To contest the greatness of anything by Shakespeare is, at this point, pretty much riddiculous. I read a description of Shakespeare once that went something like this: "he is the mountain of literature, and all other writers stumble in his foothills." It's a stupid description, but nevertheless pretty accurate, when it comes to those laboring under his considerable and long-reaching shadow.
Contesting greatness may be bad, but for me, 'Othello' is the least of his great tragedies. It has been said that 'Othello' is his purest tragedy - meaning it lacks subplots, comic characters or much relief from the main plot. But I ask this upsetting question: is that a good thing? Isn't comic relief positive, when handled correctly?
For me, 'Othello' is a great and powerful downer, without the tragic grandeur which makes 'Hamlet' or 'Macbeth' or even a real pulpy one like 'Titus Andronicus' so effective. Othello as a character just doesn't do it for me - he's too easily manipulated, too much at the mercy of the plot. And while Iago is deliciously evil, he is almost too evil, too one dimensional. The same can be said of the virtuous and well nigh perfect Desdemona.
So in the end, 'Othello' is a great work of literature - memorable characters, incredible use of the language, a beautiful and fluid piece of art. But for me it's not Willy the Shake's best, nor is it effective in my own little world.
My rather negative 3 or 4 cents.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Digging Through "Digging"
I have to go, but I'll paste in my blog and post it later. Very sorry. Until later, my friends.
Let's Make Much of Poetry
Herrick treats in "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", the same theme as Andrew Marvell in "To His Coy Mistress". The primary difference is one of quality: Marvell handles the theme with more depth and a greater variety of symbolism. Herrick writes a primarily pastoral poem with little humor and less variation.
He approaches the usual subject of 'carpe diem' poems: make much of the time you have, because before long you'll be old and dead. It is not exactly clear, in this poem, what the speaker hopes to get from the woman he is speaking to. (I presume it's a woman - there's not much evidence to support that, actually.) In "To His Coy Mistress" it's obvious the speaker wants a relationship, marriage, love, and of course sex. It could be, in this poem, that the speaker is simply offering advice.
The same symbolic wheel is spun over and over in this one. "Gather ye rose-buds" he says (line 1), and the flower dies in lines 3 and 4. The "sun" is getting "higher" (lines 5-6), but will soon be "setting" (line 8). "[Y]outh and blood are warmer" (line 10), but these good times will be "spent" (line 11). Over and over again, physical images of nature in bloom, then later dead, are used. In fact, you could predict the symbolic pattern of the third stanza based strictly on a close reading of the first stanza.
Though I'm sure it was important then, this one struck me as quite boring.
He approaches the usual subject of 'carpe diem' poems: make much of the time you have, because before long you'll be old and dead. It is not exactly clear, in this poem, what the speaker hopes to get from the woman he is speaking to. (I presume it's a woman - there's not much evidence to support that, actually.) In "To His Coy Mistress" it's obvious the speaker wants a relationship, marriage, love, and of course sex. It could be, in this poem, that the speaker is simply offering advice.
The same symbolic wheel is spun over and over in this one. "Gather ye rose-buds" he says (line 1), and the flower dies in lines 3 and 4. The "sun" is getting "higher" (lines 5-6), but will soon be "setting" (line 8). "[Y]outh and blood are warmer" (line 10), but these good times will be "spent" (line 11). Over and over again, physical images of nature in bloom, then later dead, are used. In fact, you could predict the symbolic pattern of the third stanza based strictly on a close reading of the first stanza.
Though I'm sure it was important then, this one struck me as quite boring.
His Coy Blog Entry
I should say here at the beginning, I've always had a soft spot for 'To His Coy Mistress'. I first learned to like the poem largely because of T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', which references Marvell's poem several different times. In fact, I think I referenced this poem in several of my own adolescent attempts at poetry. But all that's aside from the point, of course, which is to discuss the poem.
