Jolene

This will be a less than engaged blog post, but forgive me. We all get one, do we not?

I was reading some of Shakespeare's sonnets, some of the selections in which Shakespeare really debases himself with the pretext of being in love, and I couldn't help but feel like Shakespeare was just not right in some respect. I mean, It feels noble to think of the lofty heights to which one would aspire in order to bring back some heavenly token of affection for their lover, but it is quite another, much more sickening and perverse thing to think about the depths to which one would descend as well. I was trying to think of a modern example of a similar debasement in the name of love, and one of my favorite songs of all time came to mind: "Jolene" by Dolly Parton. Laugh if you will, but Jolene is a figure mythological par excellence. "Your beauty is beyond compare/ with flaming locks of auburn hair/ and ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. Your smile is like a breath of spring, your voice is soft like summer rain, and I cannot compete with you Jolene." Jolene sounds in this first verse of the song like a praise-worthy nymph, but how much darker she turns out to be. Certainly she is more of a goddess of the underworld type. She is beautiful, as any goddess should be, but dangerous as well. insofar as the figure of the tripartite goddess is concerned, she plays the role of the dark side with great efficacy, most clearly representing the temptress: "He talks about you in his sleep/ There's nothing I can do to keep/ From crying when he calls your name, Jolene/ And I can easily understand/ How you could easily take my man/ But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene." If Ever I thought Shakespeare had brought himself to the lowest sphere of being for his lover, Dolly Parton of all people, up and proves me wrong. The song Jolene is a model of what the Shakespearean sonnet can become in the hands of a modern lover who is equally as sincere, and willing to go one step further than even Shakespeare himself in vying for the affections of their lover. To address ones problem face to face, to submit to the superiority of another lover, this is far lower than pretending to be the "Spaniel" of some lover, as Helena puts it. "I had to have this talk with you/ My happiness depends on you/ And whatever you decide to do, Jolene." And you thought you loved your significant otter? Would you not just cast her or him off if they were being unfaithful and saying the name of their illegitimate otter in their sleep? Othello up and kills Desdemona just because of an unconfirmed rumor about the act! 

I guess the main point of this was to show that, although Shakespeare has certainly been the recognized epitome of the lover/poet for the English language, he has not gone to such lengths as to entirely monopolize the language of love. Although the instances in which someone outdoes Shakespeare are few and far betwixt, they are there, serving as a reminder that genius, or at least sincerity, can come from even the unlikeliest of sources.  
Jolene (Alternate High Fidelity Version)

The 4th Wall

I feel like I should provide my own analysis to Nabokov's Symbols and Signs, if for no other reason than that it's very enigmatic, and the more angles we approach it from, the better.
So when I started reading it, I didn't really know what to expect. I knew what it was supposed to be about, but not the way in which it would be presented. I noticed that there were a lot of red-herring type of things in the story, which was to be expected, given its nature. What I determined then, was that the meaning probably had something to do with what was not being told to us, more so than what was. This makes analysis pretty difficult, since there are a lot of things not being told to us, but there are few things that are not so much addressed, but that may still be reasonably inferred. What I came up with was this:
The boy might have been right. The trees might have been whispering about him, and the thunder clouds far far away from his immediate sphere of consciousness might have been rolling out plots against him, and the whole world might have been out to get him if for no other reason than that it was his story. Everything in the story WAS about the boy in one way or another, so how was he supposed to escape that? He was just hearing all of the coughs in the proverbial audience, which no humans are supposed to hear, since to us there should be no audience, right? in other words, that fourth wall that actors are never supposed to break, don't look at the camera and all, that boundary has been recognized by the character in this story. Ironically it is supposed that the boy has a mental disease because, to the other members of the story, the character is not a character, he is a real person. So really the character who is crazy, is actually the boy who knows too much, and he is trying to tear a hole in his reality, so that he may join us in this one, which in a metaphorical way he has done, since we've all spent time thinking about him. The other idea posed, then, is that we may very well just be the characters like everyone else in the story, simply ignorant of the fact that the fourth wall exists. (This, of course, is a metaphor not to be taken literally. Please do not try to fly out of this reality and hurt yourself) And what better way to defeat a wall than to go over it? what better way to transcend the version of reality that we see, what greater freedom is there, than to fly?

