today i read this short story, victory lap, by george saunders. And you know what it was good. I mean it felt good to read it. I mean it was bittersweet and gently twisted but what I liked about it is that I came away with something better than myself. I mean this morning i was talking with my mother about self-help books, which inevitably lead to one situation out of which we have found no sophisticated exit: the circumstance in which a respected friend or acquaintance recommends a self-help book. "I recently read it and it really put things in perspective for me," he says. "I think it would really help you too. You can borrow my copy." And I am not a self help book reader. I am not! because self help books are full of bogus optimism and worthless recommendations and, as I said to my mother, they help people understand that they are not alone in their struggles in a positive way. I prefer to realize that connection in a negative context. that's why I read fiction.
I liked the george saunders piece because it wasn't negative. I liked it because it was about negative things. It was about the twisted and emotionally all-over-the-place mental state of an adolescent girl, which was something I connect to, although thank god I never kissed photographs or danced ballet. And it was about the repressive twists of family life, which is something we all connect to. And it was about rape, and about feeling helpless, and about indecisiveness and inaction. But it was a refreshing surprise to find that it didn't follow the traditional narrative formula for a short story. Usually, it's just: make things bad or almost normal. Make them worse. Make them worse. dangle hope in front of them, then make them worse. Leave them laughing.
This story didn't go like that at all. Well done, George Saunders. Thanks for taking an alternate route, just this once. It was like self-help for fiction readers. It gave me a new perspective. I think it could help you too. You can borrow my copy...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
come on
Dear America:
It is not Christmas yet.
Love
one more individual sick and fucking tired of hearing christmas carols on the radio in november.
It is not Christmas yet.
Love
one more individual sick and fucking tired of hearing christmas carols on the radio in november.
Friday, November 13, 2009
House of Polar Hysteria
[note: polar hysteria, aka arctic hysteria, aka perlerorneq, or pibloktoq, is an occurrence observed among Greenland inuhuit or eskimo peoples, and is arguably either dissociative mental psychosis bought on by the coming of the cold/dark season; mental distress brought on by hunger, anxiety, sexual abuse, and other stressors; shamanistic or cathartic episodes during periods of stress; eurocentric misinterpretations of differing cultural behaviors, or mental distress brought on by european-imposed lifestyles, etc.]
[note: but this is a poem]
House of Polar Hysteria
Is a mixed state, agitation and depression, green eyes gleaming fruitfully from the snow. I cast the circle, invoke the professional lover, where is the topaz man when you need him. She cannot be trusted with a weekend. We dwell with Tyw, Wodin, Thor, Freya, never riddle over who rules our workdays. I think he had a forest not a migraine. And I've seen God and done without, listened to the autobiographical sinew of helices for hexes; maybe blew it. Five hundred lifetimes as a fox — that's one. I let the leaves drop, stood all winter long empty-handed. It takes me, the supposed permuter, an hour to drive home, head hung out the window trying to see past striating snow, prow straight into its oncoming swirl, weirded. Go somewhat nuts, picture knot-headed proto-Europeans in rotted bearskins hurling heavy objects, e.g. boulders, at each other and grunting wrathfully. Is ego really so bad, after all someone has to steer the car, guzzle tea, take the last doughnut, facilitate meetings, or else chaos. Those old Zen masters who greedily reach for sweets. Whack the Calvinist within, it's an action not a piece of work. Who's above his own consequences? Both of us turned involuntary to check her out in tight jeans leaning over a low wall, blue eyes rimmed with black, thirteen and more than a little bit bad. No more sugar for you; I'm taking no-no for an answer; I am not a human being, after which he led the monks to the other side of the mountain, with his staff picked up the dessicated corpse of an old reynard, and performed the cremation service as if for a priest.
by JSA Lowe
[note: but this is a poem]
House of Polar Hysteria
Is a mixed state, agitation and depression, green eyes gleaming fruitfully from the snow. I cast the circle, invoke the professional lover, where is the topaz man when you need him. She cannot be trusted with a weekend. We dwell with Tyw, Wodin, Thor, Freya, never riddle over who rules our workdays. I think he had a forest not a migraine. And I've seen God and done without, listened to the autobiographical sinew of helices for hexes; maybe blew it. Five hundred lifetimes as a fox — that's one. I let the leaves drop, stood all winter long empty-handed. It takes me, the supposed permuter, an hour to drive home, head hung out the window trying to see past striating snow, prow straight into its oncoming swirl, weirded. Go somewhat nuts, picture knot-headed proto-Europeans in rotted bearskins hurling heavy objects, e.g. boulders, at each other and grunting wrathfully. Is ego really so bad, after all someone has to steer the car, guzzle tea, take the last doughnut, facilitate meetings, or else chaos. Those old Zen masters who greedily reach for sweets. Whack the Calvinist within, it's an action not a piece of work. Who's above his own consequences? Both of us turned involuntary to check her out in tight jeans leaning over a low wall, blue eyes rimmed with black, thirteen and more than a little bit bad. No more sugar for you; I'm taking no-no for an answer; I am not a human being, after which he led the monks to the other side of the mountain, with his staff picked up the dessicated corpse of an old reynard, and performed the cremation service as if for a priest.
