this Public Address 2.0

Imageless?

DEMOGORGON

                                      If the abysm
Could vomit forth its secrets--but a voice
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? What to bid speak
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these
All things are subject but eternal Love.

Percy Shelley, Prometheus Unbound Act II Scene IV

Sometimes reading Hegel sounds awfully familiar. I wonder if Shelley read Hegel? It's hard to say.

despond

dreaming

The Graphic Muse

Higher Innocence

Higher Innocence

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from Hell. For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by a improvement of sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14

I read this for the first time when I was fourteen years old. I tracked it down once I found out that this passage, and not Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception was the root for the name of The Doors. Through the lens of age (and more in-depth study of Blake) it seems well worth revisiting right now. Several nuances need to be explored, beyond the sentimental rebellious perception of either myself, as a boy, or Jim Morrison’s limited understanding of Blake— The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is not a sales pitch for psychedelic drugs. Blake was not a Satanist. Going back to the third plate, here is the definition Blake offers of Hell:

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason[.] Evil is the active springing from Energy.

Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.

Performing the easy substitutions (and noting the ironic nature of “Hell”) it is clear from this that Blake’s “infernal method” is caustic, melting away the “apparent surfaces” of things, to reveal the “infinite” that is hid. I would submit to my compatriots Duemer and Delacour that the infinite is not hid by sentiment, but rather through an underdeveloped notion of what “sentiment” really is— reverting to a Chaucerian definition— sentiment is deeper than sensation alone, and beyond the chinks of the cavern. The apocalypse of vision which Blake proposes shall come about by “the improvement of sensual enjoyment,” through the reintegration of body and mind. Revelation happens when the notion that “mind” and “body” are distinct and separate is destroyed. All discourse involves feelings; commonplace feelings, or sentiments, are really the first step on the ladder toward deeper ways of feeling— what Blake scholars call “higher innocence.”

My adulation of transparency, of dispassionate inquiry into representation using people like Walker Evans as idols has become deeply tempered by acceptance that all expression evokes— and includes— feelings which though easily exploited, are inseparable from art. Discarding the commonplace sentiments is an exercise which was for me essential to the pursuit— not of dispassionate knowledge— but of higher feelings. I know this is what Duemer and Delacour are really on about. I'm just playing with the vocabulary, obviously. The mode of inquiry which purges sentiment can be a trap as well, worse than anything that might be lost by too deep an exploration of sentimentality. Too much corrosion destroys the plate— it’s a delicate balance. Growth happens through “an improvement of sensual enjoyment” not the purging of it. That is what The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is all about (at least in part).

The oppression of sentiment does not really get you closer to truth— it merely promotes oppression, control, reason. Sentiment naturally fades with experience— it need not be purged. In Literature in its Place, James Britton cites some really beautiful evidence from the empirical study of reactions to poetry. Almost universally, adults reject poetry which contains powerful emotions— unless they are cloaked in complexity. Why this happens is hard to say— I suspect that it’s because of the social construction of identities that are trained to distance themselves from their bodies, their feelings— the rejection of sentiment is very pronounced as we reach adulthood. Using a group of poems, some “real” poems and some horribly sentimental fabrications, Britton charted the reactions of children from 13-18 years old. The fabrications were enjoyed by adolescents, but older children gradually began to prefer less overt expressions of emotion. Britton has an interesting theory about the cause:

We suggested at the time that under the strain of the emerging adult world, the adolescent may need to withdraw into some imagined world: when the strain is too great, it may be into the most docile and accessible world that he or she withdraws— a world represented by sentimental values. In matters of emotion, the familiar and safe kind of love— love of animals, pity— may be acceptable where passionate love is too threatening. (46)

The summation of that study, quoted in the book, echoes the sentiments of Warren Zevon and Charles Lamb that I quoted last night:

Such imagined experience— the stock response, the unoriginal, undisturbing type— gives time to recover balance, but does not itself allow for grown, reintegration, advancement into living. For this we must try to graft genuine poetic experience onto the counterfeit, regarding a taste for the counterfeit in adolescence as the first rung on the ladder rather than the first step to damnation. (47)

Feeling, or sentiment, is an important first step. It’s important that the progression from it to deeper and more complex feelings be natural and not forced. I like Britton’s usage of graft to describe the process of growing to appreciate deeper things. Many artists flirt with the sentimental and some (like Kertéz), have the depth to portray truly poetic experiences within the most commonplace of frames. This flirtation with the child-like, sentimental world— an improvement of “sensual enjoyment” is in many ways what I think Blake was on about regarding higher innocence.

Cultivate Wildness

Cultivated Wildness

Another topic which came into sharper focus for me in conversations with Joe Viscomi is the incredible shift in the perception of nature which occurred in the romantic period. The mid-eighteenth century promoted the rise of gardening, but the gardens (particularly in France) were constructed to convey a sense of humanity’s conquest of nature. Carefully trimmed hedges in neat geometric rows— sculpted greenery to show how man had tamed the base nature of the wilderness. These gardens were not natural in any sense, other than in the presence of green objects. Of course, the translation of the bible into vernacular tongues set up a sort of oppositional value too: which had higher authority— nature untamed, controlled only by the hand of God— or the word, printed on a page and interpreted by humans.

The enclosure of common lands in England brought with it a sort of nostalgia for nature untamed. Gardening shifted its virtues from overt control, to a new sort of cultivated wilderness— the park replaced the commons. The rise of nature as a moral teacher was coincident with the fall of nature under the hand of man, and thus was born the desire for cultivated wildness. It was against this backdrop that modern book illustration developed, and the romantic impulse resurfaced after the waves of mid-eighteenth century moral abstraction from an imperfect source— a view of nature which few men had access to, let alone appreciation of. The “nature-lovers” of the romantic period were mostly city dwellers, who sketched their impressions from cultivated ground.

The situation in America was different. It was unenclosed, wild, and seemingly limitless. The American park system is constructed both of wholly prefabricated wilderness (of which Central Park in New York City is a prime example), carefully choreographed to appear wild— and fenced and improved natural lands, with roadway systems and easy access, like Yosemite. There is a mythic quality to the American park, but it is filtered through a European sensibility.

As McPhee points out in the first book of Coming into the Country, the concept of wilderness is foreign to those thrust from society into it. It’s a matter of unfathomable scale, of interconnectedness without end, which can never be fully subdued. The “natural” philosophy of the western tradition was ill-equipped to deal with the sheer expanse of mountains, lakes, and rivers of the America of the early eighteenth century. The primary tools of subjugation are the creation of parks, cultivated wildernesses where city-dwellers might visit and get “closer to god” through a flirtation with wildness. These days are little different; it takes a high-tech arsenal of camping supplies to even approach it— wilderness is always more comfortable in the mythic park around the corner. Few people want to wrestle a grizzly. They just want to inscribe the lessons of nature into a book.

Natural's not in it

Exploring Nature

I made it through the first book of John McPhee’s Coming into the Country, and then I had to take a nap. I’ve got a low threshold for this sort of thing. It’s a book about Alaska, an extended non-fiction piece. The first ten pages nearly made me ill with the literary (and journalistic) pretensions. But it got better. There’s nothing that makes me want to puke quicker than literary/metaphoric explorations of fishing. Unfortunately, one of my teachers has a thing about that, so I think I’ve read at least five different variations on that theme in the last two years.

I’ve never been able to get the “nature” thing. For a long time, this impeded my reading of people like Wordsworth and Emerson. Joe Viscomi put an interesting twist on the problem during his seminar on the Songs. He said: “It’s only recently that the word ‘nature’ began to mean the green stuff.” It’s another one of those inventions of the romantics that has become a commonplace. I resolved to look into this a bit deeper, so after my nap I did some more tripping through the OED.

Nature entered the language in the middle of the twelfth century. Its stem is Latin, nasci, “to be born” and the construction natura means “birth, constitution, character, course of things.” Reflecting on it, I can see why it chafes me so— it posits an origin, a source— which is foreign to post-structuralist thinking. I’ve never thought of things much in that way. I have felt that I sort of landed in the middle of something, and rather than speculating about origins it was more useful to look at the way that things are interrelated. The oldest definition is this:

1. a. The essential qualities or properties of a thing; the inherent and inseparable combination of properties essentially pertaining to anything and giving it its fundamental character.

In this sense, nature is Platonic, idealistic, and essentialist. The second definition, entering at the same time, reflects another philosophical twist:



2. a. The inherent and innate disposition or character of a person (or animal).

The rejection of the concept of “innate ideas” was a big part of Blake’s thinking. Taken this way, Blake’s railing against “Natural Religion” makes even more sense. For Blake, all that was good in man was given by God— not any inherent and innate dispostion. Another twist happens beginning in Chaucer’s usage of nature in 1374, reflected in the third nuance:



3. a. With a and pl. An individual character, disposition, etc., considered as a kind of entity in itself; hence, a thing or person of a particular quality or character.

This postulates a sort of unary quality to nature, introducing particularity and similar to the Saxon word often substituted for nature, kind. So, nature in this sense is a divisive strategy, a way of cataloguing the world— as in the fourth variant:



4. In various phrases: a. of (a certain) nature.
   In first quot. perhaps in sense of ‘origin’.

The fifth variant makes it even more “virtual”:



5. by (earlier of, on) nature, in virtue of the very character or essence of the thing or person.