Some sonnets, and icing on top

As I'm sure many people can relate to, it is not my greatest desire that people should read any poetry that I've written, since it is naturally such a personal thing. But because I was asked by the good doctor himself, I have posted my first few sonnets here just to provide some reference material for anyone who wants to write a sonnet, but doesn't want to be intimidated by Shakespeare. These sonnets are labeled with respect to the order in which I wrote them (which seems natural, when apposed to numbering them arbitrarily) so please excuse the shaky lift-off, as Sonnet 1 was the first sonnet that I have ever "completed" (though I am a firm believer in the Leonardo Da Vinci quote "l'arte non e' mai finita solo abbandonata [art is never finished, only abandoned]"). I may, by spring break, have a more advanced piece to send, but if not, it can be assumed that I mailed sonnet 5 if anyone were particularly curious.

Sonnet 1-  (not perfect iambic pentameter in line 3 [ending on what would be an unstressed syllable] and not, perhaps, my most eloquent effort)

So those who call to question of my love

may know the depths from which I draw them hence,

I'll sing them as a fountain's flowing of

the sweetest water ev'r upon their sense.

But never ceasing 'til they all but sink,

all so that then they cannot question more

the love I have which none shall dare to think

would fail to fill the seas from shore to shore,

and full as this would soon forsake their tides

for turning back when still they'd fill it more,

until at last the mountains love would hide

and prove this world a most unworthy store.

Let no man dare to think my mortal heart

could love you so without some deathless part

Sonnet 2 (this sonnet is what some might consider "unconventional")

Oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

What errant words are mine so often mean.

So nothing holding, faction fiction, dressed

to make the part listen just to glean

some right decision that does not exist,

so all I say is all my saying seems

just yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

What points I've missed have sharpened other dreams

which nothing are, so nothing also hold,

dissolve upon my tongue like sugar cubes

and so I drink the thoughts I've never told

and drink away the drowning drunkard blues.

This love of dreams has often lead me toward

a hope of happy ships I'll never board.

Sonnet 3 (This one I was unable to finish, so the last few lines are simply improvised)

When next you ask me why I love you so,

I'll start by humming songs in winter wind.

The whistle high, the beating cold and low, 

and little wasps of snow that sting within.

and why the wind, the cracked and whispered song?

because these are my thoughts when I'm alone

and promises are carried on them long,

and you have kept them, ev'n as winter's gone.

So finishing my hymn to earthly woes

I'd pick the song up with a chirp and charm

to give you just a sense of how I go

from stone to song-bird with you on my arm.

I let the breeze of spring restore me to

the me you've come to know as just for you.

Sonnet 4 (The iambic pentameter in this sonnet is contingent on the pronunciation of "natural" which I pronounce with two syllables [nat'ral] instead of three [na-tu-ral] and as Dr. Sexson might notice, this is a very revised version of the fourth sonnet I sent to him. I hope he finds it improved.)

To know my face might make this hard to read.

You do not know my mouth to birth such thoughts.

I'm not a natural poem in body breathed,

but purpose bent against my nature's lot.

My voice will lack a lyric's steady course.

It waivers with tremendous things to tell

when nothing yet important begs its force,

the anxious boy untimely tolls his bell.

But sickened having held so long my tongue,

against what reason fools like me posses,

and even though this bell be best un-rung

I'm speaking now, despite what might seem best.  

I love you, truly, swear by life I do.

no truer thing could any say to you.

Sonnet 5 (Which I just completed as I arrived home, working with the original line and sentiment from the 2nd 3rd and 4th)

Come, and let's on grassy hilltops meet,

and let me tell you things that make no sense,

so you can laugh at me and run your sweet

young fingers, dipped in polish, 'long the fence.

I would that I could ever make you smile

and dance within your'n eyes as you do now,

but well I know that after aging while

you'll grow too tired for games and straining vows.

But even then I'll love you just as much.

Of all my dreams you're still the only one

that, ere I gave it breath of life, as such

sweet air, like sugar, melted on my tongue.

