Michael G. Donkin's Blog
April 18, 2024
Poetry’s Desire to Attain the Validity of Music
* * *
It is frustrating indeed that many will regard a written or recited poem as a disembodied piece of spirit—almost as a spirit without a body, and that one can succeed by the highest standard in fashioning a poem, only to find non-poetry lovers incapable of considering it a materially real object. In some cases, one might even feel that a poem has little reality at all, that it does not matter in the way a painting matters, or that a piece of music does. Yet a poem embodied in song would be something different. As poetry necessarily has one foot in myth and one in language (which is essentially abstract), its abstract side prevents it from having the sensuous immediacy of the other arts.
It has been felt that music could grant poetry the material body it lacks. But we wonder why is it so rare for lyrics to stand on their own, when dissociated from the music they put on like so much makeup and sequins. We wonder why when the makeup comes off, the face is unrecognizable. And for that matter, why does a poem which stands on its own often fail to fit into a musical scheme, should one try to adapt it? In a better world, a poem would be able to stand on its two feet, on the page, while readily lending itself to music, if summoned. That achieving both is rare and difficult, and owing to the close association of poetry and music, their irreconcilability in this regard is a frustrating paradox.
A dream of some poets has been for their verse to find a way of attaining the concrete reality and materiality of song, while retaining the deep spiritual authenticity, the complexity, and eloquence exclusive to poetry. Some have also longed for a means of objectively determining poetic value, at least one more objective than circumstances have allowed. It has been vexatious that on the one hand a work’s recognition depends on the approval of biased, self-interested gatekeepers and, on the other, on the imperfect judgement of critics and institutions, whose valuations so often conflict. And so a great poem which doubled as a great song, one realizes, could bypass both hurdles.
. . .
It is frustrating indeed that many will regard a written or recited poem as a disembodied piece of spirit—almost as a spirit without a body, and that one can succeed by the highest standard in fashioning a poem, only to find non-poetry lovers incapable of considering it a materially real object. In some cases, one might even feel that a poem has little reality at all, that it does not matter in the way a painting matters, or that a piece of music does. Yet a poem embodied in song would be something different. As poetry necessarily has one foot in myth and one in language (which is essentially abstract), its abstract side prevents it from having the sensuous immediacy of the other arts.
It has been felt that music could grant poetry the material body it lacks. But we wonder why is it so rare for lyrics to stand on their own, when dissociated from the music they put on like so much makeup and sequins. We wonder why when the makeup comes off, the face is unrecognizable. And for that matter, why does a poem which stands on its own often fail to fit into a musical scheme, should one try to adapt it? In a better world, a poem would be able to stand on its two feet, on the page, while readily lending itself to music, if summoned. That achieving both is rare and difficult, and owing to the close association of poetry and music, their irreconcilability in this regard is a frustrating paradox.
A dream of some poets has been for their verse to find a way of attaining the concrete reality and materiality of song, while retaining the deep spiritual authenticity, the complexity, and eloquence exclusive to poetry. Some have also longed for a means of objectively determining poetic value, at least one more objective than circumstances have allowed. It has been vexatious that on the one hand a work’s recognition depends on the approval of biased, self-interested gatekeepers and, on the other, on the imperfect judgement of critics and institutions, whose valuations so often conflict. And so a great poem which doubled as a great song, one realizes, could bypass both hurdles.
. . .
March 27, 2024
Strong Emotion, Analogy, Metaphor
* * *
When we have a strong emotion, we look for the emotion everywhere in our midst. We unconsciously seek sympathy from the world, whether the emotion we are experiencing is painful or pleasant. Some common examples: sadness perceives a tree as weeping or the rain as tears; the leaves falling from the tree’s branch are a symbol of death; a new love sees itself in the resurrection of the spring. Strong emotion has a binding, enmeshing nature—it needs to absorb the world into itself, just as it needs to be absorbed into the world. Music is so important because it mirrors emotional states through tones and sensuous forms. When we are sad, we prefer a sad song because it matches our mood, rather than a happy one to dispel the mood. Strong feelings lead to analogical and metaphorical thought. What they have in common is the binding impetus. Emotion needs to realize itself wholly, to culminate and reach climax, whereupon it can die. The only way it knows how to conclude is by making deep connections with what lies outside itself—in the world. It does not wish to go away or to be suppressed. It demands to see its own reflection from without. Because the intellect is co-opted by strong emotion when it occurs, language spontaneously starts to do its bidding: the reasoning mind serves its own, emotional ends. If it could speak (as it does in lyric) the emotional state, or mood, seems to command: make everything in nature look like me—I cannot stand any longer being different and separate from the world. The poet then looks out into the world, and perceives strange parallels in the most unlikely of places—as well as in the more conventional, likely ones.
. . .
When we have a strong emotion, we look for the emotion everywhere in our midst. We unconsciously seek sympathy from the world, whether the emotion we are experiencing is painful or pleasant. Some common examples: sadness perceives a tree as weeping or the rain as tears; the leaves falling from the tree’s branch are a symbol of death; a new love sees itself in the resurrection of the spring. Strong emotion has a binding, enmeshing nature—it needs to absorb the world into itself, just as it needs to be absorbed into the world. Music is so important because it mirrors emotional states through tones and sensuous forms. When we are sad, we prefer a sad song because it matches our mood, rather than a happy one to dispel the mood. Strong feelings lead to analogical and metaphorical thought. What they have in common is the binding impetus. Emotion needs to realize itself wholly, to culminate and reach climax, whereupon it can die. The only way it knows how to conclude is by making deep connections with what lies outside itself—in the world. It does not wish to go away or to be suppressed. It demands to see its own reflection from without. Because the intellect is co-opted by strong emotion when it occurs, language spontaneously starts to do its bidding: the reasoning mind serves its own, emotional ends. If it could speak (as it does in lyric) the emotional state, or mood, seems to command: make everything in nature look like me—I cannot stand any longer being different and separate from the world. The poet then looks out into the world, and perceives strange parallels in the most unlikely of places—as well as in the more conventional, likely ones.
