Sexing up the Renaissance

I've just finished watching Simon Schama's BBC programme about John Donne, which was aired last week but thanks to exams I've not been able to watch till today! It's on iPlayer for at least another four days, and is part of the BBC's poetry season. Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/ - you can vote for your favourite poet. I'm not sure I can pick just one out of the fantastic collection they've got on there! You can also check out Owen Shear's series called 'A Poet's Guide to Britain' - I've watched the first one (about Wordsworth's 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge') and it was very interesting. He's also done programs in the same series on Sylvia Plath, Matthew Arnold and George Mackay Brown so far.

Back to John Donne and Simon Schama. In theory this programme was a good idea, and as far as it went it was an informative, atmospheric production, with a bit of literary analysis thrown in as well. Unfortunately for Mr Schama I am currently studying Donne for an exam on the Renaissance period after having been examined on literature of the Romantic period, so his comment that Donne was "unlike the solitary, brooding poet figure" made me wonder why he would expect Donne to be exhibiting characteristics that were only expected of poets from around 200 years later. His surprised comment that Donne wanted to be admired and be elevated socially also seems odd considering that this is true of virtually every other Renaissance poet, battling for promotion in the court.

Schama is shown discussing the poetry with actress Fiona Shaw, who performs snippets from several of Donne's poems. A good idea, but the male narrative voices of the poems seems a little incongruous with a female voice at times. These conversations are interesting and provide fresh perspectives on the poems but focus on personal responses to the poems - fair enough, considering many people are put off by poetry anyway - but there is no mention of the things that make Donne unique for the period, such as what critics have called his 'mutuality' and speech-like rhythms as well as the different narrative personas he assumes. The way the poems are linked into a biography of Donne's life gives them a very contextual viewpoint which clouds other readings of the poems, and is also misleading as most critics (so I'm told) agree that the usual order of publishing the poems (i.e. love lyric to religious lyric) is not chronological. The emphasis is very much on his love lyrics, presumably in order to sex up what are already fairly erotic poems and make them appealing to the public - again, fair enough, but it ignores the importance of Donne's religious poetry. Schama claims at the very end that he doesn't like the practice of splitting the poet into his two personas - Jack Donne and Dr Donne - yet this is what he has effectively spent the entire hour of documentary in doing.

There are also a few blatant errors, for example some of the background music manages to sound fairly Renaissance-inspired, but some is obviously from a more classical or romantic period - be consistent Mr Schama! He and Fiona Shaw also refer to 'The Canonization' as a sonnet. I wondered whether the stanzas of this poem were in fact sonnets but, although the rhyme scheme is vaguely reminiscent of Petrarchan sonnets it is only 9 lines long - sonnets are always 14 lines!!

All in all, it was a programme worth watching for someone who has never encountered Donne before - and also for those who know his work fairly well too, but be aware that you may be cringing inside at times! After making the Tudors interesting, Schama has obviously turned to the poets of the period and given Donne - at least - his usual dramatic treatment.

Here are two of the poems Schama and Shaw discuss. They're great, go and explore John Donne :)

FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;

And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."


Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Intelligent Nonsense

I've just finished reading First Among Sequels (2007) by Jasper Fforde and thought he was a writer worth mentioning. This particular novel is the fifth in a series of 'Thursday Next' books, beginning with The Eyre Affair (2001), which chart Thursday - the heroine - and her adventures through Fforde's imagined version of the UK and through fiction. For more information visit http://www.jasperfforde.com/

Possibly the best thing about these novels is that the more widely you read in fiction - and indeed literature - in general, the more puns (especially on names) and jokes you will understand. Perhaps it's just me feeling smug but every reference to a book I've read, either with a pun or a joke based on the storyline of the book, is twice as funny. It would be possible to enjoy the books on the level of someone who's read little in the 'canon' of English literature as the writing style itself is not at all highbrow and there are many pointed remarks and satires about the UK itself embedded within the characters and politics of Fforde's 'real' world. It might also appeal to fans of fantasy, horror or sci-fi as there are references to all of these genres (for instance in the time travel storylines, brought prominently into the plot in First Among Sequels, and in Thursday's vampire and undead-killing co-worker Spike). Whatever your literary taste there is something amusing for you here.

