patrickkanouse.com Blog

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has passed. His obit at The New York Times. His One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a classic of literature that reveals one of the dark secrets of the Soviet system.

Hugh Jones: In Memoriam

While I was editor of The Raintown Review, I had the good fortune to enter into a correspondence and friendship with Hugh Jones, an Indiana poet and musician. I just learned that Hugh, who had been battling cancer for some time, passed in late June. Here is one of the poems I published of his as editor:

Hero Not Me

To seem heroic not the
much of anything I
feel old Tyson take a
swing I cream big
guy by luck oh how
souls non-perceive
what-all this here be

strange pose the nouveau
adulators fiercely skewing
machinations false in
sweetest idiom these
kiss-folk look for some
illuminating attribute
such glances
stay with me.

Thomas Hardy: A Poem

While reading Hardy, who is an amazing poet more worthy of attention than he normally gets, I was struck by this poem, which I quote in full:

A Plaint to Man

When you slowly emerged from the den of Time,
And gained percipience as you grew,
And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime,

Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you
The unhappy need of creating me -
A form like your own - for paying to?

My virtue, power, utility,
Within my maker must all abide,
Since none in myself can ever be,

One thin as a phasm on a lantern-slide
Shown forth in the dark upon some dim sheet,
And by none but its showman vivified.

‘Such a forced device,’ you may say, ‘is meet
For easing a loaded heart at whiles:
Man needs to conceive of a mercy-seat

Somewhere above the gloomy aisles
Of this wailful world, or he could not bear
The irk no local hope beguiles.’

- But since I was framed in your first despair
The doing without me has had no play
In the minds of men when shadows scare;

And now that I dwindle day by day
Beneath the deicide eyes of seers
In a light that will not let me stay,

And to-morrow the whole of me disappears,
The truth should be told, and the fact be faced
That had best been faced in earlier years:

The fact of life with dependence placed
On the human heart’s resource alone,
In brotherhood bonded close and graced

With loving-kindness fully blown,
And visioned help unsought, unknown.

***

The Verve is coming out with a new album in August. Awesome!

David Jones and The Anathemata

I recently read The Anathémata by David Jones, a Welsh-English poet of the 20th Century. The definition of anathémata is “things set aside or consecrated for a deity; offerings devoted to a divinity or to sacred purposes.” The poem is often impenetrable, mostly due to a encyclopedic knowledge I lack about the Latin liturgy, Welsh folklore and language, and other odds and end of history. I read much of it, frankly, without a clue what the heck I was reading. Yet, strangely, much like Nikos Gatsos’ Amorgos, I found I liked it a great deal despite the clotted depth and difficult understanding. I will return to this poem again and again, understanding a little more, getting a fuller feel for the topics. It’s a difficult book to find, but if you can snap up a copy and give it a shot. I don’t promise an easy ride, but then I think its mysteries will enchant nonetheless.

William Logan: Under Attack Again

As readers of my blog probably know, I am a “fan” of William Logan’s criticism. Not that I agree with him all the time or agree with some of his one-line personal attacks. What I find interesting about Logan’s criticism is his willingness to call it as he sees it and to hold all poetry up to his standards, which I find generally consistent. He will praise strongly poetry that he finds of value and he will condemn poetry strongly that he finds of low quality. And let’s be honest, most poetry written is of lower quality…not the realm of poetry that will last the generations. This is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing that enough poetry is being written to fall into the OK or less category, but not every poet is a Frost, Yeats, Dickinson, etc.

At C. Dale Young’s blog, “Avoiding the Muse,” an ongoing dialogue in the comments section contains both supportive and non-supportive commentary regarding Logan’s criticism. One of the comments contains this:

Perhaps Loan [sic] should take some of his double and triple adjectives and use them to prop up his banal work. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, criticize.

This comment indicates a misunderstanding, I think, of the nature of poetry, art, and criticism. This comment seems to be of the ilk that only people who can write poetry should comment on poetry…or if the critic’s poetry is bad then necessarily their criticism is bad. If so, then all of us who are not Picasso, Matisse, etc., should refrain from commenting at all upon painting because, well, we are not good painters. The vast majority of us cannot do what “geniuses” do in their field (poetry, fiction, sculpture, knitting, cooking, etc.)–we may be competent, even gifted, but we are not masters to be recognized beyond our time. However, all of us are able to interpret these within our context and evaluate. Just because we cannot do something does not mean we cannot judge it. I am guessing that many critics criticizing Logan’s criticism are mediocre or inept critics themselves. By their own logic, they should refrain from criticizing. Naturally enough, they don’t. Nor should anyone else refrain from evaluating art that they do not necessarily have a talent for.

***

Interestingly, a similar criticism of illogic has appeared in recent politics. John McCain stated that Barack Obama should not issue plans for ending the war in Iraq because he as not “been on the ground to get the facts.” Senator McCain’s argument implictly states that all those who have not been to Iraq but wish the American deployment to end right away are agruing without merit because they have not been to Iraq. A ridiculous suggestion. To take Senator McCain’s agrument to an extreme and twist it on him, one could suggest that if one needs to know the facts on the ground before undertaking a major action, then President Bush should have visited Iraq first and seen the facts on the ground before invading.