But the sixth sense (coincidentally the earliest sense, entering the language in 1250) returns nature to the physical world:



6. a. The vital or physical powers of man; (a person's) physical strength or constitution (obs.); the strength or substance of a thing.

The variants which follow are really funny.



7. a. Semen. Obs. [used by Joyce] b. The menses. Obs. or rare. [used by Chaucer]

8. The female pudendum, esp. that of a mare.

Senses #7 and #8 are quite rare, it seems to have been an early sort of dirty joke. But it also paves the way for the more power-filled connotations that arose from the smoke of the Middle Ages:



9. a. The inherent dominating power or impulse (in men or animals) by which action or character is determined, directed, or controlled. (Sometimes personified.)

And from 1400 forward, it seems to be a combination of both the mental and physical:



10. a. The inherent power or force by which the physical and mental activities of man are sustained. (Sometimes personified.)

11. a. The creative and regulative physical power which is conceived of as operating in the material world and as the immediate cause of all its phenomena. balance of nature

Not a trace of a fish, mountain or stream here yet. In some senses, nature is the oppositional term to grace, and in other senses it’s used as an oppositional term to art, or the hand of man. Though a man might have a nature, it isn’t always coincident with the powers that be:



12. In various phrases: a. against, or contrary to, nature.

It takes until long after the renaissance for the “green stuff” to enter the picture at all, but it comes in with a vengance.



13. a. The material world, or its collective objects and phenomena, esp. those with which man is most directly in contact; freq. the features and products of the earth itself, as contrasted with those of human civilization.

And in the eighteenth century, the term goes wild, gaining moral overtones:



14. a. the or a state of nature: (a) the moral state natural to man, as opposed to a state of grace; (b) the condition of man before the foundation of organized society; (c) an uncultivated or undomesticated condition; (d) physical nakedness.

It isn’t until long into the nineteenth century that the term stabilizes into the big mess of terms like nature-worship which make up the fifteenth sense of the word. It’s interesting to me how the arc of meaning manufactures nature into a term meant to explain the way we are, and makes some people look to rocks and trees for the solution. They are pleasant, yes. But the cure for humanity’s ills? Spare me.

Exploding Head

Exploding Head

Apologies if the stream of entries sure to follow don’t make much sense to a casual reader. So much has gone through my head in the last two days that if I don’t just spit it out, the headache will never fade, and I won’t be able to get any work done. I have over 800 pages of stuff to read in the next three days on top of all this explosive thinking. I suppose I could blame it on Joe Viscomi, because I got to spend a lot of time with him and it seemed like every other word out of his mouth directly related to the ideas I’m working with. But it’s deeper than that. Viscomi is perhaps the best place to start though.

Joe Viscomi is a star. Not in the sense of being famous to a lot of people, but in the sense of being a glowing and radiant individual. Reading tons of Blake scholarship over the last few years, names emerge as the central forces. Viscomi is of the latest generation of Blake scholars, who are stepping up to forge new directions— following people like G.E. Bentley, David Erdman, Robert Gleckner, Northrup Frye, and Harold Bloom, etc., who set the tone for mid-century Blake criticism. What is unique about Viscomi is that he approached Blake as a printmaker and an artist, rather than merely as a poet. His emphasis has been on the modes of production, rather than picking the nits of metaphysical interpretation. Viscomi more than anyone else has shifted Blake scholarship into more practical realms, and away from fanciful speculation. On a certain level, it was like meeting a president or religious leader— or better still, an anti-religious leader who has tried to tear down the walls of the “cult of Blake” and bring it back to the core values of Blake’s revolutionary rhetoric.

He’s also a jazz drummer, and a web pioneer. Along with Robert Essick and Morris Eaves, Viscomi is a driving force behind The William Blake Archive. Because each book produced by Blake is a unique artifact, scholarship had been limited to the few who had access to the original copies. Generations of scholars have read Blake through the transcriptions of these visual works into letterpress type. This was never Blake’s intention. If he wanted to, he could have produced work in that way. The problem with transcriptions are that small matters, like Blake’s idiosyncratic punctuation have been silently emended along the way, distancing the reproductions from the originals.

Using 4x5 and 8x10 transparencies of the originals, scanning at high resolution, and using custom written JavaScript technology, the Blake archive allows anyone to zoom deeply into any plate and read for themselves what is actually on the plate. It’s a revolution akin to the first widely circulated bible translations, however in this case you get as close to the original copies as technology allows— currently 300 dpi, and perhaps soon to be 600 dpi. Also, the technology is “smart” in that you can calibrate with a click your computer’s screen resolution so that the pages will display exactly actual size. Soon, you will be able to drag and drop individual plates around to compare anything from any part of the web site with another plate, though for now you can only directly compare different versions of the same work.

This makes comparison between widely separated (geographically, that is) copies possible. However, as Viscomi noted in his lecture Tuesday, scholarship has made mountains out of molehills regarding some of these differences. For example, the presence of earth-tone inks in all the early impressions rather than black or blue-black inks was taken to have great metaphoric significance. Viscomi’s research has revealed that the more probable reason why Blake chose those inks was that they were simply the cheapest available. A huge industry quickly rose around Blake to make him obscure and inaccessible, when in fact he is deeply pragmatic in most of his artistic choices.

What I took away from his lecture Tuesday was a deeper sense of the conventions of engraving, the technology behind it, and the “autographic hand” which Blake celebrated compared to other printing and engraving practices. However, I also took away a deep respect for Viscomi— as a real person with genuine excitement for his work. I talked to him about some of the research I’d been doing about Byron in America— his first response was: “Have you talked to Jerry McGann about this? I know he’d love to hear about it!” Unlike the cuthroat tone underneath so much scholarship out there, it was really a revelation to think for a moment that this is a club that someday I might join, filled with real people and personalities— and more than that, that someone as huge as Viscomi might take my opinions seriously.

We talked about music after the lecture, about Gatemouth Brown and Duke Robillard. Viscomi really thought that I should enter the documentary studies program at Duke University. My mentor in the English department, Paul Yoder, came through the English department there. I have such a deep fear of politics though, that makes that seem highly unlikely. I need a loose department to put up with my wanderings, and I think I would chafe against any department with as strongly an established ideology as Duke. Most of my ideas cut against the grain.

The next day, he was scheduled for an informal one hour lunch session. I let one of my classes go a half-hour early so I could be there (a half-hour late). Viscomi just kept going, and we talked for around half an hour after the session formally ended. He told me that in less than an hour, I had discussed at least four topics that would make great dissertations. The problem is choosing one and sticking to it. I know that. About an hour afterward, I sat in on a two-hour class with him on Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. I came away from this with my head just exploding; even after studying this stuff for years, it still excites me. But I can’t be a Blake scholar; I’m just not in the same league with stars like Viscomi, no matter how much it seems like I’d be welcome to come in. To really excel, I think I need to stay closer to photography. That is the thing that has always been underneath; I can’t throw half my life away.

Viscomi informed me that Jerusalem will be added to the archive sometime this fall. I’m also anxious to see his musical adaptation of Blake’s An Island in the Moon play, which he is currently building a website for. Lots of exciting things happening, too many to list.

Byron in America

Byron in America

It is great to know experts to ask about some of these bizarre topics I’m exploring. It never fails that every question I come up with hasn’t been directly addressed, and because of that, would be a great thesis topic. Dr. Yoder e-mailed Dr. Ghislaine McDayter, a Byronist that I met a couple of years ago, regarding my question about Byron’s reception in America. I got a couple of great clues from her. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Lady Byron Vindicated: A History of the Byron Controversy, from its Beginning in 1816 to the Present Time in 1870— how’s that for an on-topic lead? The best news is that our library has it on microfiche. She also recommended a historical critical survey work, and told me that Byron mentioned his American fans occasionally in his letters.

On my own, I found a rather interesting thread in Emerson’s journals from 1841-1843. He uses Byron as a bad example in one spot (not to mention noting that he just “didn’t get” Shelley), but Emerson also mentions that his favorite teacher from Harvard, Edward Everett, used to quote both Milton and Byron, though he quoted Milton more frequently. I hadn’t heard of Everett before, but he’s certainly a prominent American of the early 19th century. It turns out he was the featured speaker at Gettysburg, not Lincoln. Another of those big guys who has been marginalized in standard histories. I tracked down Everett’s speech. It’s pretty good— though no match for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Emerson’s deprecating remarks are in the context of a rant against Benjamin Disraeli’s novel Vivian Grey:

The young men are the readers & victims of Vivian Grey. Byron ruled for a time Vivian rules longer. They would quiz their father & mother [,] lover & friend. They discuss sun & moon, liberty & fate, love & death, and ask you to eat baked fish. They never sleep, go nowhere, stay nowhere, eat nothing, & and know nobody: but are up for anything, Festus-like, Faust-like, Jove-like, and could write an Iliad any rainy morning, if Fame were not such a bore.

Men & women [,] the greatest or fairest [,] are stupid things, but a rifle and a pleasant gunpowder [,] a spaniel and a cigar are themes for kings. (192)

It’s safe to say that Emerson wasn’t into the Byronic hero, but I haven’t a clue about the baked fish thing.