Thursday herself is an engaging character, 'well-realised' as Fforde puts it, and convincingly human. There are often several plots happening in each book, and in First Among Sequels itself it did become a little overwhelming as I struggled to remember what three or four potentially disastrous conundrums Thursday had yet to solve. After Something Rotten (2004), the fourth book in the series, all the different plots seemed to be tied up so I wasn't expecting a fifth book. Things seem open for a sixth after the cliffhanger ending of First Among Sequels, though!

It's worth pointing out that Fforde has written two other books set in 'BookWorld': The Big Over Easy (2005) and The Fourth Bear (2006), which are in a detective thriller style but with Fforde's usual humour and well-paced storytelling. I've read the first and it was hilarious - Amazon describes the premise as follows: 'Minor baronet Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III has been found dead--and in pieces--beneath a wall in a less salubrious area of town. The perpetrator would appear to be his ex-wife, but she has shot herself. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are assigned to the case, and soon find themselves knee-deep in money-laundering, bullion smuggling and major problems with beanstalks.'

Overall, I encourage anyone with a passing interest in fiction to get hold of The Eyre Affair and enjoy. Although they are easy to read, I think they bear re-reading as you'll 'get' more of the jokes as you go along. However, if you are at all protective over books and don't like to see 'disrespect' shown to your favourites, stay away: Fforde obviously has a great affection for literature but doesn't mind gently poking fun (for example, Mrs Danvers from Rebecca becomes a character which is cloned and infests BookWorld!).

Also on the 'reading list': I finally finished Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (1797), which is on my reading list for the module I'm studying on literature of the Romantic period. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it but at least I've read it (albeit 2 months after I was supposed to...!). I then read Jane Austen's Persuasion (pub. 1818) which we'll be studying soon, and enjoyed it much more the second time around. I have a tendency to think Austen a little overrated, but I appreciated her elegant style much more this time, and the realistic way Anne reacts to situations and manoeuvres herself in order to gently get what she wants! On the other end of the spectrum I've been reading Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1593) and some of John Donne's (1572-1631) poetry for my Renaissance literature module - which I've been enjoying much more than Romanticism! I'm sure I'll write about Donne at some point as I love his stuff. Lastly, after loving An Equal Music (1999) and A Suitable Boy (1993), I picked up Vikram Seth's Two Lives (2005) and began reading it before Easter and am loving it. I didn't realise Seth was also a poet, although considering how much of his own stuff is in A Suitable Boy I should have picked up on it, so I'm planning to get hold of some of that as well. I think I've raved about his prose before; I think it's beautiful, and am looking forward to enjoying the rest of Two Lives, an account of the lives of his Indian uncle and German aunt who had a profound impact on his teenage life.

Stars...

The stars speak simply
of Your beauty.
Delight in creation
and in eternity
combined.
The moving, endless song
of wonder and of awe
is sung, light years close to You,
breathed from greatness to greater.

Yet here the pinpricks fade elegantly
with the joyful expectancy of dawn.
Eternity ever adores.

Snow

Just because of this beautiful weather, while it lasts...

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes–
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of your hands–
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Louis Macneice (1907 - 1963)

"Encore une fois, les photographies de Valérie Jouve ne se contentent pas de répéter l’expérience de l’aliénation urbaine car ce qui fait retour en elle, au titre de « tout juste passé », ce n’est pas seulement la perte de capacité de la photographie à véhiculer le sens, mais celle de l’espace urbain lui-même. Tentatives de se réveiller dans la pénombre de l’instant vécu, elles nous font ressentir la difficulté qu’il y a à appréhender le fait que le domaine urbain ne porte plus, aujourd’hui, d’aspirations à l’expérience individuelle et collective comme il a pu le faire auparavant. Ces aspirations auront finalement été absorbées par la dématérialisation croissante de l’espace dominant des réseaux électroniques, de la technologie des médias et du marketing global."