. . .
March 26, 2024
A Thought Experiment
* * *
Let us imagine a future world. Life on earth has, for whatever complex of reasons, become unfeasible. A small group of children (between ages ten and thirteen) deemed fit enough, owing to a fortuitous genetic mutation, has been sent to another planet to carry on the species. Anyone older than thirteen, it had been calculated, would perish during the voyage, for by that age the mutation would not be of any help.
On this new planet, the children grow up with an artificial intelligence infrastructure, a kind of training wheels to assist in establishing a stable existence. It is programmed to give assistance solely in practical domains. The program ceases to function, however, and the children have only themselves to rely on.
It must be said that although some had learned to read reasonably well prior to the journey, many did not, and there are no books. Rather, the books they brought have been lost. Nor are there any other media. It is the stories, songs, and ideas kept alive in their memories which, through repeated misremembering, are adapted to their new way of life.
Five years, ten years, fifteen… Some of our pioneers have died. Burials for the dead call for ritual and ceremony. A little of what was done on Earth is remembered, though it is remarkable how much has been developed anew.
Certainly there is much anxiety about the future, sadness about the past. Each understands that the ones back home are no longer alive to think of them. This is partly a relief, since they had felt guilt and worry on their behalf. But it also makes them very sad. Myths and speculations begin to develop. More and more these young people believe that their families may exist, somewhere, somehow, if not in the flesh then in another form. Hope develops into a religion of sorts; some even claim to receive frequent messages from the ones “back home,” who begin to take on the characteristics of gods. The more spiritually energetic among them have dreams which they recount over meals. What they reveal of their visions and dreams seems credible, partly because it is so very moving, contributing to the sense that one day they shall reunite with their families.
By now everyone is grown, and the spiritual adepts—priests—lead ceremonies when all are gathered about the fire. There is dancing, storytelling, and feasting. The leaders have recorded what they recall of life on Earth, alongside their dream visions, wishing to make permanent all they had seen before, all they have learned since embarking on this new way of life. Writing, an ability the priests have managed to retain, reminds them of their early years, on Earth—their Eden. The act of writing is for this reason invested with an even greater importance, beyond the practical.
The scriptures are treated by all as thoroughly divine. They are quite interesting for their peculiarities of style. The priests will insist, perhaps even to themselves, that—aside from the hymns, which are prayers for the propitiation of gods—they authored none of it. For they are just messengers, interpreters of the symbols and images revealed to them.
Let us suspend our skepticism for the moment, and believe them when they tell us that their bible—composed of miscellaneous teachings for use during funerals, marriages, births, feasts; mythical histories; idealized memories of the previous life; dream visions; prophecies; laws, proscriptions—all of it has been “transcribed” as faithfully as possible from the sacred sources. While the archaism of the ritual speech, to our ears, may sound a touch stilted, a bad imitation of half-remembered Earth-religion—or if the use of rhetorical devices seems a little heavy-handed—nonetheless the superb play of sound, rhythm, and repetition is hypnotic, truly transportive.
We should bear in mind, finally, that the authors did not have schooling beyond the age of thirteen. If that is so, then how could it be that the writing contains what anybody would quickly recognize as genuine poetic thought: metaphor, inspired imagery, imaginative brilliance? As the priests themselves are apt to maintain, no one could have written it; no one is capable of making this stuff up. It all came from elsewhere, from the divine place.
We may think, on hearing this, that they are extremely modest. But are they? Would we feel that they are if we found out that they did not think much about creativity or imagination? Or rather, if we found out that such things did not matter nearly as much as the ability to perceive the spiritual Truth, a thing at once solid and objective—real? We should try perhaps to understand that it is in the ability to commune with the world of the gods that they have based their entire identity.
. . .
Let us imagine a future world. Life on earth has, for whatever complex of reasons, become unfeasible. A small group of children (between ages ten and thirteen) deemed fit enough, owing to a fortuitous genetic mutation, has been sent to another planet to carry on the species. Anyone older than thirteen, it had been calculated, would perish during the voyage, for by that age the mutation would not be of any help.
On this new planet, the children grow up with an artificial intelligence infrastructure, a kind of training wheels to assist in establishing a stable existence. It is programmed to give assistance solely in practical domains. The program ceases to function, however, and the children have only themselves to rely on.
It must be said that although some had learned to read reasonably well prior to the journey, many did not, and there are no books. Rather, the books they brought have been lost. Nor are there any other media. It is the stories, songs, and ideas kept alive in their memories which, through repeated misremembering, are adapted to their new way of life.
Five years, ten years, fifteen… Some of our pioneers have died. Burials for the dead call for ritual and ceremony. A little of what was done on Earth is remembered, though it is remarkable how much has been developed anew.
Certainly there is much anxiety about the future, sadness about the past. Each understands that the ones back home are no longer alive to think of them. This is partly a relief, since they had felt guilt and worry on their behalf. But it also makes them very sad. Myths and speculations begin to develop. More and more these young people believe that their families may exist, somewhere, somehow, if not in the flesh then in another form. Hope develops into a religion of sorts; some even claim to receive frequent messages from the ones “back home,” who begin to take on the characteristics of gods. The more spiritually energetic among them have dreams which they recount over meals. What they reveal of their visions and dreams seems credible, partly because it is so very moving, contributing to the sense that one day they shall reunite with their families.