by JSA Lowe
Thursday, November 12, 2009
the better life
Today I read hours upon hours of words about polar night. Did you know that in greenland it is night for four months? Four months and I'm not saying that it's pitch-black blinding dark but I am saying that the moon - what? does the moon rise and set while the sun just rests below the surface? the morally ambiguous ethnographer I've been reading describes an eskimo man squatting in the dusting snow to diagram the movement of the planets and explain the polar night. This is something I don't entirely understand. In general there is a sense of otherness in the arctic that I just can't get behind. How does one eat vegetables in greenland which is not green? Where do you grow your soy beans and with what do you fuel your biodiesel truck? I'm not saying that there aren't points of intersection or communication but only that these books are somehow not helping me get there. My mother says without winter how would we understand mortality? And to any and all arctic dwellers I say: my winter is not your winter. In another story the ethnographer writes about what he refers to as polar hysteria, and which I am afraid of citing because I don't know its cultural or its scientific authenticity but as he tells it, it is the violent liberation from too much time spent thinking about your place in the world during that uncomfortable period when the days are short but winter hasn't quite come yet. Needless to say the priest prescribed tranquilizers which were taken unwillingly because as I understand what the woman said, the violent spells weren't the problem. It was all that thinking.
Well this may not be arctic but it is november. It's too cold for a kayak but we can't walk on the ice, not yet. And the more I think about it, the more I think that I am getting a little hysterical, and it's about time. Good to find some freedom from all this confinement. Anyway, when winter comes, I'm ready to do some walking. Just waiting for time to build the bridge.
[and, yeah, i'm done with the gres.]
Well this may not be arctic but it is november. It's too cold for a kayak but we can't walk on the ice, not yet. And the more I think about it, the more I think that I am getting a little hysterical, and it's about time. Good to find some freedom from all this confinement. Anyway, when winter comes, I'm ready to do some walking. Just waiting for time to build the bridge.
[and, yeah, i'm done with the gres.]
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Behind the elms
[disclaimer: what follows is the eighth in a series of pieces designed to help me study for the GRE in english lit. If this interests you, scan on. Otherwise, come back next month when I return to normalcy]
Today's discussion is concerned with Britain's movement from devastation to empire between 1660 and 1800. We begin with devestation, and the restoration. In 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne (thus marking the failure of the 'commonwealth' of 1649). In 1665, the Black Plague swept through England, killing an estimated 100,000 people in London alone. And in 1666, a small fire in the bakery of Thomas Farrinor, Pudding Lane, erupted in the Fire of London, which destroyed approximately 7/8ths of the homes in London. In 1673 the Test Act required everyone in England to be a declared Protestant, resulting obviously in all sorts of religious persecution and revolution. Then, in 1689, came the glorious revolution and the arrival of William of Orange to the throne. Thus began an age of tolerance, where deism (religious vagueness) was in vogue, the Whigs and Tories emerged as political parties, and, in 1707, Scotland was incorporated into the country, England became Great Britain and the age of the British Empire began. Unfortunately, the Norton Anthology of English Literature's treatment of the British Empire is shamefully inadequate. Although the expansion of Britain during this time was one of the most important events in recent world history, it earns barely a mention in the Norton Anthology (and if you think that's a problem now, wait til we hit the victorians). All I can do is hope that this isn't relevant for my exam, accept that for the next 250 years British literature will be written in the context of a shockingly oppressive multinational empire, and move on.
The restoration! We will divide the period under discussion into three sections, for easy mastication. The first section is from 1660-1700. It is marked by the restoration of Charles II on one side, and by the death of Dryden on the other. Death of whom? you ask. John Dryden (1630-1700) was the representative writer for the restoration era british lit. In literary terms, this was the Augustan or Neoclassical era, because the literature of the time was modeled on classic writings from the time of Augustus Caeser. The literature was marked by complex closed heroic couplets embellished with parallelism and double balance - more later. It emphasized simplicity, rationalism, and peace, as well as relations with Nature.
