Gyles Brandreth has an interesting enough article at Times Online about how Oscar Wilde fits in our time. But does absolutely everything need to be discussed in terms of capitalism, commercialism, and the marketplace? We're in an age when anything remotely related to identity (or the spirit) is discussed as "branding."
Existentialist? Existence precedes essence? There is no essence? The outward forms create the inner meaning; identity is self-created (thus "branded")?
Postmodernist? The outward forms signal that the center is empty, and so we focus on the image (and identify it as a "brand," full of shifting meaning and transient image)?
Or simply dehumanizing?
(via ALD)
Monday, April 07, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Torrential Downpour
Writing as Reaction
When I'm discussing an essay with students, I will often ask a question to get at the writer's focus and tone: What is this writer responding to? Often we can understand a writer's points of emphasis and intensity of rhetoric by working backward to what this writer is reacting against. For example, we read Theodore Dalrymple's essay "Just Do What the Pilot Tells You," which emphasizes the value of obedience. We can understand Dalrymple's emphasis on the good of obedience by examining what he is responding to: Milgram's obedience experiment and the reaction to it, which focused on the dangers of obedience. Another example: some of my students react negatively to essays we read that are harshly critical of malls. I ask students to consider what the writers are reacting against: the writers likely see themselves writing in an environment of unbridled and unreflecting consumerism.
I'm often turned of when a writer uses harsh insults or mocking name-calling. For several reasons I don't like when discourse on ideas devolves into demeaning insults. But I ask myself that question: What is this writer responding to?, or perhaps more strongly, What is this writer reacting against? Sometimes this allows me to see past inflammatory rhetoric to the point a writer wishes to make.
Valjean and Javert
Les Miserables is my favorite musical: it is absolutely stunning. And I see continuing significance in the contrast of Javert and Valjean. Javert lives by the belief that there are good people and there are bad people, and that bad people cannot change; "redemption" is not even a concept for Javert. But Valjean's life teaches us that the lines of good and evil do not run between people, but run within people; Valjean provides us a story of forgiveness and redemption.
I'm rather struck by how much it is literature that inform my religious beliefs and give them meaning.
At We Have Mixed Feelings About Sven Sundgaard
On matters of peace and violence, Katherine Kersten claims that "pretty thoughts" don't work, but on matters of teens and sex, Kersten has some "pretty thoughts" that don't seem grounded in reality. I write about it at WHMFASS instead of here because that's where I write about Minnesota media.
Currently Reading: William Golding's The Lord of the Flies
An academic career in literature is sort of odd. An advanced degree in English and a job teaching English at college certainly suggests you've read a great deal. But of course there are so many great books out there, and with limited time (and specific academic focus), there are all sorts of major books you haven't read (and that you suspect most people in your position have read). Sure, you recognize that all English teachers don't share a common life reading list. You can also tell yourself that in your studies you've read several books that are rarely read, even among academics. Still, you can feel sheepish about having failed to read certain books. You reach a point in life where you really think you rather should.
When I'm discussing an essay with students, I will often ask a question to get at the writer's focus and tone: What is this writer responding to? Often we can understand a writer's points of emphasis and intensity of rhetoric by working backward to what this writer is reacting against. For example, we read Theodore Dalrymple's essay "Just Do What the Pilot Tells You," which emphasizes the value of obedience. We can understand Dalrymple's emphasis on the good of obedience by examining what he is responding to: Milgram's obedience experiment and the reaction to it, which focused on the dangers of obedience. Another example: some of my students react negatively to essays we read that are harshly critical of malls. I ask students to consider what the writers are reacting against: the writers likely see themselves writing in an environment of unbridled and unreflecting consumerism.
I'm often turned of when a writer uses harsh insults or mocking name-calling. For several reasons I don't like when discourse on ideas devolves into demeaning insults. But I ask myself that question: What is this writer responding to?, or perhaps more strongly, What is this writer reacting against? Sometimes this allows me to see past inflammatory rhetoric to the point a writer wishes to make.
Valjean and Javert
Les Miserables is my favorite musical: it is absolutely stunning. And I see continuing significance in the contrast of Javert and Valjean. Javert lives by the belief that there are good people and there are bad people, and that bad people cannot change; "redemption" is not even a concept for Javert. But Valjean's life teaches us that the lines of good and evil do not run between people, but run within people; Valjean provides us a story of forgiveness and redemption.
I'm rather struck by how much it is literature that inform my religious beliefs and give them meaning.
At We Have Mixed Feelings About Sven Sundgaard
On matters of peace and violence, Katherine Kersten claims that "pretty thoughts" don't work, but on matters of teens and sex, Kersten has some "pretty thoughts" that don't seem grounded in reality. I write about it at WHMFASS instead of here because that's where I write about Minnesota media.