By now everyone is grown, and the spiritual adepts—priests—lead ceremonies when all are gathered about the fire. There is dancing, storytelling, and feasting. The leaders have recorded what they recall of life on Earth, alongside their dream visions, wishing to make permanent all they had seen before, all they have learned since embarking on this new way of life. Writing, an ability the priests have managed to retain, reminds them of their early years, on Earth—their Eden. The act of writing is for this reason invested with an even greater importance, beyond the practical.
The scriptures are treated by all as thoroughly divine. They are quite interesting for their peculiarities of style. The priests will insist, perhaps even to themselves, that—aside from the hymns, which are prayers for the propitiation of gods—they authored none of it. For they are just messengers, interpreters of the symbols and images revealed to them.
Let us suspend our skepticism for the moment, and believe them when they tell us that their bible—composed of miscellaneous teachings for use during funerals, marriages, births, feasts; mythical histories; idealized memories of the previous life; dream visions; prophecies; laws, proscriptions—all of it has been “transcribed” as faithfully as possible from the sacred sources. While the archaism of the ritual speech, to our ears, may sound a touch stilted, a bad imitation of half-remembered Earth-religion—or if the use of rhetorical devices seems a little heavy-handed—nonetheless the superb play of sound, rhythm, and repetition is hypnotic, truly transportive.
We should bear in mind, finally, that the authors did not have schooling beyond the age of thirteen. If that is so, then how could it be that the writing contains what anybody would quickly recognize as genuine poetic thought: metaphor, inspired imagery, imaginative brilliance? As the priests themselves are apt to maintain, no one could have written it; no one is capable of making this stuff up. It all came from elsewhere, from the divine place.
We may think, on hearing this, that they are extremely modest. But are they? Would we feel that they are if we found out that they did not think much about creativity or imagination? Or rather, if we found out that such things did not matter nearly as much as the ability to perceive the spiritual Truth, a thing at once solid and objective—real? We should try perhaps to understand that it is in the ability to commune with the world of the gods that they have based their entire identity.
. . .
March 24, 2024
Rhyme in Poetry: Old-Fahsioned but Not Ancient
* * *
Perhaps to speak too much for others, rhyme tends to have certain associations today which prevent it from accomplishing its task of enchanting and helping to make for an atmosphere of sacredness and enchantment. Today rhyme has associations more of “lightness,” “childishness,” “frivolity,” or sometimes “stodginess” or “Britishness”—i.e. “oldness” instead of “ancientness.” What is old does not necessarily feel sacred anymore, but what is ancient does feel sacred. Meter does not run into these issues when it is not rhymed. Blank verse, accordingly, can still have great ceremonial power, for it lacks rhyme which conflicts with the production of sacredness; hence free verse can produce an contribute to a sacred atmosphere corresponding to Greekness (but not just Greekness) more than Britishness, even though it has less traditional formal baggage than metrical verse. And what is traditional is not necessarily bad for creating a poetic atmosphere, since line breaks can help produce the ancient mist of the sacred when that is what the poet desires. What rhyme does excel in is helping to generate an atmosphere of down-to-earth wittiness and wisdom. This is why it works so well in rap music. It produces in rap the effect of “folksiness” more than sorcery, however. Merlin is not the Wizard of poetry—the Pythia of Delphi generally is. It is hard for us to imagine the ancient Egyptians rhyming, and we know that the Hebrew Bible did not rhyme. It is in the Middle Ages, we feel, that rhyme really took over, marking a boundary between the old and the ancient. Rhyme is for Renaissance fairs and Shakespeare festivals, but is incompatible with consciousness conversing with itself in solitude. Rhyme, moreover, is the language of folk magic, but not biblical prophecy—witch and trickster more than seer.
This is all to say that rhyme is one of the faces of wit, which is often viewed now—for a complex of reasons—as more profane than sacred, and so we feel that a little of it goes a long way, but too much can “ruin the mood.” Rhyme, furthermore, does tend to work well even in a non-sacred capacity when it is deployed in contexts where Britishness is less evoked than some alternative tradition (e.g.: in rap music, a vital, non-stodgy Anglophone form grown out of an alternative cultural tradition). However, it is simply difficult for poetry to separate itself from Britishness, when the English language itself calls forth Britishness by default. Rhyme in English poetry all too often feels British, and things British are viewed today as old-fashioned. When we hear the words “English poetry” we automatically hear “British poetry,” which is why many poets in English go out of their way to avoid associations of Britishness. But of course this is simply the general prejudice of the moment. The contradiction is that, intellectually, many people feel that poetry ought to rhyme, and therefore have trouble understanding how an object could be a poem without rhyming. Yet since rhyming in poetry feels so often very old-fashioned—and thus too emotionally mediate rather than immediate—poetry ceases (but surely not only for this reason) to have the attraction of a truly living form. Thus it is “damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t.”
. . .