My notes say that John Dryden was the "first readable writer." I'm not sure quite what that's supposed to mean, except that he was known for his simplicity of style. Dryden wrote all sorts of things. He was known mostly for writing occasional poems, like Annus Mirabilis, which celebrates a British naval victory and surviving the fire of London. He wrote plays, particularly All for Love, a blank verse drama which adapted Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra to Aristotle's Unities (unity of time, unity of place, and unity of action). He wrote important satires, like Absalom and Achitophel, which parallels both the story of David and Absolom and relations between Charles II and his illegitimate son Monmouth. Mac Flecknoe, another important satire, mocked the contemporary playwright Thomas Shadwell. And his Essay of Dramatic Poetry established for the first time the field of literary criticism. woo.
At the same time that John Dryden was writing plays, John Bunyan, a baptist priest, was in jail. Remember that the Test Act outlawed everyone who wasn't an Anglican. Well Bunyan refused to convert, and was sent to jail twice, in 1660 and 1675. It was perhaps during this time that he developed his masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress, which Norton calls "the greatest allegorical tale in English." In the tale, a pilgrim named Christian travels along the King's Highway on his way to salvation. My Norton bemoans the fact that today is a secular age, saying that in any other scenario, Pilgrim's Progress would be known to every English speaking household. I don't know about that, but it is a great read. In the first chapter, the narrator presents a dream he has. In the dream, Christian finds himself suddenly stricken by the call of God. An evangelist shows him that he needs to go on pilgrimage, and he tries to convince his family to join him, but they're stubborn, so he leaves them to burn in the ashes of hell. They think he's gone mad. On the way out of town, he encounters two neighbors who try to stop him, named Obstinate and Pliable. Let's take a look:
Remember, Pilgrim's Progress is one giant allegory, and the voyage isn't so much literal as spiritual. Don't you wonder what will happen next? So do I, but alas, we move on...
Pilgrim's Progress might make the less uptight of my readers cringe, but never fear: the age of Dryden was also the age of the Restoration Comedies, aka the "Comedy of Manners." These witty, cynical theatrical works provide a valuable balance to Bunyan. One important author of such comedies was William Congreve (1670-1729). Congreve, an Irishman, was a sinecure, which means he got paid to do nothing much. Good for him. During his short career, he wrote a number of popular plays, some of which are still performed today. Consider for example The Old Bachelor, his first success, Love for Love, and The Mourning Bride (this one was actually a tragedy). One of his most important comedy of manners was The Way of the World. In this story, Mirabell is a player who has given up his wild ways for the love of his life, the coquette Millamont (interesting aside: coquette comes from the french for cock, as in a male chicken, which was originally applied to male flirts. A coquette is not a hen, but it is a feminization of cock - ie, a flirt. ha, ha). Unfortunately, if Mirabell can't get the consent of Millamont's guardian (lady Wishfort), her large inheritance will be lost. Hilarity, needless to say, ensues.
Another comic writer of these early days was Samuel Butler (1612-1680). Butler, an Augustan poet, is known best for his work Hudibras, which spawned a whole literary form ("hudibrastic verse"). Hudibras is known as a mock-heroic poem. Like the poetry of Donne and Milton, it is written in tetrameter, but its content and its intentionally bad rhymes burlesque or mock puritans and great poets. Here's a taste:
There were numerous other Augustan poets. John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, was an excitingly debauched man who eventually saw the error of his ways. His "The Disabled Debauchee," written in heroic stanzas like Dryden's poetry, totally subverts heroic conventions. Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchilsea, was an influence on Wordsworth. Of her many interesting poems, my favorite is called "The Spleen." Another poem I particularly like as "A True Maid"by Matthew Prior (1664-1721), who was known for his highly readable lyric poetry:
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, besides having a fantastic name, is known for her letters from around the globe, and for her poetry. And finally, John Gay (1685-1732) was a friend of Pope and Swift, and obviously carries us into the post-Dryden period. He was a satirist who composed this epitaph on his gravestone:
I thought to leave off there for today, but before I go, I wanted to make a quick comment on the state of the novel. The, quote, "First Modern Novel," Cervantes' Don Quixote, was published in Spain between 1605 and 1615. During the restoration, the English novel was developed by the remarkable Daniel Defoe. Defoe was a middle class Presbyterian known for his political and financial double dealings. At the surprising age of about 60, Defoe produced perhaps the first modern English novel (my Norton says we should exclude him, but not why. So I say: here he is), Robinson Crusoe. This was followed by a series of popular (but not "literary") adventure novels - Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders (remember, the only example of a picaresque novel about a woman), Colonel Jack, and Roxana.