Currently Reading: William Golding's The Lord of the Flies
An academic career in literature is sort of odd. An advanced degree in English and a job teaching English at college certainly suggests you've read a great deal. But of course there are so many great books out there, and with limited time (and specific academic focus), there are all sorts of major books you haven't read (and that you suspect most people in your position have read). Sure, you recognize that all English teachers don't share a common life reading list. You can also tell yourself that in your studies you've read several books that are rarely read, even among academics. Still, you can feel sheepish about having failed to read certain books. You reach a point in life where you really think you rather should.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Moral leadership
At Religion Dispatches, Jonathan Walton reflects on Martin Luther King Jr. and suggests that a true moral leader is rarely popular or effective:
"He chose what he regarded as Christian discipleship over racial diplomacy and moral truth over political tact. King essentially decided to no longer be a political bonsai tree pruned in the direction that the white and even black establishments would have him grow. His shift from the language of reform to that of revolution (an American “revolution of values” to be exact), and from civil rights for Southern Negroes to human rights for the oppressed throughout the globe, effectively sabotaged his career as a “Negro leader.” This is what King seemingly desired. Not that he found masochistic pleasure in vexing his civil rights cohorts, aggravating white liberal allies, and seemingly justifying the concocted claims of longtime opponents. But King did realize that a man of moral conscience could not be a consensus leader. Prophets are neither hand-picked by the powerful nor necessarily popular. Like his ancient Hebrew spiritual interlocutors that served as his moral inspiration, King was prepared to lament from outside the city gates of cultural acceptance."
At Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen talks about media portrayal (then and now) of King's last years, "as he campaigned militantly against U.S. foreign and economic policy:"
"While noting in passing that King spoke out against the Vietnam War, mainstream reports today rarely acknowledge that he went way beyond Vietnam to decry U.S. militarism in general: 'I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos,' said King in 1967 speeches on foreign policy, 'without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.'"
The Root also has a lot of good features on this anniversary of King's death.
"He chose what he regarded as Christian discipleship over racial diplomacy and moral truth over political tact. King essentially decided to no longer be a political bonsai tree pruned in the direction that the white and even black establishments would have him grow. His shift from the language of reform to that of revolution (an American “revolution of values” to be exact), and from civil rights for Southern Negroes to human rights for the oppressed throughout the globe, effectively sabotaged his career as a “Negro leader.” This is what King seemingly desired. Not that he found masochistic pleasure in vexing his civil rights cohorts, aggravating white liberal allies, and seemingly justifying the concocted claims of longtime opponents. But King did realize that a man of moral conscience could not be a consensus leader. Prophets are neither hand-picked by the powerful nor necessarily popular. Like his ancient Hebrew spiritual interlocutors that served as his moral inspiration, King was prepared to lament from outside the city gates of cultural acceptance."
At Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen talks about media portrayal (then and now) of King's last years, "as he campaigned militantly against U.S. foreign and economic policy:"
"While noting in passing that King spoke out against the Vietnam War, mainstream reports today rarely acknowledge that he went way beyond Vietnam to decry U.S. militarism in general: 'I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos,' said King in 1967 speeches on foreign policy, 'without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.'"
The Root also has a lot of good features on this anniversary of King's death.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Edmund and Lear
Somehow, while grading exams on King Lear, it suddenly struck me how the following soliloquy from Edmund could provide context for how we discuss the entire play:
"This is the excellent foppery of
the world, that when we are sick in fortune,
often the surfeits of our own behavior, we
make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon,
and stars; as if we were villains on necessity;
fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves,
and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced
obedience of planetary influences; and all that
we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An
admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay
his goatish disposition on the charge of a star."
The play as a whole emphasizes the possibility that nature or the gods are malevolent or indifferent. Perhaps, indeed, the cosmos or God is indifferent to human suffering and human behavior. But...doesn't Lear bring his tragedy on himself? He disowns Cordelia and banishes Kent. He turns the kingdom over to his greedy daughters Regan and Goneril. He makes mistakes; his own character and his own actions bring on suffering for himself, his kingdom, and Cordelia. It isn't just Lear, of course; he and others are also victimized by the play's villains. But again it is not nature or the gods that make people suffer further: it is evil people that cause further suffering. The good, loyal characters suffer because of the machinations and actions of Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril.
So perhaps Edmund is speaking to the audience directly here. He's warning us not to get distracted by all the foolish characters who continually muse on "nature" and the gods. They're distracted: it is distinctly human behavior that brings on the suffering of the play. It's silly to lash out at indifferent or malevolent gods, to complain about the emptiness of the cosmos. Human suffering is brought on by the mistakes of good people and the machinations of evil people.