Perhaps to speak too much for others, rhyme tends to have certain associations today which prevent it from accomplishing its task of enchanting and helping to make for an atmosphere of sacredness and enchantment. Today rhyme has associations more of “lightness,” “childishness,” “frivolity,” or sometimes “stodginess” or “Britishness”—i.e. “oldness” instead of “ancientness.” What is old does not necessarily feel sacred anymore, but what is ancient does feel sacred. Meter does not run into these issues when it is not rhymed. Blank verse, accordingly, can still have great ceremonial power, for it lacks rhyme which conflicts with the production of sacredness; hence free verse can produce an contribute to a sacred atmosphere corresponding to Greekness (but not just Greekness) more than Britishness, even though it has less traditional formal baggage than metrical verse. And what is traditional is not necessarily bad for creating a poetic atmosphere, since line breaks can help produce the ancient mist of the sacred when that is what the poet desires. What rhyme does excel in is helping to generate an atmosphere of down-to-earth wittiness and wisdom. This is why it works so well in rap music. It produces in rap the effect of “folksiness” more than sorcery, however. Merlin is not the Wizard of poetry—the Pythia of Delphi generally is. It is hard for us to imagine the ancient Egyptians rhyming, and we know that the Hebrew Bible did not rhyme. It is in the Middle Ages, we feel, that rhyme really took over, marking a boundary between the old and the ancient. Rhyme is for Renaissance fairs and Shakespeare festivals, but is incompatible with consciousness conversing with itself in solitude. Rhyme, moreover, is the language of folk magic, but not biblical prophecy—witch and trickster more than seer.
This is all to say that rhyme is one of the faces of wit, which is often viewed now—for a complex of reasons—as more profane than sacred, and so we feel that a little of it goes a long way, but too much can “ruin the mood.” Rhyme, furthermore, does tend to work well even in a non-sacred capacity when it is deployed in contexts where Britishness is less evoked than some alternative tradition (e.g.: in rap music, a vital, non-stodgy Anglophone form grown out of an alternative cultural tradition). However, it is simply difficult for poetry to separate itself from Britishness, when the English language itself calls forth Britishness by default. Rhyme in English poetry all too often feels British, and things British are viewed today as old-fashioned. When we hear the words “English poetry” we automatically hear “British poetry,” which is why many poets in English go out of their way to avoid associations of Britishness. But of course this is simply the general prejudice of the moment. The contradiction is that, intellectually, many people feel that poetry ought to rhyme, and therefore have trouble understanding how an object could be a poem without rhyming. Yet since rhyming in poetry feels so often very old-fashioned—and thus too emotionally mediate rather than immediate—poetry ceases (but surely not only for this reason) to have the attraction of a truly living form. Thus it is “damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t.”
. . .
March 17, 2024
Theme Song as Essential for the Development of Myths
It is possible that under certain conditions something which is fundamental to poetry happens spontaneously; and in the form of something similar to television “theme songs” and “fight songs” for sports teams with which we are quite familiar. Such popular songs—and sometimes chants—are like backdrops or symbols for a poem’s subject, which could be anything from a newborn to a living hero to a pet to a loved one to a god. When we consider the earliest hymns, composed in honor of rulers and deities, attributes of the subject are merely listed, often rather crudely. This is still done when a mythological character (or group) first asserts itself. It is the sensuous “concept” of the character—and this concept often precedes narrative. Here is a TV theme which many of us still know by heart:
They’ve got a power and a force
That you’ve never seen before
They’ve got the ability to morph
And to even up the score
No one can ever take them down
The power lies on their side
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
They know the fate of the world is lying in their hands
They know to only use their weapons for defense
No one will ever take them down
The power lies on their side
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
You Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
Compare this with a portion from Utterance 274 of the “Cannibal Hymn”:
Pharaoh has risen again in the sky.
He is crowned as Lord of the Horizon.
He has smashed the back-bones,
and has seized the hearts of the gods.
He has eaten the Red Crown.
He has swallowed the Green One.
Pharaoh feeds on the lungs of the wise.
And likes to live on hearts and their magic.
Pharaoh abhors against licking the coils of the Red Crown.
But delights to have their magic in his belly.
Pharaoh’s dignities will not be taken away from him.
For he has swallowed the knowledge of every god.
Pharaoh’s lifetime is eternal repetition.
His limit is everlastingness. In this his dignity of :
‘If-he-likes-he-does. If-he-dislikes-he-does-not.’
He who is at the limits of the horizon,
for ever and ever. (tr. Wim van den Dungen)
I am not saying that the above Egyptian hymn is the same as the Power Rangers theme. But I am suggesting that both could be integral to the formation of mythological characters. That is to say, hymns may have something to do with what we call “character development.” It is almost as though in songs and hymns such as these that character and narrative are rolled up into one large mythico-musical expression. Whatever plot-like elements are buried in these all too vague expressions suggest a rich background of important events in which the essential traits of the character or characters in question have revealed themselves. The song of the victorious hero returned home—or of the beloved cat whose appearance delights its owner—may spring from the same source as hymn. It is even possible that ordinary people collectively develop the character of gods and demons through theme song, which in time becomes epic narrative and sometimes hymn—once the status of the being is official.
Allen Ginsberg, in “Howl,” shows that the same can be done for the “bad guys” as is done for the heroes.
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children
screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Con gress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
They’ve got a power and a force
That you’ve never seen before
They’ve got the ability to morph
And to even up the score
No one can ever take them down
The power lies on their side
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
They know the fate of the world is lying in their hands
They know to only use their weapons for defense
No one will ever take them down
The power lies on their side
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
Go Go Power Rangers
You Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
Compare this with a portion from Utterance 274 of the “Cannibal Hymn”:
Pharaoh has risen again in the sky.
He is crowned as Lord of the Horizon.
He has smashed the back-bones,
and has seized the hearts of the gods.
He has eaten the Red Crown.
He has swallowed the Green One.
Pharaoh feeds on the lungs of the wise.
And likes to live on hearts and their magic.
Pharaoh abhors against licking the coils of the Red Crown.
But delights to have their magic in his belly.
Pharaoh’s dignities will not be taken away from him.
For he has swallowed the knowledge of every god.
Pharaoh’s lifetime is eternal repetition.
His limit is everlastingness. In this his dignity of :
‘If-he-likes-he-does. If-he-dislikes-he-does-not.’