Blake's Fortunes

Fortunes of Catherine and William Blake

Hearts in Stone

Hearts in Stone

Nature wasn’t mute to William Wordsworth. Shelley was a big fan of the early Wordsworth, and animated nature in a similar way. Byron used to complain about Shelley forcing him to listen to Wordsworth, which claimed to dislike like a bad medicine. However similar images also occur in Byron. In my favorite short poem by Shelley, Mont Blanc, nature was animated with a voice:

Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe, not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret or make felt, or deeply feel. (80-83)

It seems likely that Shelley had Wordsworth in mind when he penned these lines in 1816, but he wouldn’t have known The Prelude. Wordsworth would not allow it to be published until after his death, in the version I’ve been referring to as the 1850. A mountain did more than speak to Wordsworth in the first book of The Prelude. Wordsworth had stolen a boat as a boy and rowed out on the lake. Nature stepped in with her “severe ministry.”

I dipped my oars in the silent lake,
And as I rose upon the stroke of my boat
Went heaving through the water like a swan—
When from behind that rocky steep, till then
The bound of the horizon, a huge cliff,
As if with a voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature, the huge cliff
Rose up between me and the stars, and still
With measured motion, like a living thing
Strode after me. With trembling hands I turned,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the cavern of the willow-tree. (1799— 104-116)

I just rolled on the floor the first time I read this. It’s like a Japanese science fiction film, where the huge mountain goes after poor kid Wordsworth. I can’t help but visualize it. There were no major revisions of this section in the later versions, though it was moved to line 400 in 1805, and 370 in the final version. Wordsworth did change “trembling hands” to “trembling oars” in 1850. He only stepped back a bit, in keeping with the far more distant tone of the final cut, and I’m glad. To me it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read from Wordsworth.

I’ve done quite a bit of photography in the mountains, waiting for the rocks and trees to speak to me. They never did. I would have loved to have been chased around by a mountain. I wonder if this might have been the inpiration for Zappa’s Billy the Mountain?

* Joseph Duemer stepped up to defend free verse, and wrote some good posts on Blake and Wordsworth. It's nice to know people are out there!

Awful

Awful

Meanings change, though the words remain the same. Awful used to mean “full of awe,” not tragic or terrible. Terrible has shifted too. Rather than bad, it also means more precisely “inspiring terror.” Terror, in and of itself is not a bad thing. Moments of terror are sublime moments where the stimulus exceeds our ability to experience it— pushing life beyond the realm of ordinary consciousness. There is an awful and terrible vision to be found even in the mundane. Of course if you claim this, there is the danger you will be pronounced mad, like William Blake:

When the sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty. I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight. I look thro it & not with it. (VLJ, E: 565-6)

That the words awful and terrible have shifted in this way shows how much that Locke’s view of emotion as opposed to clear thinking has permeated society. That Blake used a guinea as an example of the common view was no mistake. In his time, people chased after money causing the sort of problems crashing down on the US right now, reminding us of our lack of vision. There’s more to vision than valuation; there is also an element of celebration. Is vision a gift? In the 1799 version of The Prelude, Wordsworth thought so.

    The mind of man is fashioned and built up
Even as a strain of music. I believe
That there are spirits which, when they would form
A favored being, from his very dawn
Of infancy do open out the clouds
As the touch of lighting, seeking him
With gentle visitation— quiet powers,
Retired, and seldom recognized, yet kind

The conflict in imagery here is profound. Lightning is a “gentle visitation”?—quiet power? A storm that splits the clouds is— “Retired, and seldom recognized, yet kind?” To Wordsworth’s credit, he takes the visionary power to be democratic:

And to the very meanest not unknown—
With me, though rarely, in my boyish days
They communed. Others too there are, who use,
Yet haply aiming at the self-same end,
Severer interventions, ministry
More palpable— and of their school was I. (1799— 67-80)

Contrasting Blake’s point of view with Wordsworth’s, it seem appropriate to point out that in this example Wordsworth seems nearly pagan— “spirits” rather than spirit. Nature (the capital N type) for Wordsworth always didactic. Wordsworth doesn’t claim to be a favored being here, more like a reluctant pupil. The expansion of these lines in 1805 makes that perfectly clear:

    The mind of man is framed even like the breath
And harmony of music. There is a dark
Invisible workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, and makes them move
In one society. Ah me, that all
The terrors, all the early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, that all
The thoughts, and feelings which have been infused
Into my mind, should ever have made up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself. Praise to the end. (1805— 351-361)

The animism is replaced by piety just six years later. “Ah, me” the present introspection also echoes the shift I noted in the opening lines yesterday. The discordant imagery of the initial version is expanded with more overt statement of the “invisible workmanship” that drives it, and it is actively “infused / Into my mind.” What a difference a few years makes. But nothing like the radical change into the final revision of the poet, the reflections of an old man:

Dust we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, interfused
Within my mind, should e’er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! (1850— 340-350)

“Dust we are” sounds more like Byron than young Wordsworth. Invisible becomes inscrutable. Move becomes cling together. The active infusion of life experiences becomes interfused in passive memories— memories that have “borne a part” of making the man. However, their importance is underscored, as the periods of the final part become exclamations. The actively living young man has become a recluse looking back from his hard fought calm of solitude. Blake would have railed against this— he just couldn’t stomach this sort of passivity, regardless of his age.

The 1805 version retains the concerns of the 1799 poem regarding the presence of “favored beings,” and Wordsworth asserts himself closer to that class, even in youth:

Thanks likewise for the means! But I believe
That Nature, oftentimes, when she would frame
A favored being, from his earliest dawn
Of infancy doth open out the clouds
As at the touch of lightning, seeking him
With gentlest visitation; not the less,
Though haply aiming at the self-same end,
Does it delight her often to employ
Severer intentions, ministry
More palpable— and so she dealt with me. (1805— 362-371)

Wordsworth’s ego seemed to reach a peak in 1805 from which it quickly waned. He is here, “not the less” and at the end of his life he seemed to want to remove any trace of a notion that he might be blessed with poetic power. But with it, he defused the discordant imagery, the passion, and the enthusiasm:

Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use
Severer interventions, ministry
More palpable, as best might suit her aim. (1850— 351-356)

In the final cut, concerns over “favored beings” are gone. The storm becomes “peaceful clouds,” the lightning “hurtless light.” The invisible, active force has become passive. Capital N nature introduced in 1805 replacing “spirits” becomes remote with forces which it only “deigned to employ.”

The 1850 Prelude reeks of resignation. Strange how life can change you— make you resigned to the ups and downs rather than a fierce poet braving the wilderness. Intentions are reduced to interventions, and most traces of the proud ego are gone. I find the rewriting of the poem to be both awful and terrible, though you could hardly call any of the versions bad.

I don’t want to get old like Wordsworth. I want to go out singing like Blake.

The Prelude

Spots of Time

I don’t care for free verse. I suppose that’s why I’d really rather read Wordsworth than Whitman. But that’s just a personal bias. I agree with Blake that there should be no competition between poets, and with Thomas DeQuincey that works of literature don’t replace each other, no more than the sight of a new pastoral valley supplants the ones before it. I’m really enjoying Loren and Diane’s discussion of Whitman, because it’s hard for me to study him closely; free verse just doesn’t have the hook for me.

I’d been re-reading and thinking about The Prelude, and the issues of self and society that it raises. But more than that, I have always marveled at the way that Wordsworth butchered it. In my opinion, Wordsworth just plain revised it to death. This isn’t apparent in the lines I’ll examine today, but in sections the poem is tortuous. There are three versions to consider: a two book version from 1799, a thirteen book version from 1805, and a fourteen book version from 1850. I feel that the earliest one is incredibly tight, the 1805 is well rounded and lush, and the 1850 version— the version in most textbooks— is totally flaccid. I want to write about some of the changes.

For those unfamiliar with The Prelude, it is Wordsworth's poetic autobiography— a strong lesson in the way we write and re-write our lives. It can be seen as the ultimate in solipsism, or as I prefer to think of it, a man writing about what he knows best— himself. I believe that knowledge of the shifting value of self and the ways we rewrite it is one of those eternally valuable things to be gained from literature. Our conception of self is never frozen immutable and solid. It is in flux. Spots of time preserved, whether in a blog post or version of a poem, make convenient artifacts to examine to get a sense of where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how we create. Ultimately, that’s The Prelude.

It begins with a memory of a river:

                              Was it for this
That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved
To blend his murmurs with my nurse’s song,
And from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? (1799—1-6)

These lines were transported, whole and unchanged, into the longer versions of the poem. They ended up landing at line 273 of the first book of both the 1805 and 1850 revisions. A hazy memory of the river Derwent, blending with the human voices around a child. Wordsworth was a country boy.

