iyLtzhq0E3_NGkxh4T_HGXySop7zFCv3mIAT7LzYsMvpoSMTy3T_Xcui9FDltFZf6YgxTAtXRI0n5mh0cjxSASsodIxDLTxulS2I0xdsYH8clK82Mhfx6jpAy7vmOtZLTGm-vJvNmaPooVVMfqfkLZx4-bQ9XcLnvJqfWoBCa7zJUQdtNfH3T6-/w347-h463/pogo%20event.jpg" width="347" /></a></div><br /><o:p><br /></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Elizabeth Barrett Browning/ Henry
Miller<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful
indeed<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And worthy of acceptation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fire is bright,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let temple burn, or flax; an equal
light<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Leaps in the flame from
cedar-plank or weed:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And love is fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I say at need<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I love thee . . . mark! . . . I
love thee—in thy sight<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I stand transfigured, glorified
aright,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">With conscience of the new rays
that proceed<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Out of my face toward thine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s nothing low<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In love, when love the lowest:
meanest creatures<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Who love God, God accepts while
loving so.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And what I feel, across the
inferior features<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of what I am, doth flash itself,
and show<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How that great work of Love
enhances Nature’s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sauntering along the boulevard I
had noticed her verging toward me with that curious trot-about air of a whore
and the run-down heels and cheap jewelry and the pasty look of their kind which
the rouge only accentuates. It was not difficult to come to terms with her. We
sat in the back of the little tabac called L’Elephant and talked it over
quickly. In a few minutes we were in a five franc room on the Rue Amelot, the
curtains drawn and the covers thrown back. She didn’t rush things, Germaine.
She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly about this and
that; she liked the knickerbockers I was wearing. Tres chic! she thought. They
were once, but I had worn the seat out of them; fortunately the jacket covered
my ass. As she stood up to dry herself, still talking to me pleasantly,
suddenly she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she
commenced rubbing her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands,
caressing it, patting it, patting it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Nicene Creed/deSade<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I believe in one God, The Father
almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, Of all things visible and invisible. I
believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, The Only Begotten Son of God, Born of the
Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, True God from true God,
Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; Through him all things were
made. For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, And by the
Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, And became man. For our sake he
was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, And rose
again on the third day In accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into
heaven And is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in
glory To judge the living and the dead And his kingdom will have no end. I
believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, Who proceeds from the
Father [and the Son], Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
Who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic and
apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins And I look
forward to the resurrection of the dead And the life of the world to come.
Amen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The idea of God is the sole wrong
for which I cannot forgive mankind. To judge from the notions expounded by
theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to
crowding hell. There is no stupidity religions have omitted to revere; and you
know just as well as I, my friends, that when one examines a human institution,
the first thing one must do is discard all religious notions. They are poison
to lucidity. Let nobody doubt that religions are the cradles of despotism. The
first of all despots was a priest; the first king and the first emperor of
Rome, Numa and Augustus, both allied themselves with the priesthood;
Constantine and Clovis were abbots rather than sovereigns; Heliopolis was the
priest of the sun. In all times, in all centuries, despotism and religion have
been so thoroughly interconnected that, as is easily demonstrated, in
destroying one you undermine the other, for the profound reason that each will
help the other to gain power.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hitler/Marx & Engels<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aryan tribes, often almost
ridiculously small in number, subjugated foreign peoples and, stimulated by the
conditions of life which their new country offered them (fertility, the nature
of the climate, etc.), and profiting also by the abundance of manual labour
furnished them by the inferior race, they developed intellectual and organizing
faculties which had hitherto been dormant in these conquering tribes. Within
the course of a few thousand years, or even centuries, they gave life to
cultures whose primitive traits completely corresponded to the character of the
founders, though modified by adaptation to the peculiarities of the soil and
the characteristics of the subjugated people. But finally the conquering race
offended against the principles which they first had observed, namely, the
maintenance of their racial stock unmixed, and they began to intermingle with
the subjugated people. Thus they put an end to their own separate existence;
for the original sin committed in Paradise has always been followed by the
expulsion of the guilty parties.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian,
lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either
in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of
the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost
everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold
gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights,
plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters,
journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again,
subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the
ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but
established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in
place of the old ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our epoch, the
epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has
simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up
into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other
— Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>document 3: the Flux Duo ++<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz65N1qTDb96SeWFmGAO-CM4Dns92WOCs1B0GeWx6ceYeD9XR_c1_Q4A5THNaxI69B35GyN7ZXacA925QlMqk_OxAq0zGNp7fsKv0Yqp1zSp9L08qq8bhOFhvsgaXFtdYnNZcIklJEk3yNoCK5pnrR2ZAgcnuV5AxO2uINJjKFsoGOsn1reRlBVTKXwXMT/s1057/flux%20++.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="1057" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz65N1qTDb96SeWFmGAO-CM4Dns92WOCs1B0GeWx6ceYeD9XR_c1_Q4A5THNaxI69B35GyN7ZXacA925QlMqk_OxAq0zGNp7fsKv0Yqp1zSp9L08qq8bhOFhvsgaXFtdYnNZcIklJEk3yNoCK5pnrR2ZAgcnuV5AxO2uINJjKFsoGOsn1reRlBVTKXwXMT/w452-h326/flux%20++.jpeg" width="452" /></a></b></div><b><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p><br /></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p><br /></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>document 4: Steve Roe’s song<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmBDZrRp7LyPA11xH98CbvxiZ__Va_KkslHA17mzkQCKHTLt9vrwRt6MpJfOt6eQwfc1kQZkmAav-GO3Q4NKLBZycKm2ICAfKq0aFOOHjyLJ4QnRSURo76twq0l2t1OSLhqP_hcCMRItAtlRxAcdPOUWxiPYcefCa76w_fdMOZ2h9bzTy_nXKtjaqOhy5s/s1024/steve%20roe.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="935" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmBDZrRp7LyPA11xH98CbvxiZ__Va_KkslHA17mzkQCKHTLt9vrwRt6MpJfOt6eQwfc1kQZkmAav-GO3Q4NKLBZycKm2ICAfKq0aFOOHjyLJ4QnRSURo76twq0l2t1OSLhqP_hcCMRItAtlRxAcdPOUWxiPYcefCa76w_fdMOZ2h9bzTy_nXKtjaqOhy5s/w356-h390/steve%20roe.jpg" width="356" /></a></b></div><b><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Blue”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Intro (spoken): “it is said that
our understanding of happiness comes from the experiences of our childhood.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hold up sign “blue.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hold up sign “for the children of
Gaza.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sung:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“keep things simple, my love, and look at the
sky….. it’s blue”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Sit by my side, my love, and
stare at the sea…. It’s blue.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Keep your heart true, my love, for
we are all born to die…. It’s blue.”<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-11746454978460639242024-02-01T05:40:00.000-08:002024-02-01T05:40:38.290-08:00Two Versions of the End of the World <p> [<i>Panic in Year Zero!</i> and <i>The Day the Earth Caught Fire</i>]</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>general horror films are generally
psychological in theme while science fiction tends toward political
themes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The validity of the latter
generalization is clear<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to anyone who
examines the end-of-the-world movies of the 1950s and early 1960s which reflect the anxiety over nuclear war during the era of Dulles’ brinkmanship and
the policy of peace through “Mutually Assured Destruction.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The popular culture of the time could
scarcely ignore the powerful fear associated with the era of bomb shelters and
“duck-and-cover” school exercises. [1]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dramatic contrast of two
of the films that imagined nuclear Armageddon, was pointed out by Glenn Erickson who
writes that <i>Panic in the Year Zero!</i>, “sure seemed shocking in 1962, and easily trumped other
more pacifistic efforts. <i>The Day the Earth Caught Fire </i>(1961) was for budding
flower people; <i>Panic In Year Zero!</i> could have been made as a sales
booster for the gun industry." [2]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The basic point
Erickson makes here is convincing to any viewer and scarcely requires detailed
demonstration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ideology of each movie
is all but explicit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i>Panic in Year Zero!</i> people almost instantly lose the superego’s inhibitions and fall
readily into theft and violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once he
realizes what has happened, Ray Milland, the director as well as the Everyman star,
declares an utterly selfish, “every man for himself” attitude which he insists
is unavoidable until “civilization” is restored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His wife (played by Jean Hagen), who exhibits
lingering sympathy for others and wishes to maintain vestiges at least of
pre-existing moral values, is portrayed as foolishly feminine, while his son (Frankie
Avalon) readily becomes so enthusiastic that his father must remind him that
the lawlessness is only temporarily acceptable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(His daughter, played by Mary Mitchell, has little role.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When order begins to reappear in the final
scene, it is only through the agency of the army and the apparent institution
of martial law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the vision of
Ray Milland human relationships are determined in the last analysis by
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are all selfish and
survival is based solely on strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(The film’s working title had in fact been <i>Survival</i>.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Americans’ descent into barbarism, once
social controls of governance and police authority is gone, is instant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the Soviet Union is never specified,
it was at the time of the film’s appearance, the only country with nuclear
capacity other than the USA, France, and the United Kingdom, so Milland’s story
is clearly Cold War propaganda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite
of the American development and use of atomic bombs, the only
one to blame is the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This political
view is hardly surprising, since Milland was a lifelong conservative Republican
who campaigned for Dewey in 1944 and for the far more reprehensible Nixon in
1968. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Val Guest’s <i>The
Day the Earth Caught Fire</i>, made the year before Milland’s picture in the
United Kingdom, reflects a sharply different perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guest was mainly known for directing
low-budget Hammer science fiction such as The <i>Quatermass Xperiment</i> and <i>The
Abominable Snowman</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in the
American film, the United States was attacked without provocation by its enemy,
in Guest’s story the earth has been thrown off its axis by simultaneous
bomb-testing by Soviets and Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is no villain except the politicians of whom at one point the main
character Stenning ruefully complains, “They’ve gone too far this time.” (I
paraphrase, having taken no notes when watching.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than the Cold War model of the good
guys against the Evil Empire, this film opposes ordinary citizens against
irresponsible higher-ups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in
Milland’s America, everyone is heedless of others, the protest movement of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament appears several times in the British
setting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the climatic conditions
become ever more difficult (a trend eerily similar to today’s derangements due
to global warming), suddenly groups of orgiastic celebrants, convinced the end
of the world is near, march through the streets. [3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While some are driven to a sort of heedless mad ecstasy and everyone is suffering, no one seems to be
preying on neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile,
scientists around the world are finally cooperating for the common benefit of
all mankind by working to correct the earth’s orientation through further
detonations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, harmony among
the peoples of the earth is a realizable dream in this story.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The viewer does
get what looks very like a happy ending (more so in the American version than in
the British one) with church bells chiming hopefully while a voice intones a
kind of benediction, invoking a loving deity, “a heart that cares more for him
[mankind], than he has ever cared for himself,” before concluding with “the
light is sweet; and what a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the
Sun."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast to
Milland’s allegiance to the party of Nixon, Val Guest’s co-writer Wolf
Mankowitz was a fellow traveler if not an active member of the Communist Party.
[4] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though Harold Macmillan was as
anti-Communist as John. F. Kennedy, the ideas of socialism and the value of
human cooperation were not viewed as suspiciously in Britain as in these United
States, and the difference in the films probably reveals more about the
differing national sensibilities than specific ideology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I</span>n <i>Panic
in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Year Zero</i> the viewer sees a
dramatically Hobbesian world in which the absence of strong government renders
life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet we know that Milland’s character Harry
Baldwin before the calamity, in his presumably bourgeois and patriarchal
professional and personal life had very likely exemplified the same selfish and individualistic view of human nature encouraged by American capitalism. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast <i>The
Day the Earth Caught Fire</i> portrays a world far more interesting and more
promising in which people have more in common than what separates them and in
which it is at least possible for problems to be solved in the best interest of
all.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even several years
later in Studs Terkel’s oral history <i>Division Street America</i> (1967)
nearly all his informants mention nuclear war along with civil rights as the
chief issues of the day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Available in full at
<a href="https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1571pani.html">https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1571pani.html</a>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The quotation noting the contrast
between the two films is included in the Wikipedia article for <i>Panic in the
Year Zero!</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sequence is
recognized in the film’s credits with a specific composer of “beatnik
music.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guest’s interest in hip cultural
phenomena was apparent two years earlier when he made the film <i>Expresso
Bongo</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jay Simms, who
also contributed to the screenplay, had earlier written <i>The Killer Shrews</i>
and <i>The Giant Gila Monster</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-40814319926076460682024-01-01T05:04:00.000-08:002024-01-01T05:04:27.899-08:00A Victorian in Arabia Deserta<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Numbers in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brackets refer to endnotes. Citations refer to the admirable Dover edition of <i>Travels in Arabaia Deserta</i>.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was visiting a
friend in the lovely, spacious house on Cape Cod he and his siblings had
inherited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A summer place, it had little
changed over the decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On its shelves
were a number of well-chosen books, many on literature, the arts, and history,
reflecting the taste of an educated middle-brow generation before my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These included quite a few of the slip-cased
Heritage Press editions, more modest versions of the Limited Editions Club
volumes, yet aiming to enhance their classic contents with art and design.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took down an unfamiliar title -- Charles M.
Doughty’s 1888 <i>Travels In Arabia Deserta</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having fancied I had done a bit of wandering
in Muslim lands myself, I opened it and saw at a glance that the author used a
peculiar archaic English, described in T. E. Lwrence’s introduction as “a style
which has apparently neither father nor son.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His sentences followed patterns that seemed to be at times Elizabethan,
and at times simply idiosyncratic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
began to read and realized at once that I had embarked on something of a
journey myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is a
monument, amounting to nearly fourteen hundred pages including an excellent
index and an essential glossary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very
much a travel journal, of the heroic Victorian variety, the book meticulously
records Doughty’s experiences during two years of trekking in what is today
Saudi Arabia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The illiterate Bedouins
think he must be doing magic when he reads or writes, and they must have
thought him a dedicated wonder-worker as he set down the occurrences of daily
life in the desert, so commonplace to the nomads, so extraordinary to Doughty
and his readers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He begins as part
of a grand haj procession (though as an admitted Christian, he cannot enter Mecca), a
vast and highly organized multi-ethnic pilgrimage which makes a dramatic
opening to his story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His second volume
ends unceremoniously with his reporting to the British Consulate in Jedda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though several times detained in towns, he
spends most of the time between simply living in the desert with nomadic
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He becomes progressively weaker
and sicker due to the rigors of his travels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He makes a show of serving archaeological knowledge by copying old
inscriptions in obscure language which he could not himself read such as
Nabataean, but this pursuit seems an afterthought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He brings some medical supplies and gets a reputation
as a doctor among the locals, but this activity, too, seems more prudential
than benevolent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he really wished
to do was to experience the life of the “Aarab,” as he calls the wandering
desert tribes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These were no
caravans carrying merchandise across the sands, but rather subsistence
pastoralists who lived primarily on the milk of their camels (some has sheep
and goats as well) and on oasis dates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They had an extremely frugal regime in which Doughty fully
participated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often neither they nor
their beasts could eat through the course of a long day’s march, and sometimes the
evening meal was scant when it did arrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the region
was still largely unknown, a number of travelers’ accounts preceded Doughty’s [1].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Orientalism had enjoyed a vogue
since the eighteenth century and European interest in both real and fictional
Arabs was high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doughty’s book, with its
grittiness and often pedestrian progress, has the highest verisimilitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every reader will feel that he is sketching
directly from life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life in the
desert was bare subsistence for even those Doughty calls the “sheykly”
class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They drink sometimes water “thick
and ill-smelling in the wet sand, and putrefying with rotten fibres of plants
and urea of the nomads’ cattle.” [2] Often<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>at day’s end the people would say, “’To-day we have not loosed the
spittle (their word for breaking the fast).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are in “almost incessant
famine” [4].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Languor of hunger, the
desert disease, was in all the tents. ‘Mâana lôn, We have nothing left,’ said
the people, one to another.” [5]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk154659117"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With scarcely enough to fill their bellies daily, the people upon whom
he depends for hospitality never see a physician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doughty brought a medical kit and sometimes
acts as a <i>hakim</i>, administering drugs and vaccinations, though his
patients would sometimes prefer a magic amulet as treatment. [6]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their scientific naivete is unsurprising, as
they have only the foggiest view of the world outside, having no experience of
any environment other than their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even Amm Mohammed, a man of some experience with whom Doughty stayed in
Kheybar, has the notion that England must be subject to the great Ottoman
Sultan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[7]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doughty’s mere appearance as an inexplicable
white man could excite “a sort of panic terror” among people who take him to be
a sáhar or warlock “come to bewitch their village.” [8]<o:p></o:p></a></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk154659117;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often Doughty’s
surname seems a <i>sprechende Name</i> as, apart from the constant hazard of
armed raids, he is repeatedly threatened with a violent death simply because
he, unlike some earlier travelers, readily declares that he is a
Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from the specific
danger, reiterated often enough to become annoying, but doubtless fresh in its
menace with every occurrence for the <i>kafir.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore,
outside of towns little law existed apart from tradition and violent robberies
as well as organized raids or <i>ghrazzus </i>(of which the Arab nomads seem as
fond as the Sioux had been in the American plains).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such forays were so accepted in their society
that Doughty relates one case in which the adjudicating sheiks ruled that the
animals must be returned, with the exception of a share which the raiders could
retain so that “the turbulent young men” who had stolen them might “be
appeased, with somewhat for their pains, and that for an end of strife.” [9] <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bedouins are
befuddled by Doughty’s presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
reader may share some of their wonder at his willful embrace of their arduous
life with its hunger, illness, and danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His own explanation that his “life might add something of lasting worth
to the European geography” [10] is insufficient to support the hardships he
endured and afterward the labor of composition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though much of what Doughty describes concerns the quotidian details of
the peoples’ lives, his prose is never pedestrian, but is rather lit from
within by a sense of wonder, a strange beauty.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His usage was eccentric, but not wholly
idiosyncratic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During his own time and
shortly after William Barnes, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ezra Pound, and Basil
Bunting were among campaigners for a “purification” of the language, most
importantly by using words with Germanic roots. [11]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His influence is evident in later admirers
such as the avant-gardist Laura Riding and the novelist Henry Green for whom he
is “a master of the language, the Genius Doughty,” though “he might be writing
in Latin.” [12]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long after he had left
Saudi Arabia, Doughty maintained his interest in tinkering with English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His six-volume national epic <i>The Dawn
in Britain</i> (1906) strives to use a pre-Shakespearean vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His chamber drama <i>The Cliff</i> (1909)
which anticipates WWI by imagining a German attack on Britain features among
its <i>dramatis personae</i> a “divine shining One from heaven,” a company of
“light elves,” “a little deformed maiden,” and the ghosts of napoleon and Joan
of Arc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sample of his verse might
suggest why the play was never performed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">I may not rest, as I wor wont of sleep;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">So a wimble bores my brain, of busy thought:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Wherefore, what though ’t be chill for an old wight,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">I’ve left them ruckling mother sheep; to pace<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Awhile here to and forth, longs the sea-cliff.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Doughty’s own
relish for verbal display is evident not only in his own mannered sentences,
but also in his appreciation for the artful speeches of his hosts. He devotes several pages to conveying
Abdullah’s loquacious reminiscences during coffee parties. [13] a
lengthy dynastic history of the dynasty of Ibn Rashid which is surely drawn
from oral accounts takes far longer. [14] He describes illiterate poets whose poetic
rhetoric is nearly unintelligible to him yet who receive the “adulation” of
