In a previous post (see The Danish Girl), the captivity narrative was cited as one example of the American story of redemption. Mary Rowlandson's bestselling personal narrative of this popular genre could also be studied as a spiritual autobiography. The wife of a minister, Mary Rowlandson and three of her children, were captured by Narragansett Indians on February 10, 1676, during King Philip's War. The youngest child, six-year-old Sarah, died within a week. Separated from her other two children, Rowlandson was finally ransomed on May 2, 1676; several weeks later Joseph, 14, and Mary, 10, were also released.
In her account, Rowlandson attributes her captivity to punishment from God for such sins as smoking and to a test of her faith. She holds fast to her Bible (which one of the Narragansetts had restored to her) and sprinkles her account liberally throughout with scriptural quotations. The narrative takes her from captivity, through suffering (especially the death of her child), remorse, faithfulness, and finally restoration to freedom, which she interprets as proof of God's forgiveness and blessing.
During her nearly three months of captivity, she complains bitterly of the food she is given to eat and other physical conditions of her ordeal. Every event is interpreted through a Biblical lens and the doctrine of Providence, that is, God controls history and all events are the result of His will. Though He puts His faithful to the test, ultimately He rewards His followers and punishes ungodly heathens. With this world view, she has a tough time explaining why the "heathens" manage to escape their English pursuers time after time. And when the "heathens" behave kindly toward her, it is not because of their own inherent capacity for goodness but because God was protecting her and made them do it. It is never quite clear why God gets the credit for their good behavior, but their bad behavior is their own fault, the result of their "heathenism."
The captivity narrative is a uniquely American genre and enjoyed considerable popularity both in North American and in Europe into the nineteenth century. It became secularized in such frontier novels as The Last of the Mohicans and other Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper, not to mention Hope Leslie by Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Though Cooper and Sedgwick reinforced many negative stereotypes of native people, they were much more sympathetic than Rowlandson. The ultimate irony though was the use of the genre by African American authors of the slave narrative (see previous post on Frederick Douglass), in which white Christians like Mary Rowlandson replace the ungodly "heathens" as the cruel captors.
Mary Rowlandson can be viewed as a heroic, Christian survivor of a horrific captivity during a brutal war, or as an ethnocentric white, Christian supremecist during early colonial America, or both. Her narrative helped raise the profile of white women in an oppressively patriarchal culture AND it helped reinforce Eurocentric oppression of native people--one example of many in the long history of American contradictions.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
A Thousand Splendid Suns
I wish I knew more about Afghan mythology, literature, and history so that I could place this novel by Khaled Hosseini in the context of its own cultural heritage. The title comes from a poem in praise of Kabul by an Afghan poet I've never read. What struck me in reading the novel was how well it can be related to world mythology and Western literature, of which I do know something.
Structurally, the novel brilliantly interweaves the stories of two Afghan women characters from different generations trying to survive and thrive in a patriarchal, polygamous society torn by civil war and outside invasions, first by the Soviet Union in 1979 and later by the United States in 2001.
The two women's stories begin separately, intersect, then pivot away from each other in a violent murder, which leads to the older woman's execution and the younger one's liberation. At the heart of this divergence is the older woman's self-sacrifice, which re-enacts her own mother's suicide. When Mariam murders the husband that she shares with Laila, as he is beating the younger woman, Laila is freed from an oppressive marriage and reunited with her first love, whose child she has already borne. One story ends in tragedy, the other in renewal and redemption from an oppressive life.
The novel could be read as historical drama or feminist protest, but the theme of human sacrifice connects it to a universally recurring mythological, religious and human story of birth, quest and trial, sacrifice, and renewal. This pattern plays out in the cosmic story of creation, apocalypse, and re-creation; in the divine narrative of birth, mission, sacrifice, death, and resurrection; in the hero myth of youthful possibility, quest, trial, encounter with death, and apotheosis.
In religious traditions, sacrifice is the means of reconnection to divine origins. The cleansing flood restores the original divine purpose, the death of the god renews human history, the hero's sacrifice saves the human community. In A Thousand Splendid Suns Mariam's sacrifice raises her own tragic life to a higher purpose, that of saving Laila and freeing her to a higher life of authentic love, family, and belonging. Just as those thousand splendid suns were made possible by a thousand dark nights.
Similarly, Odysseus must descend into Hades before he can be restored to his home and family, the Shakespearean tragic hero must die before the corruption of his nation can be cleansed, Jane Austen's heroines must suffer loss and rejection before finding romantic fulfillment, Billy Budd's hanging is necessary to maintain the social order, and the American hero must experience deprivation before achieving the American dream.
Sacrifice is the necessary evil out of which springs human fulfillment. To what extent does our individual happiness depend upon the sacrifice of others? To what extent does the happiness of others depend upon our own self-sacrifice?
Structurally, the novel brilliantly interweaves the stories of two Afghan women characters from different generations trying to survive and thrive in a patriarchal, polygamous society torn by civil war and outside invasions, first by the Soviet Union in 1979 and later by the United States in 2001.
