R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 116

Prose Works of Matthew Arnold: Introduction

Searching for a "good read." Enjoyed some of the intro to Arnold's prose.

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A few "clips":

One result of a perusal of the poems is to counteract the impression often produced by the jaunty air assumed in the prose. The real substance of Arnold's thought is characterized by a deep seriousness; no one felt more deeply the spiritual unrest and distraction of his age. More than one poem is an expression of its mental and spiritual sickness, its doubt, ennui, and melancholy. Yet beside such poems as Dover Beach and Stagirius should be placed the lines from Westminster Abbey:— For this and that way swings The flux of mortal things, Though moving inly to one far-set goal.

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Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe and Wordsworth. 

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The most noticeable thing about his definition of criticism is its lofty ambition. It is "the disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world," and its more ultimate purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is blameworthy, but to appreciate and popularize the best.

 

 

 

Found Farm: Out to Pasture

A First: A Hydrant Fountain in Late Afternoon

Clouds Like Smoke (3/24/19)

Clouds like smoke, and Saddleback on the horizon.

PHILZ. Amos Oz. T S Eliot and "cultural conservatism." Went down 2nd, down Granada, past St. Bart's, around the lagoon and home.

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Rereading Transtromer's "The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems"

Upright

In a moment of concentration I succeeded in catching the hen, I stood with it in my hands. Curiously, it did not feel properly alive: stiff, dry, an old white feather-trimmed woman’s hat, which cried out truths from 1912. Thunder hung in the air. From the wooden plank, a scent rose as when you open a photo album so aged that you can no longer identify the portraits. I carried the hen into the enclosure and let her go. Suddenly she was very much alive, knew where she was, and ran according to the rules. The hen-yard is full of taboos. But the earth around is full of love and tenacity. A low stone wall half overgrown with greenery. As dusk falls the stones begin to gleam faintly with the hundred-year-old warmth of the hands that shaped them. The winter has been hard, but now summer is here and the earth wants to have us upright. Free but wary, as when you stand up in a slim boat. A memory of Africa is wakened in me: on the shore at Chari, many boats, a very friendly atmosphere, the almost blue-black people with three parallel scars on each cheek (the Sara tribe). I am welcomed aboard—a canoe of dark wood. It is surprisingly rickety, even when I squat. A balancing act. If the heart lies on the left side you must incline your head a little to the right, nothing in the pockets, no large gestures, all rhetoric must be left behind. Just this: rhetoric is impossible here. The canoe glides out on the water.

The Visitors

White Egret Congress (3/9/19)

PKD's "Electric Sheep": Another Clip

The old man said, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.” “That’s all you can tell me?” Rick said.

PKD's "Electric Sheep": Clip

Solemnly, and with ceremony, the vote was taken. “We stay here,” Irmgard said, with firmness. “In this apartment, in this building.” Roy Baty said, “I vote we kill Mr. Isidore and hide somewhere else.” He and his wife—and John Isidore—now turned tautly toward Pris. In a low voice Pris said, “I vote we make our stand here.” She added, more loudly, “I think J. R.’s value to us outweighs his danger, that of his knowing. Obviously we can’t live among humans without being discovered; that’s what killed Polokov and Garland and Luba and Anders. That’s what killed all of them.” “Maybe they did just what we’re doing,” Roy Baty said. “Confided in, trusted, one given human being who they believed was different. As you said, special.” “We don’t know that,” Irmgard said. “That’s only a conjecture. I think they, they—” She gestured. “Walked around. Sang from a stage like Luba. We trust—I’ll tell you what we trust that fouls us up, Roy; it’s our goddamn superior intelligence!” She glared at her husband, her small, high breasts rising and falling rapidly. “We’re so smart—Roy, you’re doing it right now; goddamn you, you’re doing it now!”

Pics from the Belmont Pier: Today (2/17/19) and Last Weekend