listeners, though to him it is “stern and horrid” and notes that every shepherd
boy could sing traditional songs. [15] Indeed, he says “the nomads, at leisure and
lively minds, have little other than this study to be eloquent. Their utterance is short and with emphasis. There is a perspicuous propriety in their
speech, with quick significance.” He
catalogues the Arabs’ verbal conventions, noting that “Every tribe has a use, <i>loghra</i>,
and neighbors are ever childers of their neighbours’ tongue.” [16] </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reactions to Doughty’s style, assuredly
not to everyone’s taste, are likely to be extreme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To some his language is merely affected,
while others are captivated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few
examples of Doughty’s locutions will suffice – more are available on every
page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader is likely to long
recall, both for style and content, vignettes such as his description of a few
camp hangers-on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Forlorn person’s will
join themselves to some sheyk’s menzil, and there was with u an aged widow, in
wretchedness, who played the mother to her dead daughter’s fatherless children,
a son so deformed that like a beast he crept upon the sand [ya Latif, oh happy
sight!’ said this most poor and desolate grandam, with religious irony, in her
patient sighing] – and an elf-haired girl wonderfully foul-looking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boothless, they led their lives under the
skies of God, the boy was naked as he came into the desert world.” [17] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A single line may sound proverbial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Arabian sky, seldom clear, weeps as the
weeping of hypocrites.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[18]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At his best, Doughty achieves lyrical
sublimity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The silent air burning about
us, we endure breathless till the assr: lingering day draws down to the
sun-setting; the herdsmen, weary of the sun, come again with the cattle, to
taste in their menzils the first sweetness of mirth and repose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– The day is done, and there rises the
nightly freshness of this purest mountain air: and then to the cheerful song
and the cup of the common fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The moon
rises ruddy from that solemn obscurity of jebel like a mighty beacon: -- and
the morrow will be as this day, days deadly drowned in the sun of the summer
wilderness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[19] <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the mighty tones of that rhetoric, so like
a church organ, occur only occasionally, it is likely because such moments are
likewise rare, and in that a part of their loveliness consists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doughty never finds reason to slow his flow
of words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As even the passages quoted
above testify, he routinely uses a considerable lexicon of Arabic words, giving
the reader an enhanced illusion of participating in the life of the encampments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Fortunately, he includes a useful combined
glossary and index of over a hundred pages for reference.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He includes lists of little possible
interest: tribes, colloquial expressions [20], horses names [21] or brands [22],
the ”thirty fendies [a kindred and natural division in a tribe] of ‘Ateyba” [23],
or a collection of inscriptions translated into French [24].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p> For me the rewards
of trekking through Doughty’s ponderous volumes are of three sorts. He provides new detail about the Arabian
nomads, enlarging the reader’s notion of what it means to be human, and his
exposition is all the more dramatic since desert life is always so close to the
bone, in this case for the visitor no less than for the natives. His style, for those receptive to it, is like
a strange tide which may ebb and rise but which never loses its mysterious
charm. Surely writing in his journal
sustained Doughty through many a difficult day and, for the reader as well, the
play of symbols, the turns of syntax, and the author’s unpredictable lexicon
prove an unfailing source of entertainment.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as for less
eccentric writers, though, the central motive for reading Doughty is to
understand his vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is repeatedly
asked by his hosts why he is there, in a demanding and dangerous environment,
and he has little to say in response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has a good many of the prejudices of his
day, and he never hesitates to call the Bedouins ignorant and, if they are
Wahaby, fanatic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, he is willing
to refer even to ordinary Muslims as captured<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>by “the dreadful harpy of their religion [25].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though he never conceals the fact that he is
a Christian, he remains prudent enough to confide only to his notebook that
Mohammed is “the barbaric prophet of Mecca” and his religion a “solemn fools’
paradise.” [26]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He casually tosses off
remarks <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>such as “these gracious
Orientals are always graceless short-comers at the last” [27]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have only “a barbarous, fox-like
understanding” [28].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet he chose to
live intimately among them for an extended period of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, in spite
of his Victorian patriotism, I imagine Doughty would have been very nearly
equally acerbic in his observation of his fellow Britons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people of the desert had for him one
advantage, but that sufficed to motivate him (and his readers to follow).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Arabs are living in an environment so
harsh that they have always their eyes on the essentials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Undistracted by media, consuming only the
commodities they themselves wrest from a stingy land, their life has a purity
and grandeur rarely discernable in a modern city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all the
sameness of his days, some moments are epiphanies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a sudden storm bursts over the sand, “I
said to Thaifullah,’God sends his blessing again upon the earth.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“How good! seemed to me, how peaceable!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this little plot of the nomad earth under the
dripping curtains of a worsted booth, in comparison of H<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">â</span>yil town.” [29]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Bare of all things of which there is no
need, they days of our mortality are so easy and become a long quiescence!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is the nomad life, a long holiday,
wedded to a divine simplicity, but with this often long tolerance of hunger in
the khála.” [30]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely, this is
why Doughty traveled Arabia and this is why those of us who are less willing to
undergo the rigors he apparently embraced can appreciate reading his account of
his experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all his suffering,
he seems to have found a sort of Eden, not in a garden, but in the
wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Captain George
Forster Sadlier traversed the Arabian Peninsula in the early nineteenth
century, though his <i>Diary of a Journey Across Arabia from El Khatif in the
Persian Gulf to Yanbu in the Red Sea, During the Year 1819</i> was not
published until 1866.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Johann Ludwig
Burckhardt’s <i>Travels in Arabia</i> came out in 1829.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alexander William Kinglake’s <i>Eothen</i>
(1844) relates the author’s experiences in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and in
1857 Richard Burton published his three-volume <i>Narrative of a Pilgrimage to
Al-Madinah & Meccah</i> including his visit to the holy cities while
disguised as a Muslim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Though his story
made him something of a celebrity, Burton was not the first European to enter
Mecca, having been preceded by a good many others, including Ludovico di
Varthema whose <i>Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese</i> was
published in 1510.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1865 William
Gifford Palgrave’s <i>Personal Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central
and Eastern Arabia (1862-1863)</i> appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Georg August Wallin wrote <i>Notes Taken During a Journey Though Part of
Northern Arabia</i> in 1848 (1851) and <i>Narrative of a Journeys From Cairo to
Medina and Mecca by Suez, Arabia, Tawila, Al-Jauf, Jubbe, Hail and Nejd, in
1845 </i>(1854).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 284.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3. “’To-day we have not loosed the spittle (their word for
breaking the fast).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I, 489)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are in “almost incessant famine”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Languor of hunger, the desert disease, was
in all the tents. ‘Mâana lôn, We have nothing left,’ said the people, one to
another.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 500.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">5. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 520.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 197.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 182.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">8. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II,108<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 396.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 469.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this they
resembled the official policies of France, Iceland, and Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">12.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Apologia” in <i>Surviving:
the Uncollected Writings of Henry Green</i> “master of the language, Focus on
his style as an expression of personality<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“his style is mannered, but he is too great a man to be hidden beneath
it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i>Rational Meaning: a New
Foundation for the Definition of Words and Supplementary Essays</i> Riding and
Schuyler B. Jackson make much of Doughty’s style for reason, they say, “not
literary, but linguistic.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 148.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 30ff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 306.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">16.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 307.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">17.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I,263.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">18.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 351<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">19.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 368.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">20.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 307.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 253.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">22.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 166.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">23.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 456.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">24.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 224-229.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">25.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 95.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">26.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 253.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">27. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I,125.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">28.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 142.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">29.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II, 83.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">30.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, 490.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-55030522796658468512024-01-01T05:02:00.000-08:002024-01-01T05:02:06.842-08:00A Genial Parking Lot Attendant [Costa Rica]<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> The
magnificent Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica features a rain forest full of squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, and capuchins, as well as toucans, potoos, and motmots, and the regional favorites, the sloths, almost out of sight in the high trees. On Sunday, however, the park was
closed, so the travelers wandered toward the Espadilla Beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could watch the monkeys look for small
children whom they saw as easy marks from whom they could snatch candy or chips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might even have the chance to glimpse a
sloth in the trees near the water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> as they approached, t</span>hey
caught in the air the sweet smell of cannabis and looked around for the
source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was two rather butch young
women, looking after a parking lot for swimmers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No public parking is available for the
popular beach, so many nearby property owners were selling dusty spaces on
their land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The American couple made
friendly signs in the direction of the smokers who kindly invited the strangers
to join them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Americans, whose Spanish
was not what it should be, used what they could in a few pleasantries, thanked
their new acquaintances, loitered and indulged in a bit of smoky communion, and then proceeded beachward, now levitating
a subtle half-inch over the sand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After this
fortuitous beginning, the day proved quite lovely, as they walked on shores littered
with coral fragments and met the iguana’s intense gaze and did even see a
sloth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following morning, they passed by the spot of the previous days’ encounter and found only one
of the smokers, burning another joint as though for her time stood still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Short and pudgy, with a shaved head, her name
was Roxana. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We paused and deployed our
Spanish once more, complimenting the scene, the park, the country of Costa
Rica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Ah,</i>” she demurred with a
sigh, “<i>pero</i> <i>este pais esta gobernado por los ricos</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it happened, Trump was president, so they
told her the situation was regrettably similar in their own homeland and with
probably greater untoward circumstances for the world we shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fat and still
sizable roach had gone out as the three chatted, and Roxana crossed the street
to get a light from an aged man preparing to grill <i>pinchos</i> to sell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though cannabis is illegal in this country,
we had been smoking openly, and she approached him without even a wry
comment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doubtless had observed her
fondness for the stuff daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Resuming the
conversation, one of the Americans ventured the opinion that Trump was very
like <i>el diablo</i>. Though probably no expert on foreign affairs, Roxana
agreed whole-heartedly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Ese hombre es
el anticristo!</i>” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We looked into each
others’ eyes and found accord.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun was warm
and the surf musical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the sand local
people of all ages, usually in family groups, snacked and played and
relaxed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two travelers and the
parking lot attendant talked until the joint had been consumed and the Spanish vocabulary
of the Americans had been exhausted as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
were departing the next day, in the ephemeral way of tourists, but they had
paused long enough to enough to recognize a fellow traveler through life with
whom, despite appearances, they shared more than divided them.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-81365295799330266672024-01-01T05:01:00.000-08:002024-02-21T03:41:35.295-08:00The Hip Aesthetic of the Invisible Circus<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"> The three-day event
produced by the Diggers and the Artists Liberation Front in Glide Church during
February of 1967 titled <i>Invisible Circus</i> is significant in the evolution
of performance art, but rarely discussed in histories that stress the New York
City scene. While East Coast artists
like Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Carolee Schneemann, and Robert Whitman were
making a stir in locations like the Rueben and Smolin Galleries, hip San
Francisco artists were devising events that embodied distinctly West Coast
artistic values. Among these were a
distaste for celebrity and a democratic vision quite at odds with the ambitions
of most artists, avant-garde or mainstream.
Through the Artists Liberation Front and the Diggers’ Communications
Company, Chester Anderson, Claude Hayward, and others produced truly novel and
radical works of art. The fact that the
artists’ names and their most significant works are virtually forgotten in art
history is perhaps appropriate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New York
performance art scene developed first, its roots in the European trends of
Dada, Futurism, and Surrealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From <i>Ubu
Roi </i>through Artaud and the Theater of the Absurd, modern plays remained
conventional in the most fundamental ways with scripts, actors, and
spectators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the evenings at the
Cabaret Voltaire may have seemed altogether chaotic to the audiences, they were
planned in detail apart from spontaneous eruptions from the audience and the
occasional police raid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Artists and
viewers might become boisterous with cat-calls, boos, and shouted challenges,
but the evening, however far out, remained recognizably theater.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, for a
show often cited as the first “happening,” Allan Kaprow’s <i>18 Happenings in 6
Parts</i> (1959) at the Rueben Gallery those who attended received detailed
instructions on what they should do, when they should move, and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">A bell punctuated the movement from each of six sets of three simultaneous happenings. </span>The following year the same
gallery presented Robert Whitman’s <i>American Moon</i> for which viewers
entered an immersive environment and viewed the event from partial tunnels
while performers, including Whitman and Simone Forti flashed lights, produced
loud noises, and projected films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
conclusion Lucas Samaras sat in a swing above the spectators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire proceeding was “carefully
conceived and tightly scripted” to create “an interactive environment that
manipulated the audience to a degree virtually unprecedented in 20th century
art.” [1]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> The limits of innovation in these early happenings are
clear.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A more radical
program is explicit in the Fluxus group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The 1963 manifesto by George Maciunas proclaims itself “REVOLUTIONARY”
and advocates “living art, anti-art,” “NON ART REALITY, to be fully grasped by
all people, not only critics, dilettantes, and professionals.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fluxus demands a fusion of “the cadres of
political, social, & cultural revolutionaries into united front and action.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What this might
mean in practice is suggested by Maciunas in his “Manifesto on Art / Fluxus Art
Amusement” (1965).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stresses a
democratic theme, insisting that, “art-amusement must be simple, amusing, unpretentious,
concerned with insignificances, require no skill or countless rehearsals, have
no commodity or institutional value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
value of art-amusement must be lowered by making it unlimited, massproduced,
obtainable by all and eventually produced by all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fluxus art-amusement is the rear-guard
without any pretention or urge to participate in the competition of
‘oneupmanship’ with the avant-garde. It strives for the monostructural and
nontheatrical qualities of simple natural event, a game or a gag. It is the
fusion of Spikes Jones Vaudeville, gag, children's games and Duchamp.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While this program
sounds quite revolutionary, it is largely imaginary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fluxus was in reality, of course, anything
but unpretentious, simple, or natural, and its audience was anything but a
general one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, for all that, the events associated
with its members remained in many ways highly conventional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1961 Chambers Street loft concerts
produced by Yoko Ono and La Monte Young in 1961 observed ordinary concert
proprieties, with a clear distinction between onlookers and participants,
credited composers, and intermissions, though some involved mixed media and
some aleatory elements. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1963 Yam
Festival devised by George Brecht and Robert Watts was novel in its locations,
outside of art galleries, in its element of absurdity, and in its use of mail
art, but retained the distinction between creators and consumers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never did the group stir outside these boundaries.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq_dh7y3Ol_zVLBuvIylXEN62KDo532hFpWFumqxW-AWVtRPieEy1I0ZmDv8j9U4eTW3E9jQuqWl0luf2ondlvnmIgHvVC6qoCbUfkciHKkWvmz0qOZBnqFURUldney6hhN_t0oPyZnNZ3d86D5ZmWZNSb7mAklgdBeoZVDrS7aa84UAF2ASu9RFBXCyLR/s1113/crt.invisible%20circus2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="800" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq_dh7y3Ol_zVLBuvIylXEN62KDo532hFpWFumqxW-AWVtRPieEy1I0ZmDv8j9U4eTW3E9jQuqWl0luf2ondlvnmIgHvVC6qoCbUfkciHKkWvmz0qOZBnqFURUldney6hhN_t0oPyZnNZ3d86D5ZmWZNSb7mAklgdBeoZVDrS7aa84UAF2ASu9RFBXCyLR/w334-h465/crt.invisible%20circus2.jpg" width="334" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand,
in San Francisco, the epicenter of the ‘sixties youth rebellion, certain
events, such as the <i>Invisible Circus</i> were produced that challenged
expectations anew and constituted a revolution within the avant-garde
itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several activities had indeed
been planned, often designed more to stimulate reactions than as an end in
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, the
Communications Company brought the Gestetner printer they used for their
broadsheets in an activity Richard Brautigan called the “John Dillinger
Computer,” but its use was unforeseeable -- they were prepared to print
anything for anybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the projects
of insiders were improvisatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chester
Anderson went next door to a tavern where he overheard an animated discussion
whereupon hie returned to the church, transcribed some of their remarks,
printed a few pages and returned to show the bemused drinkers their words on
paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few pranks were
programmed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, what was
presented as a panel discussion on pornography to which a police officer had
been invited was really a set-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the
police officer began to speak, he was unaware that, on the wall behind him, a
penis had emerged through a hole and waggled about while the representative of
the straight life was unaware of the cause of the audience’s excited amusement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the Circus
was punctuated by such moments of pre-planned if playful theater and music
including appearances by Pig Pen, Janis Joplin and others, its central
importance lies in what was wholly unplanned, what happened that was utterly
forgotten as it involved no memoirists or big names in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happened there is gone, something new is
happening today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pertinent data’s
having vanished is in fact the evidence for its authenticity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like sand paintings or archaic ritual, the point
is in the action as it occurs, not in seeking to fix and retain it like a butterfly
specimen in an album.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwRcsdKJdbUPI70MCsHbWV5wijblZy4nPy-QH4tAhhimlIxrvKQqweiQhj_z08sauLtDnx1AZByNoOWIb6XrrtPGeW5zER2j5Eo2ESABRhqcxianUhbDWNw8BB3w7KjbHl0pWFv2EdlOup3TQlNPvvbPQ89qWjoQnoRM-G0mXRvVYAbtjzwPQyNSAOgS-d/s960/invisible%20circus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="960" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwRcsdKJdbUPI70MCsHbWV5wijblZy4nPy-QH4tAhhimlIxrvKQqweiQhj_z08sauLtDnx1AZByNoOWIb6XrrtPGeW5zER2j5Eo2ESABRhqcxianUhbDWNw8BB3w7KjbHl0pWFv2EdlOup3TQlNPvvbPQ89qWjoQnoRM-G0mXRvVYAbtjzwPQyNSAOgS-d/w403-h277/invisible%20circus.jpg" width="403" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
identifiable as a specifically hip aesthetic, the attitude implied by Dave
Hodges’ poster was far from universal during the youth rebellion of the
‘sixties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “acid tests” of 1965-6 produced
by Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters such as Lee Quarnstrom and Neal Cassady with
the aid of Owsley Stanley’s refreshments were very like parties featuring bands
such as the pre-Grateful Dead Warlocks and light shows and appearances by Allen
Ginsberg and other celebrities prominently featured on the posters. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same pattern is evident for the Trips
Festival at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Longshoremen’s Hall for
January 21-23, 1966 organized by Bill Graham, Stewart Brand, Ramon Sender, Ken
Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Similarly, publicity for the iconic event of the Haight-Ashbury era, the
Human Be-In in 1967, resembled a routine concert announcement, lacking even
psychedelic graphics. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emmet Grogan
specifically declared the intentions of the producers of the Invisible Circus
to reveal “the feebleness of most public gatherings,” and to transform
participants from “passive listeners” into “active participants.” [2]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRgvfp-JJesGP0dnQzZiMaO6IVPJFMPWSvXRzf-Sw83GZZ0LXyREb-71H5l1BgCwhxjQjovEFI0S7pRy4z3vw8WzYh5K8QtQaNSXJvBAMevE0DDR6hsmq22CKiFWzA0z7froXiDUSZJCq3J3xkBMA2Rlz27ObUba4mjU61uCkqvHmRDyfifBvPuHe27ni/s1160/be-in.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1160" data-original-width="958" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRgvfp-JJesGP0dnQzZiMaO6IVPJFMPWSvXRzf-Sw83GZZ0LXyREb-71H5l1BgCwhxjQjovEFI0S7pRy4z3vw8WzYh5K8QtQaNSXJvBAMevE0DDR6hsmq22CKiFWzA0z7froXiDUSZJCq3J3xkBMA2Rlz27ObUba4mjU61uCkqvHmRDyfifBvPuHe27ni/w389-h472/be-in.jpeg" width="389" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p> Though the
Invisible Circus has been the focus here, the contrast between hip concepts and
practices between the East and West coasts is, in fact, generally applicable,
though hardly predictive in any individual case. On the Pacific artists dared to defy the
age-old artist’s ambition (so evident in Van Gogh’s letters) to be known, to
sell. Among the supporting examples that
come first to mind are the scrupulous avoidance of individual celebrity in all
Communications Company publications.
Authors are not mentioned, even names like Brautigan’s verging on fame;
there is no “star” apart from the collective.
