V
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Hear ye, hear ye!
Announcing the boldest move in remembered history since 1066 (and all that). Little Audrey and friends have been working for years and are now prepared to publish A Memorable Philosophy: Containing the briefest summary of sophistry a sophomore can instantaneously recall.
Here's how it works, guys, choose your favorite (or anti-favorite) philosopher and write up a precise on his life and works. Usually discouraged, sources may be used if necessary to avoid plagiarism. Wit is preferred, but accuracy is not required. Tag post or comment submissions with the line "Memorable Philosophy." Dueling entries will be handed a pair of foils. Submissions will be evaluated, critiqued, and edited by a team of highly sophisticated professionals. The results will be compiled for the authors' pleasure. If it is any good, the editors will consider more lucrative options for publication.
If you have any questions, ask away.
This should give you the general idea:
Socrates
Socrates is the father of philosophy because, like any good founder, patriarch, or ancestor, he is best known for dying (thus initiating a long and glorious tradition of discussing the meaning of life).
Early in life, Socrates heard an oracle declaring him the wisest man. Convinced that this was wrong, Socrates set about to prove it right. Through the dialectic method, he succeeded in demonstrating both his ability to ask pointed questions and his talent for confusing the original point.
After hearing him declare, “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing,” the Athenians promptly convicted him of atheism and corrupting Nietzsche. Socrates appealed by asking for money and calling himself a fly, clearly showing that he had never known the man. Since the Athenians did not believe in executing the insane, they merely asked him to have a drink.
Unfortunately, Socrates later drank himself to death. Upon his deathbed Socrates revealed the nature of the human soul, secrets of the after life, and the first rule of morality, “et tu brute,” meaning “eat true bread” (often mistranslated “drat you brute!”). The most important of these insights were, however, lost with the island of Atlantis.
Here's how it works, guys, choose your favorite (or anti-favorite) philosopher and write up a precise on his life and works. Usually discouraged, sources may be used if necessary to avoid plagiarism. Wit is preferred, but accuracy is not required. Tag post or comment submissions with the line "Memorable Philosophy." Dueling entries will be handed a pair of foils. Submissions will be evaluated, critiqued, and edited by a team of highly sophisticated professionals. The results will be compiled for the authors' pleasure. If it is any good, the editors will consider more lucrative options for publication.
If you have any questions, ask away.
This should give you the general idea:
Socrates
Socrates is the father of philosophy because, like any good founder, patriarch, or ancestor, he is best known for dying (thus initiating a long and glorious tradition of discussing the meaning of life).
Early in life, Socrates heard an oracle declaring him the wisest man. Convinced that this was wrong, Socrates set about to prove it right. Through the dialectic method, he succeeded in demonstrating both his ability to ask pointed questions and his talent for confusing the original point.
After hearing him declare, “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing,” the Athenians promptly convicted him of atheism and corrupting Nietzsche. Socrates appealed by asking for money and calling himself a fly, clearly showing that he had never known the man. Since the Athenians did not believe in executing the insane, they merely asked him to have a drink.
Unfortunately, Socrates later drank himself to death. Upon his deathbed Socrates revealed the nature of the human soul, secrets of the after life, and the first rule of morality, “et tu brute,” meaning “eat true bread” (often mistranslated “drat you brute!”). The most important of these insights were, however, lost with the island of Atlantis.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Burnt Norton, Section III, and IV
Long overdue they are, but here be the analysis of Burnt Norton Sections III and IV. Good news, we are almost to East Coker.
A recurring theme of the work seems to be “time present and time past” the contemplation of the past accompanied, or inspired by, the swift-flowing insolvency of the present. While the present is vivid, it is moving too swiftly to provide rest or answers. The past, is captured in staccato images—images that mix the beatific with the mundane, “garlic and sapphires in the mud.” Artistically, there is nothing to capture the poet in the past or the present; he must chase the future. Here, “is a place of disaffection…neither daylight / investing form with lucid stillness / nor darkness to purify the soul.” The scene is reminiscent of Dante’s Paradise for Pagans. There is a loveliness to it, but the scene is haunted by an incompleteness, a sense that so much more beauty would be possible, if you could only see the Sun. But, there is hope, this poet can and will strive for the Son. In an almost Siddharthic cleansing, the empty whirl of time and image are “emptying the sensual with deprivation / cleansing affection from the temporal / neither plenitude nor vacancy.”