In the play, Edmund and Lear speak not a single word to one another. Perhaps, in a very indirect way, Edmund in this passage speaks to Lear. But perhaps Lear doesn't even need the message. It is possible that Lear and Edmund are the only two characters that never actually lash out at "nature." After Lear is cast out into the storm, he recognizes he can't blame "nature," but must blame his daughters:
"Rumble thy bellyful. Spit, fire. Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children,
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure."
Here Lear recognizes it is bad people that caused his suffering; indeed, throughout his insanity in the storm, Lear repeatedly fixates on the betrayal by his daughters. Other characters experience suffering and speculate on the gods; Lear experiences suffering and pins it on a human source. And later, Lear recognizes that it was his own mistakes, telling Cordelia
"I am a very foolish fond old man"
and
"You must bear with me./ Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and/ foolish."
In Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom writes that Shakespeare never allowed Edmund and Lear to speak to each other "because they are apocalyptic antitheses: the king is all feeling, and Edmund is bare of all affect." They had nothing to say to each other, according to Bloom, because they were opposites: Lear is all emotion, full of whatever feeling possesses him, while Edmund is "ice-cold, indifferent." Insightful, yes, but it also highlights one of my frustrations of Bloom's reading of Shakespeare in that book. He places all emphasis on characters, and explores very little of the ideas. Bloom as a reader loves unique characters (a reading mode I could appreciate if Bloom didn't so frequently lash out at anybody who reads Shakespeare differently than he does).
Let me provide another theory:
Edmund and Lear have nothing to say to each other because they already know the same thing. While many of the characters in the play spend time making grand claims about indifferent nature and the malevolent gods, Edmund and Lear each recognize that human affairs are governed by human character and human behavior. Each recognizes that it is not something outside of humanity which causes the greatest of human suffering, but the frailty and evil of humanity itself that causes the worst of human suffering. In the IDEAS of the play, Edmund and Lear have nothing to say to each other because they both embrace the same "truth."
Is King Lear a play about an indifferent universe, about a lack of divine justice? Perhaps. But perhaps Edmund warns us not to look to the stars for an answer to human suffering. Perhaps we see in the tragic hero Lear a character that never attempts to blame "nature." Perhaps King Lear reminds us not to speculate on "nature" or "the gods" when we should look to humanity for answers to human suffering.
And an extra thought
I can't help but think Moby-Dick is involved here somewhere. Doesn't Moby-Dick explore the relationship between that which humans are responsible for and that which is beyond human control? Ishmael says:
"chance, free will, and necessity--no wise incompatible--all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course--its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events."
And doesn't Moby-Dick often tempt us to consider Ahab and the sorry souls on the Pequod victims of "fate" or of "nature," when we should also look to human character and human behavior to explain events?
"This is the excellent foppery of
the world, that when we are sick in fortune,
often the surfeits of our own behavior, we
make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon,
and stars; as if we were villains on necessity;
fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves,
and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced
obedience of planetary influences; and all that
we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An
admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay
his goatish disposition on the charge of a star."
The play as a whole emphasizes the possibility that nature or the gods are malevolent or indifferent. Perhaps, indeed, the cosmos or God is indifferent to human suffering and human behavior. But...doesn't Lear bring his tragedy on himself? He disowns Cordelia and banishes Kent. He turns the kingdom over to his greedy daughters Regan and Goneril. He makes mistakes; his own character and his own actions bring on suffering for himself, his kingdom, and Cordelia. It isn't just Lear, of course; he and others are also victimized by the play's villains. But again it is not nature or the gods that make people suffer further: it is evil people that cause further suffering. The good, loyal characters suffer because of the machinations and actions of Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril.
So perhaps Edmund is speaking to the audience directly here. He's warning us not to get distracted by all the foolish characters who continually muse on "nature" and the gods. They're distracted: it is distinctly human behavior that brings on the suffering of the play. It's silly to lash out at indifferent or malevolent gods, to complain about the emptiness of the cosmos. Human suffering is brought on by the mistakes of good people and the machinations of evil people.
In the play, Edmund and Lear speak not a single word to one another. Perhaps, in a very indirect way, Edmund in this passage speaks to Lear. But perhaps Lear doesn't even need the message. It is possible that Lear and Edmund are the only two characters that never actually lash out at "nature." After Lear is cast out into the storm, he recognizes he can't blame "nature," but must blame his daughters:
"Rumble thy bellyful. Spit, fire. Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children,
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure."
Here Lear recognizes it is bad people that caused his suffering; indeed, throughout his insanity in the storm, Lear repeatedly fixates on the betrayal by his daughters. Other characters experience suffering and speculate on the gods; Lear experiences suffering and pins it on a human source. And later, Lear recognizes that it was his own mistakes, telling Cordelia
"I am a very foolish fond old man"
and
"You must bear with me./ Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and/ foolish."
In Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom writes that Shakespeare never allowed Edmund and Lear to speak to each other "because they are apocalyptic antitheses: the king is all feeling, and Edmund is bare of all affect." They had nothing to say to each other, according to Bloom, because they were opposites: Lear is all emotion, full of whatever feeling possesses him, while Edmund is "ice-cold, indifferent." Insightful, yes, but it also highlights one of my frustrations of Bloom's reading of Shakespeare in that book. He places all emphasis on characters, and explores very little of the ideas. Bloom as a reader loves unique characters (a reading mode I could appreciate if Bloom didn't so frequently lash out at anybody who reads Shakespeare differently than he does).
Let me provide another theory:
Edmund and Lear have nothing to say to each other because they already know the same thing. While many of the characters in the play spend time making grand claims about indifferent nature and the malevolent gods, Edmund and Lear each recognize that human affairs are governed by human character and human behavior. Each recognizes that it is not something outside of humanity which causes the greatest of human suffering, but the frailty and evil of humanity itself that causes the worst of human suffering. In the IDEAS of the play, Edmund and Lear have nothing to say to each other because they both embrace the same "truth."
Is King Lear a play about an indifferent universe, about a lack of divine justice? Perhaps. But perhaps Edmund warns us not to look to the stars for an answer to human suffering. Perhaps we see in the tragic hero Lear a character that never attempts to blame "nature." Perhaps King Lear reminds us not to speculate on "nature" or "the gods" when we should look to humanity for answers to human suffering.
And an extra thought
I can't help but think Moby-Dick is involved here somewhere. Doesn't Moby-Dick explore the relationship between that which humans are responsible for and that which is beyond human control? Ishmael says:
"chance, free will, and necessity--no wise incompatible--all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course--its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events."
And doesn't Moby-Dick often tempt us to consider Ahab and the sorry souls on the Pequod victims of "fate" or of "nature," when we should also look to human character and human behavior to explain events?
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Utilitarian thinking in The Quiet American
DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY READ THE QUIET AMERICAN: I hate to be responsible for giving away endings.
In The Quiet American, Pyle, like Don Quixote and Madame Bovary, has read the wrong books, and thinks reality should match what he's read in books. Fowler is like Rick in Casablanca: he believes he is neutral, but he learns that he cannot be uninvolved.
After witnessing the atrocities of war, after seeing a woman covering her dead baby and a man cut in half by a bomb Pyle is responsible for, Fowler recognizes that he must act. Because of the damage the well-intentioned Pyle has and can cause, Fowler acts to have Pyle killed.
Pyle is willing to aid atrocities for what he sees as a greater cause. Of the deaths of civilians after a bombing, he says "They were only war casualties. [...] It was a pity, but you can't always hit your target. Anyway they died in the right cause. [...] In a way you could say they died for democracy." The individuals that were killed were simply collateral damage for Pyle in the greater cause of bringing democracy to Vietnam. And for this naivety and the damage his innocence can cause, Fowler is complicit in his murder.
And yet, Fowler's action is not terribly different from Pyle's action. Pyle is willing to sacrifice lives in a utilitarian ethic--their lives will bring about a greater good. Fowler is willing to sacrifice Pyle's life in order to save other lives--to bring about a greater good. That we can look back and say that both men failed in their goals (Pyle couldn't bring democracy to Vietnam, Fowler couldn't prevent the terrible violence and suffering that came from American involvement in Vietnam) can make us question the efficacy of violence as a means to an end. But while we may sympathize with Fowler's action more than Pyle's, they both acted on the same principle: life is expendable if it is for a good reason.
Fowler recognizes his utilitarian assessment, too: "what right had I to value her less than the dead bodies in the square? [...] I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity." And he recognizes his similarity to Pyle: "Was I so different from Pyle, I wondered? Must I too have my foot thrust in the mess of life before I saw the pain?"
It is a beautifully written and incisive book.
In The Quiet American, Pyle, like Don Quixote and Madame Bovary, has read the wrong books, and thinks reality should match what he's read in books. Fowler is like Rick in Casablanca: he believes he is neutral, but he learns that he cannot be uninvolved.
After witnessing the atrocities of war, after seeing a woman covering her dead baby and a man cut in half by a bomb Pyle is responsible for, Fowler recognizes that he must act. Because of the damage the well-intentioned Pyle has and can cause, Fowler acts to have Pyle killed.
Pyle is willing to aid atrocities for what he sees as a greater cause. Of the deaths of civilians after a bombing, he says "They were only war casualties. [...] It was a pity, but you can't always hit your target. Anyway they died in the right cause. [...] In a way you could say they died for democracy." The individuals that were killed were simply collateral damage for Pyle in the greater cause of bringing democracy to Vietnam. And for this naivety and the damage his innocence can cause, Fowler is complicit in his murder.