Most critical articles on The Prelude cut across all three versions with ease, seldom stopping to examine the changes between them. The changes are subtle, and display a complex mind at work. Emotion and Cognition in The Prelude makes some great points regarding Wordsworth’s evolution of an equivalence between emotion and cognition. Rather than a dangerous force, as in Locke, emotion can lead us to making clearer decisions. The shift in emotions across the versions of The Prelude are outside the scope of that article, but they fascinate me. The emotions most often portrayed by Wordsworth are solitary ones, but solitude wasn’t the only thing he knew. Lamenting his experience in the city is how the extended version of The Prelude begins:

Oh there is a blessing in this gentle breeze,
That blows from the green fields and from the clouds
And from that sky; it beats against my cheek,
And seems half conscious of the joy it gives.
O welcome messenger! O welcome friend!
A captive guest greets thee, coming from a house
Of bondage, from yon city’s walls set free,
A prison where he hath been long immured.
Now I am free, enfranchised and at large,
May fix my habitation where I will. (1805—1-10)

The 1805 version of the poem has the despondent and experienced voice of the present. Behind it is a closely guarded optimism, because Wordsworth has left the city for the country, his chosen place to live. “Fix my habitation” is a common phrase, but it’s worth noting that this is the same phrase used by Crusoe as he decides to make the best of being stranded on the island. A direct allusion to Milton a few lines below this recalls the closing scene of Paradise Lost where Adam and Eve leave the garden. Note carefully the difference in the revised 1850 final revision:

O there is a blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while he fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy he brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky,
Whate’er his mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than me escaped
From the vast city, where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will. (1850— 1-9)

There is a shift from active to passive. Instead of saying “Now I am free,” Wordsworth refers to himself distantly as “me escaped” . . . “A discontented sojourner: now free.” The tense doesn’t shift, but there is a remoteness to the language that was not there in either early version. Studying trauma narratives, descriptions of deep seated emotional traumas are often marked by tense shifts into the present. It’s as if the events are still happening. The 1805 version was written in the country, long after Wordsworth dwelled in the city, and yet he speaks as if it had just happened.

A shift into past tense evolves as trauma narratives are re-written; this presents a mythic memory of the events. It’s a part of the healing process. Passive constructions more often signal a kind of denial. The agents are removed from the action, and responsibility remains nebulous. There is something lost in the 1850 revision, similar to a trauma narrative but not identical. The passivity is implied rather than actual. The sense of possibility, perhaps borne from trauma, that the 1805 version demonstrates is diffused and disengaged through revision. This is a subtle point; the other changes are more profound.

The city becomes vast in memory, and the breeze becomes animated as if it were a person: It is “he” not the “it” of the 1805 version. And the choice of adjectives is also worth noticing: instead of being freed from bondage (a human activity, not a natural one) the poet has instead “pined.” And he compares his freedom to that of a bird, rather than of a castaway. I find this stuff fascinating. The changes in other parts of the poem are far more radical than this. But it makes a good prelude for exploration.

Great writers rewrite. And those choices reflect the moment that they live in, though the subject narrated may be the past. Each day we live we reconstruct our own mythic pasts, in the way that suits our emotional cognition of them in the now. Wordsworth’s confidence level has changed, and he dealt with his feelings for the city differently as he aged. It seems to me that Wordsworth has animated nature fiercely, to replace the sociality he left behind. But the progression in these groups of lines, from the dream-like poet of Lyrical Ballads, to the traumatized introspective explorer of 1805, to the poet laureate’s final cut published in 1850, presents a rich text for exploration.

A Certain Malaise

A Certain Malaise

In spells, writing on the web allows the real world to catch up. “Blogging is so yesterday”— time to invent something new. Though the range of appetites and emotions, noumena and phenomena, are finite— the available combinations of them are infinite and inexhaustible. Retreat into this sort of thinking is predictable, trite, and ultimately yesterday. I’ll side with Iggy Pop in attitude. Just like the real world, the dead far outnumber the living.

Who cares who invented the pencil? I just want to write. I’ll say whatever I want to. At least, for as long as I can. An audience is free to come and go as it pleases. Rhetoric is the economics of attention and I’m bored with malaise.

I decided to have a look at the word itself. It was appropriated from French in 1768 to mean discomfort at the onset of a disease. It was extended, from a descriptor of an individual problem to a societal one in the early 19th century. But it wasn’t until the Victorians that it grew into a force. Malaise became “Uneasiness of mind and spirit” (OED) in the late 19th century. I woke up with it this morning with a sinus infection fitting my head like a space-helmet. Writing- wise I feel fine. I feel happy that no adoring public awaits my every word, and leaves crass comments when I don’t live up to their expectations. A poster in a lunch-room where I once worked said: “Attitudes are infectious— is yours worth catching?” Malaise is contagious and must be resisted at all costs. Especially, when a cult is formed around you. I think anger is an acceptable response. It beats starting a religion, and creating rules in solitude with a heart of brass.

Blake has a cautionary creation story on the subject: The Book of Urizen.

Founders of religions are often spurned.

Of the primeval Priests assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his religion:
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure. shadowy. void, solitary. (U2:2-5)

As Henry Rollins has ranted, rejection sucks. When you take solitude your ally, it can breed religions— or monsters.

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific?
Self-closd, all-repelling; what Demon
Hath form’d this abominable void
This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? Some said
“It is Urizen”, But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

Times on times he divided, & measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown: changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation

For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness.
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied (U3:2-23)

There are a lot of precedents for this depiction of a “fall from heaven,” or creation— depending on how you look at it. The scene which opens Ovid’s Metamorphoses is one of a pregnant chaos which is then ordered. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, jealousy drives Satan to rebel and fall. But in Blake’s version here, Urizen (sounds like “your reason”) is cast out because the Eternals don’t want to follow him. Rather than Satan’s legions, Urizen has only nature and his “self-contemplating shadow” to work with. Urizen thinks he’s found the problem:

From the depths of dark solitude. From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden set apart in my stern counsels
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,

For a solid without fluctuation
Why will you die O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?

The problem is that things change! They should stay the same. There should be joy without pain. With no fluctuation there would be no nostalgia or desire! We must banish desire! Urizen labored hard in solitude for this conclusion, much like Buddha:

First I fought with the fire; consum’d
Inwards, into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Natures wide womb

And self balanc’d stretch’d o’er the void
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing, in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction

But unlike his eastern counterpart, Urizen writes a book about it:

Here alone I in books formd of metals
Have written the secrets of wisdom
The secrets of dark contemplation
By fightings and conflicts dire,
With terrible monsters Sin-bred:
Which the bosoms of all inhabit;
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.

Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.

So, this has got to be a good thing right?

Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
One King, one God, one Law. (U4:6-40)

The problem is that it doesn’t work. To give the Reader’s Digest version— skipping the seven ages of woe that followed, and the division after division of people and their qualities— the imperfect world remains. Urizen is reason without imagination, rent from the side of imagination weakening both. His law creates dark places, indeed. While Urizen’s law sounds like the Old Testament law of God— it is not. It was born in darkness, far away from the busy, social universe of God— it can only create more darkness. Learning to tell the difference between God’s law and the malaise which results when we attempt to create humanity’s law in solitude was in many ways Blake’s life mission. As for Urizen, well:

He in darkness clos’d, view’d all his race,
And his soul sicken’d! he curs’d
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.

For he saw that life liv’d upon death (U23:22-27)

Blogging is dead. Long live blogging.

Wordsworth and Blake

Isn’t it Iconic?— William Blake takes on William Wordsworth

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Romantic principles, thought by most survivors of survey courses in English literature to be exemplified by the golden boy Wordsworth, are filled with retraction and contradiction. Iconic principles of romanticism beg to be smashed— they were while the “romantic” poets were writing. Conventional lumping strategies in pedagogy presuppose that the romantic poets had a consistency created through proximity in time. Actually, most of these poets had little in common. Some were at least internally consistent, others weren’t. Wordsworth could have easily been the poster boy for inconsistency and the model for Emerson’s comment. In deep contrast to the 1800 Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth both expands and undercuts the iconic stricture that personal reflection is the hallmark of poetry in his Preface to Poems from 1815:

THE POWERS requisite for the production of poetry are: first, those of Observation and Description,— i.e. the ability to observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and with fidelity to describe them, unmodified by any passion or feeling existing in the mind of the describer; whether the things depicted be actually present to the senses, or have a place only in the memory. This power, though indispensable to a Poet, is one which he employs only in submission to necessity, and never for a continuance of time: as its exercise supposes all the higher qualities of the mind to be passive, and in a state of subjection to external objects, much in the same way as a translator or engraver ought to be to his original. 2ndly, Sensibility,— which, the more exquisite it is, the wider will be the range of a poet’s perceptions; and the more will he be incited to observe objects, both as they exist in themselves and as re-acted upon by his own mind.

William Blake annotated a copy of Wordsworth’s Poems of 1815. Under those lines in the preface, he wrote:

One Power alone makes a Poet — Imagination The Divine Vision

Wordsworth goes on to describe five elements of poetic composition. Observation, as noted above, is the least important quality— because in Wordsworth’s scheme, it must be valueless, and thus passive. What naturally follows this line of thought is— nature, though devoid of emotion, should not be described filtered through the emotions of an observer. This is certainly contrary to Wordsworth’s practice, and the assertion that perception is a passive act surely raised William Blake’s eyebrows. Observation— for Blake— was never passive. He was much like Coleridge in feeling that imagination was active, and reached out to constitute the world in perception. Wordsworth’s trip from “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility” to the enumeration of “requisite powers” reflects a shift from a social “man speaking to men” to philosopher endlessly reworking his poems into tortured messes. Blake blamed the problem on Wordsworth’s idolatry of nature:

I see in Wordsworth the Natural Man rising up against the Spiritual Man Continually & then he is No Poet but instead a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry or Inspiration

Though puzzled by Wordsworth, Blake carefully read and noted his opinions. Underneath “My heart leaps up,” containing the lines “And I could wish my days to be / Bound each by each to natural piety” Blake wrote:

There is no such thing as Natural Piety Because the Natural Man is at Enmity with God

Blake indicted Rousseau for the same reason; he felt that the natural state of man was barbarity, and that man was only saved through religion— and that religion had no analogue in nature. You might get the impression that Blake hated Wordsworth. This isn’t the case— Blake put x’s near many poems in the volume, and commented favorably on them in his conversations with Crabbe-Robinson. Blake thought Wordsworth was misdirected— a crap theorist, though a fine poet. Underneath “To HC: Six Years Old” Blake wrote:

This is all in the highest degree Imaginative & equal to any Poet but not Superior I cannot think that Real Poets have any competition None are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven so it is so in Poetry

This is a thought I can agree with. I never sought to pit Henry Miller against Wordsworth in a celebrity death-match, though I figure that the old drunkard could take him easily. I also found myself just nodding in agreement reading Blake’s take on the role of natural objects in poetry. The whole nature schtick seems to be a red herring, and there is a lot to value in Wordsworth that has nothing to do with gazing at the brush waiting for God to come out.