He who is at the limits of the horizon,
for ever and ever. (tr. Wim van den Dungen)
I am not saying that the above Egyptian hymn is the same as the Power Rangers theme. But I am suggesting that both could be integral to the formation of mythological characters. That is to say, hymns may have something to do with what we call “character development.” It is almost as though in songs and hymns such as these that character and narrative are rolled up into one large mythico-musical expression. Whatever plot-like elements are buried in these all too vague expressions suggest a rich background of important events in which the essential traits of the character or characters in question have revealed themselves. The song of the victorious hero returned home—or of the beloved cat whose appearance delights its owner—may spring from the same source as hymn. It is even possible that ordinary people collectively develop the character of gods and demons through theme song, which in time becomes epic narrative and sometimes hymn—once the status of the being is official.
Allen Ginsberg, in “Howl,” shows that the same can be done for the “bad guys” as is done for the heroes.
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children
screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Con gress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
March 2, 2024
Summary of Dialectic of Myth and Rationalism
* * *
A dialectic opposition (antithesis) arises when a new way of controlling reality (power) proves itself more effective than the old.
The antithesis results in repression of the old means of controlling reality—nostalgia for the old.
1. Poetry/myth had been the means of educating citizens.
2. Plato and the rational movement believed reason should educate citizens instead of myth.
3. Plato and the rise of democracy (rationalism) forced conflict between poetry/myth and philosophy.
4. The rise of rationalism weakened myth/paganism; myth was gradually repressed, producing nostalgia among the populace.
5. Christianity (mediated through Neoplatonism) ultimately synthesized the opposition between myth and rationalism, enabling myth to flourish once again in harmony with rationalism.
6. Semblance or “pattern thinking” (akin to mythical thinking yet actually preserved through Neoplatonist thought) was the prevailing logic of the Renaissance; Christianity meanwhile had continued to reign.
7. The scientific method gained dominance by proving its effectiveness in controlling reality. This led to the antithesis between materialism and “superstition”/religion.
8. Poetry was attacked in lieu of religion; prose (language of science) was hailed as preferable.
9. The rise of the novel proved that prose in the arts could be as satisfying as poetry; because poetry was written in verse, poetry and verse were conflated; there was a loss of a clear distinction between poetry and prose; the general term “literature” (meaning “imaginative verbal art”) in time gained dominance over “poetry” since it could encompass all types of writing. The loss of meaningful distinctions between categories ended up producing the notion of artistic genius as well as aesthetic taste.
10. In time science proved itself so effective as an instrument of power that it displaced Christianity (“death of God”). This constituted a repression of myth, leading to nostalgia for myth among the populace.
11. By the late 19th century, poetry had become an elite, coterie art, alienated from popular audiences, almost a form of esotericism.
12. Because the new religion (Christianity) was never conflated with poetry (paganism), as it was in ancient Greece, Christianity was at first protected from criticism.
13. Because experimental science (expressed in prose) had to weaken superstition (myth) to gain supremacy, but could not oppose Christianity head-on, it attacked the language of superstition and myth (i.e. poetry which was viewed as being written in verse).
14. Poetry’s fight to stay alive led to the weakening of verse/meter and rhyme due to the possibility of poetry being written in something closer to prose. But in reducing the verse element, poetry alienated its popular audience, and became increasingly inaccessible. The nostalgia for poetry as entertainment among the bourgeoisie and the upper classes—as it once had been—led to the formation of light verse, where meter and rhyme could reign, though without a strong mythical component. Among the proletariat, popular poetry (song and ballad) would reinforce the conflation of poetry and verse. Meanwhile most thinkers had all but forgotten that myth was once equated with poetry, in Plato’s day. The fields of light and folk verse made it almost impossible for non-elite audiences to conceive of poetry without meter, reinforcing the conflation of verse and poetry.
15. The elite coterie poets would experiment with form and ultimately pioneer prose poetry and free verse, maintaining a strong connection to myth (as would be done by Symbolist and modernist poets).
16. Still there would be nothing like Christianity to synthesize the antithesis of the new rationalism (science) and myth. Poetry could not accomplish this, since it had become an elite field.
17. With the rise of novelistic science fiction, alongside new media such as television and film, there would finally be something like a dialectical synthesis, yet nothing so unifying and coherent as what Christianity was able to accomplish.
18. Elite artists and the avant-garde meanwhile strove to bring about such a synthesis, but were unsuccessful. Compared to fascism and popular entertainment, their efforts were fairly trivial.
. . .
A dialectic opposition (antithesis) arises when a new way of controlling reality (power) proves itself more effective than the old.
The antithesis results in repression of the old means of controlling reality—nostalgia for the old.
1. Poetry/myth had been the means of educating citizens.
2. Plato and the rational movement believed reason should educate citizens instead of myth.
3. Plato and the rise of democracy (rationalism) forced conflict between poetry/myth and philosophy.
4. The rise of rationalism weakened myth/paganism; myth was gradually repressed, producing nostalgia among the populace.
5. Christianity (mediated through Neoplatonism) ultimately synthesized the opposition between myth and rationalism, enabling myth to flourish once again in harmony with rationalism.
6. Semblance or “pattern thinking” (akin to mythical thinking yet actually preserved through Neoplatonist thought) was the prevailing logic of the Renaissance; Christianity meanwhile had continued to reign.
7. The scientific method gained dominance by proving its effectiveness in controlling reality. This led to the antithesis between materialism and “superstition”/religion.
8. Poetry was attacked in lieu of religion; prose (language of science) was hailed as preferable.
9. The rise of the novel proved that prose in the arts could be as satisfying as poetry; because poetry was written in verse, poetry and verse were conflated; there was a loss of a clear distinction between poetry and prose; the general term “literature” (meaning “imaginative verbal art”) in time gained dominance over “poetry” since it could encompass all types of writing. The loss of meaningful distinctions between categories ended up producing the notion of artistic genius as well as aesthetic taste.
