Signifying nothing

Monday,August 19,2002

We receive but what we give

I was reading Pindar's Odes that I purchased today and started thinking about Coleridge's Dejection, an Ode. Pindaric Odes are over-the-top celebratory poems for some great accomplishment (such as winning a race in the Olympian Games). The Romantics as a matter of course turned that inwards and focussed the Ode on the self. In Dejection, an Ode, Coleridge takes dejection (depression? sadness? loneliness?) and throws it into relief in the supposedly celebratory Ode. Now of course the Ode ends in hope, so dejection seems banished in the seventh section:

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality's dark dream !

I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed.

and becomes hope (still tinged with sadness from all the previous pangyric) in the final section:

O simple spirit, guided from above,

Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice,

Thus may'st thou ever, evermore rejoice.

Now I wasn't originally struck by the Ode because of the complex move from dejection to hope, but more in how in the middle of the poem Coleridge created a feeling of dejection not simply by his words but through his use of meter. Meter in Odes has no set pattern but is generally a rule set by the poet and then followed. (Pindar's odes in Greek are hugely complex metrically.) Talking about meter these days is a bit old fashioned, but it still does show the deftness of poetry (and perhaps poets) at taking all aspects of words and using them to create the reaction in the user.

Smack dab in the middle of the poem the narrator reaches nadir (one might even presume it is midnight):

My genial spirits fail ;

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ?

It were a vain endeavour,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west :

I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

One could scan the section this way:

- ^ -(-) ^ - ^

My ge/nial spi/rits fail;/

- ^ - ^ - ^

And what can these/ avail/

- ^ - ^ (-)- ^ - ^ - ^

To lift/ the smoth/ering weight/ from off/ my breast?/

- ^ - ^ - ^ -

It were/ a vain/ endeavour,/

- ^ - ^ - ^ -

Though I/ should gaze/ forever/

- ^ - ^ - ^ - ^ - ^

On that/ green light/ that ling/ers in the west:/

- ^ - ^ - ^ - ^ - ^

I may/ not hope/ from out/ward forms/ to win

- ^ - ^ - ^ - ^ - ^ - -

The pass/ion and/ the life,/ whose foun/tains are within./

The lines that are most interesting are the ones that break from the trimeter:

- ^ - ^ (-)- ^ - ^ - ^

To lift/ the smoth/ering weight/ from off/ my breast?/

and

- ^ - ^ - ^ - ^ - ^

On that/ green light/ that ling/ers in the west:/

The first line is fascinating in how "weight from off my breast" becomes almost a sigh. Although I have marked "from off my breast" as -^/-^/-^/, it could perhaps better be scanned as - - - ^ (and in fact reads that way). The lengthening of the line changes how it is read and the use of less important words and throwing "breast" at the very end throws it into a downward, sighing spiral. The "green light that lingers in the west" has much the same effect, lingering on, as it does.

One could go on to examine the rhyme scheme and how the sounds of the words themselves (such as fail/avail) drop, but we don't want to go breaking no more butterflies tonight.

My cat can eat a whole watermelon

I've been invited to a FREE SUCCESS SEMINAR! The invitation was so well done, too, since it was on a half sheet of 8x10 strewn with 3 others on my porch. (Does that mean I am thrice invited?)

What the hell. I need to hone up my success skills now don't I? Apparently EACH AND EVERY MONTH one can earn $1,000-$30,000. All that and you LEARN HOW YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFESTYLE! As everyone knows money is the only thing that improves lifestyle. Stupid me going to Sam Weller's and buying the Odes of Pindar, having a tasty lunch of the hottest Thai Curry I've ever eaten, talking to 3 (count them 3) people I hadn't seen dog's years, and watching the clouds build up all grey and boiling, thunder rolling in the distance. That's not living.

The added bonus is that you can learn to WORK FROM HOME AND LOVE IT! You know I just hate working from home, but if this seminar can show me the light of how to stay in my boxers all day, sit in front of the tube, and make that much money and be exceedingly happen, then sign me up!

Wonder if they mind if I stand up in the middle of it and shout "I AM THE KING OF THE ECHO PEOPLE!"

Sunday,August 18,2002

Excerpts from a critical sketch

So there I sat thinking about pomegranates. I like pomegranates. I've always liked pomegranates. At the same time they are a big mess and you don't get much fruit for your fruit-buying dollar. There is something about that flavor, however, that makes eating them akin to having a Slurpee on a hot July afternoon. Because of their messiness, however, I can't recall the last time I had a pomegranate.

Nevertheless, I was not thinking about pomegranates because of my like and dislike of them. Pomegranates are an ancient and sacred fruit. We all know the story of Persephone, I should think. The young daughter of Demeter (a fertility goddess so sacred that nothing of her rites was ever spoken about outside of the ritual itself), was taken to the underworld by Hades himself. She ate a pomegranate there and was forced to stay (one could see that as mortality right there). Demeter was so sickened by the loss of her daughter that the world went to waste and nothing grew. Worried about the world, Zeus allowed Persephone to come back to her mother for 6 months (some say 3), and be with Hades for the other part of the year. Spring/Summer. Fall/Winter. Now it is far too easy just to read that story as simply a exegesis of where seasons come from. One must consider the implications of death, resurrection, and, ahem, sex.

To further complicate this matter, one might look at other traditions. Scholars tend to agree, as well, that the fruit forbidden of Adam and Eve on the tree of knowledge of good and evil was most likely a pomegranate. They substantiate this conclusion not through textual connections, but more through the sacred place the pomegranate had in Judaism. The high priest's clothes were fringed in bells and mini pomegranates; the holy of holies itself was concealed by pomegranate covered curtains (the "veil" of the temple to Christians); and, finally, the pomegranate was the only fruit allowed into the sanctuary (that place right in front of the holy of holies) as a sacrifice. In Genesis the tree is also called a "delight to the eyes" (2:6). I have been told that a pomegranate in blossom is something not to be missed.

So the pomegranate, as far as I know, features in at least two important religious traditions. You also have this structure, of sorts:

Now ultimately it is interesting to see that the fruit (because of its labrynthine seed pod or its perma-dying redness?) is tied somehow to wisdom and death in both stories. Persephone's "innocence" (yes in the sexual sense) is taken way by Hades. Eve's innocence (apparently not in the sexual sense) is taken by the serpent. The catalyzing device? The simple pomegranate.

Now where does that go with resurrection? Why does the eros/thanatos thing become so prominent?

Just thoughts. Just thoughts. posted at 02:04:05 PM by Clint

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Copyright © 2002 Clinton R. Gardner
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Last update: August 19, 2002 10:24 PM