Shakespeare Riots

While driving to work the other day, I heard this interview on NPR. Being a lover of Shakespeare and accumulating a small collection of Shakespeare biographies and criticism, I was obviously attracted to this story…and have added the book to my Amazon.com wishlist. Shakespeare sparking riots! Amazing stuff. Tangentially, I am interested in “adaptations” of Shakespeare, whether faithful adaptations into modern settings, adaptations of operas, or “covert” adaptations…usually in the form of movies (O, My Own Private Idaho, Ran, and Scotland, PA among others).

This is really the first article in a series. The other two deal with the “author” question (July 3rd article, July 4th article). The author question regarding Shakespeare has always amused and baffled me. (For those who might not know, there are some who suggest that William Shakespeare from Stratford-on-Avon could not be the actual writer of the plays). I am baffled and amused, in the end, because who actually wrote the plays does not matter. We have the plays, we have the poems, and they are invaluable contributions to not only English culture but human culture.

In another way, however, the author question angers me. Why? Most critics who wish to posit some other person than the man from Stratford as the writer ultimately suggest that that man could not have known enough about the court and a thousand other things to have actually written the plays. This angers me because it limits the imagination; it states that the human imagination is incapable of writing realistically (perhaps the better term is convincingly) about something for which it lacks first-hand knowledge. This is, frankly, ridiculous.

First, if the man of Stratford was not in a position to know enough about the court to write convincingly of it, then how could alternative writers know enough about the areas for which they are necessarily unfamiliar with themselves. The variety of experience and knowledge within Shakespeare’s play is beyond any one person to have had first-hand knowledge of. Of the proposed alternate authors, none of them, I believe, are known for murdering someone…which happens in several of the plays. None of them are actually monarchs…of which a few characters in Shakespeare’s plays are.

Second, I do not think that Agatha Christie actually murdered anyone. Yet, she wrote mysteries (and is one of the most translated English authors [Shakespeare is in that list as well]). Isaac Asimov never actually traveled to any other planets (another one of the most translated English authors). Yet, he wrote of other planets. Nor do I believe any robot with AI exist. Yet, he wrote of them. The point is that our imagination is not bound to our first-hand experience (and thankfully so), and this is what is disturbing about the authorship arguments.

Finally, I think that not enough consideration is given to the collaborative nature of drama and specifically playwriting (I do not want to presume to imply much knowledge here, my knowledge of Elizabethan theater practices is limited and nowhere near the similar level of expertise by those who would some one else other than William Shakespeare as the author). We know that Shakespeare assisted in the writing of Henry VIII, but he did not write the entire play. This seems likely for many plays, just that the other plays have better “integration” of a single voice. Actors, directors, etc., would have contributed to lines, scene cuts, and textual manipulations that would have been incorporated into the performing versions of the plays and which would, ultimately, have eventually come down to us in the versions of the plays we generally accept these days. My point is that these minor collaborators could have contributed knowledge unknown to Shakespeare, enriching the plays beyond measure.
It’s not necessarily the questioning who actually wrote the plays that upsets me (such inquiries are always valid, no matter how far fetched); it’s that the most common argument is that the man from Stratford could not have possibly written them because he lacked first-hand experience of much of what is written about in the plays. I prefer to suggest that no such straightjacket exists. I think the evidence, on the artistic side, supports that.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

– Edmund Burke

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

– Albert Einstein

J.M.W. Turner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

If you are in NYC during this exhibit’s run, see it. I disagree in several parts with The New York Times review. Turner is a master, and I envy those who will get to see this show. While I should reserve judgment of the exhibit, I find it hard to believe that I would agree with this assessment:

This show may be wearying because there is something imperious and impersonal about the sheer force of Turner’s ambition. It is almost as if his drive to capture nature or history in motion was so intense that it didn’t leave room for anyone else, including the viewer. Maybe that’s why despite all his hard work and even the majesty of his vision, you can emerge from this exhibition impressed but oddly untouched, even chilled.

Turner is a force of nature in painting. He couldn’t paint a human figure with all his trying, but that’s not the power of Turner’s work. I simply cannot agree with that paragraph. Turner is all emotion, all power of image, all color. At the very least, take a gander, see if you are not unmoved by this painter. There are worse ways to spend time.

Chris Jordan and American Statistics

Check out this artist at his website, in particular, look at the “Running the Numbers” images. I think he achieves the effect he desires as outlined in his purpose statement:

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

Stradivarius and Wood Density

An interesting, if brief, article discussing the potential reason for Stadivarius quality: wood density.

Review of Catherine Pierce’s “Famous Last Words”

Check out my review of Pierce’s Famous Last Words at Gently Read Literature. Then buy her book and enjoy!