The two women's stories begin separately, intersect, then pivot away from each other in a violent murder, which leads to the older woman's execution and the younger one's liberation. At the heart of this divergence is the older woman's self-sacrifice, which re-enacts her own mother's suicide. When Mariam murders the husband that she shares with Laila, as he is beating the younger woman, Laila is freed from an oppressive marriage and reunited with her first love, whose child she has already borne. One story ends in tragedy, the other in renewal and redemption from an oppressive life.
The novel could be read as historical drama or feminist protest, but the theme of human sacrifice connects it to a universally recurring mythological, religious and human story of birth, quest and trial, sacrifice, and renewal. This pattern plays out in the cosmic story of creation, apocalypse, and re-creation; in the divine narrative of birth, mission, sacrifice, death, and resurrection; in the hero myth of youthful possibility, quest, trial, encounter with death, and apotheosis.
In religious traditions, sacrifice is the means of reconnection to divine origins. The cleansing flood restores the original divine purpose, the death of the god renews human history, the hero's sacrifice saves the human community. In A Thousand Splendid Suns Mariam's sacrifice raises her own tragic life to a higher purpose, that of saving Laila and freeing her to a higher life of authentic love, family, and belonging. Just as those thousand splendid suns were made possible by a thousand dark nights.
Similarly, Odysseus must descend into Hades before he can be restored to his home and family, the Shakespearean tragic hero must die before the corruption of his nation can be cleansed, Jane Austen's heroines must suffer loss and rejection before finding romantic fulfillment, Billy Budd's hanging is necessary to maintain the social order, and the American hero must experience deprivation before achieving the American dream.
Sacrifice is the necessary evil out of which springs human fulfillment. To what extent does our individual happiness depend upon the sacrifice of others? To what extent does the happiness of others depend upon our own self-sacrifice?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Narrative of the Life of an American Slave
In the previous two posts the popular American redemptive narrative, or recovery plot, was mentioned, and the slave narrative was cited as one example. Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave is probably the best known, most popular, and classic type of the slave narrative.
By the time it was published (1845), the conventional formulaic structure was well established: moving from an account of life in slavery to a turning point of escape, rescue or manumission and then to an account of life in freedom. Douglass follows this pattern and includes almost all the elements of the slave narrative formula: his birth in slavery; obscure parentage; bleak conditions of food, clothing, shelter, work; cruel overseer, whippings, becoming sensitive to suffering; learning to read and write; developing a special sense of destiny; brutality of Christian slave owners; rebelling against cruel treatment; failed escape attempts; successful escape; new home and identity; reflections on slavery. (http://www.redemptiveself.northwestern.edu/)
What distinguishes Douglass' Narrative from others of its type is the clarity and effectiveness of its style. While there are a couple of places where rhetorical flourishes seem excessive, for the most part the style is understated, matter-of-fact, and transparent.
Appropriate to his primary abolitionist purpose, Douglass crafts a style that is broadly appealing and accessible to a mass audience. He projects the persona of an intelligent, practical man who is sensitive to the suffering of his fellow slaves, yet tough enough to fight back when necessary and smart enough to deceive his captors in order to learn how to read and write and ultimately to plan and execute his own escape.
Some of his white mentors in the anti-slavery movement thought his autobiography would be more credible if it were written in a "plantation" style using slave vernacular, but Douglass insisted on demonstrating his literacy and self-education by aiming at a middle range between the colloquial and the high-flown. In some ways, he anticipates the realistic, journalistic style that came to dominate post-Civil War American literature.
While there are moments of melodrama, for the most part Douglass tells his story in a straightforward, factual, down-to-earth manner, establishing his credibility through a literate, direct, and confident voice. He successfully appropriates Christian symbolism and Biblical language to construct a devastating critique of the hypocritical religous underpinnings of the institution of slavery.
For the most part his tone is either neutral or directly denunciatory of slavery, but he sometimes takes a sentimental turn, sometimes an ironic one. Lest any reader be inclined to view his occasional sentimentalism as somehow weak, he uses the opening chapter to satirically address the oft-cited passage of Genesis 9:20-27, the story of Noah cursing Ham to a life of bondage, regularly used as Biblical justification for slavery: "If the lineal descendents of Ham are alone to be scriptually enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters." Such ironic touches effectively display a toughness of tone as well as of argument.
Perhaps the ultimate irony and most brilliant rhetorical stroke is Douglass' implicit dramatization of himself as the quintessential American type--the self-made man, the "rugged individualist"-- the personification of Emersonian self-reliance. While Douglass acknowledges his bonds of friendship with other slaves and the help he received from others in his escape, what emerges most strongly is the profile of a man who acts independently to liberate himself from oppression. By presenting himself in these terms, Douglass' makes a powerful argument that a black slave is as much an American as the pioneer, the entrepreneur, or the original settlers throwing off the yoke of European oppression.
Without a doubt, Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave is one of the most remarkable works of political rhetoric to have been produced in all of American literature.
