May 20, 2013: A String

That which is the most real is also the most difficult to express.  Thus it is that, throughout history, artists of every sort have asked one question over and over and over again: what is reality?  Tangible things are hardly real at all, or, if they are real, it is only in a weak, helpless, whining sense of reality.  Who is to say that the eyes and the hands are trustworthy?  Sight and touch are but mere symbols.  What the artist needs is rapture--rapture, passion, revelation--this is the true reality.  

It is a shame that William Wordsworth is read as a Romantic poet.  Yet the shame does not lie in his romance--only in that he is nothing more than a Romantic.  A well known truth of higher knowledge is that, in order to achieve deeper learning in any field, one must first break down all barriers between oneself and the thing to be studied.  Barriers, though they are often built from prejudice and cowardice and stone, are not always.  They can be nothing more than unconscious assumptions.  They can be good, useful tools of categorization.  But, still, they are barriers.  What if, for a moment, one were to forget that William Wordsworth lived and wrote and even embodied the Romantic period of nineteenth century England?  For the “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” concretize more than a romantic grocery list.  Yes, there is the beauty and innocence of childhood.  Yes, there is the gentle, praiseworthy spirit of nature.  Yes the intense individuality, and yes the glorified feeling, and yes the quest for perfect serenity; but was Wordsworth this only?

What if “Tintern Abbey” were cracked out of its Romantic box, and set against something a little colder?  It would probably freeze at the edge of Realism, unless carefully, carefully a single work is

pulled out and coupled with it.  The temperatures could blend and mitigate, then.  If one pushes all Realism aside except for a solitary work, then he might just find a bit of purity, even Romantic purity, buried in the cold.  A white Pomeranian, for example.  

Then he moves further still.  He stumbles back upon hitting twentieth century Modernism--surely there is no romance here.  There are no eyes here.  

Never, never can a string be found which weaves through them all.  Never a string strong through William Wordsworth and strong through Anton Chekhov and strong through T. S. Eliot.  Never while the boxes remain intact, at least.  But what were these men searching for?  What were they trying to express?  There’s a reason the humanity of today reaches for classic literature when he needs to feel understood.

Reality.  Where, what, how is reality?  

         Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

         And even the motion of our human blood

         Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:

         While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

         We see into the life of things.

Thus says William Wordsworth in “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” (Lawall 696-697).  

“The greater part of one’s time and energy went on business that was no use to anyone, and on discussing the same thing over and over again, and there was nothing to show for it all but a stunted, earthbound existence and a round of trivialities, and there was nowhere to escape to, you might as well be in a madhouse or a convict settlement” (Lawall 1498).  Thus says Anton Chekhov in “The Lady with the Dog.”

         The eyes are not here

         There are no eyes here

         In this valley of dying stars

         In this hollow valley

         This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms           

         Thus says T. S. Eliot in “The Hollow Men” (Lawall 2020).      

Is yet the string apparent?  Perhaps not at first glance.  Reality is among all things most static--most constant and reliable.  But then again, reality is among all things most transient.  Is the string tying together these great men the reality itself, or only the search and thirst for reality?

         And I have felt

         A presence that disturbs me with the joy

         Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

         Of something far more deeply interfused,

         Whose dwelling is in the light of setting suns,

         And round the ocean and the living air,

         And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

         A motion and a spirit, that impels

         All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

         And rolls through all things  

         (Lawall 697-698).

“Tintern Abbey” is not a poem simply about nature.  It is about the soul of nature, which, for Wordsworth, is reality, or at least as close to reality as any human can venture.  Reality is the thing which “connect[s]/The landscape with the quiet of the sky” (Lawall 696).  Wordsworth clearly expresses that the truly real can, in the realm of tangibility, exist only in symbol.  Nature is this symbol.  Throughout the poem Wordsworth refers to the tangible world as “unintelligible,” “joyless,” and “dreary.”  This is the tangible world only, though.  This is not the essence, not the reality of humanity.  

         For I have learned

         To look on nature, not as in the hour

         Of thoughtless youth;but hearing oftentimes

         The still, sad music of humanity,

         Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

         To chasten and subdue

         (Lawall 697).  

Humanity, at its center, is reality.  Nature symbolizes the true nature of humans, for what is more real and more inexpressible than human experience?  In the last stanza of his poem, Wordsworth turns from a general audience to a specific audience: his sister.  An ongoing debate amongst scholars is whether Wordsworth, here, is referring to his actual sister, or to nature herself.  Perhaps he speaks to both.  His sister takes on the spirit of nature--unspoilt and wild.  The true nature of humanity.  “Nature never did betray/The heart that loved her” (Lawall 698).