Natural Objects always did & now do Weaken deaden & obliterate Imagination in Me Wordsworth must know that what he Writes Valuable is Not to be found in Nature

The contradiction of observing dispassionately in order to recall passionately surely didn’t escape Wordsworth. It is paradoxical at best, and yet this premise is the cornerstone of disengaged documentary work. Power, I think, is as Blake asserts, in imagination alone. The strictures that all of us “foolish hobgoblins” write and then violate (myself included) are in deep contrast with the practice of passionate human beings. Wordsworth’s prefaces are studies in inconsistency, and the compilation of them in his Poems of 1815 certainly puzzled Blake.

I do not know who wrote these Prefaces they are very mischievous & direct contrary to Wordsworth’s own Practice

It is truly amazing how consistent Blake was in his own theory and practice. Perhaps, as Emerson says, it’s because that consistency attracts “philosophers and divines.” Blake managed to keep himself busy enough, up until the end— foolish consistency and all.

Blake had interesting theories about solitude, which I will go into in another post. It seems unlikely that Emerson knew anything about Blake, because his mind certainly wasn’t small. Though proximate in time, it wasn’t until after 1870 that Blake became well known to literary circles. Blake was— to his own time— a lunatic on the fringe. Blake wasn’t the sort of dispassionate, faithful engraver that Wordsworth mentions in his preface either— all his engravings were informed by observation actively infused with imagination— hardly a state of subjection. This, he would never abide.

Isn't it Ironic

Isn’t it Ironic?

My capacity for subtlety must be getting stronger. One weird critique of my work has stuck with me for years— “You aren’t very subtle, are you?” I took this to heart, though it was meant in jest. I strive for directness, but directness is not always equivalent with a lack of complexity or subtlety. It makes me feel good that I made Tom ponder my little indictment of Wordsworth. It was meant to have a certain irony.

There was a lot I wanted to say when I wrote “You’re soaking in it,” but I thought it best to leave it vague. There’s a big split between romantic theory and practice, and I want to write about it at greater length. Even still, I find it more attractive than social constructivism, where everything is reduced to the constitutive nature of social practice. It’s hard to consolidate individuality with appetite. That’s what I was really pondering. I have my own share of problems with Wordsworth— though I admire him— and in reflection, most of those problems are contained in his prefaces rather than his poetry. I’m trying to figure out whether it’s irony, or just misfortune.

”It’s like rain on your wedding day / A free ride, when you’ve already paid”— Alanis knows only misfortune, not irony. Wordsworth, I suspect, was smarter than that. But the contradictory nature of his writings and poetry are maddening. There’s more musing to come on that topic, but for now I just wanted to check the perception of irony on the web. Irony.com provides help for those into role playing games. Unfortunately, Ironymag is for women who lift weights. Irony Maiden is for fans of Daria, but thankfully, Irony Plug-ins are available. This site has an admirable aim:

We are a charitable institution, founded in 1996, devoted to ensuring that standards of English comprehension are maximised throughout the World Wide Web. Our research revealed what many had previously suspected, and reported informally - certain web users were incapable of recognising, let alone using, irony or sarcasm. Problems associated with this included:

• inability to appreciate humour more complex than Benny Hill or Adam Sandler comedies;
  
• difficulty distinguishing between emails and websites satirising other people's beliefs, and emails and websites that actually promote those beliefs;
  
• fundamentalist religious beliefs and political naivety;
  
• general stupidity.

Reflecting on the joys of sociality while alone in a bathtub was not meant to be unfortunate, but rather, ironic. I’m still undecided whether Wordsworth, Emerson, and Thoreau’s celebration of solitude was ironic or unfortunate. I’ve been reading a lot of Blake today, comparing his thoughts on solitude. I think it’s the solitude=reflection equation that bothers me most. Blake saw problems with it too. There will be more solitary reflections to come.

You're Soaking in it

You’re soaking in it

I gave up. I was frantically looking for a bit from Henry Miller regarding the difference in attitude between the French and the Americans. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: In America, they teach their children that they can grow up to be president. In France, there is no such delusion. They grow up happier as a result, and more comfortable with who they are. Miller was quick to spot that romantic/pragmatic strain in American thought which brings with it the albatross of possibility, and the sinking feeling that remains when you don’t grow up to be president, and are forever doomed to be who you are instead of someone set apart, special, and above all different from everyone else. But I couldn’t find the quote.

I decided to soak in a tub instead. Something Mike Sanders said was bugging me. “Introspection must ultimately be done in private.” This is of course the hallmark of Wordsworthian romanticism, and goes along with the definition of poetry in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads:

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

This delineation of introspection as constitutive of feeling and more significantly, that the feelings which come from memory are the most powerful ones of all, has colored Western society— feeling is taken as a private rather than public, reflective rather than reactive, individual rather than collectively consitituted response. This is deeply at odds with human appetites. Humanity is far more social than that. Coleridge, no matter how much he agreed with Wordsworth in theory, subverted it in practice. He was loquacious, providing a great deal of his introspection in public. Thinking of the contradictions of publicly generated privacy gave me a headache, and I really needed to soak my head.

The water was hot, and in the tranquility of the bathtub, I turned to contemplate the interface between my skin and the water. Getting in, I felt this surge of energy, of relaxation as the heat of the water transferred itself to me. I started to remember what it was like to stand in a drunken crowd while it was sweating and dancing— giving off kinetic, thermal energy. It was like a social bath. Friction gives off heat, even when you rub ice-cubes together. As long as the interaction persists, friction generates heat.

After a time, the water in the tub cooled. For a short, transparent, interlude its temperature matched my own. An equilibrium of sorts, a moment where the outside and inside become one. This can happen while you’re alone— but it can also happen in a crowd of people, though it never lasts. Balance shifts as the water cools, and your skin wrinkles and eventually you just have to get out. The pendulum swings from immersion to isolation, as you begin to give up more heat than you get in return. “Hell is other people,” as Sartre says.

Feelings that live only as memory are reconstituted with disillusionment and longing. Writing, as some would say, is born there— in suffering and frustration, in egocentrism and withdrawl— because while immersed in the heat of society, there is no time to think. There is only time to act. Yes, you too can be president, or a famous writer if you withdraw and jot down your thoughts afterward. My thoughts are a bit like Henry Miller’s:

“Life,” said Emerson, “consists in what a man is thinking all day.” If this be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine. I not only think about food all day, but I dream about it at night. But I don’t ask to go back to America, to be put in double harness again, to work the treadmill. No, I prefer to be a poor man of Europe. God knows, I am poor enough; it only remains to be a man. (Tropic of Cancer 69)

I suppose I’d have to modify it a bit. I think of sex more than food and I wish for society more than I wish for solitude. No fantasies of the solitary (though famous) artist for me. I think about how long it took to divest myself of those conceptions of being a “real” anything. I suppose I’m fortunate, having gone through that chase to be a “real” photographer that I am totally unconcerned with being a “real” writer. Though staunchly romanticist in many ways, I also agree with Miller’s anti-romantic attitude toward creation:

People are always worried about the fate of the genius. I never worried about the fate of the genius: genius takes care of the genius in a man. My concern was always for the nobody, the man who is lost in the shuffle, the man who is so common, so ordinary, that his presence is not even noticed. One genius does not inspire another. All geniuses are leeches, so to speak. They feed from the same source— the blood of life. The most important thing for the genius is to make himself useless, to be absorbed in the common stream, to become a fish again and not a freak of nature.

The only benefit, I reflected, which the act of writing could offer me was to remove the differences which separated me from my fellow-man. I definitely did not want to become the artist, in the sense of becoming something strange, something apart from the current of life. (“Why Don’t You Try to Write?”)

The fringes are too crowded already. Too many people spouting “emotions recollected in tranquility.” I think I’d prefer a warm bath, and that feeling of my skin dissolving in the water, taking all that disillusion away. Genius can, and does, take care of itself. But more than that, I’d prefer the outrageousness of society, particularly of the sort described by Henry Miller. I lived in it for a time, and I do miss it:

Met William Carlos Williams the other night and had a rousing good time with him at Hiler’s place. Holty arrived with two dopey brothers-in-laws, one of whom played the piano. Everybody crocked, including Lisette. Just before all hands passed out someone yelled— “All art is local”— which precipitated a riot. After that, nothing is clear. Hiler sits in his drawers, with legs crossed, and plays “Believe it Beloved,” another hit of the season. The janitor comes, and raises hell— he was an avatar of Mussolini. Then come the Dockstaeder Sisters who write for the pulps. After that Monsieur Bruine who has been in America 39 years and looks exactly like a Frenchman. He is in love with a dizzy blonde from the Vanities. Unfortunately she got so drunk that she puked all over him while sitting in his lap. He’s cured of her now.
(Letter to Alfred Perlès)

Sounds like a party to me. You can keep the whole tranquility, solitude, and privacy thing. I’ve had enough of this splendid isolation. Imagination in private is fine, but imagination in public is much better. I’m getting impatient again. This always happens when I spend too much time alone.