So often I have wished us both to be

but figures in a dream of you and me.

Sonnet 6 (Which I have added so that Dr. Sexson also has something entirely new to read, and because I told him about one of the lines in this previously unfinished sonnet [which is, much like sonnet 3, not exactly finished, but meets the structural requirements])

The beat of painted wings is in my chest;
The tremble of the troubled heart in bass;
the thrumming threads of thought have come to rest
while sounds from deeper recess take their place.
I wish that poems could give my love a score;
the beat of skipping feat that drum the grass,
But nobody reads sonnets anymore.
The more I write, the more I play the ass.
I'd like to sing to you and you alone
but one is too much audience to ask
when all I have to offer is a poem
and I've been told you have no time for that. 
Instead, much as I'd like my poems to speak,
they often linger stagnant in my cheek.


Let us remove the second sonnet for a second, since it is not about love. The remaining sonnets all seem very different, clearly, but they don't actually represent any difference in feeling. It is less accurate to say that I feel all of these different takes on one emotion at various times than to say that I generally feel them all at once, from the lighter 5th sonnet, to the more self conscious 4th, and all the way across the spectrum to the somewhat violent 1st, I feel the same, but it is necessary for me to view the same feeling through different lenses. Perhaps it is more accurate to use the analogy of a brain, since each part or regioin represents a different sub-function of one entity which must necessarily function as a whole. But I don't like analyzing myself much more than I like other people analyzing me, so I'm going to stop there. I hope somebody enjoyed something of it. 

We're having pun now!

forgive the most awful pun in the title, had to make it as cheesy as possible, because I am about to take all of the fun out of puns for you by explaining a few I made to my friends this weekend, and we all know that the fun is lost when you have to explain the pun.

I started off my weekend by thinking about Dr. Sexon's pun "the pun is mightier than the sword" and I decided I would reconfigure it a little to say "The pun is mightier than these words." I will now explain this little manipulation to the fullest, thereby sucking all the joy from it. as one can see, the original statement is still there in "The pun is mightier than these words." but it is clearly "translated." What I have done here is as such: in punning off of the original phrase, which is "the pen is mightier than the sword" I have brought to the readers mind the power of language. Simple enough obviously. Now let's look at the more refined part. This is in itself a pun is it not? so how then can the pun be mightier than these words? These words are a pun. The implication I'm making here is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Then all we have to do is put those two things together, and we've got the meaning of the pun. Language is most powerful when the work produced is greater than the sum of its rhetorical devices. Any hack can throw allusions and puns and metaphors into a piece, but what is special is when these things serve a purpose that cannot be dissected with the rhetoric, but rather works on a sort of subconscious level. It has to explain itself, but most indirectly.

Next joke I made I was very happy about, because it involved making fun of one of my friends, and I did so by manipulating her into saying more or less what I wanted to say just so I could make a joke. How did I do this you ask? We were having a conversation, and she, being the stereotypical bio-major, was complaining about all of her homework. I told her, "I think you should just become an English major so that you can stop complaining about homework all the time." She was quick to tell me that that was a "dumb" idea. I then told her that "Science is dumb" knowing full well that she would say "you're dumb" or something to that effect. Even better. She said "You're dumb for saying science is dumb." Oh man, excited. my response was as such: "No, dear Erin, that is a contradiction in itself. If I were dumb I could not have said anything for, dumb meaning mute, and mute meaning unable to speak, Simply by saying 'science is dumb' I have disproved you. Moreover, by the same logic, I say that science is dumb because, unlike English, it just doesn't speak to me."   Yes, this is a two layer joke. English speaks because it is a language, and because I like it. Science, conversely does not speak to me, quite obviously, because I don't like it as well. Or at least that is the joke, though I do have a rather strong appreciation for science.