On the international level they had affinities with the Situationists. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The career of the
Cockettes reinforces the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Originally an open door, anything-goes troupe founded by Hibiscus
(George Edgerly Harris III) who lived with his company in the Friends of
Perfection Commune, called the KaliFlower Commune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had welcomed men and women, gay and
straight, gifted and untalented alike, and the shows were largely spontaneous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cockettes met their end when their
increasing popularity led to engagements in New York City where they were
panned by critics who did not understand their anti-aesthetic aesthetic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This did not, however, bring about their
demise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it was the lure of real
celebrity and the financial rewards it implies, resisted by the idealistic
communards that led to the end of the Cockettes and the spawning of the Angels
of Light.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patty Smith’s <i>Just
Kids</i> details an avant-garde scene just a few years later, illustrating a
thoroughly East Coast goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author
and Robert Mapplethorpe were set on fame, always alert for any opening to a
gallery, a dealer, or a wealthy collector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her depictions of their regular attendance at Max’s Kansas City, ever
seeking to inch a bit closer to the Warhol table (though the maestro was not
himself there) are richly comic and worlds away from the ethos I myself
experienced reading poetry in the streets of San Francisco around the same
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My broadsheets, like those of the
Communications Company, had no attribution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The conventionally over-sized artist’s ego was not considered hip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Diggers’ <i>Invisible
Circus</i> broke new ground for the avant-garde by renouncing the illusion of
the artist’s separateness and ownership of the work, embracing those in
attendance as creators of what happens, a fact in any event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Specific occurrences at the <i>Invisible
Circus</i> were quite unpredictable, in a way impermissible even in works
employing the aleatory devices associated with John Cage and Jackson
MacLow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Diggers not only opened the
door of the gallery; they did away with the gallery altogether, placing art in
the context of everyday life and allowing its motive to be neither more nor
less than fun. While this ethos failed to move the centers of the art world, it did influence the margins, such as the activities at political demonstrations as well as Cloud House events, Burning Man, and Rainbow Gatherings. Much remains to be done to understand the artistic implications of the hip movement in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury scene.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Schimmel,
“Leap into the Void: Performance and the Object,” Out of Actions: between
performance and the object, 1949–1979, MoCA Los Angeles, New York/London, 1998,
pp.61-2.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Ringolevio</i>,
282.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-71205642584354243082023-12-01T03:35:00.001-08:002023-12-01T03:35:44.769-08:00Voluptuous Ascetics in Anatole France’s Thaïs<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The translations of quoted French phrases are my own.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The usefulness of
distinguishing eras in literary history is indisputable, but they are never
more than a convenience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anatole France,
who wrote well into the twentieth century, turned not only from the schools of
Realism and Naturalism, but from the preceding Romantic assumptions as well and
wrote as an heir of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and, in particular, as
a follower of Voltaire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heavy on theme as
France typically is, the characters in <i>Tha</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ï</span>s</i>, even the central ones, are
rather representative types or spokespersons for points of view than convincing
personalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two principals,
Paphnutius and Thais, describe a narrative chiasmus as the monk realizes that
beneath his pious reputation, he is in fact the slave of his desires while the
abandoned Thais discovers her discipline and piety in spite of her once libertine
lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The formal symmetry of this
movement is satisfying quite apart from the thematic implications, though the
latter are in the foreground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the story is a
sort of anti-clerical parable, an inverted saint’s life, Paphnutius is, of
course, a negative <i>exemplum</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though France was an atheist, the novel can
hardly be called anti-Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paphnutius’
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>co-religionists, from St. Anthony
through Ahmes, Albina, and Palemon, and ultimately including Tha<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ï</span>s
herself, are all depicted as sincere and benevolent, whether their beliefs are true
or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even asceticism, from which the
author might be expected to recoil, is not confined to Christianity, but
represented as well by Timocles the skeptic whom Paphnutius encounters
meditating naked on the banks of the Nile like a <i>saddhu</i> (and indeed he
is said to have visited India).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Timocles matches Paphnutius’ austerities without adopting any of his faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All decisions have become for Timocles a
matter of indifference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reflexively responds
to any question with <a name="_Hlk152221443">the Skeptic’s ἐποχή (suspension of
judgment, withholding of assent)</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
may seem grotesque in his withdrawal from life, but he is not self-interested
or hypocritical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He declares quite
simply that there is no certainty in the world and that impressions are always
subjective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Les mêmes choses ont
diverses apparences</i>.” (“The same things have diverse appearances.”)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Banquet like
the Symposia of Plato or Xenophon, like other dialogues, and like the novels of
Thomas Love Peacock or Charles Erskine Scott Wood’s <i>Heavenly Discourse</i>,
introduce characters who represent various points of view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>France conveniently labels each of his
Hellenistic banqueters so there may be no confusion: thus Dorion is an
Epicurean; Eucritus a Stoic, Zenothemis a Gnostic, Hermodorus a syncretist
Serapian, and Marcus an Arian Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They trade opinions not with the urgency of the true believer or the
proselytizer, but with the casual detachment of people passing a pleasant
afternoon together for whom the discussion is a worthy end in itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The likeliest
spokesperson for France himself is, of course, none of these believers in
religion or systematized philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
doubtless shares some of the attitudes of Cotta, the urbane Roman host to whom
the civilized social order is the chief good, for whom the central role of
religion is to define and reinforce a sense of community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To him “<i>il y a en tout dieu quelque chose
de divin</i>” (“every god has something divine in him”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the nation is what is important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>La patrie doit être mise au-dessus de
tout, et même des dieux, car elle les contient tous</i>” (“fatherland must come
first, even before the gods, for it contains them”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His faith in stability and happiness rests on
the strength of the imperial navy and army and the prosperity of the
economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Open-minded about religion, he
is no more dogmatic about politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cotta says that he had in his youth sympathized with the Republic, but
that he has come to believe that only a strong government can assure its
citizens a peaceful and productive life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Cotta is
represented as a sensible man, the reader never doubts that the author’s heart
is with Nicias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should this character be
based on a historical figure, it would likely be Nicias of Miletus, a poet
associated with Theocritus some of whose epigrams are extant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be, too, that the character owes
something to Nicias of Kos whom Cicero recalls as a witty raconteur who served
an excellent mushroom dish at a dinner party. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Possessing
Cotta’s capacious broadmindedness while lacking his obtrusive patriotism,
Nicias is the very soul of geniality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
he speaks of the divine, it is often in a light and teasing manner, as though
he and the gods are on familiar terms, such as his joking that if god loves,
that is an imperfection or the more metaphysical claim that god is in “disgrace”
due to the fact that “<i>l'infini ressemble parfaitement au néant</i>” (“the
infinite is indistinguishable from nothingness”).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is perfectly
at ease with the fact that “<i>nous ne savons rien</i>” (“we know nothing
whatever”) we are unable even to distinguish between being and not being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He approaches Gorgias in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his skepticism, declaring that, in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>addition to the lack of any certain
knowledge, “<i>il est impossible aux hommes de s'entendre</i>” (“people cannot
[fully] understand each other”). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him, however,
there is one element of life that evades Nicias’ otherwise universal Skeptic’s ἐποχή:
eros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire company enjoys the
beauty of Philina and Drosea (whose looks are their only function in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the novel), and they all salute Thais with
cries like <i>“—Salut à la bien-aimée des dieux et des hommes!</i>” (“Hail to
the one beloved of both men and gods!”), but it is Nicias who cautions
Paphnutius against offending love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact Nicias is
untroubled by the fact that we are unable even to distinguish being and not
being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore, “<i>il est impossible aux hommes
de s'entendre</i>” (“people cannot ever [fully] understand each other”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His equipoise in the face of the loss of any
foundation for thought proves the success of his strategy of simply not caring
about what he cannot change and passing his time in life in the most civilized
and pleasant manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The company enjoys
the beauty of Philina and Drosea (whose looks are their only function in the
novel), they all salute Thais with cries like <i>“—Salut à la bien-aimée des
dieux et des hommes!</i>” (“Hail to the one beloved of both men and gods!”),
but it is Nicias who cautions Paphnutius against offending love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><i>Je t'avais bien averti, mon
frère, que Vénus était puissante. C'est elle dont la douce violence t'a amené
ici malgré toi. Écoute, tu es un homme rempli de piété; mais, si tu ne
reconnais pas qu'elle est la mère des dieux, ta ruine est certaine. <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">I have warned you, my friend that
Venus is powerful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is she who has
brought you here with gentle violence in spite of yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen, you are a man full of piety, but, if you
don’t recognize her as the mother of the gods, your ruin is certain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Cotta
suggests that the tower on which Paphnutius sits is phallic, it is at once a
nice turn of wit and a hint that Nicias’ respect for the goddess of love is
shared by many like minds as well as suggesting the influence of Freud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The centrality of sexual desire as the dynamo
of human motivation is precisely what Paphnutius denies yet which entraps him
in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The anchorite with high
ambitions and reputation turns out to be that most despised of moralists, the
hypocrite, and the most dangerous of hypocrites: one who deceives himself as
well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If philosophy is
the pursuit of the good life, ideas must be judged by the lived experience of
their advocates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For France, the wisest
people have no occult wisdom; they undergo no dramatic enlightenment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the most part they simply practice good
will and enjoy each other’s company despite differences in creed and
lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They accept their human
nature, looking with admiration on the opposite sex, dining together and
conversing to further their intimacy while feeding their bodies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among this group are some, the wiser sort, it
seems, who have less need of myth and ritual while remaining moral and
philosophical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For France, who was a
materialist, the rational course is to recognize the prerogatives of the body
with its desires for sex and food and the mind with its need for social
interaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than rejecting one’s
natural qualities, France, like his Nicias, seeks to indulge all passions, but in
a civilized manner unlikely to bring the ill consequences of dissipation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Paphnutius will seem misguided to all,
and he is certainly unhappy in his fate, the self-abnegating life Thais chooses
will also find few imitators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ascetic
voluptuaries lose out to the practitioners of the Delphic slogan μηδὲν άγαν “nothing
in excess.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most readers are likely to
feel in concert with Anatole France that there could scarcely be a better way
to spend an afternoon than at a banquet such as Cotta offers, enjoying visual,
verbal, and gustatory pleasures as the sun descends toward dusk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-21603013124273384592023-12-01T03:34:00.000-08:002023-12-01T03:34:30.755-08:00Socialist Parties of the United States<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of the
obvious advantages of a popular front against exploitation the left has always
been a fractious place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What some
participants and historians might see as the struggle to develop a correct
“line” that will most effectively advance the people’s cause will seem to
others internecine infighting. At times, activists were perhaps influenced by
the temptation to defeat one’s comrades when capitalism seemed too big a bully
to challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless, the history
of American revolutionary groups is a rich one, full of heroism and critical to
the reforms that have made our economic system more livable for more people
over the last hundred and fifty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This survey is meant to pay tribute to the generations of activists who
have moved the country forward, and socialists have been at the forefront of
nearly every campaign for social progress from abolitionism, women’s suffrage,
and labor rights, but it may also remind progressives of the energy lost to
factionalism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have sought to
include in this list all parties explicitly calling for revolutionary change
while excluding reformist or mixed groups like the Progressive Parties
associated with Robert LaFollette and with Henry Wallace, or the Working
Families or New York Liberal Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have concentrated on groups that meant to initiate a mass electoral movement,
however limited their success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Industrial Workers of the World is included due to its outsize role in American
history though it was a union and not a political party.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though my arrangement is primarily
chronological, some broad general groupings exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The early groups contributed to the formation
of the Socialist Party which has been the top socialist vote-getter by far,
having achieved totals little short of a million in 1912 and 1920 with Debs as
candidate and in 1932 with Norman Thomas at the head of the ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The formation of what came to be called the
Old Left was inspired by the Bolshevik victory in Russia and the formation of
the Comintern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the Communist
Party was America’s most organized and active left-wing group, its members were
obliged to adopt the Soviet line and to suppress internal discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, with the arrival of the New Left in
the ‘sixties, others imitated the Maoist program while some sought to follow
models from Cuba or Vietnam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the collapse of the mass movements for
civil rights and against the Vietnam War, many groups of the New Communist
Movement, none very large, argued over correct policy while many other leftists
worked in single-issue groups.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overwhelming
positive implication of this simple listing is the evidence it provides of a
grand tradition of workers, both native-born and immigrant, continuously
agitating for a better society, thus illuminating a history often ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It suggests as well several negative factors
that have contributed to the relative weakness of socialist ideas in the
American political forum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First is factionalism
itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from dividing workers and
thus diluting their interests, this tends to encourage the suppression of open
discussion essential for a vigorous movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In politics, as in science and other arenas, the enforcement of orthodoxy
deaden progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can be no
certainty that a given analysis or strategy is effective; a healthy
organization will be always ready to consider opposing conclusions from the
facts and to take new information into account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For political purposes numbers are far more useful than a theoretically
perfect program.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The development
of antidemocratic tendencies was further encouraged by the emulation of foreign
regimes whether Soviet, Chinese, or Third World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the people’s victory in Russia was largekly
subverted by the Leninist idea of a dictatorship euphemistically labeled
“democratic centralism” and Stalin’s dictatorship. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communist parties were until recent times
intolerant of internal discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unfortunate
effects of Americans “tailing” after other regimes rather than seeking
appropriate American solutions include agitation against comrades such as
Trotskyites and the artificial linking of the priorities of socialists in the
United States with the practices in countries abroad with claims to be
socialist.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hard fact is
that the most disciplined parties, typified by the Communists of the ‘thirties,
have been the most effective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same pattern emerged again in the ‘sixties
as activists from Socialist Workers and Progressive Labor in gained outsize
influence in contrast to the more casually organized members of SDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An openness to the free discussion of new
ideas seems contrary to the unanimity useful for collective action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This dialectic
is evident today on the right wing as the Trumpite fascists have proven far more
successful than the more reasonable traditional Republicans.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Americans
have a shallow involvement in politics and, unfortunately, little grasp of
their own interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have often
been distracted and misled by racism, sexism, and xenophobia, but some in every
generation have recognized that socialism offers the solution of social and economic
problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following list is a
reminder of this ongoing struggle. I am sure it is far from complete.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1876 The <b>Socialist Labor Party</b> (originally the <b>Workingmen's
Party of the United States</b>) was the first socialist party in the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some elements broke to help form
the <b>Socialist Party.</b> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1898 the <b>Social Democratic Party of America</b> was
founded which merged into the Socialist Party in 1901.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1901 the <b>Socialist Party </b>organized including elements
of the <b>Socialist Labor Party</b>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
1971 the party changed its name to <b>Social Democrats, USA</b> which split in
1973 into two factions, the <b>Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee</b>
and the <b>Socialist Party USA</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1905 <b>Industrial Workers of the World</b> as a union did
not run candidates but included people from the <b>Socialist Party</b> and the <b>Socialist
Labor Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1919 <b>Communist Party of the USA</b> from a split in the <b>Socialist
Party</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another splinter, the <b>Communist
Labor Party of America</b> merged with the CPUSA in 1921.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1928 <b>Communist League of America</b> formed by
Trotskyites after their expulsion from the <b>CPUSA</b> which in 1934 joined with the <b>American
Workers Party</b> to establish the <b>Workers Party of the United States</b>
which lasted until 1936 when its members joined the <b>Socialist Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1934 <b>Workers Party of the United States</b> formed by the
merger of the Trotskyist <b>Communist League of America</b> and A. J. Muste's <b>American
Workers Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1935 the <b>Revolutionary Workers League</b> split from the <b>Workers
Party of the United States</b>, disbanded in 1946<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1936 <b>American Labor Party</b> formed by members of the <b>Socialist
Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1937 <b>Socialist Workers Party</b> of Trotskyites expelled
from the <b>Socialist Party.</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1938 the <b>Leninist League </b>broke from Trotsky and the <b>Socialist
Workers Party</b>, In 1946 it was renamed the <b>Workers League for a
Revolutionary Party.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1959 <b>Workers World Party</b> split from SWP.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1962 <b>Progressive Labor Movement</b> formed by Maoists
within the <b>CPUSA </b>renamed <b>Progressive Labor Party</b> in 1965.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1964 <b>Spartacist League</b> split from the <b>Socialist
Workers</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1966 <b>Black Panther Party</b> disbanded in 1982.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1966 <b>Freedom Socialist Party</b> feminist split from <b>Socialist
Workers</b>, spawned the <b>Radical Women</b> activist group.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1967 <b>Marxist-Leninist Party (USA)</b>, dissolved in 1973.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1967 <b>Peace and Freedom Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1967 <b>Youth International Party</b> formed by hip radicals<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1968 <b>Young Lords</b>, a Chicago gang, reformed as a
political group.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1968 <b>Young Patriots </b>formed by white Southerners in
Chicago along the model of the <b>Black Panthers</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1968 <b>White Panthers</b> formed by hip white radicals along
the model of the <b>Black Panthers</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1970 <b>Gray Panthers</b>, old persons group along the model
of the <b>Black Panthers</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1971 <b>People’s Party</b>, a national grouping including the
<b>Peace and Freedom Party</b> that functioned only in the 1972 election,
reformed in 2017 by supporters of Bernie Sanders<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1971 <b>New American Movement</b>, formed by SDS members, merged
with <b>DSOC</b> in 1983 to establish the <b>Democratic Socialists of America</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1971 <b>Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist)</b> was formed
from the <b>October League (Marxist–Leninist)</b>, many of whose members had
been SDS activists who followed a Maoist line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1972 <b>The African People's Socialist Party</b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1973 <b>Communist Workers' Party</b> split from <b>Progressive
Labor</b>, dissolved to join <b>New Democratic Movement</b> in 1985.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1975 <b>Revolutionary Communist Party</b> (originally the <b>Revolutionary
Union</b>) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>split from <b>Progressive
Labor.</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1986 <b>Labor Militant</b> founded by Trotskyites, changed
to <b>Socialist Alternative</b> (United States) in 1998.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1990 <b>Green Party</b> evolved from environmentally concerned
<b>Committees of Correspondence</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1995 <b>Socialist Equality Party</b> (United States) formed
by the <b>Workers League</b>, the US supporters of the <b>ICFI</b>. The Workers
League had been founded in 1966 by the <b>American Committee for the Fourth
International</b> (ACFI), which emerged out of a split with the <b>Socialist
Workers Party</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2004 <b>Party for Socialism and Liberation</b>, split from <b>Workers
World</b><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-70072394646599136282023-12-01T03:32:00.000-08:002023-12-01T03:32:42.168-08:00Death's Beauty in Tyrtaios<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most twenty-first century readers remain belated Romantics, valuing
individuality and self-expression in lyric poetry while depreciating received
ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet every work of art (like
every utterance) contains elements adopted from the group as well as those
peculiar to the maker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This mixture may
be unbalanced however, with some works primarily reproducing what everyone
believes and others that open space for change by expressing doubt or
deviance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The former sort is dominant in
oral and popular literature since the belief system is transmitted through
stories, poems, and myths, enabling the reproduction of culture over
generations, though the dissenting view of the latter is always present in embryo, enabling evolution
and development over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The traditional distinction between monodic and choral poetry in ancient Greek lyric, though
still in dispute, reflects that contrast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sappho and Archilochus, considered to write from an individual point of
view, both cast doubt on the glories of combat, while, as a civic composer of
choral song, Tyrtaios expresses patriotism and duty in a form\ familiar from
nearly all times and places, most certainly including our own..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tyrtaios begins with the beauty of the individual when he acts on behalf of the collective, his fate in battle unsettled but his role unclouded
and admirable, contrasted with the poverty-stricken, alienated, and contemptible
life of the cowardly exile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cheer-leading for the
troops, he concludes with a call to hold steady on the front lines of battle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A similar sentiment appears in Book XXII
of the <i>Iliad</i> when Priam attempts to dissuade Hector from fighting
Achilles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His appeal is to pathos. As
Hekuba cries in the background, he gives in to self-pity and raises the image of his own miserable death,
eaten by dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> His sentiment is unworthy of a warrior; t</span>he scene recalls Book VI
when Andromache tries to dissuade her husband from combat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Yet this statement is in character, expressing not only father's love, but also the view of an old man whose years have brought him, not wisdom, but a fear unseemly in the young. </span>While the <i>Iliad </i>is encyclopedic,
offering these moments among many other perspectives on war, Tyrtaios’ song is
single-minded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no tension, no
contradiction. He delivers the social consensus: because war is noble, it is
perforce beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love and death, the two most elemental
motivators for our species (and, indeed, all others) are mingled with a variety
of meanings from the Wagnerian <i>Liebestod</i> to Poe’s notion that the death
of a beautiful woman is “the most poetical topic in the world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here the link is military and patriotic, with
much in common with orations in a veteran’s cemetery today in spite of Tyrtaios’
air of Greek homoeroticism. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How fair to fall when fighting for
one’s home!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A good man takes a stand In
foremost ranks<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">whereas to leave the rich fields
of one’s home<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and set off begging is the worst
of fates,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">to wander with dear mother and old
dad<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">with little children and a wedded
wife!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">An exile is despised by all he
meets –<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">he comes to them with only hateful
want.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">disgracing then his house and
noble self.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Then every shame will follow after
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If no respect will go to vagrant
men<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and no esteem, no favor, and no
care,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">then let us fight with heart for
land and blood<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and let us die with no thought for
our lives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You youth must hold your ranks
till death<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>15<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">avoiding shameful flight and fear
of death.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Make great and bold the will within
your heart.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To fight the foe you must not love
your life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The older men, with legs no longer
lithe,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">must not run off and leave the
fallen youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>20<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">An older man should never fall and
lie<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">among the youth who fight in
vanguard ranks<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">with his white hair and venerable
beard,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">exhaling his brave soul into the
dirt,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">his hands might hold his bloody
loins – a shame<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>25<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">to lookers-on, a frightful sight
to see,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">his body naked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a young man all is seemly <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">while he holds still the charm of
blooming youth,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for men a wondrous sight, to women
fair,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">alive and fair too fallen in the
front. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>30<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So each must stand his ground both
feet firm in place <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Set upon earth biting his lip with
his teeth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">τεθνάμεναι γὰρ καλὸν ἐνὶ
προμάχοισι πεσόντα<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἄνδρ᾽ ἀγαθὸν περὶ ᾗ πατρίδι
μαρνάμενον.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">τὴν δ᾽ αὐτοῦ προλιπόντα πόλιν καὶ
πίονας ἀγροὺς<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">πτωχεύειν πάντων ἔστ᾽ ἀνιηρότατον,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">πλαζόμενον σὺν μητρὶ φίλῃ καὶ πατρὶ
γέροντι<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">παισί τε σὺν μικροῖς κουριδίῃ τ᾽ ἀλόχῳ.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἐχθρὸς μὲν γὰρ τοῖσι μετέσσεται, οὕς
κεν ἵκηται<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">χρησμοσύνῃ τ᾽ εἴκων καὶ στυγερῇ
πενίῃ,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">αἰσχύνει τε γένος, κατὰ δ᾽ ἀγλαὸν
εἶδος ἐλέγχει,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">πᾶσα δ᾽ ἀτιμίη καὶ κακότης ἕπεται.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">εἰ δέ τοι οὕτως ἀνδρὸς ἀλωμένου οὐδεμἴ
ὤρη<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">γίγνεται οὔτ᾽ αἰδὼς οὔτ᾽ ὄπις οὔτ᾽
ἔλεος,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">θυμῷ γῆς περὶ τῆσδε μαχώμεθα καὶ
περὶ παίδων<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">θνῄσκωμεν ψυχέων μηκέτι
φειδόμενοι.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ὦ νέοι, ἀλλὰ μάχεσθε παρ᾽ ἀλλήλοισι
μένοντες,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>15<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">μηδὲ φυγῆς αἰσχρᾶς ἄρχετε μηδὲ
φόβου,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἀλλὰ μέγαν ποιεῖσθε καὶ ἄλκιμον ἐν
φρεσὶ θυμόν,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">μηδὲ φιλοψυχεῖτ᾽ ἀνδράσι
μαρνάμενοι:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">τοὺς δὲ παλαιοτέρους, ὧν οὐκέτι
γούνατ᾽ ἐλαφρά,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">μὴ καταλείποντες φεύγετε
γηπετέας:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>20<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">αἰσχρὸν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο, μετὰ
προμάχοισι πεσόντα<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">κεῖσθαι πρόσθε νέων ἄνδρα