Romantic?

Nelson News

Reason to Believe

Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and the Teaching of Writing by Hephzibah Roskelley and Kate Ronald promises to be an interesting read.

The subheading on the title page doesn’t match. It reads: “Romanticism, Pragmatism, and the Possibility of Teaching.” Perhaps this reflects an earlier working title. I like it better, myself. This situates the book in the continuing debate (since Plato) regarding the very possibility of education. Indeed, the title of the first chapter reflects concern over these issues— “Is Teaching Still Possible?”

What lead me to this book was its engagement with Romantic ideology. While the book is specifically focused on American Romanticism, Emerson in particular, the general principles are of importance to me. This book is the only rhetorical scholarship listed in the Bedford Bibliography that deals with Romanticism and pedagogy in a positive light. Elsewhere, Romanticism is a demon to be slain. Here, the authors propose that engagement with the issues debated during the Romantic period can be a redemptive force in writing pedagogy.

Chapter one opens with contemporary theory. Chapter two continues the discussion, and procedes into American history. The third chapter provides careful consideration of Emerson, Thoreau, Fredrick Douglass, and Margaret Fuller. The fourth deals with pragmatism, and the fifth, neo-pragmatism. Chapter six deals with the presentation of romantic pedagogy in Dead Poet’s Society, and the final chapter presents real world examples of teachers using the romantic/pragmatic method.

Preface

The book opens with a quote from Bruce Springsteen, and ends with an inscription by Emerson. The authors found it in an attic, and it provides a great way to kick off the book. They snuck up to the attic of Old Manse— an area of the Emerson home not open to the public— and found some graffiti. It crossed several generations: Emerson’s grandfather, his father, and perhaps his aunt Mary Moody. The progression went like this:

Holy and happy stand
In consecrated gown
Toil till some angel hand
Bring sleep and shroud and crown.

Another had added:

Peace to the soul of the blessed dead;
Honor the ambition of the living.

And finally, in Emerson’s spidery script and signed with his initials, we read:

I visited this room and read the inscriptions of the souls gone before. (xiii)

The past can give a sense of the future, in terms of possibilities. Citing Ann Berthoff’s concept of a “usable past,” the authors provide this inscription to their project:

To understand the story of the past and of the present as mutually reinforcing, and to find in both stories a reason to believe. (xiv)

While the positivism reflected here seems a bit pollyannaish, it is consistent with their Emersonian foundation. I can’t help but think of Harold Blooms attitude toward history as counterpoint. The present exists not as a reinforcement of the past, but as the insistent annihilation of it. Rather than saying that the present and past are mutually reinforcing— I would prefer to see them as interdependent. I resist the positivism of American Romanticism— just because a connection with the past exists, this connection does not logically lead to the conclusion that the relationship is either positive or negative. It just is. Perhaps I prefer the irony and skepticism of the British Romantics, who saw both positive and negative elements in the construction of a mythic past. Understanding the connection does seem vitally important to me though, regardless of my resistance to golden age thinking.

One of the illusions though, that this book seeks to dispel is that romanticism (in the imaginative sense) and pragmatism (in the practical sense) are oppositional terms. As I have often said around here, I find my imagination to be the most practical tool of all.

Chapter 1: Is Teaching Still Possible?

The first chapter positions the aim of this book against ongoing critical conversation. The chapter title is taken from a book of the same name by Anne Berthoff, and the opening inscription from Berthoff seems reminiscent of Coleridge:

That species-specific capacity for thinking about thinking, for interpreting interpretations, for knowing about knowledge, is, I think, the chief resource for any teacher and the ground of hope in the enterprise of teaching reading and writing. (1)

Roskelly and Ronald’s [R&R’s] book grows from a belief that composition can “reinvigorate its work with a sense of hope, mission, and passion,” a belief that has been “lost, or at least hidden, gone underground in the current ‘social turn’ in composition” (1). In order to do this, they must substantiate claims that the “social turn” represents a loss of faith. On the anti-romantic side, the authors cite Jane Tompkins’s “Pedagogy of the Distressed,” Susan Miller’s “The Death of the Teacher,” Stephen North’s “Revisiting ‘The Idea of a Writing Center,’” and George Will’s “Why Johnny Can’t Write.” (3-12).

“Pedagogy of the Distressed” (which I haven’t read) leans heavily into Peter Elbow’s “Writing Without Teachers,” arguing for a student-centered classroom. It also, in the summation provided by R&R, seems to echo James Berlin’s views which I have summarized before. “Teacher’s always preach some gospel or another” (3). Theory influences practice, in these views (which I share), but not in all views. Stanley Fish is set up as counterpoint: “there is no direct causal relationship between one’s account of one’s practice and the actual shape of that practice.” I suspected that R&R misread Fish, as they assert that a “direct causal relationship” need not be “the only relationship they might maintain,” because Fish’s wording is careful, and he does not assert that direct relationships of causality are the only ones to consider. Anyone who has read Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” would be aware of that strain exists between theory and practice. The relationship need not be direct; this is stating the obvious. Though later, it is made clear where Stanley Fish really stands: “I have nothing to sell except the not very helpful news that practice has nothing to do with theory” (18).

R&R interpret the surrender of control in the classroom to students to tiredness, citing Tomkin’s assertion that her decision was based on a pragmatic conclusion: “on the practical plane I did it because I was tired.” The lack of theoretical underpinning is taken as an unforgivable sin. This is not the case with “The Death of the Teacher.” In a complex theoretical article, Miller argues that “the postmodern teacher cannot adopt the historical role of Father, the ‘good man’ that Cicero and Quintilian advocated,” and they also can’t adopt the roll of Mother, who invades students lives by getting personal. Miller argues that teachers should be relational rather than personal in the classroom. Building communities, the foundation of social-constructivist praxis, is taken by Miller to be a myth. In R&R’s response, both of these articles proclaim that there is no reason to believe (5-6).

North’s “Revisiting ‘The Idea of a Writing Center’” is a revisionist article which replaces a formerly “romantic” stance that teaching writing is idealistic, replacing it with a tired pragmatism. Work overload, in the time that separates the initial article with its revision, is taken to account for North’s narrowed perspective regarding the work that writing centers are supposed to do (12).

I’ll have to locate Will’s “Why Johnny Can’t Write.” someday. I see it cited all the time. It’s often used as a straw dog to beat up on. It contains assertions such as: writing teachers celebrate “inarticulateness and error as proof of authenticity” (12). Empirical studies have shown pretty conclusively that focusing on error does not lead to its eradication— it generally just causes students to hate writing classes. Claiming that recognizing this is a “celebration” of error is downright hilarious. It just means that informed writing teachers don’t worry about it as much. I’ve seen this work well. Yes, it is important to identify error— but not to harp on it. Error generally gets corrected, with practice, not by drilling on it. I’ve seen this work in the classroom. What R&R accuse Will of is not “thinking about thinking” enough.

What bonds these views together is “a sense of diminished hope and a retreat from action, a sense of how to name problems but no vocabulary for naming solutions” (13). The more I encounter the alternative, most often in citations from Paulo Freire, the more I decide I need to read more Freire:

The idea that hope alone will transform the world, and action undertaken in that kind of naiveté, is an excellent route to hopelessness. But the attempt to do so without hope, in struggle to improve the world, as if that struggle could be reduced to calculated acts alone, or a purely scientific approach, is a frivolous illusion. (13)

Another interesting citation here, is Freire’s proposal of two necessary conditions: “rage and love, without which their is no hope” (14). R&R propose that when North lost his rage regarding the problems of writing centers, he lost a lot of his hope. The connection here is one that I can easily empathize with. An alternative to the negative view I hadn’t encountered before is the thought of Cornel West. Of course, West’s extension of the concerns of an academic to the world outside the classroom has gotten him into a lot of trouble this year. Unifying theory and practice has its hazards. R&R review the usage of theory and practice as an oppositional dyad in the same manner as opposing knowledge and meaning, or theory and story. Overlapping some of these conceptions always results in a minimization of story (experience) in favor of science (theory).

The declared aim of the book is to unite the two, through a revisionist history. Not exactly original, but thought provoking none the less.

Chapter 2: The Doctrine of Use: Seeds of Romantic / Pragmatic Rhetoric

[The tragicomic vision] encourages me to put a premium on garnering resources from a vanishing past in a decadent present in order to keep alive a tempered hope for the future, a hope against hope that human empathy and compassion may survive against the onslaught of human barbarity, brutality, and bestiality.

—Cornel West, Keeping Faith

This use of the world includes the preceding uses, as parts of itself.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

The invocation of parallel visions of the utility of history provides the beginning of an exploration of the American experience. Discussing Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America, R&R label Mike Rose’s connection of thought and action and his emphasis on hope and possibility as exemplary of the romantic / pragmatic stance. The aim of Reason to Believe is to explore the foundations of this ideology through people who consciously or unconsciously support principles found in the American Romantics— the standard bearers, for Rose, seem to be John Dewey and Walt Whitman.