10. In time science proved itself so effective as an instrument of power that it displaced Christianity (“death of God”). This constituted a repression of myth, leading to nostalgia for myth among the populace.
11. By the late 19th century, poetry had become an elite, coterie art, alienated from popular audiences, almost a form of esotericism.
12. Because the new religion (Christianity) was never conflated with poetry (paganism), as it was in ancient Greece, Christianity was at first protected from criticism.
13. Because experimental science (expressed in prose) had to weaken superstition (myth) to gain supremacy, but could not oppose Christianity head-on, it attacked the language of superstition and myth (i.e. poetry which was viewed as being written in verse).
14. Poetry’s fight to stay alive led to the weakening of verse/meter and rhyme due to the possibility of poetry being written in something closer to prose. But in reducing the verse element, poetry alienated its popular audience, and became increasingly inaccessible. The nostalgia for poetry as entertainment among the bourgeoisie and the upper classes—as it once had been—led to the formation of light verse, where meter and rhyme could reign, though without a strong mythical component. Among the proletariat, popular poetry (song and ballad) would reinforce the conflation of poetry and verse. Meanwhile most thinkers had all but forgotten that myth was once equated with poetry, in Plato’s day. The fields of light and folk verse made it almost impossible for non-elite audiences to conceive of poetry without meter, reinforcing the conflation of verse and poetry.
15. The elite coterie poets would experiment with form and ultimately pioneer prose poetry and free verse, maintaining a strong connection to myth (as would be done by Symbolist and modernist poets).
16. Still there would be nothing like Christianity to synthesize the antithesis of the new rationalism (science) and myth. Poetry could not accomplish this, since it had become an elite field.
17. With the rise of novelistic science fiction, alongside new media such as television and film, there would finally be something like a dialectical synthesis, yet nothing so unifying and coherent as what Christianity was able to accomplish.
18. Elite artists and the avant-garde meanwhile strove to bring about such a synthesis, but were unsuccessful. Compared to fascism and popular entertainment, their efforts were fairly trivial.
. . .
January 16, 2024
An Essay in Three Parts
* * *
1.
Consciousness is trapped, the body’s hostage. We try to tell others what we think, we can talk endlessly, provoke others to feel how we feel—all of it is in vain. Art has the ability to enable others to feel last night’s dream, with its complex texture and its subtlety amid blatancy, its atmospherics. Not the expression of emotion or the conveyance of information, poetry does its work by using language to emphasize similarities rather than differences. It reconciles tensions, makes love out of war. In its deepest intention it is nothing less than telepathy via the word. Long ago it could be magic as well: telekinesis achieved through word-sympathy aided by rhythm (which is a kind of hypnosis), hidden or overt resemblance. The poetic consciousness yearns to make what is outside inside, what is inside outside. It cannot understand why it should be prevented from merging with alien matter or with the thoughts of others. It seeks to bring the world of dream to that of conscious daylight. It seeks wholeness—unity—in heterogeneity. It makes variousness musical rather than chaotic.
2.
Literature… is not the news. It is information, the stuff of the news, become art. Literature is literature because it rewards rereading even when one knows, remembers all the details, facts, remembers the entire plot. Literature remains literature even after the spoiler has tried to spoil it, even after its own historical moment has passed. It can withstand the worst of spoilers, and for that reason may also stand the test of time. One rereads it the way one re-listens to a song, over and over until one feels a little sick. Then still returns to it... It sustains one, like a nutritious food. It refreshes like water, it’s delicious like candy, gives shelter like a house. . . It provides good company like an old friend. One remembers where one was, the smell, the season, everything about the time one first encountered it; it is remembered with pride, treasured like an epiphany, a serendipitous one-night stand one had very long ago, one summer on holiday, far away from home. It helped make one who one is. Yet one is nostalgic for the person one was on that irrecoverable day. Literature’s a holiday, an escape from the old, too-familiar life; other times it’s a home one can freely come back to when the world has become lonely, threatening, unsure. It’s like a dream that deepens, that changes while remaining essentially the same. Literature is a dream more real than real, proof that one’s memory isn’t just fantasy, misremembering: a solid possession one does not own because one is more owned by it.
3.
The pleasure of reading fiction is to find the outside world (what we perceive with our sight and apprehend with other senses) reproduced inside of our minds, as though through a trick of magic. In short, the outside world begins to exist inside of us. But the pleasure of experiencing lyric poetry is to find the interior world (what we experience in our bodies, in our imaginations, in our dreams) come to life outside of us, on the page, in words. This is what people mean when they say that poetry draws our attention to the materiality of language, as opposed to fiction whose language dissolves, becomes transparent. With poetry, words become like a canvas onto which the imagination and the emotions project their contents. The inner contents of our most private being are superimposed upon words themselves; where, when reading fiction, language is sucked into the imagination; it turns into a kind of steam serving as a medium through which illusions and oases appear like realistic hallucinations.
. . .
1.
Consciousness is trapped, the body’s hostage. We try to tell others what we think, we can talk endlessly, provoke others to feel how we feel—all of it is in vain. Art has the ability to enable others to feel last night’s dream, with its complex texture and its subtlety amid blatancy, its atmospherics. Not the expression of emotion or the conveyance of information, poetry does its work by using language to emphasize similarities rather than differences. It reconciles tensions, makes love out of war. In its deepest intention it is nothing less than telepathy via the word. Long ago it could be magic as well: telekinesis achieved through word-sympathy aided by rhythm (which is a kind of hypnosis), hidden or overt resemblance. The poetic consciousness yearns to make what is outside inside, what is inside outside. It cannot understand why it should be prevented from merging with alien matter or with the thoughts of others. It seeks to bring the world of dream to that of conscious daylight. It seeks wholeness—unity—in heterogeneity. It makes variousness musical rather than chaotic.