παλαιότερον,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἤδη λευκὸν ἔχοντα κάρη πολιόν τε
γένειον,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">θυμὸν ἀποπνείοντ᾽ ἄλκιμον ἐν κονίῃ,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">αἱματόεντ᾽ αἰδοῖα φίλαις ἐν χερσὶν
ἔχοντα -- αἰσχρὰ 25<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">τά γ᾽ ὀφθαλμοῖς καὶ νεμεσητὸν ἰδεῖν
-- καὶ<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">χρόα γυμνωθέντα: νέῳ δέ τε πάντ᾽ ἐπέοικεν<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ὄφρ᾽ ἐρατῆς ἥβης ἀγλαὸν ἄνθος ἔχῃ:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἀνδράσι μὲν θηητὸς ἰδεῖν, ἐρατὸς δὲ
γυναιξίν,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ζωὸς ἐών, καλὸς δ᾽ ἐν προμάχοισι
πεσών.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>30<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ἀλλά τις εὖ διαβὰς μενέτω ποσὶν ἀμφοτέροισιν<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">στηριχθεὶς ἐπὶ γῆς, χεῖλος ὀδοῦσι
δακών.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-75753031601278483752023-11-01T05:28:00.002-07:002023-11-01T05:28:46.984-07:00Uses for a Dead Child in Chaucer, Livy, and Ancient Israel<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like most of his
fellow-pilgrims’ narratives, the Physician’s contribution to the <i>Canterbury
Tales</i> is a retelling based on a written source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far from simply repeating an earlier version,
though, Chaucer’s revisions express meaning absent from his source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The anecdote from Livy [1] the Physician
relates has quite a different meaning on the road between London and Canterbury
than it did in ancient Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much
significance arises from context and explicit cues apart from the implications
of the plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The incident is sensational
enough to guarantee readers’ attention in any era: in mythic, elemental terms it
tells of a loving father who kills his daughter to save her from sexual
exploitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the significance is
altogether different in the two versions and these meanings are also at
variance with an earlier story of a sacrificed daughter and with the
contemporary reader’s likely reaction.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plot elements
of the story follow closely the spirited account in Livy, seizing the
reader’s attention with lurid sex and violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A father finds his lovely and virtuous fourteen-year-old daughter
fraudulently claimed as a slave by a lecherous judge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than let his Virginia (with her <i>sprechende
Name</i>) fall to Appius’ lust, the father kills her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a virgin sacrifice, offered up for the
ideal of female sexual purity and dependence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the first
reaction of the modern reader must be shock at Virginius’ filicide, an issue
that does not exist in Livy but which by the Middle Ages had become
sufficiently important that in Chaucer’s telling, unlike in the Latin, Virginia
consents willingly to her own murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus her end approaches the hagiographic pattern set by the many female
saints who are said to have died willingly rather than accept a pagan or
otherwise unacceptable lover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
embracing her own death, she asks only for a brief delay, referring to the
respite given Jephthah’s daughter in the Hebrew scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What follows
Virginia’s death in Chaucer’s account has no hint of criticism of her father’s
brutal deed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After she dies at his
hands, an aroused mob exacts revenge, imprisoning Appius who then commits
suicide, hanging his partisans, yet Virginius requests that Claudius, whose
false testimony was the excuse for Virginia’s abduction, be only exiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader hears another Christian grace-note
there, surely, in a glimpse of a divine glow of the about such compassionate
mercy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reaction to this
story in Chaucer is dramatic and has nothing to do with either praising or
blaming the father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The host is overcome
with pathos, with such strong feelings of indignation at the malefactor and sympathy
for the poor daughter that he acts as though he were crazy (287).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So distressed by the “pitous” (302) narrative
is he that he insists he must have a remedy, either medicine or “corny ale” or
a “myrie tale.” (316) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Pardoner, who
is to go next, insists on the second of these alternatives, and they stop into
a tavern for a drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The excuse is
presumably welcomed by others among the travelers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The father’s act
is not questioned, but rather presented as an extreme example of paternal love,
forced on Virginius, like Oedipus the victim of a terrible fate. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Appius is an obvious villain, by pagan or by
Christian standards, and his wickedness makes Virginia and her father shine
forth the more brightly with their virtue. In a brief coda (277-286) the
physician glosses his own story, providing an unlikely version of the story’s
instructive value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than, like the
Host, considering Appius a model of extreme sin and Virgina exemplifying the
polar opposite, an all-but-impossible saintliness, the Physician identifies
with Appius as a fellow sinner and takes the tale as a warning to forsake sin
while one still may, bearing in mind that none can tell when God might bring
hidden deeds to light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no
mention of the evil-doer’s victims, only the pain of the “worm of conscience”
and his constant fear, knowing that in the end there must inevitably be an
accounting for sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presented in the context
of the pilgrimage the Physician’s Tale seems, in spite of its shocking content,
a diverting tale, a potent emotional experience suited for passing an idle
hour, the medieval version of a late show horror movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The motif of a lovely and innocent heroine in
danger is universally popular, and here its sensationalism is heightened by the
horrific act of the father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of
this potent, highly-colored material, though, the stated theme is generic, the
most commonplace of medieval Christian formulae, encouragement toward salvation,
to avoid sin and embrace Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The primary
source for the Physician’s Tale is Livy (III, 44ff.) who tells the story in a
leisurely and lively manner, clearly exploiting the sex and violence that make
the story of Appius and Verginia (Livy’s spelling) attractive to readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The context and the stated significance of
the account in Livy, however, is quite distinct from those of Chaucer’s story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Roman historian’s goal was to trace the
founding of his city and the tale of Verginius marks a transition from the second
decemvirate to the second plebeian succession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even apart from the intrusion of legends like that of Verginius, Livy’s
presentation of such change is often based as much on tradition and literary
models as on historical fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him
Appius’ attempt to rape Verginia is representative of his generally vicious
rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus Livy includes a lengthy
explanation of the strengthening of plebian power in the aftermath of Appius’
crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him the political issue was
leading the people’s reaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
people were excited partly by the atrocity of the deed, partly by the
opportunity now offered of recovering their liberties.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ordinary Romans “talked of nothing but
the abolition of the tribunitian power and the right of appeal and loudly
expressed their indignation at the condition of public affairs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Livy emphasizes
the role of sexual offenses against women as a sign of decadent leadership and the
marker of institutional change by referring to the earlier rape and death of
Lucretia which had preceded the overthrow of the monarchy and the original
founding of the senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly, violence to respectable women is the
hallmark of misrule, allowing a political struggle to be accompanied (or,
perhaps, masked) as moral outrage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Chaucer the sin is personal or spiritual whereas here it is socio-political.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Chaucer’s version
Virginia’s daughter refers to another story that in part resembles her own when
she asks for some brief respite before her death like that afforded Jephthah’s
daughter in the book of <i>Judges</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though
she also is killed by a loving father, this ancient Hebrew episode includes no
lascivious and unjust judge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jephthah,
despite being the son of a “harlot” and practicing banditry, defeats the
Ammonites as a Jewish general and becomes then a respected “judge,” ruling
Israel for six years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He finds himself
sacrificing his own daughter as the result of a rash vow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no question of his failing to carry
out his contract with the divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
daughter was, like Agamemnon’s, the price of military victory.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once again female
blood accompanies a regime change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
putative theme is, as so often in the Hebrew scripture, the ups and downs of the
Jews interpreted as the result of either cleaving to pious rules or flirting
with non-Jewish practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel had
been losing its battles because they “did evil again in the sight of the Lord,
and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon,
and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of
the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served not him.” (<i>Judges</i> 10)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, though, Israel’s champion Jephthah endears
himself to God with a vow that echoes the human sacrifice of the Jews’
neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His prayer must have pleased
Jehovah since victory in battle follows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Far from deserving censure for killing his daughter, Jephthah was
originally, like Abraham, whose case turned out somewhat differently, a type of
the believer who demonstrates virtue by submitting his will to the divine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The archaic
ritual character of this sacrifice is evident in the fact that Jephthah’s
daughter’s death was remembered in an annual observance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And it was a custom in Israel, that the
daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the
Gileadite four days in a year. (Judges 11, 39-40)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This custom suggests that the story is a
descent into legend of what was once a divine myth about a female vegetation
spirit similar to Ishtar or Persephone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here
the context is wholly mythic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such
actions occur on a cosmic stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jephthah’s
actions have no moral content any more than those of Oedipus, though later
priestly commentators including the Jewish <i>B'reshith Rabba</i> and (much
later) Rashi and the Christians Ambrose and John Chrysostom made him an example
of error for the same actions that had been consdiered praiseworthy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The righteous
killing of one’s child so outrages ordinary expectations that stories of such
deeds will excite interest in any human society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the themes implied by the stories of
Jephthah and Verginius (and Virginius) vary widely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Hebrew version has origins in the cycle
of the natural year and the observation that life lives only on life and the
hard insistence that the life of the community supersedes personal grief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, Livy’s Latin anecdote about another
father’s sacrifice continues the notion that the father’s individual loss is
justified by a social gain, in Jephthah’s case the military victory over the
Ammonites and in Verginius’ the assertion of the power of the commons, but the
mythic and ritualistic associations are muted in favor of proto-democratic
political values and individual ethical choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Finally, in Chaucer, the story is told for the fun of it, and the
putative theme urging the reader to gain salvation by avoiding annoying God seems
tossed into the text as an afterthought. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using the violation
of the strongest taboos, with the shedding of female blood marking historical
change, stories of this type exercise a strong narrative appeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Verginius anecdote appeared in <i>The
Romance of the Rose</i>, was depicted by Botticelli, and was retold by later
authors, including John Webster and Thomas Heywood in <i>Appius and Virginia</i>
and Thomas Babington Macaulay in <i>Lays of Ancient Rome</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In every instance the story’s meaning is a
unique compound of plot and context, complicated by what the text says about
itself and what the reader makes of it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-29335371623596466552023-11-01T05:26:00.001-07:002023-11-01T05:26:16.375-07:00The Meaning of Art for Art’s Sake<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Numbers in brackets indicate endnotes; those in
parentheses refer to page numbers or other divisions of quoted texts.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase “art
for art’s sake” is so familiar that one may fail to notice that its accepted meaning
is not explicit but rather is conveyed by indirect implication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Art, after all, can scarcely be altogether
autotelic since without human beings art can have no value or meaning whatever.
[1] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is absurd to imagine that a score
of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would serve any end at all were there no people
to hear and appreciate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a
critical statement maintains the worth of “art for art’s sake,” it really means
that art is justified, not for some abstract theoretical inherent worth, but
because it provides pleasure to people. [2]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The very evasion of this direct statement looks like a kind of residual puritanical
euphemism masking hedonism [3], though pleasure, of course, has many varieties,
from simple entertainment through sensuality to experiences of the
sublime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase implies as well a
criterion for evaluating works of art that foregrounds form and style rather
than content or theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The original
occurrences of the expression, though, bore a rather different meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, the phrase first appears in
Benjamin Constant’s account of a visit with Schiller and English expatriate
Henry Crabb Robinson (a student of Schelling) [4] whom he recorded as declaring
directly that art could have no function or end outside itself without being
deformed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Constant specifically mentions
the roots of the concept extending through Schelling to Kant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though pleasure does play a role in determinations
of beauty, the German Idealist lineage would be unsatisfied with either
pleasure alone as the <i>raison d'être</i> of art or the pursuit of purely
abstract formal value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant and
Schelling would claim for art a truth, indeed a truth more profoundly true than
most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase, once forged, was
developed and mutated in subsequent authors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase next
appeared in print in an 1818 essay by Victor Cousin that insisted “We must have
religion for religion’s sake, morality for morality’s sake, as with art for
art’s sake...the beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is
good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself.” [5]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cousin’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>commonsense “Eclecticism” began from a material base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Man is sensible to pleasure and pain: he
shuns the one and seeks the other.” (lecture 12)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He declared that “art is the free reproduction
of the beautiful” with no other end in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The sole object of art is the beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Art abandons itself as soon as it shuns
this.” (lec. 9)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While he recognized the
autonomy of aesthetics in statements like these, his philosophy continued to link
the beautiful to the good, the true, and the divine, so, unsurprisingly,
ulterior considerations of morality and spirituality linger in spite of his
formula “l’art pour l’art.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Causin
emphatically denies that beauty entails desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For his belated neo-Platonism aesthetic the experience of beauty is not
limited to pleasure (which he trivializes by calling it “the agreeable”) or
indeed to sensation or to sensual imagination at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is rather based in reason and indeed for
him ethics are likewise aesthetic, because the good, the true, and the
beautiful are, on the most sublime level, all one. (lec. 6)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in the
cheeky preface of Gautier to his novel <i>Mademoiselle de Maupin</i> that the
line blossoms into its principal role as a controversialist slogan of the
aesthetic party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as a <i>cri de
coeur</i> that it has survived to the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Its advocates have energetically opposed the traditional role of art in
teaching morality (and the more subtle claims of humanists that art is
uplifting or ennobling) and the complementary claims of reformers that art must
subserve the goal of social justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gautier there
maintains categorically that “there is nothing really beautiful save what is of
no possible use.” (9) With the bohemian impudence that endeared him to Pound,
Gautier ridicules attention to “virtue,” calling her “a very pleasant
grandmother, but a grandmother.” [10]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
would prefer to gaze with pleasure on Dorinne’s bosom (47) and in general
recommends a hedonistic life devoted to the bottle, the pipe, and Pantagruel
(48).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contrast with Cousin’s
discomfort around desire and pleasure could hardly be more marked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seeks to <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ê</span>pater la bourgeoisie</i> as he
cheerfully identifies himself as “the most enormously immoral individual in
Europe or elsewhere.” (53)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He muses on
the progress possible were a “large reward” provided for anyone who could
invent a new pleasure.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In sum, he
declares, “to me enjoyment seems to be the end of life and the only useful
thing on this earth.” (83)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whistler’s lecture
“Ten O’Clock,” for which he sent formal invitations as though for a dinner
party at an unusual hour, declared his artistic notions with similar high
spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him art is “selfishly
occupied with her own perfection only” (4), having nothing whatever to do with
a benefit of any kind (5).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He will have
nothing to do with any literary or narrative reading of paintings (16) or an
educational end (21).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While he does
pause to ridicule Oscar Wilde as a clotheshorse (23), for him the value of art
is formal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The painter’s poetry,” for
Whistler, consists of his arranging “form and colour into such perfect harmony,
that exquisiteness is the result.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
such creativity, or “invention,” and not from profound ideas or novel insights,
the artist’s work gains a “dignity” and “nobility of thought.” (17)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He maintained in “The Red Rag” (reprinted in <i>The
Gentle Art of Making Enemies</i>) “Art should be independent of all
clap-trap—should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear,
without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion,
pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with
it; and that is why I insist on calling my works ‘arrangements’ and ‘harmonies.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whistler’s
lecture, like Gautier’s preface is lit with high spirits and fleering if dry
remarks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He expresses discomfort at
having to “appear in the role of the Preacher” (3) and imagines a scene in
which “the Gods stand by and marvel, and perceive how far away more beautiful
is the Venus of Melos was their own Eve.” (15)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unabashedly elitist, he deplores that art has become of late “a sort of
common topic for the tea-table” useful for signaling one’s “culture and
refinement.” (3)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet he mocks art historians
as well who “frequent museums and burrow in crypts,” seeking to “establish with
due weight” unimportant reputations” and in the process reduce Art to
statistics (18-19).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far from hoping like
William Morris to bring art to everyone, he wishes to “lift from their [the
public’s] shoulders this incubus of Art.” (22)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In both Gautier
and Whistler, the formal pleasures of art are its sole reward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their sassy tone is merely the seasoning
indicating their dissent from the age-old formula naming delight and
instruction as art’s goals. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That many
thought this belief arose from an artistic milieu that not only considered
immorality irrelevant to aesthetics, but was suspected of actually cultivating
sin only attracted more attention to these writers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the poses of many among the decadents
and aesthetes of the time often encouraged this view.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, far from
being claiming that art is entirely autotelic, the phrase “art for art’s sake” was
used to assert the value of the pleasure beauty inspires and the primacy of
form over content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the expression
most often signifies is that pleasure, whatever form it may take -- whether
simple entertainment, inspiration, or spiritual afflatus, is the only “final
cause” of art and that this value consists arises from purely abstract formal
patterning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An examination of nineteenth
century uses of the phrase indicates that the line was employed as a
provocation to the bourgeoisie by counter-cultural artists eager to
disassociate themselves from conventional respectability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strong reactions condemned the notion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, an unsigned editorial in <i>The
Art World</i> was titled “Art for Art's Sake: Its Fallacy and Viciousness.” [8]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, of course, is precisely the reaction
the artists were seeking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally “<i>l’art
pour l’art</i>,” in Stefan George “<i>Kunst für die Kunst</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of “<i>ars gratia artis</i>” in the
MGM logo must strike the viewer as ironic in light of Hollywood cinema’s
undisputed profit motives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ignore here
a certain generic truth in the proposition in the sense that not only every
creative or intellectual field, but indeed every technical skill, can be judged
only by its own standards, applied by practitioners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus only a carpenter may fully appreciate
the skill of another carpenter and only a highly trained practicing musician
can best evaluate another’s performance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i>The Sense of
Beauty</i> Santayana defines beauty as “objectified pleasure.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a seminar, with
five or six other graduate students, all of whom had presumably pursued
literary study because they love to read, I once ventured to suggest that
pleasure was a motive for consuming art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The professor drily responded, “Mr. Seaton, we don’t talk about our
personal lives here.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Benjamin Constant,
<i>Journal intime</i>, Jan. 1804.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Art
for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves
a purpose which is not its own.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(‘<i>L'art
pour l'art, sans but, car tout but dénature l'art. Mais l'art atteint au but
qu'il n'a pas</i>.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same sentiment
is recorded in Robinson’s own journals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">5. <i>Du Vrai, du beau, et du bien</i> [Sorbonne lectures,
1818] (1853) pt. 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These talks had
originally appeared as <i>Cours de philosophie professé à la faculté des
lettres pendant l'année 1818</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Mademoiselle de
Maupin</i>, translated<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by C. T.Brainard
(1900), p. 82.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James A. McNeil
Whistler, <i>Ten O’Clock, a Lecture</i>, 1916, p. 4.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 2, No. 2
(May, 1917).<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-59184222782026581982023-11-01T05:15:00.000-07:002023-11-01T05:15:15.784-07:00Notes on Recent Reading 48 (Huxley, Cossery, de Maupassant)<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Point Counter Point</i> (Huxley)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Huxley gets far
less respect these days than he did in my youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His lack of engagement with the major trends
of modernism combined with the intensification of his mystic inclinations
toward the end of his career have diminished his importance for many readers in
recent years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is left with those who
are like him interested in cleansing their doors of perception as well as a
remnant that relish the social novels of his early days: <i>Crome Yellow</i>, <i>Antic
Hay</i>, and <i>Point Counter Point</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reading <i>Point
Counter Point</i> one has the innocent amusement of a <i>roman à clef</i>
including, by most accounts, characters based on D. H. Lawrence and Nancy
Cunard, as well as a denatured and belated impression of Baudelaire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is an all-but-constant stream of weary
Bloomsbury wit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My wife assures me that
her underclothes are positively Phryean.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Quotations have something facetiously pedantic about them.” “He talks
slang as though he were a foreigner with a perfect command of English.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“[Marjorie] took such horribly small bites
from a slice of bread and then chewed only with the front teeth, like a guinea
pig – as though the process of eating were an indelicate and rather disgusting
affair.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These I found by opening the
book at random; they constitute its most reliable reward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought of
Peacock through much of the book, as one character played off another, none
more than two-dimensional, and then of Oscar Wilde and Saki.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toward the end, when things other than
repartee start to happen, the action seems incongruous and faintly disturbing,
as though a Punch and Judy puppet were suddenly to express real pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet the novels are well worth reading, at
least up through the ‘thirties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I myself
have a considerable tolerance as well for the Vedanta articles and the allied
exploration of the value of psychedelics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And I have a nostalgia as well, remembering how, as a teen-ager, I loved
<i>Texts and Pretexts</i>, his poetry anthology with comments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote a very great deal, his own poetry,
essays, travel pieces, stage plays and screenplays, supporting himself with his
pen in a way all but unthinkable today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Men God Forgot</i> (Cossery)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cossery was an
Egyptian-born writer of Syrian Christian descent who, despite living in Paris
for most of his life, continued to set his fiction in some version of his
remembered Cairo childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though his
own father was well off, Cossery found his themes in the slums, among the poor
scrabbling to survive and smoking hashish to get through the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Men God Forgot</i>, his first book,
consists of five stories whose titles convey their tone: three are “The Girl
and the Hashish Smoker,” “The Barber Has Killed his Wife,” and “The Hungry
Dream Only of Bread.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ambiance is
supported by the names of roads in his fictional city such as the Cul-de-sac of
the Cripples, the Street of the Pregnant Woman, and the Lane of the Pissing
Child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though his
original inspiration was Balzac and he wrote only in French, his tales are sure
to remind readers of Paul Bowles’ storytellers like Mohammed Mrabet as well as
the sophisticated narratives of Naguib Mahfouz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cossery’s successful pursuit of lyricism in scenes of squalid ugliness
is reminiscent as well of Céline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Egypt Cossery
found allies in the Groupe Art et Liberté, a largely Surrealist and
anti-fascist formation and associated as well with such writers as Lawrence
Durrell, Jean Genet, and Henry Miller (who contributed a note for a later City
Lights edition).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book was translated
by Harold Edwards, a professor at an Egyptian university and published by
George Leite’s Circle Editions in Berkeley in 1946.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The many typos seem to testify to the book’s
authenticity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My own copy, from the
University Avenue Goodwill store near the UC campus, has a penciled price
inside the cover: 25¢. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cossery would
have particularly welcomed, I think, being read on the cheap. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Bel-Ami</i> (de Maupassant)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Georges Duroy is
introduced as a man who attracts attention in public places due to his
masterful military air and, more importantly, his striking good looks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before long the reader finds that he
acquired his “swagger” during service in colonial North Africa where he not
only indulged in incidents of gratuitous brutality, but then found lasting
amusement in recalling them later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ego-driven and amoral, he improbably makes his way to wealth and an
influential position in Paris journalism, his advancement spurred by his sexual
conquests of a series of women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Utterly
cynical about the government and his profession as well as about romance, he
rises irresistibly in Belle Époque France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the concluding scene, a glorious celebrity wedding, Duroy (or Du Roy
de Cantel, as he now styles himself) the toast of the town, his ambition
somehow satisfied, gazes out across the city, a master of the universe like Tom
Wolfe’s Sherman McCoy, and his thoughts turn to his mistress’s hair, charmingly
disordered in bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The combination
of Duroy’s almost inhuman selfishness with his capacity for a nearly (but not
quite) tender sensuality heightens the dramatic tension for the reader, while
for the character there can be no doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His crass material goals are the only real ends in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story of his affairs plays out before the
historical background of French colonial expansion in the Maghreb, a plotline
of unbounded national greed to match the individual avarice of the novel’s
hero.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book, like de
Maupassant’s stories, is filled with telling specific details in every
scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the human landscape is
bleak indeed – the characters generally act from the most venial motives – the
context is described with vivid delight and rich plenitude, with scenes set in
poverty and in wealth, in the city and in the countryside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In part at least the reader is enabled, like Lear
in the end, to look on fallen society with bemusement, to become one of “God’s
spies” in a world that might sometimes seem altogether wicked were it not that
we are inextricably tangled in it and we know, if we know nothing else, our own
vulnerability.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-23563267146414630542023-10-01T06:04:00.000-07:002023-10-01T06:04:28.544-07:00Catullus’ Currency of Kisses: New translations of Catullus V, VII, and XLVIII<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <b>The Latin texts of the poems
are appended.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Erotic relationships seem sometimes, to
some lovers, reducible to the rules of accountancy: a bit of pleasure in return
for a certain amount of trouble, a financial cost balanced against flights of
delight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When upbraiding Ameana for an
excessive fee (41) or complaining of Aulifilena’s deception (110), Catullus displays
the confident misogyny of a substantial citizen in a patriarchy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet with passionate attachments, the values
shift dramatically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One lover’s side, at
least, of the exchange can balloon to virtually infinite value which may or may
not be equaled by the love object.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catullus
expresses the degree of romantic love by a figure of speech, as innumerable kisses.