I must take exception with a poorly phrased assertion near the onset of all this: “Romanticism became a term set out by Wordsworth in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (30). This is inexcusable. Wordsworth never used the term romanticism, and it would have turned his stomach to have it applied to him. In the Preface, Wordsworth tears into those “sickly German Tragedies,” which were labeled as “romantic” in his day. Romanticism is a construction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and as a movement had no meaning to Wordsworth. The attitude of his preface is largely pragmatic, and in deep contrast with the actual poetic practice in this collection of poems. The term, present from the Middle Ages, has gone through so many redefinitions that assigning it to Wordsworth alone is horribly myopic.

However, the assertion that “romanticism and pragmatism together construct a rhetoric uniquely suited, as Whitman says, to ‘creating America’” seems well placed (31). The terms “romantic” and “rhetorical” are often taken as oppositional, stemming from the deep wound descended from Aristotle, who separated rhetoric from poetry. The definition of rhetoric as being purely pragmatic and practical— crafted to persuade— denies the value laden and poetic components of all language. R&R note the stereotypical usages of pragmatism and rhetoric, while dangerously stereotyping romanticism themselves.

I do agree that the opposition of rhetorical and romantic stances has dominated the conversation in compositionist studies. “There has been, in theory if not in practice, an unwavering line drawn between ‘expressive discourse’ and discourse that ‘persuades’ or ‘refers/informs’” (33). The schemes enumerated include Kinneavy’s divisions of discourse built on target audience: “expressive (writer), referential (subject), persuasive (audience), and literary (text),” as well as Emig: “reflexive” and “extensive” and Flower’s similar arguments regarding writer and reader-based prose. The process movement, in my estimation, was expressivism cloaked in a more palatable, less “romantic” theoretical structure. The problem is, most authors equate romanticism with anti-social and anti-societal aims (35). Reflexive discourse (inner directed) need not be anti-anything, though it often is. The division between rhetoric and romanticism seems to be fueled by the secessionary nature of Rhetoric departments, fighting to hold their own against literary studies.

A new lead: Romancing Rhetorics by Sherrie Gradin deals with this subtopic: “The result has been the construction of oppositions in which expressivism is relegated to the position of weak ‘other’” (36). Part of the indictment of expressivism deals with a perception of romantic principles as “messy, ineffectual and elitist” (37). Also summoned into this backdrop is what R&R consider to be a “less well articulated and more stereotypical response” to the indictment of Romanticism: Ross Winterowd’s 1992 “Where is English? In the Garden or the Agora?” (36).

And then, finally, the chapter turns to history. The roots of American romanticism are deeply twisted around puritan ethics. As more of a student of British romanticism, I sort of wonder at the nearly monolithic nature of dissent in America. In the British version, each writer constructed, to a certain extent, his own “version” of what Christianity was, whereas the Americans seem to be much more cohesive in just what being a “puritan” meant. One of the considerations cited by R&R is that the Americans were forced into a more cohesive community due to the imperatives of survival (38). Thus, pragmatism and romanticism in America were born side-by-side in a way not reflected in the previously established British version. I would add to this, the consideration that the practicalities of war and revolution colored the British version with a cynicism that is not found in most variants of the American version, or German romanticism, which seems to me (at a glance, I’m not that familiar with it) as much more self-involved. However, R&R’s perception of the differences are much closer to the status quo. The label British Romanticism as “self-involved” and credit American romanticism with provincially laudatory aspects:

For North American romantics, in contrast, self from the beginning was created both socially and individually. Americans were, as Stephen Spender says, those “without a past.” (39)

How pompous and arrogant can you get! Continuing, they undermine this assertion by saying “the link between individual and emerging national identity was embodied in the Christian dogma that propelled the Puritans’ experiment in Massachusetts” (40). How can you proclaim that there was no past for America at this time, when it clearly emerged from dissenting movements from England? One might just as easily argue that the American version of this dissent represents only an atrophied splinter of a more dynamic history unfolding in England.

The missionary zeal of the Americans is recounted through Winthrop to Cotton Mather, and finally R&R settle on Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter as the benchmark text on matters of the individual vs. the social (40-43). The challenges of the frontier, in their reading of history, forced a sublimation of individuality. Or, better, as they would have it, early Americans “transcended personality”— meaning not the loss of individuality, but “grounding individuality in the community at large” (44). “Literacy was linked not only to religious principle, but to the more practical end of establishing a method for preservation and enhancement of the colony” (45). Puritan rhetoric is built upon a sense of contingency, where the personal must be submerged for the betterment of the community. There was a sense of experimentation that is uniquely American (at least on this point, I’ll agree with them) because tradition did not adequately answer the challenges of a new nation (47).

The captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson is summoned next. It was a favorite of Dr. Jim Levernier’s, so I’ve experienced more nuanced readings of what is really going in it. R&R summon it as a comparison between the native tribal customs and the new Americans, stating that they both employ, due to the nature of the land itself, a doctrine of use(48-50). The American outlook is defined by Benjamin Franklin shortly afterward: “Practicality, situation-dependent action and belief, community, and individual will were the hallmarks of ideal American character” (52). However, the fruition of these historical tactics is found in the work of Ann Ruggles Gere’s research into writing groups:

The dynamic role of groups, as Gere describes them, and their dialectical purpose— to establish community and individual identity— define two philisophical postions that help characterize romantic / pragmatic rhetoric: the belief in the individual knower as potential truth-finder and the belief that the outcomes of knowing were the property of everyone. (53)

Returning to Cornel West, they quote his four aims:

1. Broad and deep analytical grasp of the present in the light of the past
   
2. Connection or human empathy
   
3. Tracking hypocrisy
   
4. Hope
   

The summation of the chapter rests on a rather abbreviated and, in my view, flawed nationalistic premise. I’m disappointed so far.

Chapter 3: Romantic Dialectics and the Principle of Mediation

The book got better suddenly. This chapter opens with consideration of Emerson’s “American Scholar,” and reconsideration of the Transcendentalist attitude toward self. Cornel West asserts in The American Evasion of Philosophy that Emerson is the writer who prefigures the themes of American pragmatism, because he “took is ideals for realities, believed them to be part of real and possible action,” and that Emerson proposed “an inseparable link between thought and action” (56). R&R accuse that scholarship on Emerson has been confined to the attitudes he conveyed in “Self Reliance,” which seem to justify the “Captains of Industry” attitudes of American capitalism. Their point is that Emersonian rhetoric systematically undercuts this form of thinking, and rests rather on a social foundation as Emerson also proposes that individuals “consider whether you have satisfied your duties to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat and dog . . .” (57). West sees in Emerson an awareness of the inequities of power that most critics ignore.

Emerson’s ideas are focused on both the individual and private, and the responsibility of the individual within the community. R&R attempt to show how Emerson’s thought diverges from Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, who were also “romantic,” but were romantic in a more stereotypically European way (58). The tentativeness of Emerson’s language, his response to progress, and his misreading (to me) resembles the way that Wordsworth is often pigeonholed as solely a nature lover. I particularly like their citation of Emerson’s thoughts on language:

All language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. (58)

The relationship between self and community in Emerson is described wonderfully: “Self-reliance builds itself on that paradox, that one finds community in self and self in community” (59). R&R remark that very little of the “personal self” is revealed in Emerson’s writings, and later, they say the same thing of Thoreau. The reflection in this chapter on Walden attempts to demonstrate that Thoreau was constantly referring to attributes of community in nature, and had internalized Emerson’s thought on the relations of individual vs. community to such an extent that though he was writing a solitary journal, concern regarding community dominates. Even in retreating into the woods, the importance of community was never far from his concern, even if that community didn’t include much in the way of people (60-62). I really agree with Thoreau’s apology over using I so frequently: “I should not talk so much of myself if there were anyone else I knew so well” (63).

A discussion of Fredrick Douglass and Margaret Fuller follows, ending in the summation that “Douglass anticipates autobiography as manifesto; Fuller obviously prefigures modern and postmodern Feminism” (64-68). Hawthorne’s ugly reaction to Fuller is summoned, with the conclusion: “Hawthorne’s condescending venom betrays his own difficulties with the ‘dark lady’ who is both strong and intelligent” (68). We’ve all got issues, now don’t we?

The “mediating principles” which close out the chapter are those of individual vs. society, and technology vs. nature. The responses, in the case of all romantics, are hardly simple. Though the authors slight the European version, they do bring new depth to the American flavor of romanticism.

Chapter 4: Imperfect Theories: The Pragmatic Question of Experience and Belief

[We] learn to prefer imperfect theories and sentences which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

The opening of this chapter echoes what is to me the rallying cry of William Blake’s romanticism. “History and society lead people to lean toward predetermined structures, set systems, and traditional categories.” R&R cite Emerson’s comment published just after “Self-Reliance “was published:

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them. (79)

The aim of this chapter is to paint a picture of American pragmatism as a work in progress, built from a paradoxical view of technology as both useful tool, and potential threat, to humanity.

The precepts of pragmatism are set forth in these tenets:

• The most important subject of in inquiry is human experience.
  
• Inquiry is a process of observation, hypothesizing, and experimenting.
  
• Human experience is always the test of conclusions.
  
• The more varied the sites of inquiry, and the greater the number of inquirers, the more useful their conclusions.
  
• An idea is defined by its consequences.
  