On to word play number 3, which came about just today. It just so happens that I love to think about the "positive" actions of negatives, such as the effects silence on a conversation, or how vacuums suck, despite the fact that a vacuum is in itself not a thing, but a lack of anything essentially. Things like this are quite entertaining to me, so Shakespeare and Fred Turner discussing the fact that "Nothing matters" with such attention to it's "positive" applications really struck a chord with me. I was thinking about why Bottom calls his dream "Bottom's dream, because it hath no bottom." and I reasoned it out thus: do your dreams have you, or do you have your dreams? You have your dreams, not the other way around; therefore, Bottom's dream hath no Bottom because Bottom hath it. Truly, Bottom is not in his own "dream" because instead of Bottom, there is an ass (gotta love those synonyms). Then I started thinking about bottomless things (bottomless being the nothing I was discussing earlier), and my friends again pulled through for me, one saying "my professor's knowledge about [something that I've already forgotten regarding anthropology] is seriously bottomless." and then I said, being the ass that I am, "we are all bottomless with regards to knowledge. The only difference between us is that some of us are bottomless wells, and others bottomless vessels. Some of us have infinite storage space, and others can't retain a thing." I was pretty proud of that one for being as on the spot as it was.

 And that about sums up my exciting weekend.

What's so wrong with that?

        Our discussion about the relationship between engagement and detachment in class on Friday kind of had me thinking about something Dr. Sexson brought up in mythologies a couple autumns ago. It was a small piece of the Mahabharata in which Arjuna was sort of communing with his god, and he was learning the nature of those very things: engagement and detachment. In this little excerpt Arjuna is about to go into battle against a band of his relations, and he doesn't want to have to kill them all. However, it simply has to happen. As Arjuna is talking to the god, it is made clear that all outcome is irrelevant, and everybody will just be reincarnated anyway, so there is no reason to fear action (engagement). The whole point is to act for the sake of action, and DETACH one's self from the outcome, since it is ultimately inconsequential. Sound familiar? Like maybe, if all the world was a stage, and all the men and women merely players? How inconsequential one's actions seem when one realizes that he or she has had their entrance, and will have their exit soon enough, and the only thing that is really worth doing is putting on a good show for the audience, and the other players. So Arjuna looks upon the face of his god, and he understands that he must go kill his cousins, not because of fate necessarily, but because it is action! It is the engaged course that is necessary, and if he does not engage, then he has not detached himself from the outcome, and if he is not detached, then he has not even achieved the second stage of enlightenment (there are four stages). In other words, just to break the cycle of reincarnation, one must necessarily learn this lesson in the buddhist tradition, despite how impossible it may seem to a western culture.
          This idea is actually a bit scary for many people. What are it's implications? There is another quote that I like that is tenuously related to the subject, by a man named Stephen Jenkins, from a band called Third Eye Blind (the song is called Good Man) in which he says "Life is pointless, but what's so wrong with that?" I find this to be quite insightful, despite the dismal feeling it may give many people, it just means that one must act for the sake of action; one must play his or her part on the stage to the best of their ability. That's all really. It might seem to conflict with the religious views of many, but I think it would just be a slippery slope to touch upon the subject, and unnecessarily insensitive at that, but what is important is that, despite what people believe, they may as well get to acting, and portray whichever type of character they want to be! Pointless or not, we will all have a legacy for at least a generation or two, most likely, and who really wants to go down as the antagonist?
          The point I'm trying to make is...there's simply no point.

Shakespeare: The Prism, and the Wheel

Once upon a Monday, after discussing Pryamus and Thisbe vs. Romeo and Juliet in class, I got to thinking, ever a dangerous venture....I thought about how, as much as I love myths, it is often hard to tell them in a way that I find satisfactory. That is to say that, I feel like I never quite do them justice, which is strange, because the language of myth usually seems a little lackluster as is, and I find it almost difficult to tell a myth in an even less vivacious manner than it is generally presented. And then I thought to myself "No Jerrod, you're just being dumb and blind." and that was a little mean of me to say, even to myself, but it's true. The language of myth is anything but dull; it is full of potential! it just appears a bit plain to people sometimes (including myself, I'll shamefully admit) because they don't know how to look at it. Shakespeare knew how to look.
This brings me to Pyramus and Thisbe, the myth which Dr. Sexson recounted for us all in class, in all of a minute and a half, but which Shakespeare somehow turned into the bane of every high school English student: Romeo and Juliet. "How did he go about it?" one might ask his/herself. Well friends, it is both simple, and ridiculously difficult at the same time. It involves one natural idea of physics, one construct of art, and a lot of talent in writing. To fully explain how it works, I need to use an analogy, so bear with me.