[1]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The association of love and kisses
is natural, of course, but, when the kisses become uncountable, the image
signifies the power of eros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such
lover’s desperation may lead either to love-sickness, depression, and the
miserable conviction that one has been playing the fool or, for the more
fortunate, to an ascent to Elysium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Catullus XLVIII the convention appears
at its simplest in the context of gay relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Your honeyed eyes, Juventius,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">if I could kiss them on and on,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">three hundred thousand times would not<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">suffice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d never
have enough,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">not if they numbered more than grains<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">could grow in fields of one estate. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hyperbolic compliment, but one fully
intended in passionate moods, the hundreds of thousands of kisses remain still
insufficient to express the lover’s emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He cannot rest in languorous pleasure, but always wants more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love is measured by a currency of kisses, and
the quantity must be countless to indicate the ineffable magnitude of the love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The association here, first with honey and
then with ears of cereal grain reinforces this indefinite and enthusiastic
measure of love, and links the poem to archaic practices designed to foster
fertility, human, animal, and vegetable alike. [2] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, as Frazer reported, people would copulate
in their fields in hopes of a good harvest, holding one’s lover may remain, in
a vestigial way, a ritual of sympathetic magic to renew the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such a link has at least an emotional
reality, recorded in all the poems of spring’s regreening accompanying the
blossoming of romance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catullus VII first extends the hyperbole,
with an elaborate series of references at first geographical, then historic and
cosmic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">How many, Lesbia, kisses between us,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">might be enough to surfeit me and more?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">As many as the grains of Libyan sand<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">that lie in Cyrene where the silphium grows,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">between the oracle of torrid Jove<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">and Battus’ old and holy sepulchre,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">as many as the stars in silent night<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">that see all peoples’ secret love affairs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">So many kisses must the mad Catullus have<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">to be enough and then some, too,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">so that the curious can never count<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">nor any tongue cast evil words our way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This lyric reinforces the kisses’
meaning familiar from XLVIII and expandss it with concrete specifics, while
also adding considerable semantic territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Extravagant love, measurable only by countless kisses, is associated
with the exotic (Cyrene), the rare and precious (silphium or asafoetida), the
sensual (“torrid”), and yet the venerable (the grave of the city’s founder) and
indeed the universally human (“peoples’ secret love affairs”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rich in content if lacking the
straightforward and spontaneous-seeming apparent speaking from the heart of XLVIII
this poem suddenly turns in the final two lines to reveal a new aspect of the
lovers’ situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the original
referent of the currency of kisses had been erotic intensity, here they provide
a mystical protection from hostile busybodies very like the “jealous ones” of
Troubadour lyric over a millennium later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As a subjective experience of the lovers from which all others are
excluded, the kisses create a private utopian world, protected against all
threats by the power of their affection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These ill-wishers are the projection of the lovers’ fear that their
bliss is endangered and perhaps cannot last.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In V, likely the most familiar Catullan <i>carmina</i>,
the motif of countless kisses is employed in service of the <i>carpe diem</i>
topos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here it spotlights the contrast
between the couple’s delirium of love-making and those disapproving
superannuated meddlers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Oh, let us live, my Lesbia, let us love!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And any idle talk of crabbed old men<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">we’ll value at one pennyworth, no more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The sun, we know, will set and rise again,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">and yet, for us, when our brief light is gone,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">what follows then will be an endless sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">A thousand kisses and a hundred more I want,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">another thousand, and a hundred yet,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">and when the thousands upon thousands mount,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">we’ll stir the pot and then we’ll never know<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">and those who envy us won’t know as well<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">how many kisses you and I enjoyed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The seventh through the tenth lines simply juggle numbers,
indicating the ineffable quality of a necessarily private erotic
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a jazz singer going
into scatting the artist best approximates the joy of love by admitting its
inexpressibility. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two are so
confidently in control that they, as though with a wave of a magic wand, can
fling the scene into confusion and frustrate the hostile intentions of the
envious while enjoying the marvels of each other’s bodies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catullus’ lyrics
portray a range of lovers, some selfish, some selfless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him erotic play was could be simple
recreation without emotional engagement, but other verses suggest a
whole-hearted tumble into total commitment scarcely expressible in words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adopting the apparently natural association
of love and kisses, he elaborates the imagery of a currency of kisses to
signify a passion so great as to require a figure of speech, so great it may
provide an apotropaic charm against the invidious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A master of
invective and insult and capable of plain-speaking to the point of outright
vulgarity, Catullus was at the same time a virtuoso of love poetry whose elegant
and original language might be either ardent or nasty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His range is evident in another poem using
the multitude of kisses topos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his
most notorious poem (XVI) he complains that Aurelius and Furius have mistaken
his romantic side for weakness, and the very image under discussion is to
blame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because I write of countless kisses, you
think me as less a man?” Catullus defends his masculinity with the purest
sexual aggression “I will fuck your ass and mouth”. [3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That this verse is written by the same author
who wrote as a devotee of true love only suggests the breadth and variety of
the wild territory of eros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Among others who use the same image is Baudelaire who in “<i>Le Balcon</i>”
exclaims “<i>ô baisers infinis</i>!”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leah O’Hearn demonstrates the details of the
implications of honey and of grain, particularly the latter’s association with
the emergence of facial hair in Classical love poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See “Title:
Juventius and the Summer of Youth in Catullus 48,” <i>Mnemosyne </i>LXXIV, 1.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“<i>Vōs, quod mīlia multa bāsiōrum, lēgistis male mē marem putātis</i>?”
and (“<i>Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō</i>”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">XLVII<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">siquis me sinat usque basiare,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">usque ad milia basiem trecenta,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">nec unquam videar satur futurus,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">non si densior aridis aristis<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">sit nostrae seges osculationis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VII<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Quaeris, quot mihi bāsiātiōnēs<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Quam magnus numerus Libyssae
harēnae<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">lasarpīciferīs iacet Cyrēnīs<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ōrāclum Iovis inter aestuōsī<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">et Battī veteris sacrum sepulcrum;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">aut quam sīdera multa, cum tacet
nōx,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">fūrtīvōs hominum vident amōrēs:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">tam tē bāsia multa bāsiāre<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">vēsānō satis et super Catullō est,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">quae nec pernumerāre cūriōsī<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">possint nec mala fascināre lingua.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">V<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivāmus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">rumoresque senum severiorum<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">omnes unius aestimemus assis!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">soles occidere et redire possunt;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">nobis, cum semel occidit brevis
lux,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">nox est perpetua una dormienda.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">da mi basia mille, deinde centum,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">dein mille altera, dein secunda
centum,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">deinde usque altera mille, deinde
centum;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">aut ne quis malus invidere possit,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-54071002565163501242023-10-01T05:56:00.000-07:002023-10-01T05:56:21.623-07:00High Peaks of European Cuisine<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> Growing up in a
Midwestern suburb during the Eisenhower era, I came to feel that I lived in a
cultural desert. Not realizing then that
everyone’s own culture tends to be invisible to the individual, I thought not
only Chicago’s nearby Black neighborhoods, but also small Midwestern towns, not
to mention every other country on earth, had more to engage the imagination
than the trimmed lawns of my neighborhood where the height of aesthetic ambition
seemed embodied in my parents’ artificial Christmas tree situated in the
picture window and played upon by varicolored lights as it revolved. The corresponding cuisine notoriously depended
on ketchup, margarine, Wonder Bread, Jell-O salads, and casseroles using canned
soups. On the rare occasions that my
family dined out, it was either for burgers or, for a fancy meal, steak or
fried chicken.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I soon
learned that other options existed and, in menus as in other matters, I became
a dissenter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother learned early that
I preferred Oscar Mayer Smokey Links to hot dogs and Liederkranz to Velveeta
and, as I reached high school age, I found access to lamb and eggplant from
Diana’s on South Halsted, sausage with mumbo sauce from a stand beneath the 63<sup>rd</sup>
Street El, and pickled cabbage from the Assyrian-American Restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, of course, ethnic holes-in-the-wall are
everyone’s favorites and salsa is America’s most popular condiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A combination of world travels and stacks of
library cookbooks have given me some familiarity with what is done with food today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have learned that no other region produces
such a grand variety of pickled foods as the Korean <i>banchan</i>, while
Indian cooking excels in the harmonious orchestration of large numbers of aromatic
herbs and spices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, I
came to reconsider white people’s food and to realize that the European
continent has dramatically high peaks of its own culinary achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though I took a long way round, I had come to
be able to appreciate the unique triumphs of white people’s cooking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bread is made in
a good many parts of the world, but European wheat breads have been developed
to a level of sophistication far outpacing other regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the world’s breads are unleavened
flatbreads like tortillas or chapattis, sometimes, like Ethiopian <i>injera</i>,
fermented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the nineteenth century the
first satisfactory chemical leavens became available, allowing the cook to make
raised breads like biscuits, soda bread, coffee cake, and bannocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oven-baked raised breads using barm, yeast,
or sourdough starters include <i>naan</i>, Khamiri <i>roti</i>, and Arabic <i>khubz</i>,
including pita, but in Europe an array of high-rising yeast breads unlike those
known elsewhere arose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every region of
Europe developed specialties: <i>pain de mie</i>, <i>challah</i>, <i>pan
gellego</i>, <i>ciabatta</i>, <i>pane Toscano</i>, but the acknowledged masterpiece
of European bread is the French <i>baguette</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countless excellent breads are made with
whole wheat or with multiple grains, and I relish a sprinkling of sunflower,
flax, and sesame seeds, yet for me as for most diners and bakers the acme of
bread, the very best loaf, is a baguette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Baking all my life I continue to pursue the perfect <i>baguette</i> in
my own kitchen.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contrast in texture
between crust and interior and the pure and fresh wheaten taste, bland enough
to complement any dinner made this the most common and iconic of French
foodstuffs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very magic of the action
of the yeast, creating bubbles and caverns, makes a light and variable loaf
that is excellent with unsalted butter while not distracting from the other
contents of a full plate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People throughout
the world, in the universal quest for intoxication, have made alcoholic drinks
of whatever was hand: using the sap of palms to make wine in West Africa, agave
for <i>pulque</i> in Mexico, rice for <i>sake</i> and <i>mijiu</i> in East
Asia, even mare’s milk for Mongolian <i>ayrag</i> or <i>kumis</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of these has its charms, particularly in
its home territory with complementary climate and cuisine, yet the production
of wine from grapes in Europe goes far beyond what was done elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely the range is extraordinary from a dry
and fine-bubbled sparkler, through the light fruit of Beaujolais, the grave and
knotty flavor of pinot noir, the satin of Bordeaux, the musky hearth-like
warmth of port, even the strong straw taste that lurks behind the sweetness of
Tokay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely for those who consume
alcohol there is a wine for every taste and every moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The simple treatment of grape juice to
preserve it and at the same time to induce inebriation became in Europe an elaborate
aesthetic game, as any glance at wine literature will indicate, but one with resulting
in dependable satisfaction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, the
cheese produced in Europe is far more varied than most of the world’s
cheeses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While fresh cheeses like the Indian
<i>panir</i> or the Middle Eastern <i>ackawi</i> which are widespread are made
also in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Europe: the familiar cottage
cheese, German <i>quark</i>, and French <i>fromage blanc</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most distinctive European cheeses are,
however, prepared with particular molds, fungi, and bacteria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The litany of their names might suggest a
cheese cantata: <i>Brevibacterium linens</i> is used in making Limburger, <i>Penicillium
glaucum</i> for gorgonzola, <i>Propionibacterium freundenreichii</i> makes the
holes in Swiss, and <i>Penicillium camemberti </i>and its cousin <i>Penicillium
roqueforti</i> for camembert and roquefort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The flavors may be mild or sharp, bland or salty, perhaps nutty or
smoky, the textures light or dense soft or hard, smooth or grainy, a grand
array of possibilities unequaled elsewhere in the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many foodstuffs are
most appealing in natural form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresh
apricots can scarcely be improved, new peas and a beefsteak need only a bit of
cooking and seasoning, while oysters and clams are best utterly <i>au naturel</i>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The satisfaction of fresh milk, salted
peanuts, tomatoes just plucked from the garden, and countless other foods is
universal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cuisines differentiate,
however, when more complex preparation is employed, often resulting in a
product that could not really be foreseen in its raw materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bread, wine, and cheese are all the result of
fermentation, and the astonishing variety of each of these basic foods is a
testament to our species’ ingenuity, demonstrating the power of art to transform
nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These products are not simply foods;
they are feats of imaginative and aesthetic judgement. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are, we may
be glad, artistic creations with physical substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sit this afternoon on my front porch in a
soft breeze, hearing the birds of late summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With a piece of <i>baguette</i>, some thin slices of Gouda, and a glass
of Chateau Garreau, I may partake of these pinnacles of European cuisine all at
once and, to enjoy such a feast, one need not do any preparation whatever,
though today’s bread is homemade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-76133916964720706682023-10-01T05:55:00.000-07:002023-10-01T05:55:57.889-07:00Every Reader’s Tennyson<p> <b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the sixteenth
of a series of Every Reader’s Poets, essays meant to introduce (or
re-introduce) non-scholarly readers to the work of important English poets. In
this series I limit my focus to the discussion, often including a close paraphrase,
of only three or four of each writer’s best-known works while providing a bit
of context and biography, eschewing most byways and all footnotes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The general introduction to the series titled
“Why Read Poetry?” is also available on this site.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson’s poetry is readily available on
line, but for the reader’s convenience I have here appended the poems I
discuss.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every poem,
indeed, every utterance, is a combination of familiar and novel elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We relish some poets for their idiosyncratic
sensibilities, thrillingly contrasting with the reader’s more normative
reactions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the writers prized for
seeing the world in a way dramatically different from others are Blake in the
English tradition and Rimbaud in the French.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the same time other writers, some equally gifted, excel at
representing received opinions so precisely that they become culture bearers
for a generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the description
does not hold in every particular, Vergil in antiquity, Trollope in fiction,
and Longfellow in the United States may be found toward the conventional side
of the spectrum.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alfred, Lord
Tennyson is an author of this latter sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though unsuccessful in his first ventures as an author, at the age of thirty-three
his new volume of <i>Poems</i> was well-received and a mere eight years later
he was named Poet Laureate, a position he held longer than any of his
predecessors, from 1850 until 1892, long enough to be considered an institution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gerard Manley Hopkins was bothered by a
“vulgarity” in his work which allowed him to achieve a “vogue” but not
“ascendancy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson was more popular
with Queen Victoria and other rear-guard aristocrats as well as among the
middle-class book-buying public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough
of a genuine celebrity to find himself pestered by poetry-loving tourists, his
funeral in Westminster Abbey (where one may yet visit his grave) attracted over
ten thousand applicants for the thousand seats assigned to the general public,
while a great many more citizens clustered outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The invited mourners included scholars like
Benjamin Jowett and numerous dukes, marquis, and bishops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is difficult to imagine such a fuss over
any poet’s death today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i>The Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations</i>, that museum of words, Tennyson is given more
pages than any other writer with the single exception of William Shakespeare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With time his sentiments
came to seem overdrawn, his attitudes conformist, and the fantasy of medievalism
with which he had captivated the public in his <i>Idylls of the King</i> and
other works became <i>pass</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span></i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the arrival of free verse in the twentieth century, fewer readers
appreciated Tennyson’s mastery of meters, though he was perhaps the most
skillful prosodist since Pope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even his
successor to the dignity of the laureateship, Alfred Austin, himself an
indifferent poet, while obliged to concede that “the present age, taken in the
lump, likes Mr. Tennyson’s poetry,” found him third-rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His reputation never has recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the best
illustration of his successful use of conventional opinion is the non-partisan
if unthinking patriotism of his best-known poem “The Charge of the Light
Brigade” (the text is appended), which celebrates the valor of the British
soldiers in the Crimean War who, as the result of an erroneous order, attempted
an impossible objective and were cut to pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This simple sentiment so appealed to British nationalism (and to
American as well) that the poem soon found a place in school curricula and
memorial assemblies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its brevity,
repetitions, and jangling rhymes make it as digestible as a nursery rhyme.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader needs
know no history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The soldiers are
exemplary citizens specifically because they obey without reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Theirs not to make reply,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Theirs not to reason why,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Theirs but to do and die:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Into the valley of Death<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Rode the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Because such dedication is an
ideal of all ruling classes in every time and place, the poem sheds little
light on the author’s attitudes or the specific historical circumstances of the
war, yet this generic quality is what makes it so instantly understandable to
all and so comforting to the fellow-countrymen of the fallen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson was often far more subtle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reflected the changes in taste as British
culture shifted from feudalism to capitalism and the Victorian world-view was
shaken not only by Marx, but also by Darwin and the scientific study of the
Bible and of non-Christian scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus
Tennyson, while in a sense as laureate the official propagandist for the regime
(and found himself writing works such as “A Welcome to Alexandra” for the Queen
Dowager upon her return from overseas) was in fact in politics a mild liberal a
bit in advance of his more backward compatriots and in religion somewhat
slippery, tending in the end toward the broadest opinions, even beyond the
borders of Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tensions
generated by his uncertainty are often evident and modern readers are likely to
identify with his <i>Angst</i> and his ambiguity more than with the pose of confident
and conservative opinion that won him renown during his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of Tennyson’s most lovely lyrics,
“Tears, Idle Tears” (text appended) articulates such a dialectic while at the
same time appealing to nineteenth century sentimentality. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ambivalence is foregrounded even in the
title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “tears” expressing a pathetic
emotion are checked by the qualifier “idle,” posing the poem’s question – “I
know not what they mean” – at the outset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are the age-old tears inspired by mortality and the passing of
time, familiar poetic themes since <i>Gilgamesh</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such tears “rise in the heart” when
contemplating “the happy Autumn-fields” and “thinking of the days that are no
more.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The naming of the season means
belatedness and the approach of death, yet the scene is nonetheless “happy.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than eliding this tension, Tennyson
develops the contradiction in extraordinary images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thoughts of the past, though dwelling on
the departed are still “fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,” while at
the same time “sad as the last” beam of daylight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The days gone by are “sad” since they are not
recoverable, and the distress they inspire is heightened because they remain
“fresh,” as powerful in the memory as they had been at first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson then constructs the most
precise and telling image of this contradiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “freshness” of memory is now figured as morning
birdsong light, but heard by “dying ears.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With cinematic power the poet depicts the sickroom during sunrise as the
light slowly increases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the face of
the collision of life and death, he can only muse in wonder “so sad, so
strange.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson seeks to resolve his anxiety by embracing
the unity of the opposite ends of the bipolar opposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the penultimate stanza all the images have
this compound character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The summer is
“dark,” the moment teeters between night and day, the ears and eyes are “dying”
yet alert, the casement displays both light and shade. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet can only sigh and repeat in wonder
“so sad, so strange.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After two stanzas detailing the deathbed
scene, the poem concludes with the romantic application of regret, the shock of
reaching out in embrace only to find one’s lover a phantom due to death or
faithlessness or simply the inexorable passage of time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even love, it seems, is inescapably “Death in
Life” due to the transient character of all experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as life is bound always death, joy
cannot be without pain, and all love necessarily entails loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson here offers a more nuanced if less
popular attitude than simply portraying love as the saving grace of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christianity plays no role.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson walks the same fine
line between the popular appeal which tends toward saying all is well and the
darker intuitions of his soul in "In Memoriam A.H.H.," an elegy for his
dear friend Arthur Hallam<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Canto LIII is
appended).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the book-length poem
enjoyed immense popularity (an appeal that eludes any book of poetry today) including
the approval of Queen Victoria who said she was “soothed & pleased” by the
poem during her mourning for Albert, it contains much distressed
agnosticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beginning and ending,
though, adopt a pose of orthodoxy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first lines address the “Strong Son of God, immortal Love,” and conclusion confidently
imagines that his deceased friend lives now in God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">That God, which ever lives and loves,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">One God, one law, one element,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And one far-off divine event,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">To which the whole creation moves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet between these expressions of
conventional religiosity, Tennyson concedes the impact of the science of his
day which seemed to contradict a literal reading of the Bible: evolution,
geological history, Higher Criticism as well as his own internal crises of
belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly on the smaller scale,
canto LIII walks the ridgepole between belief and disbelief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the rhetoric is deeply ambiguous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beginning with a cry of the lyric pathos
“Oh,” the poet says “yet,” that is, in spite of evidence to the contrary, we
“trust,” since we cannot know, that “somehow” “good will the final goal of
ill.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The statement could hardly be more
conflicted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet is so confounded
that he must in the end throw up his hands and give up, declaring “we know not
anything” and comparing himself to an infant who can only cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philosophically, of course, Tennyson was
striving to attain an unlikely position, to imagine that in some way hidden
from human view, every pain serves a beneficent end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He represented a good many other middlebrow
British citizens who were comforted by his platitudes, cleaving always to the
accepted standards of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson
in fact embodied his <i>Zeitgeist</i> so well specifically because remained superficially
loyal to accepted opinion despite being troubled by religious doubts that would
not have occurred in an age of hegemonic faith and by sympathy for political
reform tendencies that were aimed at ending feudalism and softening capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson found an effective escape from
the disquiet induced by modernity’s ambiguities other than seconding received
opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He ornamented his bourgeois
practicality with gay ribands of aristocratic glamor by recalling a mythic
past. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A good number of his most popular
works developed the idealized picture of the Middle Ages now known as
Medievalism that inspired pre-Raphaelite painting, Gothic Revival architecture,
research into balladry, and, for Tennyson, poems like <i>The Idylls of the King</i>
and such shorter pieces as “The Lady of Shalott.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bedivere’s lament over the dying Arthur in
“Morte d’Arthur” expresses nostalgia for a lost world where everything made
sense and fostered excellence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Round
Table is here explicitly an image for the fallen world, tangled with sin since
the expulsion from Eden, further degraded by the collapse of chivalric values, and,
in the poet’s own time, sullied by the physical and spiritual pollution of
industrial capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While propriety
forbids direct protest, one may, perhaps sentimentally, but also with effective
elegance, allude to more blessed earlier times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then loudly
cried the bold Sir Bedivere:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">For now I see the true old times are dead,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">When every morning brought a noble chance,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And every chance brought out a noble knight.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Such times have been not since the light that led<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">But now the whole Round Table is dissolved<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Which was an image of the mighty world,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And I, the last, go forth companionless,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And the days darken round me, and the years,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Among new men, strange faces, other minds."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The taste for this sort of thing
has not quite vanished, it has merely reached an epigone in phenomena like <i>Game
of Thrones</i>, so-called Renaissance Faires, The Society for Creative
Anachronism, and over-priced restaurants where one may dine while people play
at sword-fighting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tennyson was a major poet in a sense now
extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mass audiences read lengthy
works and cried and sighed and smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tennyson was the favorite of a demographic which in today’s time prefers
television and films and reads no poetry at all. His mastery of meters was
widely appreciated in <i>viva voce</i> readings and he both expressed the
experience of millions and, in turn, influenced them, embodying the culture of
his day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If contemporary Americans find
less beauty in his verse, perhaps that means that we have the more to learn
from him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Charge of the Light Brigade<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Half a league, half a league,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Half a league onward,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All in the valley of Death<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rode the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"Forward, the Light Brigade!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Charge for the guns!" he
said:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Into the valley of Death<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rode the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"Forward, the Light