2.
Literature… is not the news. It is information, the stuff of the news, become art. Literature is literature because it rewards rereading even when one knows, remembers all the details, facts, remembers the entire plot. Literature remains literature even after the spoiler has tried to spoil it, even after its own historical moment has passed. It can withstand the worst of spoilers, and for that reason may also stand the test of time. One rereads it the way one re-listens to a song, over and over until one feels a little sick. Then still returns to it... It sustains one, like a nutritious food. It refreshes like water, it’s delicious like candy, gives shelter like a house. . . It provides good company like an old friend. One remembers where one was, the smell, the season, everything about the time one first encountered it; it is remembered with pride, treasured like an epiphany, a serendipitous one-night stand one had very long ago, one summer on holiday, far away from home. It helped make one who one is. Yet one is nostalgic for the person one was on that irrecoverable day. Literature’s a holiday, an escape from the old, too-familiar life; other times it’s a home one can freely come back to when the world has become lonely, threatening, unsure. It’s like a dream that deepens, that changes while remaining essentially the same. Literature is a dream more real than real, proof that one’s memory isn’t just fantasy, misremembering: a solid possession one does not own because one is more owned by it.
3.
The pleasure of reading fiction is to find the outside world (what we perceive with our sight and apprehend with other senses) reproduced inside of our minds, as though through a trick of magic. In short, the outside world begins to exist inside of us. But the pleasure of experiencing lyric poetry is to find the interior world (what we experience in our bodies, in our imaginations, in our dreams) come to life outside of us, on the page, in words. This is what people mean when they say that poetry draws our attention to the materiality of language, as opposed to fiction whose language dissolves, becomes transparent. With poetry, words become like a canvas onto which the imagination and the emotions project their contents. The inner contents of our most private being are superimposed upon words themselves; where, when reading fiction, language is sucked into the imagination; it turns into a kind of steam serving as a medium through which illusions and oases appear like realistic hallucinations.
. . .
January 15, 2024
Xylophone
“Xylophone” is the first thing I published. I’d spent a semester in Edinburgh, Scotland, from January to April 2006. Some days and nights I was bored. I would sit in the computer lab or go to the library and read poetry by myself; I remember specifically Dylan Thomas and Arthur Rimbaud. Perhaps the most formative reading experience, however, was V. Nabokov’s Lolita.
When I got back to the US I submitted this particular poem to my school’s lit mag (I’d spotted a flier in the stairwell). A few months later I picked up my phone. I said HELLO. The person told me my poem would be in the Winter 2007 issue. I expressed some excitement. She said, “OK, wow, it's not that big a deal. I am glad to make your day.”
When it came out, I showed it to my dad. He said, “How did you write this?”
"Xylophone"
A rainbow of facile notes, you row of wooden planks
I have at times needed your harmonic smoke
you are still my secret pride or prism
of dream coded shapes
I laugh as fast as bolts of angular teeth
to clean off your dusty
maudlin resonance
for which I shall build ice cathedrals
–striped–to remember better days of the organic pedal
Spiders may consider in jagged fits of metal
on top of your translucent glob
(Rays!} where they someday freeze like hairs
do and smell children
in the darkest cinemas thinking of our music
that won amazingly
in the wake of a greater modeled instrument
. . .
When I got back to the US I submitted this particular poem to my school’s lit mag (I’d spotted a flier in the stairwell). A few months later I picked up my phone. I said HELLO. The person told me my poem would be in the Winter 2007 issue. I expressed some excitement. She said, “OK, wow, it's not that big a deal. I am glad to make your day.”
When it came out, I showed it to my dad. He said, “How did you write this?”
"Xylophone"
A rainbow of facile notes, you row of wooden planks
I have at times needed your harmonic smoke
you are still my secret pride or prism
of dream coded shapes
I laugh as fast as bolts of angular teeth
to clean off your dusty
maudlin resonance
for which I shall build ice cathedrals
–striped–to remember better days of the organic pedal
Spiders may consider in jagged fits of metal
on top of your translucent glob
(Rays!} where they someday freeze like hairs
do and smell children
in the darkest cinemas thinking of our music
that won amazingly
in the wake of a greater modeled instrument
. . .
January 4, 2024
Science Becomes Art and Religion
* * *
It is often said that science is beautiful or that mathematics is beautiful, or that scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers are not merely like artists, but fundamentally artists themselves. In abbreviating reality via abstraction, science and philosophy end up producing sensuously beautiful, satisfying—even seemingly spiritual—models and representations of reality with the appeal of sacred geometry or music. All of which leads to our frequently mistaking science for art, even if art is the intensification of reality by sensuous means, and science the abbreviation of reality via abstraction. It is why perhaps we tend to associate chess with art. While the intentions of art and science are much the same, their means are quite different, even if they sometimes manage to resemble one another in outward aspect. It is ironic in that science must deny the sensuous as well as the irrational in order to achieve the theoretical clarity for which it strives. Yet since scientific representation tends to have the “look” of art, archetype, and religious symbol, it lends itself to idolatry by capturing the imaginations of those hungry—indeed starved—for divine transcendence in a disenchanted historical epoch.
. . .