When one thinks of the language of myth, one can imagine it as a beam of white light, which isn't particularly special to look at, but in itself contains every color we can imagine. To say this is to say that myth is not lackluster, but rather vague to a purpose, which is to leave it fraught with potential! Much like a beam of white light can be refracted through a prism, and turned into all the beauty in the natural world, so too can a myth be likewise expanded, and turned into many a lurid tale, generally more vibrant than its progenitor. When Shakespeare uses a mythological archetype, he isn't being a copy/paste plagiarist, or a cheater; instead, he is exercising a poetic license. He is filling out the skeleton of the myth, giving it flesh, and animating it. He is taking the idea "There once was a boy named Pyramus, who lived on one side of a wall, and girl named Thisbe, who lived on the other, and their families didn't like each other." which is, in effect what the myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses gives us for background information, and turns it into the couple acts of Romeo and Juliet: thousands of iambic lines, fleshed out with a street brawl, a party, poetry, speeches, and the kitchen sink. The myth is hardly recognizable, but for it's main elements: star crossed lovers, secret meetings, eloping, and tragic death. All other things Shakespeare has construed to suit his own fancy, and his fancy is quite fanciful. He has taken the barren beam of white light, and put it through the engine of his own creativity, his prism of thought, and the results, the spectrum of colorful, vivid language that he produces is a creation seemingly all its own. It has only borrowed the potential of it's predecessor, a thing so bare as to be called myth, from which one can create as many tales and colors as he or she so chooses, all of which will be a thing all their own.

If anyone can create a story from a myth, such as Shakespeare so often does ( and truly anyone and everyone has most certainly tried) then what makes Shakespeare's interpretations so special? If we continue with the theme of multi-dimensional language that we have been talking about in class, the analogy of the prism remains easily applicable. Imagine, if you will, someone like me, who is color blind. I have never seen the color purple, but instead see only blue (or maybe vice versa; I'm not really sure). If one imagines the tales that others tell as a single color refracted through the prism, one can imagine that someone like me might not be able to appreciate every story, most notably the purple ones (or the yellow ones, or the light and dark green ones or the dark red ones, or the light pink and blue ones, for that matter, but that is really more of a personal problem). What Shakespeare's language has done is offered a complete spectrum of words, characters, and meaning, so that even I am bound to see it (more or less) for the beautiful piece of work that it is. It has something for everyone, as we have discussed.

Now thinking about the bit of philosophy we have gotten in class, about how the bottom is closest to the top, one may think to apply the analogy of the color wheel to this situation. In a spectrum, the Red and the Violet are as far apart as possible, but what Shakespeare has done, is to turn this spectrum, created as a crude product of the raw natural force of his imagination, and turned it into a color wheel, an artful and symbolic rendering of the same spectrum. And what is the closest color to red on the color wheel? Violet. The two colors are no longer extreme opposites, but neighbors instead. Perhaps warring neighbors like the Capulets and the Montagues, or perhaps neighbors in a perfect natural harmony. The color wheel may be the human construct, the ultimate rationalization of the spectrum, yet it still has it's basis in nature, because it maintains a natural order, a pattern of relation, one color to the next, which symbolizes the same interconnected nature as Dr. Sexson's interpretation of Vico's four ages. We can see that the color wheel is still something natural, not an abhorrent abomination and disfiguration of nature. Of course, this natural relationship that exists among all of the colors in the wheel/spectrum had to first be discovered by the scientist/artist who decided to mix and match his colors. The color wheel thus becomes a representation of a few different relationships: the purely natural relationships among things; the relationship between human ingenuity and nature that allows those natural relationships to be brought to light; and the relationship between artistry, and ordered, patterned construction, almost purely human. In the same way that the color wheel and the prism create all of these phenomena and elucidate these many relationships, so too do Shakespeare's works present a type of synthesis between nature and art. Like the color wheel as a human device cannot be separated from its natural elements, and its elements cannot be separated form their natural relationships, Shakespeare's works maintain a natural truth, and a semblance of the myth form which they come, which allows us to appreciate them on an almost subconscious level, an instinctive level, if you will. Also as the color wheel cannot be called a natural event like the spectrum, so too can Shakespeare's plays and poems be regarded as the ultimate, pure, very human representations of the myths he has based them on. In other words, I have just gone through a whole dog and pony show to tell you something that you all already knew: Shakespeare is an artist.