The theme at work here seems to be 'life is short, get as much as you can', which is not a terrible theme. One might even go so far (gasp!) as to suggest this is the moral of the poem. Marvell explains to his lover that, if only he had a thousand years or so, his love would grow like a great slow vegetable, and that he would spend a century or so on the praise of her eyes. (And, I'd like to add, two centuries for either of her breasts.)
But he does not have a thousand years, of course, and "[t]ime's winged chariot" is "hurrying near" (line 22), so they'd better get busy. After all, her body is going to be despoiled by worms eventually, and her "long preserved virginity" (line 28) ruined. In other words, they're going to die soon enough - so baby, why not have fun now?
Perhaps this makes the poem seem one leveled, or trite, or even in bad taste. It is, of course, none of these things. These are simply the very real concerns - concerns we all have - that Marvell has chosen to write about. He clothes these 'carpe diem' sentiments in beautiful writing: unforgettable phrases like "time's winged chariot" and the opening lines themselves. He chooses humor as a platform to prevent triteness, thus we get funny rhymes like "[a]nd you should, if you please, refuse/Till the conversion of the Jews" (lines 9-10). But Marvell ultimately achieves a beautiful poignancy through his humor, specifically in the lines: "The grave's a fine and private place,/But none, I think, do there embrace" (lines 31-32).
Pure brilliance.
The theme at work here seems to be 'life is short, get as much as you can', which is not a terrible theme. One might even go so far (gasp!) as to suggest this is the moral of the poem. Marvell explains to his lover that, if only he had a thousand years or so, his love would grow like a great slow vegetable, and that he would spend a century or so on the praise of her eyes. (And, I'd like to add, two centuries for either of her breasts.)
But he does not have a thousand years, of course, and "[t]ime's winged chariot" is "hurrying near" (line 22), so they'd better get busy. After all, her body is going to be despoiled by worms eventually, and her "long preserved virginity" (line 28) ruined. In other words, they're going to die soon enough - so baby, why not have fun now?
Perhaps this makes the poem seem one leveled, or trite, or even in bad taste. It is, of course, none of these things. These are simply the very real concerns - concerns we all have - that Marvell has chosen to write about. He clothes these 'carpe diem' sentiments in beautiful writing: unforgettable phrases like "time's winged chariot" and the opening lines themselves. He chooses humor as a platform to prevent triteness, thus we get funny rhymes like "[a]nd you should, if you please, refuse/Till the conversion of the Jews" (lines 9-10). But Marvell ultimately achieves a beautiful poignancy through his humor, specifically in the lines: "The grave's a fine and private place,/But none, I think, do there embrace" (lines 31-32).
Pure brilliance.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tricks and 'Little Tricker'
Ken Kesey accomplishes several interesting things in 'Little Tricker the Squirrel meets Big Double the Bear'.
For one thing, this is a children's book by Ken Kesey, which is a bit like an album of lullabies played by Miles Davis: sure, it's simple stuff, but you know it's going to be done with flair, creativity, and control. Kesey avoids making the book overtly adult, adding no subtexts that would appeal to older readers but only confuse children. To return to my metaphor, Kesey approaches his subject like Miles would have approached the lullabies: trying to make the best possible of the form he's working with.
The story is full of linguistic parallels. For example, Big Double always threatens the unfortunate animals in the same way, and the animals always respond in the same way. This pattern comes to represent, in the reader's mind, a kind of prophecy. In other words, each time the same 'incantation' is repeated, the outcome is indicated. This only changes when Tricker himself encounters Big Double, and he upsets the whole linguistic ritual. This signals to a canny reader that Tricker will be the animal to defeat Big Double.
It is also interesting to notice that all of the other animals attempt to escape Big Double physically, by running, or jumping, or climbing. They all fail miserably. Only Tricker, who uses his mind against Big Double, is successful. We might take this to be one possible moral of Kesey's folktale: wits matter, too.