Brigade!"<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Was there a man dismay’d?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Not tho’ the soldier knew<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Some one had blunder’d:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Theirs not to make reply,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Theirs not to reason why,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Theirs but to do and die:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Into the valley of Death<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rode the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon to right of them,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon to left of them,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon in front of them<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Volley’d and thunder’d;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Storm’d at with shot and shell,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Boldly they rode and well,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Into the jaws of Death,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Into the mouth of Hell<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rode the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Flash’d all their sabres bare,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Flash’d as they turn’d in air<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sabring the gunners there,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Charging an army, while<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All the world wonder’d:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Plunged in the battery-smoke<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Right thro’ the line they broke;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cossack and Russian<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Reel’d from the sabre-stroke<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Shatter’d and sunder’d.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Then they rode back, but not<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Not the six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon to right of them,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon to left of them,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cannon behind them<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Volley’d and thunder’d;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Storm’d at with shot and shell,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While horse and hero fell,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">They that had fought so well<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Came thro’ the jaws of Death,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Back from the mouth of Hell,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All that was left of them,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Left of six hundred.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When can their glory fade?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">O the wild charge they made!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All the world wonder’d.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Honor the charge they made!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Honor the Light Brigade,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Noble six hundred!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tears, Idle Tears<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tears, idle tears, I know not what
they mean,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tears from the depth of some
divine despair<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rise in the heart, and gather to
the eyes,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In looking on the happy
Autumn-fields,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And thinking of the days that are
no more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresh as the first beam glittering on
a sail,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That brings our friends up from
the underworld,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sad as the last which reddens over
one<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That sinks with all we love below
the verge;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So sad, so fresh, the days that
are no more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer
dawns<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd
birds<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To dying ears, when unto dying
eyes<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The casement slowly grows a
glimmering square;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So sad, so strange, the days that
are no more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dear as remember'd kisses after death,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And sweet as those by hopeless
fancy feign'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On lips that are for others; deep
as love,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Deep as first love, and wild with
all regret;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">O Death in Life, the days that are
no more!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In Memoriam, A. H. H., Canto LIII<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Oh yet we trust that somehow good<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>Will
be the final goal of ill,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>To
pangs of nature, sins of will,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Defects of doubt, and taints of
blood;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That nothing walks with aimless
feet;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>That
not one life shall be destroy'd,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>Or
cast as rubbish to the void,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When God hath made the pile
complete;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That not a worm is cloven in vain;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>That
not a moth with vain desire<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>Is
shrivel'd in a fruitless fire,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Or but subserves another's gain.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Behold!;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>I
can but trust that good shall fall<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>At
last—far off—at last, to all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And every winter change to spring.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So runs my dream: but what am I?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>An
infant crying in the night:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif;"></span>An
infant crying for the light:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And with no language but a cry.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-87695099917737921402023-09-01T04:23:00.004-07:002023-09-01T04:23:36.615-07:00Heine’s “Rückschau” and “Weltlauf”<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>The German texts of the poems
and quoted prose are appended.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> </p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">1. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heine’s “R<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ü</span>ckschau” </p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A Look Back<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have smelled every smellable
scent<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">that the kitchen of earth can
present.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I’ve taken all pleasures I could,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">just like a hero would,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">drunk coffee and gobbled down
cake,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">known many fine girls for love’s
sake,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">worn a silk vest and a very fine
cloak<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">with money jingling in my poke.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I rode on a horse like Gellert the
Great;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I had more than a house, I had an
estate!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">On fortune’s green field I’ve
often reclined<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">while golden sunrays on me shined.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A laurel wreath round my brow one
would find<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">inspiring new dreams to be born in
my mind,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">dreams of fine roses and unending
May. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So blissful it was then to me each
day,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">addicted to twilight and idle as sin!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Roast pigeons just saw my mouth
and flew in!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">An angel appeared and from out of
his gown –<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a vintage Champagne for me to
drink down!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">These, though, were visions, just
bubbles of soap,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">which burst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I lie on a wet grassy slope.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rheumatism has seized all my limbs<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and my soul is so sad, it with
shame overbrims.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Every joy and every delight<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have paid for with harsh acrid spite.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m soaked in the bitterest gall,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">while bedbugs do bite and crawl.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Beset by every black grief,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I find I’m a liar, I find I’m a
thief.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Each affluent booby and dry old
maid<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">must be begged if I’m to be paid.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I’ve now grown so tired of dashing
around,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m ready to lie in my grave in
the ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For now, my Christian friends,
good-bye!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It’s quite understood, we’ll meet
in the sky. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This poem, though high-spirited, is anything but frivolous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appeared in <i>Romanzero</i>, Heine’s last
book, written from his sick-bed with the knowledge that he would not
recover..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I translated this primarily for the fun of
the couplets, many of which are constructed with the care of a stand-up
comedian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Punchlines arrive as regularly
as the surf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While maintaining these
clanging insistent rhymes, I have jazzed up the rhythmic patterns (for the most
part keeping a four-beat line of variable length) to avoid a sing-song
tone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rhymes still create an
impression of a certain jauntiness, which should not distract readers from
Heine’s graver implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One may
gather a hint of this darker tone from the title of one of the chapters in
Adorno’s Notes to Literature: “Heine the Wound.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The irony that begins with naïve
hyperbole, which comes to seem mere bravado as it is undercut and eventually
all but inverted by bedbugs and illness and dependence on unworthy others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet’s <i>élan vital </i>drained, he is
fatigued with life, ready to leap into the grave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet at the same time, he is a spirited
observer of his own position and able to toss off an ironic greeting for the
close, the hollow Christian promise of pie in the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His supposed conversion serves as an example
of the “begging” to which the author is reduced, yet he remains afloat in the
sea of circumstance through artful and defiant words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he cannot eliminate life’s pains and
injustices, he can at any rate make fun of them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><a name="_Hlk144187405">ii.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heine’s
“Weltlauf”<o:p></o:p></a></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This poem, also from <i>Romanzero</i>,
provides economic analysis boiled down to the bare minimum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a society in which worth is measured by
wealth, further success inevitably goes to those who have no need of it, while
those in penury stand no chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
another poet put it “Them that's got shall get/ Them that's not shall lose/ So
the bible said and it still is news.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the French introduction to <i>Lutetia</i>
Heine asserted his simple and radical belief that “all people have the right to
eat.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He proceeded to a righteous
condemnation of capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The old
social order has long been judged and condemned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let justice prevail!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May the old society be shattered in which
innocence always loses, where cynicism flourishes, where people exploit their
fellow man!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May the old way be destroyed
from the very base with its whitewashed graves, filled with lies and injustice.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">The
Way of the World<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">If
someone’s got a lot you know what’s next:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">the
money rolling in will never cease.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">The
man with very little at the start<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">will
never find his wealth increase.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">And
if you haven’t anything at all,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">you
may as well be buried ‘neath the clay.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">The
right to live belongs only to those<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;">who
have the cash to pay their way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk144187405;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rückschau<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich habe gerochen alle Gerüche<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In dieser holden Erdenküche;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Was man genießen kann in der Welt,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Das hab ich genossen wie je ein
Held!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hab Kaffee getrunken, hab Kuchen
gegessen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hab manche schöne Puppe besessen;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Trug seidne Westen, den feinsten
Frack,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mir klingelten auch Dukaten im
Sack.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wie Gellert ritt ich auf hohem
Roß;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich hatte ein Haus, ich hatte ein
Schloß.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich lag auf der grünen Wiese des
Glücks,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Die Sonne grüßte goldigsten
Blicks;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ein Lorbeerkranz umschloß die
Stirn,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Er duftete Träume mir ins Gehirn,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Träume von Rosen und ewigem Mai —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Es ward mir so selig zu Sinne
dabei,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So dämmersüchtig, so sterbefaul —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mir flogen gebratne Tauben ins
Maul,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Und Englein kamen, und aus den
Taschen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sie zogen hervor
Champagnerflaschen —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Das waren Visionen, Seifenblasen —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Sie platzten — Jetzt lieg ich auf
feuchtem Rasen,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch
gelähmt,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Und meine Seele ist tief beschämt.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ach, jede Lust, ach, jeden Genuß<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hab ich erkauft durch herben
Verdruß;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich ward getränkt mit Bitternissen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Und grausam von den Wanzen
gebissen;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich ward bedrängt von schwarzen
Sorgen,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich mußte lügen, ich mußte borgen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Bei reichen Buben und alten
Vetteln —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ich glaube sogar, ich mußte
betteln.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jetzt bin ich müd vom Rennen und
Laufen,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jetzt will ich mich im Grabe
verschnaufen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Lebt wohl! Dort oben, ihr
christlichen Brüder,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ja, das versteht sich, dort sehn
wir uns wieder.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Weltlauf<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hat man viel, so wird man bald<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Noch viel mehr dazu bekommen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wer nur wenig hat, dem wird<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Auch das Wenige genommen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wenn du aber gar nichts hast,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ach, so lasse dich begraben —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Haben nur die etwas haben.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The passage from the introduction
to <i>Lutetia</i> in German is, in the original, “dass die Menschen alle das
Recht zu essen haben.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sie ist schon seit
langer Zeit gerichtet, verurteilt, diese alte Gesellschaft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Möge ihr Gerechtigkeit widerfahren!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Möge sie zertrūmmert warden, diese alte Welt,
wo die Unschuld zu Grunde ging, wo der Cynismus gedieh, wo der Mensch durch den
Menschen exploitiert wurde!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mögen sie
von Grund aus zerstört warden, diese ūbertūnchen Grabstätten, wo die Lüge und
die Unbilligkeit residierten!”<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-79908196596761976182023-09-01T04:11:00.000-07:002023-09-01T04:11:03.851-07:00Steven Hirsch's Demon Commuter<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Steven Hirsch’s <i>Demon
Commuter</i> from Giant Steps Press is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
and elsewhere for $19.95.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further
information on Hirsch and his work is available at the Giant Steps site </b><a href="https://giantstepspress.wordpress.com/steven-hirsch/"><b>https://giantstepspress.wordpress.com/steven-hirsch/</b></a><b>.
<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> Steve Hirsch’s readers expect a lot: great
poems of corralled consciousness barely contained in words stretched to the
breaking point. Hirsch captures the
unique moment, but his imagistic precision mingles intimately with the
recognition of the socio-political-historical dimension of the scenes of his
life, and with a view longer yet, his lines are lit with glints of what does
not change, the illumination which is for him less a conviction than a habit of
vision, nothing more than the way things look. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In its most literal reading the title
refers to Hirsch’s (and many other workers’) daily routine, the commute to earn
a living, the mental “drivenness” imposed by the reality principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking a step back, Hirsch makes it clear
that his own sometimes ill-fitting vocation is embedded in an inescapable
system that privileges greed and aggression, giving the demonic the face of war
and exploitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in his final
vision, everything is transformed, redeemed even, and “demon” can regain a
numinous glow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even once the demon
of the title has appeared in beneficent form as the sort of interior muse of
which Socrates spoke, now and then he seems more closely to resemble S. Clay
Wilson’s Checkered Demon in his frantic, barely controllable impulsive
energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a Mahayana
impulse toward sympathy with all sentient beings, Hirsch imagines what burdens
may weigh on the psyches of his fellow citizens. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">the dark bags you carry<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">the persnickety boss, the wear of<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">gravity, knees chafed by<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">seat backs, groveling and<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">fruitless weekend prayers to a god<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">that simply is not there <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">as maddening as a crossword<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">missing a critical clue<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(from “Demon Commuter”)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Often the hurrying lines of
Hirsch’s poems overflow in catalogues, words falling as in a cataract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Supplication to the Muse of a Dark Age”
specific signs of the season lead to the definition of a psychic hunger and
then to a masterful concluding image, so natural it seems a proverb.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Full force fall in a rain of leaves, crops trimmed<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">& drying in large bins, shrink wrapped sanity<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">convenient and hermetically sealed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Last little green tomato at risk to ripen or rot before<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">winter frosts the cold stovepipe and eaves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Try to talk sense so I hear you through the rain on the
gutters<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">the sirens, derailments, hurricanes, flak — <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">A mask surrendered is a<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">mask traded for another mask that masks the mask Jack<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Hirsch current events are as much an
element in the phenomena boiling all about him as the autumn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reacts to his local nuclear plant and the
Mueller investigation and reviles “Vlad the scum-paler,” but in the end these
are the fleas of the world, the social projection of the comedown inscribed in
miniature on every waking day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">At 5:58 again<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">no matter what the song<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">clockradio curdles spirit<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">sours mind, kills dreaming<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">slays the composer writing aubades <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">in lazy morning afterglow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">On the dawn-chilled depot platform <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">(“Transgressions”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yet the dreaming may be overcome,
seen past, transcended with high thoughts and the illuminated dreams of art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A longtime Buddhist practitioner, Hirsch has
studied what he calls the “blank book of Zen” and realizes that irritation and
desire do not vanish, but rather assume a place in a whole and perfect picture.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Deer ticks leap from tree bark<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">to truck their miniature dose of Lyme<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">into the truck stop of loose socks hanging<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">over a row of hiking boots.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Hold cosmic mudra below my navel<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">for another quiet hour until the gong<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">and then Kin Hin walking like mountain<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">(“Zazen Weekend at the Grail”)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We all travel together as demon
commuters, all passengers on “The Train to the End of the World.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No need for sighs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">No muscle can lift<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">the unsurpassable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>(“Zazen”)
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>Yet there is beauty and solace and
vision in Hirsch’s small machines made of words, one all the more necessary for
frantic commuters, anxious householders, and those terrified by the evening
news.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">[This poetry is a rescue<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">from the death of all dreams.]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">(“Urban Verses”)<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-45595092926441149192023-09-01T04:03:00.003-07:002023-09-01T04:03:47.142-07:00 Thematic Instability in Balzac’s La Rabouilleuse <p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The center of Balzac’s
<i>La Rabouilleuse</i> is elusive. Though the book is a part of Balzac’s <i>Scenes
of Provincial Life</i> a good part of the narrative occurs in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The family dynamics between Joseph, Phillipe,
and their mother seem to be heart of the book until Flore appears and then
Maxence with their designs on the Rouget money.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unusual
instability of the novel’s title reflects this thematic ambiguity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First published as <i>Les Deux Fr</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">è</span>res</i>
in 1840, it became <i>Un M</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>nage de Gar</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ç</span>on</i>
in 1842 and then <i>La Rabouilleuse</i> in 1843.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final choice is perhaps the most puzzling
as Flore, <i>la rabouilleuse</i> herself, has a limited role and is clearly
more a motive than an active agent in the plot. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In translation it has appeared as <i>The Black
Sheep</i> in Donald Adamson’s version, as <i>A Bachelor’s Establishment</i> in Clara
Bell’s, and as <i>The Two Brothers</i> in Katherine Prescott Wormeley’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly these
shifts in the title imply an uncertainty about the central theme of the
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the original title focuses
on the comparison of Joseph and Phillipe, the second seems to turn primarily to
Joseph as protagonist, though it remains uncertain whether the “bachelor” is
Phillipe before his marriage, or Joseph whose <i>m</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>nage</i>
includes his mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac’s comments
in a brief <i>avant-propos</i> only complicate the question of the book’s
primary subject further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac claims
in a dedication to Charles Nodier that his principal theme is to point out the
harm done by the weakening of patriarchy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Few readers might have guessed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He explains that his story carries “a great lesson for the family and
for Motherhood” by calling attention to “the effects of diminished paternal
authority.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, he finds a general
decay of morality in modern society which he finds “based solely on the power
of money.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Balzac as an orthodox
believer, the remedy is obvious: the country must “return to the Catholic Church
for purification of the masses by religious feeling” and all will be well. [1]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All these highly
conventional opinions seem to have little, though, to do with the narrative in
spite of the author’s assertions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
in a harsh verdict on Agathe’s husbandless household and her acting the hapless
woman by preferring her ne’er-do-well son to the dutiful one might “diminished
paternal authority” be relevant to the plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dr. Rouget, a strong husband of the previous generation, clearly errs in
his mistreatment of his daughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jean-Joseph, Phillipe, and Maxence are all “strong” male characters with
far from exemplary behavior, while the laudable Joseph is quiet and
unassertive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, apart from the
priest’s deathbed counseling of Agathe bringing her to the realization that she
had been wronging her more virtuous son, the novel contains little to support
the notion that regeneration must come from the Church. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac, perhaps motivated by moralistic
critics of his work, claims with little basis that the most respectable values
underly his novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The theme of
greed displacing ethics is, however, in a general way, appropriate, as the
characters motivated by money or by money’s glow reflected in social prestige
are depicted as amoral while those with more humane motivations behave better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the plot’s mainline clear patterns of
retributive justice govern the paths of Joseph, the character most positively
portrayed who finds success and even ennoblement in spite of his indifference
to such rewards and the avaricious Maxence, Phillipe, and Flore <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all of whom come to ruin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final miseries of Flore read almost like
a medieval <i>exemplum</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, though
she has no worldly ambition, Agathe is profoundly misguided in her treatment of
her sons., while the community in general is neither pious nor wicked, [2] though
often self-interested and gossipy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This novel is only a small portion of
Balzac’s grand project, <i>La <a name="_Hlk143505527">Comédie humaine</a></i><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143505527;">, </span>comprising ninety-one completed
works and the planning for another forty-six over a period of two decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac’s
introductory note to the novel points out the thematic complexity allowed by
his comprehensive plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His soldiers, he
says, in this story indicate the “depravity” that “results from the exigencies
of war in certain minds which dare to act in private life as they would on the
field of battle,” but the reader can see that this is no general verdict due to
the “fine characters,” motivated by “great and noble devotion” depicted in his <i>Scenes
of Military Life</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conflicted
focus implied by the multiple titles may, then, be an answer as well as a
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As <i>La Rabouilleuse</i> is a
single mosaic stone in a large composition in which every portion need not
mimic the whole, the themes of one isolated portion need not agree with those
of another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the irreligious among
Balzac’s nineteenth or twenty-first century readers may echo Dryden’s cogent
praise of Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury Tales</i> “Here is God's plenty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A certain exhilarating liberty emerges,
allowing Balzac to compose without preconception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac’s approach
to theme, nuanced far beyond his conscious, expressed values, is evident in the
ambivalence of his political implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though Balzac was himself a conservative royaloist, Marx and Engels had
the highest regard for his work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marx had
enough respect for the <a name="_Hlk144273700"><i>Comédie humaine</i> </a>to
envision writing a major, full-length study of it, though he never completed
this project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Engels praised Balzac for
writing that belied the conscious reactionary theme, often betraying (to a
receptive reader at least) what looks quite like revolutionary
implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Well, Balzac was politically a
Legitimist; his great work is a constant elegy on the inevitable decay of good
society, his sympathies are all with the class doomed to extinction. But for
all that his satire is never keener, his irony never bitterer, than when he
sets in motion the very men and women with whom he sympathizes most deeply -
the nobles. And the only men of whom he always speaks with undisguised
admiration, are his bitterest political antagonists, the republican heroes of
the Cloître Saint-Méry, the men, who at that time (1830-6) were indeed the
representatives of the popular masses. That Balzac thus was compelled to go
against his own class sympathies and political prejudices, that he saw the
necessity of the downfall of his favourite nobles, and described them as people
deserving no better fate; and that he saw the real men of the future where, for
the time being, they alone were to be found - that I consider one of the
greatest triumphs of Realism, and one of the grandest features in old Balzac.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Engels to
Margaret Harkness April 1888</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in; text-indent: .5in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same
authorial freedom that allowed Marx and Engels to see their notions of French
society reflected in Balzac’s epic canvas also enables the reader without a partisan
view to see large and complex patterns in this narrative world which, like
those we observe in life, offer in general no easy answers and include many
shades between the extremes, even now and then to revealing the
unexpected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The liberty that
enables ambiguity need not result in randomness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balzac employs observations of unprogrammed lived
experience mixed with literary conventions, and he has no difficulty in
developing incidents that suggest generalizations that might be called
themes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather like some painters who
chose to work <i>en plein air</i> claiming to reproduce their sense impressions
on canvas, but in fact propelling art in new directions, Balzac’s pose as a scientifical
observer of society allowed him to construct fictions in a new vein.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>La Rabouilleuse</i>, a novel that has
met more blame than praised from critics, [2] has at any rate a gripping story,
punctuated with dramatic incident and scenes of pathos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader who hunts after a theme reducible
to a single line may be missing both that simple narrative excitement and the
grander sense, based on Balzac’s life’s work, that his novels provide access to
a complete and coherent scene of human life, one as subjective as individual as
any writer’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The specific
correspondence to historical moments in France during the author’s life seems
almost immaterial, in spite of the references to documented events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end <i>La Rabouilleuse</i> and the
entire <i>Comédie humaine</i> are, not because of topical or documentary
detail, but by virtue of the specifically Balzacian imagination they record, as
resistant to reductive formulae and sometimes as enigmatic as life itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1. The passages quoted in Clara Bell’s rendering are in the
original French: “grands enseignements et pour la famille et pour la maternit<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>; “des
effets produits par la diminution de la puissance paternelle;” “puisse une
société basée uniquement sur le pouvoir de l'argent;” and “puisse-t-elle
recourir promptement au catholicisme pour purifier les masses par le sentiment
religieux.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Assez de beaux caractères,
assez de grands et nobles dévouements brilleront dans les Scènes de la Vie
militaire, pour qu’il m’ait été permis d’indiquer ici combien de dépravation
causent les nécessités de la guerre chez certains esprits, qui dans la vie
privée osent agir comme sur les champs de bataille.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his introduction to the entire <i>Comédie
humaine</i>, Balzac notes that in his view “Man is neither good nor bad” (“<i>L’homme
n’est ni bon ni m</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>chant</i>”).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A number of
negative judgements are mentioned at the outset of Allan H. Pasco, “Process
Structure in Balzac's ‘La Rabouilleuse,’" <i>Nineteenth-Century French
Studies</i>, Vol. 34, No. 1/2 (Fall and Winter 2005-2006).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Note of an Accidental Bibliophile<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feeling I have
enough to do to attend to the authors’ words, I don’t seek out rare editions of
books, but now and then I happen across an interesting old title in a Salvation
Army or library book sale, and I am quite willing then to enjoy a volume’s particular
qualities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My English copy of <i>La
Rabouilleuse</i>, titled <i>A Bachelor’s Establishment</i>, was published by J.