And yet, Fowler's action is not terribly different from Pyle's action. Pyle is willing to sacrifice lives in a utilitarian ethic--their lives will bring about a greater good. Fowler is willing to sacrifice Pyle's life in order to save other lives--to bring about a greater good. That we can look back and say that both men failed in their goals (Pyle couldn't bring democracy to Vietnam, Fowler couldn't prevent the terrible violence and suffering that came from American involvement in Vietnam) can make us question the efficacy of violence as a means to an end. But while we may sympathize with Fowler's action more than Pyle's, they both acted on the same principle: life is expendable if it is for a good reason.
Fowler recognizes his utilitarian assessment, too: "what right had I to value her less than the dead bodies in the square? [...] I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity." And he recognizes his similarity to Pyle: "Was I so different from Pyle, I wondered? Must I too have my foot thrust in the mess of life before I saw the pain?"
It is a beautifully written and incisive book.
"Divine Meditation 14" by John Donne
Or "Holy Sonnet 14"
It is a very physical poem; I read it as about the poet's body more than about the poet's mind/heart/soul. The imagery of the poem can be fit into three distinct parts.
Lines 1-4:
"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new."
Here is the violent imagery: the poet is asking God to forcibly enter him. It is in these four stanzas that we get so many strong action verbs: batter, knock, breathe, shine, seek, rise, stand, o'erthrow, bend, break, blow, burn, make. Direct, powerful language. Even choppy to connote the power and violence ("break, blow, burn").
Lines 5-8
"I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captivated, and proves weak or untrue,"
Here is the weakest part of the poem, right in the heart: the metaphor of the poet as a besieged city working to let God in. It fits thematically (and the image is consistent with the first part), but it is not as strong as the first and last parts of the poem.
Lines 9-14
"Yet dearly'I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy,
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."
The imagery shifts to marriage and sex. The poet is married to the devil, and wishes for God to "divorce" him from the devil in order to take him for himself. We end with paradox: to be free from sin, God must forcibly enter the poet (a metaphor for grace: humans are helpless without it), and to be chaste, God must "ravish" him. Metaphysical poets seemed untroubled using sexual imagery when describing their relationship with God.
Why is "imprison" me in the love/marriage metaphor rather than the broader violence metaphor or the seige metaphor? Perhaps it simply brings unity to the sections of the poem. We might also look at Donne's "Confined Love," where the poet suggests laws of marriage were caused by patriarchy and confine true love (real love needs to spread itself around). To be married to the devil, then, is to be imprisoned; if God marries (or "imprisons") the poet, he is paradoxically made free.
Donne is a masterful poet for his ability to use physical language to describe what is a spiritual experience. It is not abstract--Donne makes this a poem about "action." The imagery isn't based on nouns, but on verbs; reading this poem, we know something is happening.
It is a very physical poem; I read it as about the poet's body more than about the poet's mind/heart/soul. The imagery of the poem can be fit into three distinct parts.
Lines 1-4:
"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new."
Here is the violent imagery: the poet is asking God to forcibly enter him. It is in these four stanzas that we get so many strong action verbs: batter, knock, breathe, shine, seek, rise, stand, o'erthrow, bend, break, blow, burn, make. Direct, powerful language. Even choppy to connote the power and violence ("break, blow, burn").
Lines 5-8
"I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captivated, and proves weak or untrue,"
Here is the weakest part of the poem, right in the heart: the metaphor of the poet as a besieged city working to let God in. It fits thematically (and the image is consistent with the first part), but it is not as strong as the first and last parts of the poem.
Lines 9-14
"Yet dearly'I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy,
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."
The imagery shifts to marriage and sex. The poet is married to the devil, and wishes for God to "divorce" him from the devil in order to take him for himself. We end with paradox: to be free from sin, God must forcibly enter the poet (a metaphor for grace: humans are helpless without it), and to be chaste, God must "ravish" him. Metaphysical poets seemed untroubled using sexual imagery when describing their relationship with God.
Why is "imprison" me in the love/marriage metaphor rather than the broader violence metaphor or the seige metaphor? Perhaps it simply brings unity to the sections of the poem. We might also look at Donne's "Confined Love," where the poet suggests laws of marriage were caused by patriarchy and confine true love (real love needs to spread itself around). To be married to the devil, then, is to be imprisoned; if God marries (or "imprisons") the poet, he is paradoxically made free.
Donne is a masterful poet for his ability to use physical language to describe what is a spiritual experience. It is not abstract--Donne makes this a poem about "action." The imagery isn't based on nouns, but on verbs; reading this poem, we know something is happening.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Little Downpour
I lack a certain pointless discipline (1)
I'm planning on moving away from reading Dostoevsky's long novels and experiencing a lot of shorter novels by a variety of authors. But this weekend at a bookstore I couldn't resist picking up Dostoevksy's The Eternal Husband and Other Stories because 1) I hadn't read any of the stories before, and 2) they are translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky. I just can't stay away from the master.