"Yet again Valérie Jouve’s works do not merely reiterate the experience of urban alienation, for what inheres within them, in the sense of the “just-passed” or the “recently forgotten”, is not only the capacity of the photographic image to convey meaning, but urban space itself. Like trying to awaken to the blindness of the lived moment, one senses in these works the difficulty of grasping the fact that the urban realm no longer carries with it all those prior aspirations of individual and collective experience it once did. For those aspirations have finally been absorbed in the increasing dematerialization of the dominant spaces of electronic networks, media technology, and global marketing.”


OK, so is it just me or does this make no sense? I've just been exploring this artist's work (along with Mohamed Bourouissa and Denis Darzacq, who are great - especially Darzacq's La Chute, if you like photography check it out) for a French module I've been taking and had an exam on, mainly focussing on how contemporary French artists look at la banlieue (French inner cities is the closest I can get to describing it, but they tend to be on the edges of the city) which actually turned out to be pretty interesting. However, I don't think I'd be alone in saying that jargon such as the above (quoted from the 'blurb' in the sleeve of a book of Jouve's work I borrowed from the library) is really offputting and unhelpful for those of us not well-versed in art and photography.

I read an article in The Independent the other week which was really interesting (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/days-like-these-to-like-a-work-of-art-you-have-to-know-something-about-it-this-worries-me-1419196.html) about the appreciation of art. The columnist has gone to the Tate Modern in London to see the Mark Rothko exhibition with an intelligent friend and, after considering the colours of the works, 'I remembered reading a quotation from Rothko himself, which added to my discomfort: "The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their colour relationship, then you miss the point."I didn't like the feeling that I was being judged on my reactions by the artist himself. My educational background is in literature where, by and large, once they've published a thing, authors leave you to your own devices. It's up to you what you get out of it. And yet here was an artist from beyond the grave telling me that even though I liked his paintings, the way I liked them was wrong.'

Blurbs like this in art books have the same impression on me. It's not just that they make no sense (if anyone manages to work out what's actually being said in the quote above, please let me know!), it's that there's supposedly a particular way to interpret them. While I was complaining about this the other day, a friend pointed out that poetry is exactly the same - only interesting and meaningful for the initiated. I think I've tried to show before that this needn't be the case. I believe that good poetry should have something about it that goes beyond metaphor and form, that touches people's hearts and minds because the words themselves connect with the memories and experiences of the reader. I think this was William Wordsworth's aim, expressed in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798). His idea was to take his experiences and emotions and put them into poetry in such a way that any person could read it and relive what he had experienced. I don't know how successful he was in this but I like to think that everyone can find a poem that tugs at something within them.

This has been quite long, but I leave you with an example of a poem that many people who have been in love for a long time find it fairly easy to relate to, Shakespeare's sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"A million minor miracles"

It's not really literary but I've decided not everything has to be. I want to share things that inspire me too. So here's an article I read recently by Pete Greig, who is a founder of 24-7 Prayer. It's pretty inspiring, and he wrote it in a boiler room (centre dedicated to prayer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). I hope it inspires you :)

I’m standing at night in this subterranean place of prayer, and perhaps it’s the coffee, or the music, or the Spirit, but the darkness doesn’t seem too strong. I’m praying for miracles in the city where I live – for healings, and salvations, and justice, and revival, and all those usual Kingdom kind of things. But tonight, as I do so, I find myself suddenly startled - like a boy blinking at fireworks – bewildered by how many miracles there already are.

It occurs to me that here in my city today, doctors dispensed healing – can you imagine anything more wonderful? Neighbours did favours. Dog-walkers in the park silently admired the shape of trees. Jokes were told in nursing homes. Thousands and thousands of people prayed, or wished, or merely unwittingly wanted what God wanted for a moment or two.