“Gurov told himself that, when you came to think of it, everything in the world is beautiful really, everything but our own thoughts and actions, when we lose sight of the higher aims of life, and of our dignity as human beings” (Lawall 1495).  The innate dignity of humanity: strange, how something of Realism, when presented outside of its box, sounds so Romantic.  The title of Anton Chekhov’s short story, “The Lady with the Dog,” conveys the key theme of the story: depth concealed by complacency.  Reality concealed by perceived reality.  Chekhov tells the story as if not a word of it is of any importance.  A sizable paragraph near the beginning of the story illustrates what Gurov and ‘the lady with the dog’ learn about each other throughout their first evening together.  Chekhov tells where each character is from, their personal and business relations, what each thought of the weather that day, and that they really did not care about what they talked about.  Not until the end of the paragraph does the

reader learn what should be a most vital piece of information: “Further, Gurov learned that her name was Anna Sergeyevna” (Lawall 1492).

How is humanity important, if the name of the title character is presented only as an afterthought?  Humanity, in “The Lady with the Dog,” is dead.  Reality is swallowed up by superficial reality.  “The sea had roared like this long before there was any Yalta or Oreanda, it was roaring now, and it would go on roaring, just as indifferently and hollowly when we had passed away” (Lawall 1495).  For Chekhov, humanity truly exists in those uncontrollable, undeniable emotions and longings.  It exists in that which necessitates separation from superficial, perceived reality.  Throughout the story, Anna expresses a fear that Gurov considers her “just an ordinary woman” (Lawall 1496).  Gurov tries to convince himself that Anna is ordinary.  He asks, “Had there been anything exquisite, poetic, anything instructive or even amusing about his relations with Anna Sergeyevna?” (Lawall 1497).  The answer to his question, of course, is a yes within a no.  He also asks “What on earth are all these people, this orchestra for?” (Lawall 1500).  What is it all for?  The question of reality.  Wordsworth asked the same question, but came more easily to the answer.  Chekhov’s answer comes more slowly but is, at the bottom, identical to Wordsworth’s.  Reality is that beneath the surface--that which “rolls through all things” (Lawall 698).

T. S. Eliot begins with half the answer.

         We are the hollow men

         We are the stuffed men

         Leaning together

        Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

         We whisper together

        Are quiet and meaningless

         As wind in dry glass

        Or rats’ feet over broken glass

         In our dry cellar

        (Lawall 2019).

“The Hollow Men,” by T. S. Eliot.  At first Eliot’s work appears the most abstract when set beside the writings of Wordsworth and Chekhov.  But, far from being the most abstracted, it is the most clear.  Eliot writes to ensure no mistake.  Humanity is hollow.  Man is not even real.  “Shape without form, shade without colour,/Paralysed force, gesture without motion;” (Lawall 2019).  Reality is discovered through that which does not exists--through “death’s other Kingdom” (Lawall 2019).  Near the end of the poem, Eliot begins referring to “the Shadow.”  Shadow is often perceived as false reality; one thinks of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.”  But, in Eliot, the Shadow is the thing of importance.  It is reality.  “Between the idea and the reality...the motion and the act...the conception and the creation...the emotion and the response...the desire and the spasm...the potency and the existence...the essence and the descent/Falls the Shadow” (Lawall 2021).  

Eliot’s nightmarish Shadow falls starkly against Wordsworth’s motherly spirit.  It falls starkly

against Chekhov’s separation.  There is no separation for Eliot, just empty space.  The string, though, is clear.  It has not even frayed throughout its journey.  

For a closer association, one need only look to nature.  She is obvious in “Tintern Abbey.”  

         Once again

         Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

         That on a wild secluded scene impress

         Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

         The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

         (Lawall 696).

But she is still there, in “The Lady with the Dog.”  “Not a leaf stirred, the grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow roar of the sea came up to them, speaking of peace, of the eternal sleep lying in wait for us all” (Lawall 1495).

Even in Eliot is nature apparent.  

         This is the dead land

         This is cactus land

         Here the stone images

         Are raised, here they receive

         The supplication of a dead man’s hand

         Under the twinkle of a fading star.

        (Lawall 2020).

Throughout history the question of reality has been asked, and throughout history humans have looked to nature for an answer.  Is nature the embodiment of reality?  Is nature the space between the perceived world and reality?  Is nature a symbol of the reality which does not even exist as humans understand existence?  All for the same question really.  When the boxes are broken, the string remains and grows stronger.  Strong, steel string.  Maybe that is the answer.  What is reality?  Reality is a bit of string.        

    

                                                                                                                                     

Bibliography  

   Lawall, Sarah. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature: Volume 2. New York, NY: W. W.

Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

Just Because I Said...

I've written two of the three scholarship essays I have to finish tonight.  The first, which I thought would be my favorite, only came out okay.  The second half is all right, but the first half is lame.  Not exactly lame, but I used a style and theme I've fallen back on multiple times.  The scholarship people won't know that I've written three other nearly identical paragraphs to the one they read, but I know it and think it's lame.  I rolled my eyes at the second question.  "Is there a generation gap?  What are the differences between your and previous generations?"  Ick.  Blech.  Do I really have to write on that?!

As if to spite me, the meager forty-five minutes I dedicated to the essay produced a little piece I love.  It's rather related to the New Colossus post I just posted.  Yes, I am mocking my word-repetition-annoyance again.  Hope you enjoy this little essay!

I am rather atypical of my generation, but this seems to allow me to look more objectively at my peers.  We are told that our generation is named ‘Generation Y,’ presumably because the preceding generation was ‘Generation X.’  Once, though, a teacher told me that I was not a part of ‘Generation Y,’ but ‘Generation Why.”