I lack a certain pointless discipline (2)
The last time I went vegan, I started five days earlier than my planned date because I was too excited. This time I was planning for April 1st as a firm date to remember, but I got too excited and began March 30th. I'm always too excited to reform my life. It feels good.
Christian Humanism and Pacifism
It strikes me that if Christian pacifism focuses solely on the eschatological meaning of peace, it misses out on the more concrete command of Christ: nonresistance as a show of love for one's neighbor. Christ's command to love one's neighbor, to love one's enemy, to put others above oneself, is to me a recognition of the dignity of all human beings. Christian pacifism is also a practical ethic, and Christian pacifists should join with others in the work of peace.
Deus Absconditus
For some reason Fowler in The Quite American reminds me of John Fowles' oeuvre. Fowles was a committed atheist that apparently felt the need to come back to the idea of God continuously in his art. Fowles focuses so much on the God who absconded: it is the absent God, not the nonexistence of God, that Fowles writes about.
I'm planning on moving away from reading Dostoevsky's long novels and experiencing a lot of shorter novels by a variety of authors. But this weekend at a bookstore I couldn't resist picking up Dostoevksy's The Eternal Husband and Other Stories because 1) I hadn't read any of the stories before, and 2) they are translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky. I just can't stay away from the master.
I lack a certain pointless discipline (2)
The last time I went vegan, I started five days earlier than my planned date because I was too excited. This time I was planning for April 1st as a firm date to remember, but I got too excited and began March 30th. I'm always too excited to reform my life. It feels good.
Christian Humanism and Pacifism
It strikes me that if Christian pacifism focuses solely on the eschatological meaning of peace, it misses out on the more concrete command of Christ: nonresistance as a show of love for one's neighbor. Christ's command to love one's neighbor, to love one's enemy, to put others above oneself, is to me a recognition of the dignity of all human beings. Christian pacifism is also a practical ethic, and Christian pacifists should join with others in the work of peace.
Deus Absconditus
For some reason Fowler in The Quite American reminds me of John Fowles' oeuvre. Fowles was a committed atheist that apparently felt the need to come back to the idea of God continuously in his art. Fowles focuses so much on the God who absconded: it is the absent God, not the nonexistence of God, that Fowles writes about.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Torrential Downpour
Two thoughts on John Donne's Divine Meditations
1.Donne's religious poetry includes serious doubt and questioning. Divine Meditation #7 begins: "At the round earth's imagined corners..." Immediately there is the recognition that a scientific model of the earth does not match the biblical model of the earth. And #7 ends with "Teach me how to repent; for that's as good/ As if thou hadst sealed my pardon, with thy blood." If? In Christian theology, forgiveness of sins was sealed with the blood of Christ, yet here Donne suggests some doubt of that. In #9, Donne questions religious doctrine on sin/reason and on forgiveness/wrath, then takes a pose of humility...but leaves the questions hanging there. And in #13, he says of the image of Christ on the cross, "And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell,/ Which prayed forgiveness for his foes' fierce spite?"
2. Donne has two poetic careers: the early songs which were often rather bawdy, and the later religious poems. But he never really left the sexual imagery behind, did he? Divine Meditation #14, perhaps the best one, contains some powerful imagery of God overtaking the poet, and ends with the request for God to "ravish" the speaker. #18 deals with finding the Church on earth, and suggests that the true bride of Christ would be "open to most men."
Novels
I realized something absurd: in the past ten months, the only novels I've read in their entirety were by Dostoevsky. I've encountered no novelists but Dostoevsky since I finished Gregory Maguire's Son of a Witch last May. None! Now I've certainly read a good deal of drama, poetry, and non-fiction in that time, and Dostoevsky does write rather long novels, so it's not like I haven't been reading a lot. But that's still a little weird to me. So from now until September, I'll only read novels that are around 200-300 pages long, and each novel I read has to be by a different author (I'm starting with Graham Greene's The Quiet American). And of course I'll continue to read drama, poetry, and non-fiction.
Mostly Vegan
The preparations are happening: on April 1st, I'm again going vegan. I'm not going to make a public deal about it (most of my friends and family don't read this blog), but I'm taking the step. I'm "mostly vegan" because I might take it easy with honey, and because on special occasions that are a bit outside my control, I may be a mere vegetarian (like my sister's wedding). But starting April 1st, I'll mostly be consuming fruits and vegetables. I'm very excited.
Theory and Reading
Reader-Response Theory, in my opinion, essentially allows me to read a work of literature in any way I choose. How can I limit my modes of reading to one? I read any work as a Humanist, as a Marxist, as a Feminist, or as a devotee of any other theory I've ever encountered. We can hold multiple thoughts, multiple frameworks, multiple ideas in our heads. I can read a book both as Harold Bloom would want me to and as a Marxist would want me to at the very same time.