Also, as in Limbo, the poet is not alone. In the congestion of nothing he is accompanied by people—or is it memories?—all filled with the same yearning, yet chasing it in different directions. “Distracted from distraction by distraction” like an over-caffeinated student writing a paper in the early morning, they get distracted from the bunny trails to chase the bunny trails, all the while forgetting that they were supposed to be hunting bear. They are reduced to “Men and bits of paper, whirled by a cold wind / that blows before and time after.” They yearn for the future, they can’t escape the past, but they so frantically chase the present that they drive themselves into the echoing dark. The wind of the present sweeps through London, consequently through all the world. Yet still, it is not an entirely unfriendly wind, or an empty darkness, “this twittering world” is still alive.
As the wind leaves London, so the poet leaves the present, physical world. He leaves the crowd, leaves the light, and descends from Limbo to the world that isn’t even a world—one might even say hell—the place of no light, no substance, no senses, no company, no spirit, not even an imagination—truly hell for the poet. The hell is not like Dante’s, not one of an excess of sensitivity, but an absence of all things. By an absolute stillness “while the world moves / in appetency, on its metalled ways / of time past and time future.”
But while the poet descends to the depths, where is “the twittering world”? It continues on, by custom and the natural order, where “time and the bell have buried the day.” This nightfall of sunfall will not follow the poet into the Stygian depths. The sunflower does not worship the ground, and the clematis clings only to the tallest trees. Yew, the ever-faithful wood, even it refuses to follow. Yet one thing of the natural world remains….the light still remains.
A recurring theme of the work seems to be “time present and time past” the contemplation of the past accompanied, or inspired by, the swift-flowing insolvency of the present. While the present is vivid, it is moving too swiftly to provide rest or answers. The past, is captured in staccato images—images that mix the beatific with the mundane, “garlic and sapphires in the mud.” Artistically, there is nothing to capture the poet in the past or the present; he must chase the future. Here, “is a place of disaffection…neither daylight / investing form with lucid stillness / nor darkness to purify the soul.” The scene is reminiscent of Dante’s Paradise for Pagans. There is a loveliness to it, but the scene is haunted by an incompleteness, a sense that so much more beauty would be possible, if you could only see the Sun. But, there is hope, this poet can and will strive for the Son. In an almost Siddharthic cleansing, the empty whirl of time and image are “emptying the sensual with deprivation / cleansing affection from the temporal / neither plenitude nor vacancy.”
Also, as in Limbo, the poet is not alone. In the congestion of nothing he is accompanied by people—or is it memories?—all filled with the same yearning, yet chasing it in different directions. “Distracted from distraction by distraction” like an over-caffeinated student writing a paper in the early morning, they get distracted from the bunny trails to chase the bunny trails, all the while forgetting that they were supposed to be hunting bear. They are reduced to “Men and bits of paper, whirled by a cold wind / that blows before and time after.” They yearn for the future, they can’t escape the past, but they so frantically chase the present that they drive themselves into the echoing dark. The wind of the present sweeps through London, consequently through all the world. Yet still, it is not an entirely unfriendly wind, or an empty darkness, “this twittering world” is still alive.
As the wind leaves London, so the poet leaves the present, physical world. He leaves the crowd, leaves the light, and descends from Limbo to the world that isn’t even a world—one might even say hell—the place of no light, no substance, no senses, no company, no spirit, not even an imagination—truly hell for the poet. The hell is not like Dante’s, not one of an excess of sensitivity, but an absence of all things. By an absolute stillness “while the world moves / in appetency, on its metalled ways / of time past and time future.”
But while the poet descends to the depths, where is “the twittering world”? It continues on, by custom and the natural order, where “time and the bell have buried the day.” This nightfall of sunfall will not follow the poet into the Stygian depths. The sunflower does not worship the ground, and the clematis clings only to the tallest trees. Yew, the ever-faithful wood, even it refuses to follow. Yet one thing of the natural world remains….the light still remains.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Sir Walter Scott
For your amusement, we present two short passages from Sir Walter Scott. This first excerpt is from Ivanhoe.
"Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the Minstrel?—He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides' families."
"I have heard the story," said Fitzurse, "though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances."
The second excerpt is from The Talisman, and is a footnote appended to an Islamic hymn. HT to Kristen for suggesting the passage.
The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their predominance in the system of the universe as all must view that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the Christian revelation. On our own part, we beg to add, that we understand the style of the translator is more paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are acquainted with the singularly curious original. The translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly substituted his own.
"Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the Minstrel?—He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides' families."
"I have heard the story," said Fitzurse, "though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances."
The second excerpt is from The Talisman, and is a footnote appended to an Islamic hymn. HT to Kristen for suggesting the passage.
The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their predominance in the system of the universe as all must view that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the Christian revelation. On our own part, we beg to add, that we understand the style of the translator is more paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are acquainted with the singularly curious original. The translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly substituted his own.
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