Overall, a very exciting and interesting piece of work. I, for one, liked it and the presentation. It was creative. I'm always up for creativity, you know.
For one thing, this is a children's book by Ken Kesey, which is a bit like an album of lullabies played by Miles Davis: sure, it's simple stuff, but you know it's going to be done with flair, creativity, and control. Kesey avoids making the book overtly adult, adding no subtexts that would appeal to older readers but only confuse children. To return to my metaphor, Kesey approaches his subject like Miles would have approached the lullabies: trying to make the best possible of the form he's working with.
The story is full of linguistic parallels. For example, Big Double always threatens the unfortunate animals in the same way, and the animals always respond in the same way. This pattern comes to represent, in the reader's mind, a kind of prophecy. In other words, each time the same 'incantation' is repeated, the outcome is indicated. This only changes when Tricker himself encounters Big Double, and he upsets the whole linguistic ritual. This signals to a canny reader that Tricker will be the animal to defeat Big Double.
It is also interesting to notice that all of the other animals attempt to escape Big Double physically, by running, or jumping, or climbing. They all fail miserably. Only Tricker, who uses his mind against Big Double, is successful. We might take this to be one possible moral of Kesey's folktale: wits matter, too.
Overall, a very exciting and interesting piece of work. I, for one, liked it and the presentation. It was creative. I'm always up for creativity, you know.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
'A Drowning Incident' - Real Horror
'The Drowning Incident' is a fascinating little story which is also quite disturbing. It begins quite innocuously, with a boy exploring an old dilapidated building, disrupting the progress of a black widow spider who is attempting to eat a grass hopper - which ended up in the web, interestingly enough, because of the boy's actions. Might we assume the boy later blames himself, similarly, for the fate of the puppies? It is clear he did not know the puppies were drowned, and his 'hollow feeling' is replaced by a 'sense of outrage' (4), directed (I would think) at his father. After all, at the end of the story, we are told he 'is waiting for him to come home' (4). What will the boy say in this confrontation?
But this does not answer our questions about why the boy does what he does with the decomposing puppy's body. The narrator tells us that this action is 'the culmination of all the schemes' formed since 'the moment the baby arrived' (4). In other words, this shock of finding the puppies has caused the boy to finally take action. In my opinion, the lie told to him about the puppies represents a severe blow to the boy's understanding of the adult world, just as the baby no doubt represented a severe blow to his understanding of his own world. Perhaps because of these similar shocks to his world view, the boy decides to put them together in the most literal way - to conflate the two betrayals into one.
Or perhaps, by the same token, this action should be taken as a threat. Perhaps he is telling his parents - though I imagine, most specifically, his father - that since he had the puppies taken away from him, he could take away the new child as vengeance. Who could say for sure?
This is a very disturbing story, in my opinion, and also a 'horror' story. It is horror in a deeper sense than vampires or werewolves, because these monstrosities - actions committed without care and without any human decency - occur in the real world every day.
But this does not answer our questions about why the boy does what he does with the decomposing puppy's body. The narrator tells us that this action is 'the culmination of all the schemes' formed since 'the moment the baby arrived' (4). In other words, this shock of finding the puppies has caused the boy to finally take action. In my opinion, the lie told to him about the puppies represents a severe blow to the boy's understanding of the adult world, just as the baby no doubt represented a severe blow to his understanding of his own world. Perhaps because of these similar shocks to his world view, the boy decides to put them together in the most literal way - to conflate the two betrayals into one.
Or perhaps, by the same token, this action should be taken as a threat. Perhaps he is telling his parents - though I imagine, most specifically, his father - that since he had the puppies taken away from him, he could take away the new child as vengeance. Who could say for sure?
This is a very disturbing story, in my opinion, and also a 'horror' story. It is horror in a deeper sense than vampires or werewolves, because these monstrosities - actions committed without care and without any human decency - occur in the real world every day.
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