I have this friend, and she does not particularly care for the art that is English literature. She largely prefers the sciences. So naturally (and admittedly it was mostly to be "that guy") I read to her some of the sonnets and explanations given by Mr. Hughes in his essay, and naturally she responded like a total grinch. "Don't you think people read way too much into this kind of stuff?" she asked me, and I had to respond with "Yes, Alli. Yes I do, but that is my favorite part about 'this kind of stuff' because I get to read too much into it too, but in whichever way I choose. Don't people read too much into ice core samples?" and she was not very happy about my response because to her, snow science is a passion, and ice core samples are an integral part of snow science, and climatology in general. I then tried to explain to her that I was not dissing on snow science, but rather trying to prove a point; that no matter what one is reading, the intent is to pull as much information out of the text as is humanly possible, and apply it to the study which they are undertaking. In the case of ice core samples, one is trying to determine the amount in parts per million of particular gasses trapped in a layer of precipitation from a given era, which will detail the chemical composition of the atmosphere for said era. In the case of Shakespeare, one is trying to learn about one's self. English, and by extension Shakespeare, is a study of reflection. If, as a writer, one is not relatable, then he or she is not really a writer. Shakespeare, obviously, was a writer of tremendous repute, and so it is fairly intuitive to conclude that he is also probably tremendously relatable if one looks at his plays with the correct frame of mind. But try explaining that to a wonderful young girl who studies snow science, and is a horrible cynic (as are many of us).

I do not, however, feel I need to talk to all of the people in my 400 level English class about how relatable Shakespeare is, because I feel like at least the vast majority of the students who will end up reading this post will already understand and agree that it is almost sickening to know that ol' Bill can get so close to your heart without even knowing you. He says all of the lovely things we wish we could have said first, 400 years before we even had the opportunity. "Who is it that says most? Which can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you?" You have no idea how many times I have wished that I could've said that to someone I cared about, and yet I could never put it quite so simply, and eloquently. Damn you Bill, for being so much more the man I wish I was than me. But how could I damn him, really? Now I have those words, and I can use them at will (public domain) and I would rather say what I come up with than plagiarize Shakespeare, (because he alone is he, and I alone am me) but I will judge my words based on what the situation calls for in the future. The point is this; although my friend who likes frozen water too much doesn't appreciate Shakespeare when I read it to her, she would appreciate the sentiments in a real world context, and that is what Ted Hughes is trying to get us to see and appreciate: that we can pull these things out of their immediate contexts and place them as needed into our own situations, and they will still be spectacular, and they will still be packed to the rafters with heart, and lovely meaning, and they will still be poetic. So even though there are plenty of haters (and lets be honest, half of us hate because we are jealous) Shakespeare is still going to have said almost any endearing thing we say long ago, on a continent far far away. 

I told my friend about this blog post, and she does not seem to be flattered by the fact that she is a very important contributing member to this discussion, but that is ok, because she does not seem to appreciate many things that I find important. For instance, she is wondering how discussing our personal conversations is relevant to my Literature class, and I am now trying to explain to her what Mr. Hughes said about how many of William's plays centered around exploring the dark inner workings of people and social groups, but she doesn't seem to get it. How much more clearly can I read the phrase "Without controling precedents, without opressivley revered earlier masterpieces, those dramatists ha only the bare boards, the fever of global exploration, and the brand new, volcanic, terrible subject matter- the secret inner life, up to that point unexpressed,...", to that woman? And yet, she refuses to understand how any of this is pertinent. I will just tell her that perhaps she will understand to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow... but in reality she just might never understand.