I do not see much of a generation gap.  Yet I do see something: a generation slide.  I come from a family who holds education and passion as two of the highest goals to be pursued.  Education gives us structure and support.  Passion gives us meaning.  What I see as generation lands upon generation is a downward slide of desire for education and understanding of passion.

For how can we learn, if we hold no inner passion for truth?  How can we strive for what we believe in, if we are not educated enough to hold beliefs?  If we have no education and no passion then we are left with nothing but that sick and solitary question: why?

The Lost Generation gave us prose and poetry the like of which has never before or since been seen.  The Greatest Generation gave us all they could possibly give.  The Silent Generation gave us understanding of contentment.  The Baby Boomers gave us belief in prosperity and the value of a few joining ideas.  Generation X gave us belief in a few joining voices.  Then there is Generation Why.  

Why can mean “why am I here? why is it all this way? why does it never change?”  Why can also mean “why do I care? why bother?”  This second bit is dangerous.  Why do we care?  We care because the bodies around us need us to care.  Why do we bother?  We bother because one second in time can make all the difference.

Things are very bad, now.  It’s just so hard to watch.  So hard to live with.  So why are we still 

living with it? That must become the true why.  Then the question is “why are you fighting?”, and our answer 

shall be, “to save the world.”    

Two Letters -- Enlightenment Essay

The periods of literature embody man’s continual search for that which is real.  During the Enlightenment, real things were factual things.  Things which could be spelled out and enumerated; things which held strong through testing and sharpening.  Here there are two letters: Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal and Mary Robinson’s A Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustice of mental Subordination.  Both letters represent core Enlightenment ideas while concurrently mocking the Enlightenment movement and concept.  These pieces, which both advocate the time’s possibilities and scorn its shortcomings, embody the heart of the Enlightenment.

A Modest Proposal satirizes the Enlightenment tendency to discount morality as a viable source of knowledge.  “It is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty” (Lawall 344).  There was virtually no probability of locating one person in the year 1729, in England, who would ever consider marketing children as a food delicacy.  But why not?  If morals are utterly disregarded, all Swift’s arguments make absolute sense.  At the end of the letter he specifically enumerates seven advantages of his proposal.  For the good of our country, for the good of our stomachs, for the good of our religion, for the good of the ‘breeder’ parents, for the good of the children themselves: put into action this modest proposal.  At the same time as he screams against the boorish nature of so-called enlightened truth, though, he epitomizes the Enlightenment virtue of thoughtfully considering all ideas.  Even if a respected mind claims support from other respected minds, one must not accept any teaching without close scrutiny.

  Mary Robinson’s letter mocks the thin quality of two Enlightenment jewels: natural rights and justice.  She writes that “woman is denied the first privilege of nature, the power of SELF-DEFENSE,” and, “Man is not to be deprived...but WOMAN is to be robbed” (Lawall 285).  Enlightened thinkers battle for the natural, born, innate rights of every human being, but seem not to consider women as whole human beings.  Men run high and fast with the call for justice, but would crush a woman underfoot without one warble of the voice.  “She is expected to act like a philosopher, though she is not allowed to think like one.  If she pleads the weakness of her sex, her plea is not admitted; if she professes an equal portion of mental strength with man, she is condemned for arrogance” (Lawall 287).  Robinson attacks Enlightenment scholars on the audacity of this incredible double standard.  Yet the ideas she urges are clearly of the Enlightenment: women as equals with men was a radical, counter-history thought if ever one existed.  If truth can only be found through the careful testing of every idea, then even the notion of equal mental capabilities between the sexes must be considered.                

“But, as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal; which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real” (Lawall 346).  Here Swift mocks the Enlightenment’s rejection of the old.  Though the rejection is not absolute.  Scholars form and foster new ideas, but cling to the old ways which benefit them.  Man has innate natural rights: a new idea.  Although, throughout history, only landlords were treated fully as men, so it seems only they are privileged to these natural rights.  Swifts connects the poor to the rich exactly as Robinson connects women to men: you say ‘truth for all humanity,’ but who is all humanity?  The new initiated by the Enlightenment was a good new, but much of the old’s worst easily stayed firm in society.

The final apex of good rarely sees daylight, because it poses threat to those in power.  Strange how those with bounty are so loathe not only to part with some bounty, but even to permit others’ pursuit of decent quality of life.  Swift states, “let no man talk to me of these and like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempts to put them in practice” (Lawall 346).  Robinson more directly reveals this assumed threat: “Man says, ‘you shall be initiated in all the arts of pleasing; but you shall, in vain, hope that we will contribute to your happiness one iota beyond the principle which constitutes our own’” (Lawall 288).
These are the true Enlightenment thinkers: those who wrote against mediocre enlightenment.  When someone puts a cap on ideas and who can have them, then that someone loses credence as any kind of scholar.  Swift and Robinson, through attacking what claimed itself enlightened,  proved themselves authentically enlightened.  That is why they are still around.  That is why they are still read.