M. Dent in 1896, translated by the indefatigable Clara Bell and introduced by
George Saintsbury, part of his twenty-volume edition of the <i>Comédie Humaine</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The <i>Times</i> reviewer, grandly named E.
Irenaeus Stevenson, welcomed the set on June 25, 1898 in a piece “Balzac in
English” which began by noting that Balzac “is not even yet read and measured
nicely by all those men and women quick in perception [and] broad in cultivation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It may be doubted,” he goes on, “whether in
English translation and with Anglo-Saxons, Balzac will ever attain a much more
general circulation that his masterpieces today receive.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The design of my
copy has charm in its <i>art nouveau</i> cover lettering and decoration, deckle
edges and irregular signatures, thick, palpable pages, and engraved
illustrations by the Scots painter and printmaker D. Murray Smith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While not memorable art, they and their
inlaid protective tissues grace the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-77567314798431287212023-08-01T04:37:00.004-07:002023-08-01T04:40:20.016-07:00Lands of All Play and No Work: Cockayne and the Abbey of Thélème<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Numbers in brackets refer to endnotes; those in
parentheses either to lines of “the Land of Cockayne” or to chapters of <i>Gargantua</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Translations from Rabelais are makeshift,
but my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eve and Adam were chagrined to discover that
even in the Garden of Eden, there were rules, and in the twentieth century the
Rolling Stones still complained “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St. John of the Cross adopted a contrarian
approach, concluding that “In order to arrive at having pleasure in
everything,/ Desire to have pleasure in nothing,” [1] but, several hundred
years later, Freud treated the pleasure principle and its frustration as the
most universal of motives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People feel
sufficient wistful longing for a world that never was, where limits no longer contain
individual desire, that they have sometimes sketched dream-like pictures of impossible
sensual utopias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Land of Cockayne” (ca.1330) is
contained in a book called the Kildare Lyrics which contains, for the most
part, devotional and moralizing poems, an unsurprising subject matter as the
collection was probably made by a Franciscan friar. Most are vigorous with
vernacular and convey orthodox Christian sentiments, often in highly
conventional treatments. [2]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
frolicking light-hearted tone of the first poem, “The Land of Cockayne,” is
unique.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem is set “Fur in see bi
west Spayngne,” perhaps in the neighborhood of the garden of the Hesperides,
Hy-Brasil, or Tír na nÓg, the land of the ever-young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this land the residents enjoy uninterrupted
pleasure (24), prominently including unlimited eating and drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The catalogue of available culinary pleasures
includes buildings made entirely of food and rivers of “oile, melk, honi and
wine” (46).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A place of superabundant
luxury, among the delights of Cockayne are precious gems on every side and the
aromas of all the spices of the Orient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">In the praer is a tre,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Swithe likful forto se.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The rote is gingeuir and galingale,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The siouns beth al sedwale,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Trie maces beth the flure,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The rind canel of swet odur,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">The frute gilofre of gode smakke.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Of cucubes ther nis no lakke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(71-78)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>What is more, fanciful whimsy is
afforded free play. There is no dirt, no
flies, fleas, or lice (37). In Cockayne the
church windows are photochromic and adjust themselves to provide appropriate
light. The monks are so “heigh of mode”
(125) that they flit about in the sky in play when they are not busy acting
like stallions in teaching the nuns “a prayer,” “up and down” with “legs in the
air” (165-167).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of the distractions, food is the
primary appeal of the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Cockayne
cooked fowl fly to the diner to offer themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through the glorious plenitude of food in
this land of wish-fulfillment one may glimpse the sometime rigors of a medieval
diet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fascination with food is the
obsession of the periodically deprived. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dream of a full larder, often unrealized,
had earlier found expression in the Classical cornucopia associated variously
with Gaia, Plutus, Demeter, or Abundantia and the Dagda’s cauldron of plenty
(the <i>coire ansic</i>) in Irish lore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speaker’s attitude toward this
embarrassment of riches is unequivocal delight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The monks flutter down from the sky for evensong, attracted by the
exposed white buttocks of a “maidin,” (136) and the tone is altogether
jolly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far from censorious, the poet’s
attitude is “ribald,” with the sort of harmless innocence of adolescent fantasy
difficult to imagine in the present era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though readers have sometimes taken the
poem as a fiercely critical satire of clerical corruption, such a motive finds
no support whatever in the text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem
opens with the speaker finding Cockayne so appealing, it is preferable even to
Heaven. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Þoȝ paradis be miri and briȝt.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Cokaygn is of fairir siȝt. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(5-6)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">(Though Paradise be merry and bright, Cockayne is a fairer
sight.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>And the poem ends with what looks
very like instructions on how to “win” the prize of spending time in such a
marvelous place. One might atone for
time in Cockayne by spending seven years wading in pig excrement but it sounds
as though the author considers that a fair enough bargain.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Whose wl com þat lond to.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Ful grete penance he mot do.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Seue ȝere in swine-is dritte.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">He mot wade, wol ȝe i-witte. <span face=""Tahoma",sans-serif"></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Al anon up to þe chynne.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">So he schal þe lond[e] winne.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(177-182)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">(Whoever wishes to visit that land must perform a heavy
penance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seven years in pigshit he must
wade, up to his chin, you may well know, in order to win that land.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>The poem ends with a prayer to
God, not to protect Christians from worldly temptations, but rather kindly asking
that the reader may one day enjoy the opportunity to experience Cockayne.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far from moralistic, the poem is an
ebullient, light-hearted acknowledgement of the sensual inclinations of humans
(indeed, of all organisms).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It no more
implies acceptance of free love or gluttony than enjoyment of a Chaplin short
requires endorsement of kicking people from behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather like the world of a silent film comic,
the poet’s Cockayne is Carnivalesque; norms may be harmlessly transgressed in
an interval of festive gaiety even if they revert to their default settings the
next morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The low mimetic focus on
appetite is far more conducive to comedy than to realism or idealizing, but the
laughter is entirely hearty and sweet-tempered, far from the Swiftian “fierce
indignation” of satire..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem need not contradict the
principles of a religious vocation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Readers
sometimes look for more consistency in literature than they do in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same poet may write a tenderly respectful
lyric and one of selfish lust, possibly even with the same evening in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both may be equally “true.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pious monk to whose book we owe the
preservation of this poem may have seen no impropriety at all in having a wry
laugh at the spectacle of human weakness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The Land of Cockayne” has preserved such a spell of sublime mirth in
reaction to the human condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
funny and warm and oh-so-human, the opposite pole from anything as serious as a
polemic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two hundred years later, another
presumably sincere monk, another Franciscan, in fact, at the beginning of his
career, imagined an equally permissive territory, Gargantua’s <a name="_Hlk141417947">Abbey of Thélème</a>, where the sole rule of the order is notoriously
“Do as you like” [3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Far from being
rooted in egoistic desire, this rule against rules expresses humility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Gargantua offers to reward his ally the
valiant Friar John with the creation of a new and innovative religious
establishment of his own design, the monk’s reply is charmingly modest: “But
how” says the monk, might I be able to govern others when I am not able to
govern myself?” [4]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accordingly, Thélème
invites both men and women to live together without any vows whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only are the residents free from
oppressive rules, they live in opulent luxury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They go about in the finest clothes, covered with jewels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even their dressing is no chore, thanks to
the attentions of their “masters of the wardrobe” [5].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They amuse themselves in a huge multi-story
library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each is able to “read, write,
sing, play musical instruments, and speak five or six languages” [6].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, they enjoy the aristocratic
amusements of hunting and hawking as well as agreeably passing time in each
other’s society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the greater
pleasure, as they are all themselves beautiful people; neither men nor women
may be admitted who are not “good-looking, well-built, and with a pleasant
nature” [7].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The inscription over the
abbey’s door invites “noble gentlemen” and “ladies of aristocratic birth” [8] while
barring greedy professionals such as lawyers and usurers whose goal is the mean
accumulation of wealth. Such mean money-grubbers are distasteful and likely to
be ugly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moral excellence is bound up with
intellectual achievements and aesthetic cultivation, indeed, with idleness, in
this world in a fantasy of a sensitive and elegant ruling class, resembling
nothing so much as the almost exactly contemporaneous world of Castiglione’s <i>The
Courtier</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as though Plato’s
philosopher-kings did not have to bother with ruling, but could devote their
entire lives to entertainments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contrary
to history’s evidence, which has no lack or malicious and rapacious nobles,
freedom makes them altogether virtuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because
free people, well-born and educated, familiar with honest society, are by
nature and impulse propelled always to virtuous acts and away from vice, by an
impulse they call honor.“ [9]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The abbey
is a post-industrial paradise in which people may develop their sensibility
and, in fact, enjoy life without regard for the Reality Principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People in the “Land of Cockayne” found
utter satisfaction in sensual delights of food and drink and love with only a
few signifiers (like the beautiful tree, sweet odor, precious stones, and
lovely birdsong<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to betoken luxurious beauty.
(67-100)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Placed in such a setting, with
every appetite instantly satisfied, the reader might well imagine agreeing with
the author’s encomium. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Þer n'is lond on erthe is pere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Vnder heuen n'is lond iwisse.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;">Of so mochil ioi and blisse. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 2in;">(21-<span face=""Tahoma",sans-serif"></span>24)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>(No
land on earth is its peer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under heaven
there is no land, I know, of so much joy and bliss.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> Since in Cockayne the only acknowledged
human desires are physical, the tone is comic, in an ebullient Carnivalesque
mode in which the human dependence on food and sex is ridiculous and insistent,
but nonetheless endearing. In the Abbey
of Thélème the animal pleasures are taken for granted and the stress is on
imaginative delights, culture, art, and civilized company, the sophisticated
manipulative play with symbols that most distinguishes our species from the
beasts. Thus, while Rabelais’ tone is
extravagant and fanciful, it contains as well a program for how to live life
well that goes beyond a full belly, and among the fanciful and humorous
elements notes of high seriousness are discernable. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While a dramatic contrast is evident between
the riotous “low” aim of Cockayne’s utopia and the more “noble” and cerebral
occupations of the Thélèmites, the two libidinal Edens have in common that each
is enabled by the abolition of labor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Cockayne the unlimited availability of everything good means that competition
need not exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can be no motive
for theft, no distinction between the industrious and the idle or, in the end,
between the vicious and the virtuous when each individual is the recipient of
superfluous unearned wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Abbey
seems to be underwritten by Gargantua’s endless purse, so its residents need
tend only to themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lifestyle
of the inmates of Thélème is supported by an entire townful of workers:
goldsmiths, jewelers, embroiderers, tailors, goldworkers, velvet-makers, tapestry
makers, and upholsterers.” [10]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
course, every high culture from ancient Athens through Heian Japan and
Victorian England has been created by a leisure class of intellectuals and
artists supported by the labor of others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something not far from a land of “all play
and no work” in which labor is pleasant and voluntary was conceived by William
Morris in <i>News from Nowhere</i> and during the nineteen-sixties seemed actually
possible to the theorists of “post-industrial society” [11], though working
hours never shrank much and, in recent years, have been rising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The work of Marshall Sahlins suggesting that
hunter-gatherers who needed only to work fifteen to twenty hours a week to
satisfy their needs were the original “affluent society” made the possibility
of a largely work-free life more plausible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i>Genesis</i> work seems to have
arrived only to the fallen world where it seems very much like a punishment
linked closely with mortality: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
the thrill of sexuality and the comfort of a good meal can only exist with the
contrast of field-work or housework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even if pleasure cannot be experienced by one who does not feel pain as
well, the thought of constant bliss (or at least well-being) is itself
beguiling enough to inspire such dreams as the fabulous land of Cockayne and
the wonderful Abbey of Thélème.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1. <i>Ascent of Mt. Carmel</i> 1.13.11.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One poem “The Song of Michael of Kildare” identifies its author as "Frere
Michel Kyldare,” and as a "frere menour."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the collection is a touching lullaby “Lollai,
Lollai, litil child” and a verse reminiscent of Sei Shonagon “Five Hateful
Things” beginning “Bissop lorles.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch 57 “<i>Fay ce que vouldras</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>52<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Car comment (disait-il) pourrait-je
gouverner autrui, qui moi-m</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ê</span>me gouverner ne saurrais</i>?” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch. 56 “<i>Maîtres de garde-robes</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch. 57 “<i>lire,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ecrire, chanter,
jouer d’instruments harmonieux, parler de cinq et six langages</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch. 52 “<i>belles, bien formées, et bien narturées</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch. 54 “<i>Compagnons gentils</i>” and “<i>dames de haut parage.</i>”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ch. 57 “<i>Parce que gens libres, bien nés, bien instruits, conversant
en compagnies honnêtes ont par nature un instinct, et aiguillon, qui toujours
les pousse á faits vertueux, et retire de vice, lequel ils nommaient honneur</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ch. 56 “<i>orfèvres, lapidaires, brodeurs,
tailleurs, tireurs d’or, veloutiers, tapissiers, et haut lissiers</i>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The term was popularized by Ivan Illich,
Daniel Bell, and others after arising a few years earlier among the more
utopian strains of leftists and cultural revolutionaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More recently, advocates of a guaranteed
annual income have argued that not everyone need work.<o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-26152403199130954472023-08-01T04:13:00.001-07:002023-08-01T04:13:54.988-07:00Paradise Lost as Popular Culture<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One hardly thinks
of Milton as a popular choice for recreational reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet his majestic Christian epic <i>Paradise
Lost </i>has characteristics akin to those that bring mass audiences to today’s
action films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While even English majors
may find the poem’s theology irrelevant and its learned and Latinate language
artificial in the present day, to a receptive sensibility, the poem has sensational
drama and an extraordinary pictorial, even cinematic, imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The special effects of contemporary popular
films, cars lurching through the air, people tossed through windows, buildings
collapsing, while superheroes and the most vicious of villains work out the
world’s destiny are paralleled on every page of Milton’s poem. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The taste for Milton’s
high-flying rhetoric, the greatest obstacle to modern enjoyment of the poem, is
as old as language and only very recently decayed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One may imagine Shakespeare’s audience brought
to a pitch of excitement, cheering and applauding, when a purple passage was
declaimed on stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until a few
generations ago both the educated and the illiterate regularly relished the
oratory of politicians and the pulpit, and schoolchildren studied great
speeches of the past and practiced debate and declamation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At home people enjoyed the sonority of
reading verse out loud in parlor poetry sessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now and then a writer points out that Edward
Everett spoke for over two hours at Gettysburg and Lincoln for less than two
minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually the point is that the
president’s succinctness was an indicator of his greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rarely does anyone consider the fact that
fifteen thousand people stood listening to such a lengthy previous oration and
doubtless considered it a great pleasure to hear a celebrated speaker, an
artist in words. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the very
artificiality of Milton’s rhetoric that puts off contemporary was just the sort
of thing earlier readers had relished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
distance from the ordinary spoken vernacular that today is the base of most
poetry, created a general feel for the poem, a special grandeur, just as the
art director creates a consistent overall tone for a film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, Homeric Greek was composed of a
dialect never spoken, making the reader immediately aware of inhabiting a world
of the imagination, more portentous and beautiful than that of everyday
transactions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the stately suspension
of his iambic pentameters, gently rocking but endlessly varied, each line
elongated slightly beyond the colloquial duration, the phrases follow one after
another with no end stop in sight, the syntax branching and rebranching like a
living thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a consistent
pleasure, like a particularly mighty organ under the control of E. Power Biggs,
quite independent of the qualities of the music being performed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opening sentence
of Book IX which runs to forty-one lines (appended) is an admittedly extreme
example enabled by numerous colons and semicolons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first five lines detail what Milton does
not mean to describe: casual and cordial intercourse with heavenly beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet’s topic, he says, surpasses the
themes of ancient epic, though he is pleased to pause for about a dozen lines
for Homeric references (studding six lines with nine proper names from
antiquity).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the final fourteen
lines of the passage continue the exposition of what is not to be included,
this time ordinary war stories, but detailed with such enthusiasm that it seems
less an apology for what is left out than a miniature side-show exhibit, a
model of generic war in a few tumultuous words.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A generous use of
what the rhetoricians call <i>amplificatio</i>,<i> </i>in Greek αὔξησις and in
plain English redundancy, enriches the texture of the passage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fall is said to be due to “foul
distrust,” “breach Disloyal.” “revolt,” “And disobedience,” though a single
term would have satisfied the sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like the overelaboration of baroque decoration characteristic of a
Mexican cathedral, more ornaments are considered superior to fewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This tendency affects the use of Classical
references as well as they tumble over each other: nine proper names in only
six lines (Achilles, Hector, Troy, Turnus, Lavinia Neptune, Juno, Eros, and a
Muse in IX, 15-21). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus the very characteristics – lengthy
periods, Latinate lexical choices and syntactic structures, numerous Classical
allusions --<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that many moderns might
find irksome are those that would have given earlier readers delight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shift from ordinary experience
accompanying the heightened language of art might be likened to that
experienced by a movie-goer who enters a darkened hall and turns to face the
enormous scintillating screen animated by larger-than-life characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One is transported to a different world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This parallel in mood or tone between the
great Puritan epic and a superhero action movie suggested by style is true for
the narrative as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Jehovah like Superman
is the good protagonist against the evil enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Milton each cosmic army has their legions, allowing epic scenes that
resemble nothing so much as crowded Cinemascope war scenes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Uccello’s <i>Battle of San Romano</i> delivers
similar thrills in two dimensions.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">. . . whereat Michael bid sound<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Th' Arch-Angel trumpet; through the vast of Heaven<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">It sounded, and the faithful Armies rung<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Hosanna to the Highest: nor stood at gaze<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The adverse Legions, nor less hideous joyn'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The horrid shock: now storming furie rose,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And clamour such as heard in Heav'n till now<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Was never, Arms on Armour clashing bray'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Horrible discord, and the madding Wheeles<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of brazen Chariots rag'd; dire was the noise<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of fiery Darts in flaming volies flew,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And flying vaulted either Host with fire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">So under fierie Cope together rush'd<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Both Battels maine, with ruinous assault<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And inextinguishable rage; all Heav'n<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Resounded, and had Earth bin then, all Earth<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Had to her Center shook. What wonder? when<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Millions of fierce encountring Angels fought<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>(VI,
202-220)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As in a Western movie or a novel
by Sir Walter Scott, all leading men are valorous, though some are
outstanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even on the side of the
rebel angels, according to Raphael, there was never committed an “unbecoming
deed” (VI, 237).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The catalogue of fallen angels alone is a dazzling
sequence, studded with exotic proper names that generates a portentous mood of
wonder more significant than any particular meaning. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The pleasant Vally of Hinnom, Tophet thence<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And black Gehenna call'd, the Type of Hell. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moabs Sons,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of Southmost Abarim; in Hesebon<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And Horonaim, Seons Realm, beyond<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">The flowry Dale of Sibma clad with Vines, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And Eleale to th' Asphaltick Pool.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>(I,
404-411)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The list proceeds like a horror
movie montage: Moloch, Baal, Ashtaroth, Thammuz, Adom, Dagon, one succeeds
another as though the successive monsters of nineteen-fifties Japanese popular
movies all met in a sinister alliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The war scenes are filled with grand theatrical
action as in this episode featuring giant flame-throwers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">A triple mounted row of Pillars laid<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">On Wheels (for like to Pillars most they seem'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Or hollow'd bodies made of Oak or Firr<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">With branches lopt, in Wood or Mountain fell'd) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Brass, Iron, Stonie mould, had not thir mouthes<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">With hideous orifice gap't on us wide,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Portending hollow truce; at each behind<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">A Seraph stood, and in his hand a Reed<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Stood waving tipt with fire; while we suspense, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Collected stood within our thoughts amus'd,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Not long, for sudden all at once thir Reeds<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Put forth, and to a narrow vent appli'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">With nicest touch. Immediate in a flame,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">But soon obscur'd with smoak, all Heav'n appeerd, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">From those deep throated Engins belcht, whose roar<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Emboweld with outragious noise the Air,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">And all her entrails tore, disgorging foule<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Thir devilish glut, chaind Thunderbolts and Hail<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of Iron Globes, which on the Victor Host <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Level'd, with such impetuous furie smote,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">That whom they hit, none on thir feet might stand,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Though standing else as Rocks, but down they fell<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">By thousands, Angel on Arch-Angel rowl'd;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.5in; text-indent: .5in;">(VI, 572-594)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When combatants from either side
traverse the celestial realms, the descriptions allow readers to imagine space
travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">som times<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">He scours the right hand coast, som times the left,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then soares<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Up to the fiery Concave touring high. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descri'd<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Hangs in the Clouds, by Æquinoctial Winds<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Close sailing from Bengala, or the Iles<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Of Ternate and Tidore, whence Merchants bring<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Thir spicie Drugs: they on the Trading Flood <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>(II,
632-642)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Instead of pursuing direct
description, Milton conveys its overwhelming power by introducing a Homeric
simile as a sign that non-figurative language would be inadequate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the earlier clots of mythological
references, the geographical names come thick and fast: Bengala, Ternate,
Tidore, Ethiopia, Cape of Good Hope, and the South Pole in five lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the poem’s first readers did not need
to recognize the place names, today’s reader can skip the footnotes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The specific places mentioned mean little, the
passage derives its impact from the recitation of a storm of mysterious words
of power, rather like the invented technical jargon of a science fiction
spaceship or a magic charm in a story of wizards and dragons.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> The affinities of Milton’s poem
with Homeric epic are intentional, explicit, and well-studied. Less obvious, but present nonetheless, are
characteristics associated with science fiction and monster movies, and with
superhero action films. Though these genres
did not exist in the seventeenth century, similar popular taste had long been served
by romances, saints’ lives, and tales of unknown regions of the earth. The Christian story of the Fall proved for
Milton a rich source of action on a cosmically magnificent scale, including weird
unearthly monsters, and a literally perfect hero, ultimately more undefeatable
than Superman. His readers were able to
enjoy a rich feast of cheap thrills, all the while acquiring merit for studying
Christ’s story. Not even the films of <i>The
Ten Commandments</i> or <i>Ben-Hur</i> could equal the appeal of Puritan poet’s
version of scripture which combined the attractions of Dracula, Batman, <i>The
Day the Earth Stood Still</i>, and <i>Samson and Delilah</i>. After the thrills of space travel, the horrors
of confrontation with demonic fiends, and a hero with the mission not merely to
save the world, but to save the reader as well along the way, righteousness is
finally rewarded. The bedazzled
spectator knew it would happen all along but became nonetheless enfolded in the
poem’s action. Since every soul is in
play until judgement, the reader is on the stage among the cast of larger-than-life
characters and may well feel a bit of satisfaction in the thought that virtuous
engagement with the poem has done no harm to one’s own likelihood of a happy
ending. Surely, though, the primary
motive had to be the fun of the ride.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1805143800949366319.post-14459032500740800682023-08-01T03:59:00.000-07:002023-08-01T03:59:20.145-07:00Towards a Typology of Collaborative Poetry<p> </p><p><b>The poems by Marcabrun and Ugo Catola and the first verses of the Minase renga of Sogi, Shohaku, and Socho are appended in both the original and in translation. </b></p><p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very idea of poems with more than one
author radically challenges the Romantic notion of individual genius.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of the fact that art has as often
been shaped by the beliefs and values most members of a culture share, many readers
remain Romantic enough to view proper poetry as the product of a single person’s
vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The artist is often imagined as
a hero, the possessor of a titanic sensibility, striking out alone, innovative,
ignoring established norms, and such a concept seems inimical to the compromise
and negotiation that collaboration would entail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet one hears that the great mythic texts
on which the Kalevala was based were regularly performed by two poets, taking
turns (albeit one with a secondary role), often while facing each other astride
a log.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seventy-two scholars wrote the
Septuagint and forty-seven the King James Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Collaboration may, as these examples imply,
be deeply traditional, but it is equally likely to appear radically innovative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A good number of modern ventures in
collaborative poetry have occurred more or less under the aegis of the
avant-garde: the exquisite corpses of the Surrealists, <i>Ralentir Travaux </i>(1930)
by André Breton, Paul Éluard and René Char, and the chainpoems of the Japanese
Vou group and Charles Henri Ford [1<a name="_Hlk141530203">].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></a></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk141530203;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Practices can differ widely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes two writers present debate, taking
different sides of an issue; sometimes they reinforce each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some seek to meld their imaginations so that
a single text represents not either or both, but a unique synthetic writer,
called into existence for the project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In some the linkages are more complex; for instance, one contribution
may relate only to contiguous passages or all contributors may follow a
predetermined pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The simplest relation between multiple
authors is contention, either in the form of an insult war or a debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first of these possibilities was
formalized among Germanic and Celtic peoples as the flyting (in Irish <i>immarbág</i>
or <i>iomarbháigh</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In perhaps the
best-known of such works “The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie” (ca. 1500) William
Dunbar addresses his opponent with a veritable flood of invective, the direction
of which is perfectly clear today on spite of archaic Scots dialect.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Mauch mutton, bit button, peeled glutton, heir to Hillhouse,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Rank beggar, oyster dredger, flay fleggar in the flet. flea catcher? in hall<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Chitterling, rough rilling, lick shelling in the millhouse,
rough hide, husk-licker <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Bard rehator, thief of nature, false traitor, fiend’s get, worthless poet<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Filling of tauch, rak sauch, cry crauch, thou art o’erset! of tallow, stretched rope, surrender<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Mutton driver, girnall ryver, yad swiver, foul fall thee!