The only theory I have little time for is Aestheticism (as I've suggested before). The work must mean more to me than appreciation of art for its own sake; I'm not nearly so interesting in exploring the aesthetics of any work as the ideas of the work. Perhaps I'm a bit of a Moralist as a reader. But that, too, is what Reader-Response is about: recognizing our own subjective modes of reading. My lack of interest in an Aesthetic approach to literature is my own, and I recognize that others do not, need not, should not read literature just the way I do. One of my great frustrations is when people universalize their personal modes of reading, claiming everybody should read literature the same way they do, turning their subjective preferences into literary rules.
Teaching "King Lear"
I love teaching King Lear. Just love it. I struggle to make it a discussion: instead I usually read significant passages and expound on their greater meaning and significance. I feel a bit like either mad Lear or the Fool, running around in front of the class yelling and frothing and laughing. Such fun.
"When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools."
"When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools."
Individualism and Communalism
Solomon Asch in "Opinions and Social Pressure:"
"Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the power on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends."
I had a drunken bar discussion long ago about the freedom of an existentialist to choose to belong to a religious group. Again I am reminded: communalism and individualism are not mutually exclusive concepts. A strong community is made up of free individuals.
"Life in society requires consensus as an indispensable condition. But consensus, to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently out of his experience and insight. When consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the power on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends."
I had a drunken bar discussion long ago about the freedom of an existentialist to choose to belong to a religious group. Again I am reminded: communalism and individualism are not mutually exclusive concepts. A strong community is made up of free individuals.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Yoder's "Nevertheless"
In Nevertheless: the Varieties and Shortcomings of Religious Pacifism (Revised and Expanded Edition), John Howard Yoder does not explore the biblical or theological grounding of a pacifist stance. Instead he examines different forms such pacifist stances can take. Most chapters are structured similarly (though later chapters cover other types of pacifism more briefly): Yoder explains a particular nonviolent stance, followed by:
"Axiom" the underlying principle driving this stance
"Shortcomings" fair and reasonable arguments against this stance
"Nevertheless" why despite its shortcomings this stance is still a respectable, valid stance (later Yoder writes that "In each case we were able to criticize but not really to refute")
"After All" how war advocates also use the logic of this particular pacifist stance, but in a deeply flawed and terribly destructive way.
Perhaps the strongest arguments in the book are in the "After All" portions. Yoder shows that despite any shortcomings of a particular pacifist stance, it is still preferable to any equivalent violent stance. For example, in the chapter called "The Pacifism of Utopian Purism," Yoder writes:
"This utopian pacifism trusts less to an irrational leap of faith than does the rhetoric which tells us that by forcibly making refugees, we are defending self-determination; or that by supporting a puppet government, we are enabling democracy to grow. There is no more utopian institution than an idealistic war. [...] War is utopian both in the promises it makes for the future and in the black-and-white way of thinking about the enemy, which it assumes."
A pacifist can read this book and find easy counters to any war advocate's objections; the war advocate often uses arguments similar to the pacifist, but in manner that frequently ignores the way in which war dehumanizes, and in a manner that justifies deadly destruction (as Yoder writes, "every serious critique one can address to the pacifist, if taken honestly, turns back with greater force upon the advocate of war").
But with Yoder, the point is not to win an argument: if all that happens after reading Nevertheless is that I'm able to pull out a stronger argument and counterargument when debating a war advocate, then my pacifism is empty. A religious pacifist reading Yoder should come away with greater conviction, greater spiritual commitment, greater desire to put belief into action and practice. While Yoder asks that "each type of pacifist reasoning be respected in its own right," he also writes that "the moral commonality of all of them is greater than the systematic diversity."
My enemies are my neighbors and I am commanded to love them.
"Axiom" the underlying principle driving this stance
"Shortcomings" fair and reasonable arguments against this stance
"Nevertheless" why despite its shortcomings this stance is still a respectable, valid stance (later Yoder writes that "In each case we were able to criticize but not really to refute")
"After All" how war advocates also use the logic of this particular pacifist stance, but in a deeply flawed and terribly destructive way.
Perhaps the strongest arguments in the book are in the "After All" portions. Yoder shows that despite any shortcomings of a particular pacifist stance, it is still preferable to any equivalent violent stance. For example, in the chapter called "The Pacifism of Utopian Purism," Yoder writes:
"This utopian pacifism trusts less to an irrational leap of faith than does the rhetoric which tells us that by forcibly making refugees, we are defending self-determination; or that by supporting a puppet government, we are enabling democracy to grow. There is no more utopian institution than an idealistic war. [...] War is utopian both in the promises it makes for the future and in the black-and-white way of thinking about the enemy, which it assumes."