And so, for now, adieu.
Today's discussion is concerned with Britain's movement from devastation to empire between 1660 and 1800. We begin with devestation, and the restoration. In 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne (thus marking the failure of the 'commonwealth' of 1649). In 1665, the Black Plague swept through England, killing an estimated 100,000 people in London alone. And in 1666, a small fire in the bakery of Thomas Farrinor, Pudding Lane, erupted in the Fire of London, which destroyed approximately 7/8ths of the homes in London. In 1673 the Test Act required everyone in England to be a declared Protestant, resulting obviously in all sorts of religious persecution and revolution. Then, in 1689, came the glorious revolution and the arrival of William of Orange to the throne. Thus began an age of tolerance, where deism (religious vagueness) was in vogue, the Whigs and Tories emerged as political parties, and, in 1707, Scotland was incorporated into the country, England became Great Britain and the age of the British Empire began. Unfortunately, the Norton Anthology of English Literature's treatment of the British Empire is shamefully inadequate. Although the expansion of Britain during this time was one of the most important events in recent world history, it earns barely a mention in the Norton Anthology (and if you think that's a problem now, wait til we hit the victorians). All I can do is hope that this isn't relevant for my exam, accept that for the next 250 years British literature will be written in the context of a shockingly oppressive multinational empire, and move on.
The restoration! We will divide the period under discussion into three sections, for easy mastication. The first section is from 1660-1700. It is marked by the restoration of Charles II on one side, and by the death of Dryden on the other. Death of whom? you ask. John Dryden (1630-1700) was the representative writer for the restoration era british lit. In literary terms, this was the Augustan or Neoclassical era, because the literature of the time was modeled on classic writings from the time of Augustus Caeser. The literature was marked by complex closed heroic couplets embellished with parallelism and double balance - more later. It emphasized simplicity, rationalism, and peace, as well as relations with Nature.
My notes say that John Dryden was the "first readable writer." I'm not sure quite what that's supposed to mean, except that he was known for his simplicity of style. Dryden wrote all sorts of things. He was known mostly for writing occasional poems, like Annus Mirabilis, which celebrates a British naval victory and surviving the fire of London. He wrote plays, particularly All for Love, a blank verse drama which adapted Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra to Aristotle's Unities (unity of time, unity of place, and unity of action). He wrote important satires, like Absalom and Achitophel, which parallels both the story of David and Absolom and relations between Charles II and his illegitimate son Monmouth. Mac Flecknoe, another important satire, mocked the contemporary playwright Thomas Shadwell. And his Essay of Dramatic Poetry established for the first time the field of literary criticism. woo.
At the same time that John Dryden was writing plays, John Bunyan, a baptist priest, was in jail. Remember that the Test Act outlawed everyone who wasn't an Anglican. Well Bunyan refused to convert, and was sent to jail twice, in 1660 and 1675. It was perhaps during this time that he developed his masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress, which Norton calls "the greatest allegorical tale in English." In the tale, a pilgrim named Christian travels along the King's Highway on his way to salvation. My Norton bemoans the fact that today is a secular age, saying that in any other scenario, Pilgrim's Progress would be known to every English speaking household. I don't know about that, but it is a great read. In the first chapter, the narrator presents a dream he has. In the dream, Christian finds himself suddenly stricken by the call of God. An evangelist shows him that he needs to go on pilgrimage, and he tries to convince his family to join him, but they're stubborn, so he leaves them to burn in the ashes of hell. They think he's gone mad. On the way out of town, he encounters two neighbors who try to stop him, named Obstinate and Pliable. Let's take a look:
Then said the man [Christian], Neighbors, wherefore are ye come? They said, To persuade you to go back with us. But he said, That can by no means be; you dwell, said he, in the City of Destruction (the place also where I was born) I see it to be so; and, dying there, sooner or later, you will sink lower than the grave, into a place that burns with fire and brimstone; be content, good neighbors, and go along with me.
OBST. What! said Obstinate, and leave our friends and our comforts behind us?
CHR. Yes, said Christian (for that was his name), because that ALL which you shall foresake is not worthy to be compared with a little of that which I am seeking to enjoy (II Corinthians v.17); and, if you will go along with me, and hold it, you shall fare as I myself; for there, where I go, is enough and to spare (Luke xv.17). Come away, and prove my words.