granary robber, mare mounter <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Heretic, lunatic, purspick, carling’s pett, old hag’s fart?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Rottin crok, dirtin dok, cry cok, or I shall quell thee!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(ll. 241-248)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Walter Kennedy responds in kind.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Dathan, devil’s son, and dragon despitous, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">250 Abiron’s birth and bred with Belial, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Wod werewolf, worm, and scorpion venomous, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Lucifer’s lad, foul fiend’s face infernal, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Sodomite separate from saints celestial.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(ll. 249-253)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>Very little distinguishes one
stream of vituperation from the other.
Rather than an actual attack drawing attention to the opponent’s
failings, the insults are generic, pure antagonistic energy, pyrotechnics,
rhetoric for its own sake, enmity made recreation. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though frequently scatological, such
flytings amused the court of James IV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Americans may well be reminded of the custom of playing the dozens. [2] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The game so permeated American culture that
even in my benighted white suburb elementary school children used the line “your
mother wears combat boots” with no suspicion of its origin or implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, the
insults traded among dozens players have ordinarily no relation to actual
weaknesses of the individuals involved; both contestants are indulging in a
competitive verbal game, performed in a social setting and encouraged by
onlookers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the classic form of the dozens
persists, other genres of Black vernacular insult wars have emerged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a few weeks ago the <i>New York Times
Magazine</i> [3] featured a story on “battle rap,” calling it “an art form and
a sport, as well as an industry.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
participant is given an extended opportunity for boasting and insults before
the other responds, followed by further rounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sexual themes remain common, including impugning the other’s masculinity
and bragging of one’s own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a
sample from Caustic vs. Rone, the latter speaking first.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Your baby mom looks like a drag queen, I'll get your queen dragged<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Rip his beard off, do his Adam's apple like a speed bag<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">I don't care if Soul's punch was softer than a fucking bean
bag<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">You got slapped and just stood there just like that shit was freeze tag<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A portion of Caustic’s comeback.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">You know, that's a hard thing to live up to<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">But he makes up for it with a strong back rub and a solid
"I love you."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">He be kissing that bitch on the mouth like it's the love of
his life<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">But deep down he knows he just ain't fucking her right<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">She's got the Black Snake Moan she likes a little mud in her pipes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[4]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>other genres the contention is more
substantial, and actual views are exchanged as in a <i>d</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>bat</i>,
called in Occitanian a <i>tenso </i>or <i>partimen</i>, like that between the
twelfth century poets Marcabrun and Ugo Catola on the nature of love [5].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The discussion is highly organized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First Ugo (also called Uc) states the topic --
”un vers d’amor” -- to which Marcabrun answers with a condemnation of “false
love” (“<i>faus’amistat</i>”) involving deceit citing the example of the Eve
and the Fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ugo will hear nothing
negative about love since it is love alone that “bore him and nurtured him” (“<i>que
d’amor fui naz e noiriz</i>”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
argument continues until in the end Ugo presents his clinching image which
bears the undeniable evidence of lived experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Marcubrun, when I am worn out and feeling
low and my good friend receives me and kisses me, and I undress, I go from her
healthy and healed.” [6]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unconvinced,
Marcabrun calls him an addict, like a drunk or a spendthrift.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are both right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem presents a three-dimensional
ambivalent picture of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
vulnerability entailed in the commitment of oneself to the other means that
love must always involve risk as well as pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point that might be developed in another
work through the modulation of a single relationship or through the contrast of
two successive loves is here presented in two voices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another <i>tenso</i> weaving two points
of view Giraut de Bornelh<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Raimbaut d”Aurenga
argue whether the obscure style (<i>trobar clus</i>) or a more light and
transparent treatment (<i>trobar leu</i>) is preferable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Raimbaut defends difficult verse, saying that
fools will never have the taste to appreciate fine things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For his part Giraut cannot understand why
anyone would write anything that is not “light and popular” (“<i>levet e
venersal</i>”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contention
collapses, though, as they both declare their helplessness in the face of
love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both in the end note the utter
confusion wrought by passionate love, for Raimbaut a natural and noble pleasure
(“<i>un fin joi natural</i>”) that leaves him feeling “knocked about” (“<i>torbatz</i>”),
for Giraut passion leads to his wishing to cry out “God help me” (“<i>Qu'eu
voill dir a Deu mi coman</i>").<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
poem concludes with their affection for each other, a fellow-feeling based on
both experiencing the same tumult of love, though expressed in different
styles. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the flytings, dozens, and battle
raps are displays of bravura fighting for the pleasure of making the sparks
fly, the Occitanian poems actually present two sides of an issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither speaker is necessarily the winner, as
both positions are in part correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
complex picture that might in a novel be represented by several characters or
by a succession of time is here two authors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The poem produced by juxtaposing two points of view has the liveliness
that is characteristic of disputation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the most sophisticated and
conventional collaborative form is the Japanese <i>renga</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The practice arose of improvising or capping
verses and developed into a collective writing technique with extremely
elaborate rules. [7] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the mature era
of the <i>renga</i>, when organized competitions were common, a poet had
perhaps three minutes to improvise a stanza appropriate to the preceding
passage and well-integrated with the tradition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Renga</i> composition is shaped by
system of intricate rules that here can only be suggested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, an intimate acquaintance with
Japanese poetry is required even to understand <i>renga</i>’s place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poets’ choice of words is restricted to
the lexicon of the classical poetic tradition which stresses elegance and
refinement (<i>ga</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus each term
carries significant literary associations, with the subtlest of variation and virtually
no content arises directly from lived experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The genre is poetry about poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The season must be established in
the first verse while (In a hundred verse <i>renga</i>)<i> </i>one quarter of
the following verses must have the word flower (<i>hana</i>) and one quarter
the word moon (<i>tsuki</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(In the
flower verses writers often defer to their superiors.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Topics are divided into seventeen categories
(luminous things, living things, rising things, Buddhism, etc.) with some (such
as mountains, shores, and dwellings) then further divided between essence (<i>tai</i>)
and attribute (<i>y</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ū</span></i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certain
words may be used only once in the hundred verses while others are restricted
to a specific occurrence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually,
elements in common must be well separated; for instance, verses on human
relations must be separated by two verses while those of reminiscences must
have three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certain series, though, must
be continued for three to five verses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, students of oral literature
understand that such demanding requirements, while they seem to make the poet’s
task more difficult, in fact enable improvisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conventions are so rigorous that, even in
the practice of experts, the verses are often imperfect and are edited by the
poem’s recorder to conform to the rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The product is primarily structural in its appeal, rather like a Bach
fugue, directing attention to the variegated play of the chain of verses,
always unpredictable since each related only to the line immediately preceding
and following.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, with every new
stanza a new linkage is established and an old one abandoned.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Jin'Ichi this procedure
renders the subject entirely irrelevant: “the essence of <i>renga</i> is the
essentially meaningless pattern of images.” [8]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For one critic, this form is emptied of content and thus conveys a
Buddhist sense of “impermanence” and “nonself.” [9]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the most celebrated <i>renga</i>
sequences is the fifteenth century <i>Minase Sangin Hyakuin </i>by Sogi, and
his students Shohaku and Socho.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
master’s opening verses seem a sketch from nature, noting the early spring
season with the mention of mist, while snow persists on the mountainside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact even in this first few lines there
is no solitary author; the entire project is bound in convention and
intertextuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poets are visiting
the shrine for the twelfth century Emperor Gotoba and their <i>renga</i> is in
fact an offering presented as part of the memorial observances on the
anniversary of the death of this ruler who was also a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opening lines by Sogi quote one of
Gotoba’s poems. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">SogiI look over the misty base<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">of the mountain where<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">the Minase River runs through —<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Why did they say the evening<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">was best in autumn? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>Sogi, then, was not merely
describing the scene before his eyes.
Rather he was paying homage to a predecessor by assenting to Gotoba’s
claim that nights are loveliest in autumn.
Even before the second voice the reader is in the midst of
collaboration. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shohaku’s lines abandon the allusion, but
mention the river which Gotoba had not, and extend the reference of the world’s
regreening by imagining the warmer downstream town where the plum blossoms are
already blooming, again reinforcing the theme of springtime’s beauty. In the
next link Socho picks up the reference to the river, adding the element of the
willow branches stirred by the breeze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sogi’s next contribution adds the boat and the dawn of day; the evening
with which the series opened is gone, as is the snow, the mountain, the
village, and the plums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps this superficial glance, founded
on translations, can suggest something of the dynamism of the <i>renga</i> form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Decentered, always shifting and changing,
tracing the connections between all things while preserving the apparent
randomness of phenomena, such poetry seems profoundly Buddhist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all its contrivance it reflects the
elusiveness of mental life, the fluid characteristics of consciousness as
experienced, and in this sense is more “realistic” than more straightforward
utterances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The permutations of authorship of
collaborative works transform and proliferate as do all conventions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first authors in examples here cited,
Dunbar, Kennedy, Caustic, and Rone followed a pattern of ludic mutual ridicule,
a purely aesthetic simulation of a contest for dominance resembling the
aggressive posturing of male sexual displays among many species. There followed
Marcabrun and Ugo Catola who presented their topic dialectically, foregrounding
the unique capacity of poetic discourse to accommodate ambiguity and
self-contradiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then in the <i>renga</i>
of Sogi, Shohaku, and Socho a more complex use for collaboration emerged, the
virtuoso construction of a tracery of cause and effect, the earlier portions of
which fade to invisibility as each new link is added.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numerous other possibilities exist either
in fact or potentially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process of
oral literature is particularly collective, but all literature has sources and
influences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some modern authors have
preferred to work as one with a unified product like Louis and Celia Zukowsky
sometimes did or Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton have done in <i>Exquisite
Politics</i> (1997), <i>Oyl</i> (2000) and <i>Little Novels</i> (2002) [10].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contributions can be entirely separate as
when a group of poets write on a given theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Romantic view of composition led
Edward Young to argue in the eighteenth century that “originals can arise from
Genius only,” and the genius is not essentially a scholar, but rather a “divinely-inspired
Enthusiast,” who may provide readers access to his own consciousness, “a
fertile and pleasant field, pleasant as Elysium, and fertile as Tempe; it
enjoys a perpetual Spring.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young finds
allusive or learned poetry to be of only secondary value as it necessarily
dilutes the power of individual vision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet no work is independent of its predecessors, nor is any work univocal
except the briefest and simplest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is even then an irreducible second layer as the persona is shaped by the
author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, poetry excels at
conveying ambiguity and ambivalence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
W. E. B. DuBois the Black writer was not confused by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“double consciousness,” but rather was allowed
more insight and precision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Collaboration is simply a technical means to guarantee that the
incongruities and self-contradictions that we experience daily find concrete
form on the written page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end the
various sorts of ways that writers interact in collaborative forms only
foreground the tensions inherent in any human interaction, indeed, even within
a single mind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>John Berryman’s review in the <i>Kenyon Review</i> III, 3 (Summer 1941)
found the “chainpoems” entirely unsuccessful, “excruciating” and “painful.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The pioneering study of the dozens was published by John Dollard, “The
Dozens: dialectic of insult,” <i>American Imago</i>, 1(1), 1939.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An excellent later survey with a good sample
of collected verses is found in Roger D. Abrahams, "Playing the
Dozens" The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 75, No. 297, Symposium on
Obscenity in Folklore (Jul. - Sep., 1962).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Amuzie Chimezie provides a convincing link to African practice as well
as critiquing his predecessors with some asperity in “The Dozens: An
African-Heritage Theory,” <i>Journal of Black Studies</i> Vol. 6, No. 4 (Jun.,
1976).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ben Barzilai, “The Fierce, Flourishing World of Battle Rap,” <i>New York
Times Magazine</i>, June 14, 2023. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These and other lyrics are available at <a href="https://battlerap.com/lyrics/2016/09/28063-caustic-vs-rone">https://battlerap.com/lyrics/2016/09/28063-caustic-vs-rone</a>.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The poem acknowledges its genre by the use of the word <i>tenson</i> in
l. 11, its occurrence presaged by the verb <i>partiram</i> in l. 3.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i>Marcabrun, quant sui las e·m duoill,<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>E ma bon'amia m'acuoill<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Ab un baisar, quant me
despuoill, <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>M'en vau sans e saus e garitz</i>.
(ll. 49-52)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Poetic improvisation has its own history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Fude </i>( <span style="font-family: "MS Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Gothic";">賦得)</span>or composition of poems on assigned
topics was a recreation in China and became during the Tang Dynasty a part of
the civil service examinations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>See Konishi Jin'Ichi (tr. And introduced by Karen Brazell and Lewis
Cook), “The Art of Renga,” <i>The Journal of Japanese Studies</i>, Vol. 2, No.
1 (Autumn, 1975).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His exposition is the
basis for this description.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>David Landis Barnhill, “Renga: The Literary Embodiment of Impermanence
and Nonself,” available at <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Literary-Embodiment-of-Impermanence-and-Nonself-Barnhill/4c618825d256d06d9a6a0685fc8aafc06565a6c0">https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Literary-Embodiment-of-Impermanence-and-Nonself-Barnhill/4c618825d256d06d9a6a0685fc8aafc06565a6c0</a>.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See also the recent anthology edited by Dean
Rader and Simone Muench <i>They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary
Collaborative Writing</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parallels
such as the work of Gilbert and George exist in visual art.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Young, “Conjectures on Original Composition”
(1759).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Amics Marchabrun, car digam<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Un vers d'Amor, que per cor am<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Q'a l'hora qe nos partiram<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">En sia loing lo chanz auziz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ugo Catola, er fazam,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mas de faus' amistat me clam,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Q'anc pos la serps baisset lo ram<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">No foron tant enganairiz. 8<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabrun, ço no m'es pas bon<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qe d'Amor digaz si ben non!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Per zo·us en mou e[u] la tenson,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qe d'Amor fui naz e noiriz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, non entenz razon,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Non saps d'Amor cum trais Samson?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vos cuidaz e'ill autre bricon<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qe tot sia vers quant vos
diz. 16<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabrun, no·s troban auctor<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">De Sanso·l fort e de sa'uxor<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Q'ela n'avia ostat s'amor<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A l'ora que ce fo deliz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, qar a sordejor<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">La det e la tolc al meillor,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Lo dia perdet sa valor,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qe'l seus fo per l'estraing
traiz. 24<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabrun, si cum declinaz<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qu'Amors si' ab engan mesclaz,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Dunc es lo almosna pechaz,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">La cima devers la raiz<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, l'Amors dont parlaz<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Camja cubertament los daz,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aprop lo bon lanz vos gardaz,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Co diz Salomons e Daviz. 32<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabrun, amistaz dechai,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Car a trobat Joven savai!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Eu n'ai al cor ir' et esclai,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Qar l'en a levaz tan laiz criz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, Ovides mostra chai<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">E l'ambladura o retrai<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Que non soana brun ni bai,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Anz se trai plus aus achaiz. 40<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marchabrun, anc non cuit t'ames<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">L'Amors, ves cui es tant engres,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ni no fo anc res meinz prezes<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">D'aitals joglars esbaluiz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, anc de ren non fo pres<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Un pas, que tost no s'en loignes,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Et enquer s'en loingna ades,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">E fera, tro seaz feniz. 44<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabrun, quant sui las e·m
duoill,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">E ma bon'amia m'acuoill<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ab un baisar, quant me despuoill,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">M'en vau sans e saus e garitz.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, per amor deu truoill<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tressaill l'avers al fol lo
suoill,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">E puois mostra la via a l'uoill<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Aprop los autres escharniz. 48<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, my friend, let's compose<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a love poem, for I've set my heart
to that,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">by the time we part,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">its tune be heard far away.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Uc Catola, let's do it<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">but I accuse you of false
friendship<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">for, ever since the serpent
lowered the branch [to Eve],<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">there haven't been as many
deceitful women. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, it doesn't please me<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">that you say anything but good
about Love!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I begin this tenso<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">because Love gave me life and
raised me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, you don't listen to
reason.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Don't you know how Love betrayed
Samson?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You and the other suckers,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">do you think that everything
[love] tells you is true? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, we do not find people
who say,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">about the strong Samson and his
wife,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">that she had removed her Love<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">at the time his life ran out.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola it's to the worst<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">she gave [her love] and took it
away from the best<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and lost her worth the day<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">her husband was betrayed for the
foreigner. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, since you imply<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">that Love is mixed with deception,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">is almsgiving sin<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and the top below the root?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, the Love you talk about<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">secretly changes the dice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Stop after a good roll,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">say Solomon and David.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, Friendship decays<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">because it has found Youth
uncouth!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have anger and revulsion in my
heart<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">because it has caused such ugly
cries.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, Ovid shows here,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and the look of things confirms
it,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">tha [Love] does not discriminate
against brown or bay,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">but appeals mostly to degenerates.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru, I do not think you ever
loved<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Love, towards which you are so
vehement,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">nor that it ever esteemed anything
less<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">than certain brainless jesters.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, Love never took<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a step [towards me] without
fleeing right away,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and it still tirelessly flees<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and will do so till it is undone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Marcabru when I'm tired and sad<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and my good friend greets me<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">with a kiss while I take off my
clothes,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I go away well, and safe, and
cured.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Catola, out of love of the
wine-press,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">money makes the fool cross the
threshold<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">and then shows the eye the way<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">towards the other laughable
people.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The Minase Sangin Hyakuin by Sogi,
Shohaku, and Socho<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "MS Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Gothic";">雪ながら山もとかすむ夕かな 宗祇</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yuki nagara yama-moto kasumu yube
kana<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As it snows the base<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">of the mountain is misty<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">this evening (Sogi)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "MS Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Gothic";">行く水とほく梅にほふ里 肖柏</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yuku mizu toku ume niou sato<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Far in the way the water goes<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a plum-blossom-smelling hamlet
(Shohaku)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "MS Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Gothic";">川かぜに一むら柳春みえて 宗長</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Kawakaze ni hitomura yanagi haru
miete<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The wind from the river<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">sways weeping willows<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">now it’s spring (Socho)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "MS Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Gothic";">舟さすおとはしるき明がた 宗祇</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Fune sasu oto wa shiruki akegata<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The pole of a boat makes<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">a clear sound at dawn (Sogi)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>William Seatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05853255011841301627noreply@blogger.com0