• Inquiry into underlying principles brings opposing ideas into relationship.
  
• This process of inquiry leads inquirers into contingent truths. (85)
  

Dewey expressed a “faith in the continued disclosing of truth through cooperative human endeavor” and James, the idea that pragmatism meant “looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking after last things, fruits, consequences, facts” (85). Blake, and the Sophists, would have embraced this sort of “man is the measure” thinking. as well as the contingency of truth. However, the emphasis on multiple inquirers is different, American, and democratic.

The only difficult premise for me here is that an idea must always be judged by its consequences. To adopt this, half of the precepts by which humanity operates could be thrown out. Does the extension of life by medicine improve life? This could be challenged on a dozen counts, from overpopulation to poor management of resources. That precept does reek of Darwinist determinism, and I really have to think about it further. The focus on consequence rather than cause seems counter to continued scientific investigation as well. Perhaps this is one reason why this theory does seem to me to be quite imperfect.

However, the purpose of this chapter is not to look for the flaws in either pragmatism nor romanticism; instead R&R are looking to situate them as companion philosophies. Citing West again, the characterize the work of the Metaphysical club as “principally interested in demystifying science and, a few, in modernizing religion” (86). The collision between science and belief, and the willingness of pragmatism’s founders to grant belief a place in the scheme of things is highlighted. Pierce and James are noted for their belief that faith can “help create the fact.” James, in particular, felt that facts “contain interpretive, individual, passionate elements and are subject to change given changes in an in individuals and contexts” (87). What attracts me most though, is their citation of Freire:

Dreaming is not only a necessarily political act, it is an integral part of the historico-social manner of being a person. . . .There is no change without dream, as there is no dream without hope. (87)

James’s characterization of experience as a “weasel word” is quite fun. Experience is both subjective and objective; experience cannot be an either / or decision— experience becomes synonymous with method (88). “In a dynamic universe, individual inquiries are never completely true” (89). R&R see pragmatism as illuminating American romanticism by explaining why the individual must always be mediated by the group (90). The overall emphasis seems to be that belief can only be justified by confirmation with a group. This really does explain my aversion to American romanticism.

The remainder of the chapter is focused on Dewey’s approach to education in America, a subject I’d like to do more reading on. However, the sorry taste of “group consciousness raising” comes out in the backend of the chapter, and I feel certain that there are elements that are oversimplified which if I were more deeply read in American writers, I could more faithfully engage.

Chapter 5: A Way of Seeing is also A Way of Not Seeing:
Whatever Happened to Romanticism and Pragmatism?

Dewey’s work on education is set up as a high-water mark by both Cornel West and R&R. The difficulty of understanding pragmatism, which has made me read this all rather slowly, rests in its contradictions. At once, it is said to emphasize consequence rather than cause— and yet, it is painted as emphasized as favoring pure research. It is described as anti-systematic, and yet it supposedly supports scientific methods. It seems to be a matter of scale. This chapter describes pragmatism as being the study of “mind, knowledge, emotion, and connections to social and political structures rather than productivity, distribution, immediate outcome” (100). Pragmatism is construed as a “messy, time-consuming investigation into bases and consequences” (101).

The problem of pragmatism is characterized in its reliance on Darwinian principles:

• Survival of the fittest
  
• Increasing diversity
  
• Increasing complexity
  
• Inevitablity
  

The interesting twist here, is the way the authors apply this information. They apply it to the world of educational theory, noting the increase in diversity and complexity to the theories adopted in critical studies. A theory cannot be adopted unless it is more complex than its precursors, and thus better (101). The problem is, this results in competition rather than conversation (102). The “pendulum swinging” has been rapid and sure in the relatively recent world of composition studies (103-106).

Because of the complexity of pragmatic exploration (due to its emphasis on long-term consequences), it was replace with the “cult of efficiency,” Fredrick Taylor’s system of “scientific management” (106-112). This is contrasted deeply with Dewey’s feeling that science was too seductive and easy:

It is very easy for science to be regarded as a guarantee that goes along with the sale of goods rather than as a light to the eyes and a lamp to the feet. It is prized for its prestige value rather than as an organ of personal illumination and liberation. (112)

Dewey is often characterized as emphasizing the practical, but he was a vocal critic of the supposed “scientific” approach to education.

R&R next take up the modern pragmatist Richard Rorty (113-114). The difference between neo-pragmatism and pragmatism is reduced to a different question. Instead of “What difference does it make?” the neo-pragmatist asks “What can we say?” (114). However, the most fascinating part of this chapter is occupied by a consideration of the evolutionary views of Stephen Jay Gould (115-121). Rather than a linear progression of increasing complexity, Gould’s work with the Burgess shale suggests that chance, one of the primary factors considered by the original pragmatists, indeed has as much of a bearing on the outcome of evolutionary forces as anything else. Increasing complexity, faced with the nature of survival itself, can sometimes abruptly end. Evolution need not branch, or transform in a linear fashion, in order to still be valid as a theory. Oddly enough, it almost seems reducible to the idea that shit happens. Understanding outcomes though, need not be hampered by this. It just points at the necessary contingency of any progression of thought, rather than its inevitability.

Chapter 6: Changing the Course of the Stream:
Romantic / Pragmatic Perspectives on Systems

The chapter opens with a discussion of the film Dead Poet’s Society.The teacher, played by Robin Williams, is taken to be an example of romantic / pragmatic rhetoric in action, though the object lesson of the film is that the efforts of the teacher are futile and ultimately destructive. The teacher leaves the academy, and nothing is changed. The use of American romantic figures in the film is taken to be exemplary, and the film, even with the reservations is celebrated. It amazes me how deeply this conflicts with a listserve conversation that flared up on NASSR-L (North American Society for the Study of Romanticism) last year. I decided it was worth revisiting those reactions, though it represents a digression from the book.

Claire Sparks initiated the conversation, asking what the perception of these (British, mostly) romanticists thought of the film. Sparks was disappointed by it. Debbie Olsen responded:

From a film theory perspective, Dead Poets Society speaks directly to male socialization in the US (similar to the theme of the masculine ideal in American Beauty).

Ralph Dumain, autodidact, responded with his typical venom:

That film was a real piece of crap. Makes me cringe remembering the bad experience. Robin Williams could not breathe any life into that preppie course. The woodenness and stiltedness of verything about it including the dialogue was just too embarrassing. Liberalism and boarding schools are just not a convincing combination in the America that 99.99% of the population actually populates. Even the artsy-fartsy crowd could not like this film. It takes a person who never had a taste of real life to buy this load of pretentious fake crapola.

PLease do tell how this prep school version of male WASPhood has any connection whatever to anything in society. From a film theory perspective, my ass. Now AMERICAN BEAUTY is something to discuss. It is ideologically fascist to the core, showing what inexhaustible reserves of contempt for humanity smolder in the burbs of America.

After Ralph’s outburst, the list moderator Avery Gaskins stepped in to suggest that discussion of a film that was only tangential to romanticism was appropriate, and that the flaming would not be allowed. But the discussion refused to die, as Marc Redfield stepped up to trash it too:

I’m going to risk Avery’s disapproval and post this short note: --if you’re interested in those aspects of Romanticism that go into the making of what some call “aesthetic ideology,” Dead Poets Society isn’t a bad text to examine, dreadful film though it be. Consider that the secret society winds up painting on its members’ foreheads the double-lightning bolt that Himmler made part of SS iconography.

Of course Ralph dutifully apologized:

My apology for going off half-cocked, but the very mention of two movies I detest triggered reflex actions, esp. in a context where the invocation of high-falutin theory seemed to superfluous and even comical given the obviousness of what was wrong with DEAD POETS SOCIETY and AMERICAN BEAUTY. The difference between the two is that the former was incompetent in every way, whereas AMERICAN BEAUTY was very well done and even compelling until its underlying ideology became manifest, i.e. the dehumanization and fascist implications of the detached voyeur treating degeneration and death as an object of detached aesthetic pleasure.

And the questions of what the film was about turned to the reductive pedagogy of teaching romanticism through a few shining exemplars:

Bracketing any consideration of its aesthetic demerits, I guess I’ve always thought that the most interesting questions that Dead Poets Society raises for Romanticists lie in the troubling metalepses it makes, (a) with British and American Romantic poetry (particularly Byron and Wordsworth) coming to represent ALL poetry, with the supposition (claim, really) that to teach Romanticism is to teach English; and (b) with Romanticism standing in for the release of adolescent male fantasies, for simplistic resistance to authority, and, simultaneously, for the reinscription of authoritarian and quasi-fascist (as others have pointed out) fantasies and role-playing in the cave to which the boys retire.

Imagine my surprise to find this film at the center of pedagogical praxis in a book on Romanticism and composition.

Personally, I loved the film— I thought it was entertaining, but exemplary of a caring attitude from a teacher, and not suggestive of a method. R&R submit that this is a common reaction for young teachers. They love the methods of Keating (the teacher in the film), but can’t take lessons from him because ultimately his methods fail. He is forced to leave the academy. I don’t see anything fascist about the portrayal of Keating, or the “secret society” fantasies. They seem realistic to me, as adolescents internalize the hierarchy of the authorities they are faced with. And as for the centrality of romanticism in the film, I am reminded of a comment of one of my instructors that “all literature after romanticism can be interpreted as a reaction to it.” R&R find some positive things to say about Keating:

Keating does attempt to live out a romantic pragmatism in the t