OBST. What are the things you seek, since you leave all the world to find them?
CHR. I seek an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away (I Peter i.4), and it is laid up in heaven, and safe there (Hebrew xi. 16), so to be bestowed, at the time appointed, on them that diligently seek it. Read it so, if you will, in my book.
OBST. Tush! said Obstinate. ...
Remember, Pilgrim's Progress is one giant allegory, and the voyage isn't so much literal as spiritual. Don't you wonder what will happen next? So do I, but alas, we move on...
Pilgrim's Progress might make the less uptight of my readers cringe, but never fear: the age of Dryden was also the age of the Restoration Comedies, aka the "Comedy of Manners." These witty, cynical theatrical works provide a valuable balance to Bunyan. One important author of such comedies was William Congreve (1670-1729). Congreve, an Irishman, was a sinecure, which means he got paid to do nothing much. Good for him. During his short career, he wrote a number of popular plays, some of which are still performed today. Consider for example The Old Bachelor, his first success, Love for Love, and The Mourning Bride (this one was actually a tragedy). One of his most important comedy of manners was The Way of the World. In this story, Mirabell is a player who has given up his wild ways for the love of his life, the coquette Millamont (interesting aside: coquette comes from the french for cock, as in a male chicken, which was originally applied to male flirts. A coquette is not a hen, but it is a feminization of cock - ie, a flirt. ha, ha). Unfortunately, if Mirabell can't get the consent of Millamont's guardian (lady Wishfort), her large inheritance will be lost. Hilarity, needless to say, ensues.
Another comic writer of these early days was Samuel Butler (1612-1680). Butler, an Augustan poet, is known best for his work Hudibras, which spawned a whole literary form ("hudibrastic verse"). Hudibras is known as a mock-heroic poem. Like the poetry of Donne and Milton, it is written in tetrameter, but its content and its intentionally bad rhymes burlesque or mock puritans and great poets. Here's a taste:
When civil fury first grew high,Here a punk is a prostitute, and civil fury is the civil war between the Royalists and Parliamentarians (1642-49), for which the Presbytarian clergy were sometimes blamed.
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dam Religion as for punk,
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Though not a man of them knew wherefore;
When gospel trumpeter, surrounded
With long-eared rout, to battle sounded
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick;
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a-coloneling.
There were numerous other Augustan poets. John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, was an excitingly debauched man who eventually saw the error of his ways. His "The Disabled Debauchee," written in heroic stanzas like Dryden's poetry, totally subverts heroic conventions. Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchilsea, was an influence on Wordsworth. Of her many interesting poems, my favorite is called "The Spleen." Another poem I particularly like as "A True Maid"by Matthew Prior (1664-1721), who was known for his highly readable lyric poetry:
'No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that,' says Rose, 'I'll die.'
'Behind the elms, last night,' cried Dick,
'Rose, were you not extremely sick?'
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, besides having a fantastic name, is known for her letters from around the globe, and for her poetry. And finally, John Gay (1685-1732) was a friend of Pope and Swift, and obviously carries us into the post-Dryden period. He was a satirist who composed this epitaph on his gravestone:
Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, and now I know it.
I thought to leave off there for today, but before I go, I wanted to make a quick comment on the state of the novel. The, quote, "First Modern Novel," Cervantes' Don Quixote, was published in Spain between 1605 and 1615. During the restoration, the English novel was developed by the remarkable Daniel Defoe. Defoe was a middle class Presbyterian known for his political and financial double dealings. At the surprising age of about 60, Defoe produced perhaps the first modern English novel (my Norton says we should exclude him, but not why. So I say: here he is), Robinson Crusoe. This was followed by a series of popular (but not "literary") adventure novels - Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders (remember, the only example of a picaresque novel about a woman), Colonel Jack, and Roxana.
And so, for now, adieu.
Friday, October 23, 2009
where the wild thyme blows
"I had forgotten," said Saul, "that comedies were supposed be funny." We were watching nick bottom's dreadful performance as pyramus to francis flute's thisbe. and it was funny - in that vulgar comic way that only shakespeare can produce while maintaining iambic pentameter. It's easy to forget, when you're reading the complex and convoluted lines of Elizabethan drama, that then as now audiences had a wicked sense of humor. But when you see it on-stage (or on-screen), with a stunning Judi Dench and devastatingly dirty helen mirren, sometimes the comedy comes alive.