A pacifist can read this book and find easy counters to any war advocate's objections; the war advocate often uses arguments similar to the pacifist, but in manner that frequently ignores the way in which war dehumanizes, and in a manner that justifies deadly destruction (as Yoder writes, "every serious critique one can address to the pacifist, if taken honestly, turns back with greater force upon the advocate of war").
But with Yoder, the point is not to win an argument: if all that happens after reading Nevertheless is that I'm able to pull out a stronger argument and counterargument when debating a war advocate, then my pacifism is empty. A religious pacifist reading Yoder should come away with greater conviction, greater spiritual commitment, greater desire to put belief into action and practice. While Yoder asks that "each type of pacifist reasoning be respected in its own right," he also writes that "the moral commonality of all of them is greater than the systematic diversity."
My enemies are my neighbors and I am commanded to love them.
OCD and ideas
Though he wouldn't define it as such, Martin Luther is a person I consider to have lived a life devoted to ideas. Yet if you read biographies on him, you learn that in the latter parts of his life he was often sick and in serious pain.
For my I don't think there was ever a better novelist than Dostoevsky. He had epilepsy throughout his life.
Even if we are devoted to art, to ideas, to God, to anything beyond our material existence, we still have these bodies and these afflictions. We can't pretend that the physical pains that a person endures doesn't affect his or her life in ideas.
But what of mental afflictions?
I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies along the pure obsessive variety. Last summer I had obsessive fears that I'll be arrested for something I didn't really do and be taken to prison away from my family (this has got to be some pent up guilt about something, right?). Those fears have largely passed and now seem immaterial and distant--but at the time they consumed my mind, dominating my day to day thought, and they do occasionally (and briefly) pop up again. Lately certain words that I don't like to think keep popping into my head though I don't want them to--that's the form it's been taking. I can't control my own thoughts--the words just pop into my consciousness without my control.
Today something else is happening. I had a bad dream last night--I dreamt that I went to work and left my son at home in his crib, thinking my wife had taken him to daycare, and not realizing it until I was a half hour from home. It was a horrifying dream--I felt relief when I woke, and I checked on him still. And today, though I have distinct, specific memories of taking my son to daycare, though I even have material evidence that I was at the daycare facility, though I can think on the specific details of everything I did with him this morning, somehow my dream is lingering. Somehow I fear that I've botched things badly. That I forgot him. That I imagined taking him to daycare. Somehow the dream I had is more real than the reality I experienced this morning.
So that's my cross to bear--I get obsessive and consumed with thoughts I don't want to think about, thoughts that really attack and drain on me.
But...isn't neurosis part of a life in ideas, too? Would a Woody Allen movie be quite the same if he didn't have certain psychological hangups? Would Seinfeld even work if not for the insecurities and paranoia of George Costanza? What of the literature of Poe, of Hemingway? Aren't all our psychological hangups and disorders just a part of it all?
For my I don't think there was ever a better novelist than Dostoevsky. He had epilepsy throughout his life.
Even if we are devoted to art, to ideas, to God, to anything beyond our material existence, we still have these bodies and these afflictions. We can't pretend that the physical pains that a person endures doesn't affect his or her life in ideas.
But what of mental afflictions?
I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies along the pure obsessive variety. Last summer I had obsessive fears that I'll be arrested for something I didn't really do and be taken to prison away from my family (this has got to be some pent up guilt about something, right?). Those fears have largely passed and now seem immaterial and distant--but at the time they consumed my mind, dominating my day to day thought, and they do occasionally (and briefly) pop up again. Lately certain words that I don't like to think keep popping into my head though I don't want them to--that's the form it's been taking. I can't control my own thoughts--the words just pop into my consciousness without my control.
Today something else is happening. I had a bad dream last night--I dreamt that I went to work and left my son at home in his crib, thinking my wife had taken him to daycare, and not realizing it until I was a half hour from home. It was a horrifying dream--I felt relief when I woke, and I checked on him still. And today, though I have distinct, specific memories of taking my son to daycare, though I even have material evidence that I was at the daycare facility, though I can think on the specific details of everything I did with him this morning, somehow my dream is lingering. Somehow I fear that I've botched things badly. That I forgot him. That I imagined taking him to daycare. Somehow the dream I had is more real than the reality I experienced this morning.
So that's my cross to bear--I get obsessive and consumed with thoughts I don't want to think about, thoughts that really attack and drain on me.
But...isn't neurosis part of a life in ideas, too? Would a Woody Allen movie be quite the same if he didn't have certain psychological hangups? Would Seinfeld even work if not for the insecurities and paranoia of George Costanza? What of the literature of Poe, of Hemingway? Aren't all our psychological hangups and disorders just a part of it all?
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