Chances are that somewhere today a young man and a young woman began to fall in love (although they don’t yet know it). A teenager picked up trash she had not dropped. A single mother decided, just for once, to buy herself a slice of chocolate cake and to celebrate the moment in long, slow, mouthfuls of happiness. A painter-decorator stepped back from a wall he’d just painted the colour of claret, and maybe at that moment the sunlight broke through the window, and he saw that it was a good piece of work. A man resisted the temptation to click the link he wouldn’t want his wife to see. Maybe he failed yesterday. Maybe he’ll click it tomorrow. But today he overcame. In the hospital perhaps a surgeon pinned a broken arm with immaculate skill. Delicious food was prepared and cooked and served in thousands of homes joyously. A pastor’s words, so carefully crafted, brought a little comfort to grieving relatives. People cried, but a check-out girl smiled at a lonely old lady. People died of course, but babies were also born. From time to time today, I was born too. We all were. A million, minor miracles.

We do not pray ex nihilo. We pray for more of whatever it is we see. Nothing comes from nothing – certainly not faith like this. Tonight I’m blessing the evidence of miracles; the pre-existing goodness, the presence of Christ in these streets, these surgeries, these schools, these art galleries, these pubs, these homes, these wards. Witnessing so many minor miracles I applaud the world. If all of this is happening all around me, what might not happen next?

And so I stand here now in this subterranean place of prayer and it seems self-evident that there is more light in the night than darkness in the day. There is goodness breaking through, everywhere I look. And I’m praying for miracles tonight with greater faith than frustration for once. I can see creation rising like the moon above the Fall. Ultimately, almost inevitably, benevolence wins the day quietly.

I’m climbing the stairs to my car now, stepping out of the prayer room into the darkness. I’m driving home past houses and perhaps it’s the music on the stereo, or the coffee, or the Spirit, but the city seems to me to have become the place of prayer.

Silent Night...

As Christmas approaches I wanted to share one of my favourite Christmas poems - it's e.e.cummings again but it's beautiful, tinged with sadness too...

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

It's beautiful because it's so simple and innocent, and really seems to capture Christmas through the eyes of a child. That naivety and trusting nature, and the longing to make the world brighter seems to be one of the things that Christmas evokes in us - just look at all those Christmas films (Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life etc). The fifth stanza I particularly like; the image of putting rings on the trees fingers is beautiful and such a clever piece of personification that carries on the theme of the child getting to know the tree, wanting to know its story, bonding with it, wanting to protect it ('you are so little/you are more like a flower' - it's fragile). This is a particularly wonderful poem to read aloud because cummings seems to give us the 'resting' space, through his mis-en-page, so it sounds natural. Added to which, I always want to read it quietly and slowly, savouring the language, but also adding to the mystery and wonder of a child's experience of Christmas. I think the sadness comes in because the child forgets, or doesn't know, that its existence is ephemeral; after Christmas is over it will be gone and in its fragility it will die.

Last night at my church was the candlelit carol service which was lovely, and one of the carols was 'In the Bleak Midwinter' which is one of my favourites. The words are by Christina Rossetti and the tune I prefer is the one Holst composed. As we sang I realised just how great the words are - not just as a message but as poetry. Quite often I think that carols and hymns - and songs in general - are worth a second look in terms of literary value (maybe one day we'll dust off 'Jerusalem', originally a poem written by Blake in his introduction to his own book of poetry, and potentially mistakenly used as an alternative English national anthem!).

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Obviously this isn't the world's most culturally aware carol: although I'm sure it does snow on occasion in Bethlehem, it's hardly likely to have been doing so at Jesus' birth. However I think Rossetti is talking less about severe weather warnings and more about the spiritual condition of this world. It's the same idea C.S.Lewis uses in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - that evil in the world brings coldness to it, and only the arrival of a Creator King can restore that winter to spring. I'm not sure I've explained that very well so I apologise if it makes no sense! I really like that line 'Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign'; I like the picture of everything running and hiding in the presence of a far superior ruler - in awe rather than fear induced by tyrrany I think. The last verse (or stanza, depending on if we're singing or reading I suppose!) never fails to move me - it brings us right into the scene of Jesus' birth and shows us our inadequacy and inability to give anything of value to him; all we can really bring is ourselves.

Merry Christmas one and all :)