We watched Peter Hall's a Midsummer Night's Dream last night. The film was produced in 1968 and that should be no surprise. The young ladies looked like hippies galavanting across the fields (and blond-haired lysander was like some moonstruck member of the monkees). The story is sweet - hermia loves lysander, and lysander loves her right back. Helena loves Demetrius - but Demetrius loves hermia and he has her father's blessing. She is so fortunate in love. So Hermia and Lysander elope into the forest, with Demetrius and Helena chasing them down... Big mistake! Because the forest is Judi Dench's domain. Or technically, it's Titania and Oberon's, fairy king and queen embroiled in a bitter battle over an adopted boy and prepared to produce all kinds of absurd chaos in retribution. Add a flower that makes people fall in love, a group of horribly unskilled actors, and the trouble-making Puck, and you have an.... elizabethan comedy.
The truth is, this part didn't touch me much. Maybe it was the performances (unlikely. Judi Dench speaks with astonishing nuance, and the rest of the company kept up admirably). More likely it was the cinematography. Attempting, I guess, to create a dream-like experience, the camera tottered between ill-cut shots, badly focused, and poorly spliced. It was like a dream in that it was broken - pieces falling all over the place, space and time diving and backtracking at will. But Shakespeare creates a dream without ever resorting to bad rhymes and ill-set shots. These filmmakers ought to have done the same.
That's why, of course, the end was better. Happily married to their rightful loves (it's just ridiculous that Demetrius ends up with Helena. I'm sorry, but it's totally unconvincing), the couples repair to Theseus and Hippolyta's palace for some evening entertainment. Theseus and Hippolyta! Aren't those characters from Chaucer's Knight's tale? Why yes indeed. In fact, according to wikipedia, in the greek myth theseus abducts hippolyta and causes a war. In the Knight's tale the whole thing is sort of glossed over:
In the Knight's Tale its all chivalry conquering female desire. And in a midsummer night's dream, of course, it's a tale of love. So the lovers go back to the palace and they watch the epically bad performance of the story of pyramus and thisbe, and laughed, and then to bed, where weirdly the fairies all show up to plan a queer sort of bedroom blessing / invasion. As they say: The course of true love never did run smooth.
We watched Peter Hall's a Midsummer Night's Dream last night. The film was produced in 1968 and that should be no surprise. The young ladies looked like hippies galavanting across the fields (and blond-haired lysander was like some moonstruck member of the monkees). The story is sweet - hermia loves lysander, and lysander loves her right back. Helena loves Demetrius - but Demetrius loves hermia and he has her father's blessing. She is so fortunate in love. So Hermia and Lysander elope into the forest, with Demetrius and Helena chasing them down... Big mistake! Because the forest is Judi Dench's domain. Or technically, it's Titania and Oberon's, fairy king and queen embroiled in a bitter battle over an adopted boy and prepared to produce all kinds of absurd chaos in retribution. Add a flower that makes people fall in love, a group of horribly unskilled actors, and the trouble-making Puck, and you have an.... elizabethan comedy.
The truth is, this part didn't touch me much. Maybe it was the performances (unlikely. Judi Dench speaks with astonishing nuance, and the rest of the company kept up admirably). More likely it was the cinematography. Attempting, I guess, to create a dream-like experience, the camera tottered between ill-cut shots, badly focused, and poorly spliced. It was like a dream in that it was broken - pieces falling all over the place, space and time diving and backtracking at will. But Shakespeare creates a dream without ever resorting to bad rhymes and ill-set shots. These filmmakers ought to have done the same.