It is often said that science is beautiful or that mathematics is beautiful, or that scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers are not merely like artists, but fundamentally artists themselves. In abbreviating reality via abstraction, science and philosophy end up producing sensuously beautiful, satisfying—even seemingly spiritual—models and representations of reality with the appeal of sacred geometry or music. All of which leads to our frequently mistaking science for art, even if art is the intensification of reality by sensuous means, and science the abbreviation of reality via abstraction. It is why perhaps we tend to associate chess with art. While the intentions of art and science are much the same, their means are quite different, even if they sometimes manage to resemble one another in outward aspect. It is ironic in that science must deny the sensuous as well as the irrational in order to achieve the theoretical clarity for which it strives. Yet since scientific representation tends to have the “look” of art, archetype, and religious symbol, it lends itself to idolatry by capturing the imaginations of those hungry—indeed starved—for divine transcendence in a disenchanted historical epoch.
. . .
December 31, 2023
Saltburn’s Ollie, an unsatisfying journey from Borderline to Psychopath
Saltburn undermines itself for absolutely no reason. It is set up as a revenge film. A young, awkward man, Ollie, is mistreated and undervalued by his cohort at Oxford and then at the ancestral estate of Saltburn where he has been invited by the one kind, non-superficial member of the British aristocracy, Felix.
Ollie is established as being infatuated with Felix. Yet he kills Felix when the latter has accidentally discovered that Ollie is not really the underclass scholarship boy he made himself out to be. No, it turns out that he has lied from the beginning and is himself rather affluent.
Ollie is now a new sort of character—a psychopath. This makes little sense since we were led to believe that Ollie was an awkward, academically honest, and hardworking young man whose efforts were undervalued and whose class background would always stand in the way of social success. On this basis we are invested in Ollie, and are prepared for the somewhat justifiable revenge that we sense looming on the horizon.
Now, however, out of nowhere, we are asked to accept that Ollie is not sympathetic whatsoever, but a psychopath, which means we are not watching the kind of film we thought we were. We must now wonder whether Ollie was only faking his awkwardness from the start. We need this to be so, actually; otherwise the filmmaker appears incompetent which undermines our confidence in the film. That we can’t be sure of course is itself a sign of incompetence. We just can't be too sure of anything that has happened up to this point. If anything we are left feeling the aristocracy was in some way in the right for ostracizing Ollie, that is, in light of how evil he apparently always was.
That Ollie is so infatuated with his host as to drink his bathwater, in the much talked-about scene, but does not at any point try to have sex with Felix while he is still alive is very regrettable; it is a sorely missed opportunity. Had Ollie been turned down by Felix, the former would have gained some sort of plausible impetus for killing him. It could have taken the place of Felix's finding out that Ollie had lied about his past which makes him ask Ollie to leave Saltburn—the real motive for Ollie’s murdering him as soon as he did.
Disappointingly, once Felix is dead, we see Ollie having sex with Felix’s grave. Wouldn't someone who feels this strongly have tried? By this point Ollie has ceased to be a legible, or in any way relatable, character whose ultimate murder of all members of Saltburn’s aristocratic family feels in any way just or comprehensible.
We are only able to conclude that it was never about revenge, but an elaborate plot concocted before Ollie began at Oxford. Ultimately because Ollie is merely a psychopath, we wonder why the filmmaker wanted us to feel that Ollie was earnest and awkward, only to sever our sympathetic investments in him.
Yet it all could have been otherwise if the filmmaker had simply shown Ollie rejected by Felix and done away with the psychopathy twist, in favor of leaving Ollie a typical borderline seeking revenge.
Ollie is established as being infatuated with Felix. Yet he kills Felix when the latter has accidentally discovered that Ollie is not really the underclass scholarship boy he made himself out to be. No, it turns out that he has lied from the beginning and is himself rather affluent.
Ollie is now a new sort of character—a psychopath. This makes little sense since we were led to believe that Ollie was an awkward, academically honest, and hardworking young man whose efforts were undervalued and whose class background would always stand in the way of social success. On this basis we are invested in Ollie, and are prepared for the somewhat justifiable revenge that we sense looming on the horizon.
Now, however, out of nowhere, we are asked to accept that Ollie is not sympathetic whatsoever, but a psychopath, which means we are not watching the kind of film we thought we were. We must now wonder whether Ollie was only faking his awkwardness from the start. We need this to be so, actually; otherwise the filmmaker appears incompetent which undermines our confidence in the film. That we can’t be sure of course is itself a sign of incompetence. We just can't be too sure of anything that has happened up to this point. If anything we are left feeling the aristocracy was in some way in the right for ostracizing Ollie, that is, in light of how evil he apparently always was.
That Ollie is so infatuated with his host as to drink his bathwater, in the much talked-about scene, but does not at any point try to have sex with Felix while he is still alive is very regrettable; it is a sorely missed opportunity. Had Ollie been turned down by Felix, the former would have gained some sort of plausible impetus for killing him. It could have taken the place of Felix's finding out that Ollie had lied about his past which makes him ask Ollie to leave Saltburn—the real motive for Ollie’s murdering him as soon as he did.
Disappointingly, once Felix is dead, we see Ollie having sex with Felix’s grave. Wouldn't someone who feels this strongly have tried? By this point Ollie has ceased to be a legible, or in any way relatable, character whose ultimate murder of all members of Saltburn’s aristocratic family feels in any way just or comprehensible.
We are only able to conclude that it was never about revenge, but an elaborate plot concocted before Ollie began at Oxford. Ultimately because Ollie is merely a psychopath, we wonder why the filmmaker wanted us to feel that Ollie was earnest and awkward, only to sever our sympathetic investments in him.
Yet it all could have been otherwise if the filmmaker had simply shown Ollie rejected by Felix and done away with the psychopathy twist, in favor of leaving Ollie a typical borderline seeking revenge.