That's why, of course, the end was better. Happily married to their rightful loves (it's just ridiculous that Demetrius ends up with Helena. I'm sorry, but it's totally unconvincing), the couples repair to Theseus and Hippolyta's palace for some evening entertainment. Theseus and Hippolyta! Aren't those characters from Chaucer's Knight's tale? Why yes indeed. In fact, according to wikipedia, in the greek myth theseus abducts hippolyta and causes a war. In the Knight's tale the whole thing is sort of glossed over:
875: And certes, if it nere to long to heere,
876: I wolde have toold yow fully the manere
877: How wonnen was the regne of femenye
878: By theseus and by his chivalrye;
879: And of the grete bataille for the nones
880: Bitwixen atthenes and amazones;
881: And how asseged was ypolita,
882: The faire, hardy queene of scithia;
And truly, were it not too long to hear,
I would have told you fully how, that year,
Was gained the realm of Femininity
By Theseus and by his chivalry;
And all of the great battle that was wrought
Where Amazons and the Athenians fought;
And how was wooed and won Hippolyta,
That fair and hardy queen of Scythia;
In the Knight's Tale its all chivalry conquering female desire. And in a midsummer night's dream, of course, it's a tale of love. So the lovers go back to the palace and they watch the epically bad performance of the story of pyramus and thisbe, and laughed, and then to bed, where weirdly the fairies all show up to plan a queer sort of bedroom blessing / invasion. As they say: The course of true love never did run smooth.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Th' Aonian mount
[disclaimer: what follows is the seventh in a series of pieces designed to help me study for the GRE in english lit. If this interests you, scan on. Otherwise, come back next month when I return to normalcy]
In the postscript to Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Borges writes:
In the labyrinthine days of my undergraduate studies, I sought out and read, in part, the original Urn Burial to which Borges abandons himself. Published under its Latin name of Hydriotaphia, the work examines at length the seventeenth-century discovery of a bronze-age burial site at Norfolk, and goes on to describe numerous burial and funerary traditions. The book itself, published by Sir Thomas Browne in 1658, is today anachronistic both in style and subject, relevant only to the most obscure of seventeenth century scholars. Since today's review begins with an examination of the seventeenth century essay form, Sir Thomas Browne is an excellent place to start. Seventeenth century prose form is modeled on the writing of Seneca, who used "exploded periods," an enthusiastic name for an argument stated and then examined at length. The seventeenth century style is marked by an increasing emphasis on stylistic simplicity. In addition to Sir Thomas Browne, important essayists of the time include Francis Bacon, one of the first English essayists. His work is remarkable in that it is not personal, but rather focused on exposing superstition and on the privileging of empirical evidence. He is an early voice for the rise of the scientific method. Another writer, who any political theorist is surely familiar with, is Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes' Leviathan, published in 1657, caused a big scandal in court because it was philosophy, but secular! Hobbes is known for his theory of Human Nature, which is not good at all. The human state of nature = chaos and disaster. Social contracts are a necessity. Communities must have a sovereign authority. Hobbes is still read today. Do we still agree with him, deep down? I don't know.
One interesting and more unfamiliar seventeenth century essayist is Robert Burton. A reticent scholar, he spent so much time poring over books that he was uniquely susceptible to that malady known as Melancholy. Apparently the type of person to indulge, rather than seeking to avoid, an unhealthy obsession, he made the study of the illness his life's work, resulting in his epic "The Anatomy of Melancholy." We are fortunate that the full text is available both at Project Gutenberg and on google books. Burton composed his own epigraph, which reads as follows:
I can't think of a clever way to transition to our next subject. It's just too huge for silly comments. It begins, of course, with a marvelous subject. ha, ha. Andrew Marvell was, according to my Norton Anthology, the most major of minor poets. His importance, however, is due mostly to the fact that 1657 he was appointed secretary to the blind Latin Secretary for the Commonwealth, John Milton. As such, he was the first poet to be associated with him. After Marvell, Milton is everywhere.
John Milton was born in 1608 in London. In his youth, as I understand it, he read everything. After graduating from Cambridge, he went home to read more, then went to the continent where, I guess, he read. In 1637, a former classmate of his died tragically, and he sent a poem to be published in a memorial collection. The poem is called Lycidas, and it is his first great work. It is important to me because it is a pastoral elegy which is, no kidding, an elegy (song for the dead) written in the voice of a shepherd. The lord is my shepherd, the simple life, I know. But tell me that concept isn't kind of hilarious.
After that Milton's life got exciting. He became a political radical in support of the Commonwealth and, interestingly, divorce, after his wife of three weeks left him. He married twice (both women died), he had children, and he went blind. In 1660, when the commonwealth ended, Milton was jailed; with the help of Marvell and friends he escaped execution, but he was left destitute. Isolated, blind, impoverished, and a failure, Milton did what any man in his situation would do. He wrote an apocalyptic poem, titled it Paradise Lost, and became one of the most important English writers in history.
Paradise Lost is an epic detailing the exciting adventures of Satan and, ultimately, the more appealing contrasts of Christ. The first half is a rise from Hell through Chaos to Heaven; the second half is the descent of Adam and Eve from Paradise to earth. Its epic climax is when Eve eats an apple. Rumor has it the poem is very very good. I haven't read it - I was trained, remember, in the excellent school of "anti-canonical education" - but I can say that it sounds appealing. The poem is written in blank verse, which means unrhymed iambic pentameter. At a loss for what else to do, I offer the first sentence. Milton invokes his muse (in classic epic tradition), equating Urania, the muse of astronomy, with the Holy Spirit of the Bible which inspired Moses to write Genesis:
In the postscript to Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Borges writes:
Entonces desaparecerán del planeta el inglés y el francés y el mero español. El mundo será Tlön. Yo no hago caso, yo sigo revisando en los quietos días del hotel de Adrogué una indecisa traducción quevediana (que no pienso dar a la imprenta) del Urn Burial de Browne.
Then English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Tlön. I pay no attention to all this and go on revising, in the still days at the Adrogue hotel, an uncertain Quevedian translation (which I do not intend to publish) of Browne's Urn Burial.
In the labyrinthine days of my undergraduate studies, I sought out and read, in part, the original Urn Burial to which Borges abandons himself. Published under its Latin name of Hydriotaphia, the work examines at length the seventeenth-century discovery of a bronze-age burial site at Norfolk, and goes on to describe numerous burial and funerary traditions. The book itself, published by Sir Thomas Browne in 1658, is today anachronistic both in style and subject, relevant only to the most obscure of seventeenth century scholars. Since today's review begins with an examination of the seventeenth century essay form, Sir Thomas Browne is an excellent place to start. Seventeenth century prose form is modeled on the writing of Seneca, who used "exploded periods," an enthusiastic name for an argument stated and then examined at length. The seventeenth century style is marked by an increasing emphasis on stylistic simplicity. In addition to Sir Thomas Browne, important essayists of the time include Francis Bacon, one of the first English essayists. His work is remarkable in that it is not personal, but rather focused on exposing superstition and on the privileging of empirical evidence. He is an early voice for the rise of the scientific method. Another writer, who any political theorist is surely familiar with, is Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes' Leviathan, published in 1657, caused a big scandal in court because it was philosophy, but secular! Hobbes is known for his theory of Human Nature, which is not good at all. The human state of nature = chaos and disaster. Social contracts are a necessity. Communities must have a sovereign authority. Hobbes is still read today. Do we still agree with him, deep down? I don't know.
One interesting and more unfamiliar seventeenth century essayist is Robert Burton. A reticent scholar, he spent so much time poring over books that he was uniquely susceptible to that malady known as Melancholy. Apparently the type of person to indulge, rather than seeking to avoid, an unhealthy obsession, he made the study of the illness his life's work, resulting in his epic "The Anatomy of Melancholy." We are fortunate that the full text is available both at Project Gutenberg and on google books. Burton composed his own epigraph, which reads as follows:
If you can translate it, more power to you.
Paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus,
Hic jacet Democritus junior
Cui vitam dedit et mortem
Melancholia.
I can't think of a clever way to transition to our next subject. It's just too huge for silly comments. It begins, of course, with a marvelous subject. ha, ha. Andrew Marvell was, according to my Norton Anthology, the most major of minor poets. His importance, however, is due mostly to the fact that 1657 he was appointed secretary to the blind Latin Secretary for the Commonwealth, John Milton. As such, he was the first poet to be associated with him. After Marvell, Milton is everywhere.
John Milton was born in 1608 in London. In his youth, as I understand it, he read everything. After graduating from Cambridge, he went home to read more, then went to the continent where, I guess, he read. In 1637, a former classmate of his died tragically, and he sent a poem to be published in a memorial collection. The poem is called Lycidas, and it is his first great work. It is important to me because it is a pastoral elegy which is, no kidding, an elegy (song for the dead) written in the voice of a shepherd. The lord is my shepherd, the simple life, I know. But tell me that concept isn't kind of hilarious.
After that Milton's life got exciting. He became a political radical in support of the Commonwealth and, interestingly, divorce, after his wife of three weeks left him. He married twice (both women died), he had children, and he went blind. In 1660, when the commonwealth ended, Milton was jailed; with the help of Marvell and friends he escaped execution, but he was left destitute. Isolated, blind, impoverished, and a failure, Milton did what any man in his situation would do. He wrote an apocalyptic poem, titled it Paradise Lost, and became one of the most important English writers in history.
Paradise Lost is an epic detailing the exciting adventures of Satan and, ultimately, the more appealing contrasts of Christ. The first half is a rise from Hell through Chaos to Heaven; the second half is the descent of Adam and Eve from Paradise to earth. Its epic climax is when Eve eats an apple. Rumor has it the poem is very very good. I haven't read it - I was trained, remember, in the excellent school of "anti-canonical education" - but I can say that it sounds appealing. The poem is written in blank verse, which means unrhymed iambic pentameter. At a loss for what else to do, I offer the first sentence. Milton invokes his muse (in classic epic tradition), equating Urania, the muse of astronomy, with the Holy Spirit of the Bible which inspired Moses to write Genesis:
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
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