By the time it was published (1845), the conventional formulaic structure was well established: moving from an account of life in slavery to a turning point of escape, rescue or manumission and then to an account of life in freedom. Douglass follows this pattern and includes almost all the elements of the slave narrative formula: his birth in slavery; obscure parentage; bleak conditions of food, clothing, shelter, work; cruel overseer, whippings, becoming sensitive to suffering; learning to read and write; developing a special sense of destiny; brutality of Christian slave owners; rebelling against cruel treatment; failed escape attempts; successful escape; new home and identity; reflections on slavery. (http://www.redemptiveself.northwestern.edu/)
What distinguishes Douglass' Narrative from others of its type is the clarity and effectiveness of its style. While there are a couple of places where rhetorical flourishes seem excessive, for the most part the style is understated, matter-of-fact, and transparent.
Appropriate to his primary abolitionist purpose, Douglass crafts a style that is broadly appealing and accessible to a mass audience. He projects the persona of an intelligent, practical man who is sensitive to the suffering of his fellow slaves, yet tough enough to fight back when necessary and smart enough to deceive his captors in order to learn how to read and write and ultimately to plan and execute his own escape.
Some of his white mentors in the anti-slavery movement thought his autobiography would be more credible if it were written in a "plantation" style using slave vernacular, but Douglass insisted on demonstrating his literacy and self-education by aiming at a middle range between the colloquial and the high-flown. In some ways, he anticipates the realistic, journalistic style that came to dominate post-Civil War American literature.
While there are moments of melodrama, for the most part Douglass tells his story in a straightforward, factual, down-to-earth manner, establishing his credibility through a literate, direct, and confident voice. He successfully appropriates Christian symbolism and Biblical language to construct a devastating critique of the hypocritical religous underpinnings of the institution of slavery.
For the most part his tone is either neutral or directly denunciatory of slavery, but he sometimes takes a sentimental turn, sometimes an ironic one. Lest any reader be inclined to view his occasional sentimentalism as somehow weak, he uses the opening chapter to satirically address the oft-cited passage of Genesis 9:20-27, the story of Noah cursing Ham to a life of bondage, regularly used as Biblical justification for slavery: "If the lineal descendents of Ham are alone to be scriptually enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters." Such ironic touches effectively display a toughness of tone as well as of argument.
Perhaps the ultimate irony and most brilliant rhetorical stroke is Douglass' implicit dramatization of himself as the quintessential American type--the self-made man, the "rugged individualist"-- the personification of Emersonian self-reliance. While Douglass acknowledges his bonds of friendship with other slaves and the help he received from others in his escape, what emerges most strongly is the profile of a man who acts independently to liberate himself from oppression. By presenting himself in these terms, Douglass' makes a powerful argument that a black slave is as much an American as the pioneer, the entrepreneur, or the original settlers throwing off the yoke of European oppression.
Without a doubt, Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave is one of the most remarkable works of political rhetoric to have been produced in all of American literature.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Danish Girl
Americans love the redemptive narrative, the recovery plot (see previous post), and throughout our history it has taken many forms: spiritual autobiography, captivity narrative, slave narrative, economic success story, courtship romance, "coming of age," medical/psychological recovery. All of these genres involve the struggle with obstacles, redemption from suffering, and the attainment of salvation, freedom, fame and fortune, romantic love, maturity, and/or recovery from dis-ease, either physical or psychological or both.
A contemporary sub-set of the physical/psychological recovery plot is the story of the transexual, who undergoes physical, psychological, and social transformation to redeem him/herself from the bondage of a body and a gender role that do not fit and to achieve a sense of wholeness and authenticity in a new body and new gender identity.The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff (2000) is a recent fictional version of an experience that has been recounted in transexual autobiographies from Jan Morris' Conundrum (1974) to Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There (2003). In this work of fiction Ebershoff imagines his way into the life of Danish painter Einer Wegener, who underwent the first surgical sex change in Dresden in 1931 to become Lili Elbe, all with the help and support of his/her wife Greta Waud.
What strikes me as remarkable about this novel is the way in which it represents the transexual journey as a biological experience. Obviously, it is a psychological and social experience as well, and the novel portrays it as such. But more than any other account I have read, in this novel the body of Einer/Lili is almost a part of the setting of the narrative. Einer/Lili's body is like a stage on which the transexual drama is acted out. Ebershoff captures the biological, as well as the psychological and social, suffering of Einer/Lili, and explores the erotic dimension of the experience more than any other author I have read. One has the sense that Lili's physical survival depends upon a successful transformation from a male to a female body.
Lili's redemption and liberation from this suffering comes by way of three separate surgeries, during which it is discovered that she has ovaries. The last surgery involves a uterine transplant to make it
possible for her to become pregnant. Ironically, the novel ends with the ominous foreshadowing of Lili's death. The historical Einer/Lili did in fact die about three months after the third surgery, possibly from transplant rejection. Thus this redemptive narrative becomes a tragic one. Lili literally risks her life to save herself, and while her redemption is real, it also ironically leads to her death.
The novel also challenges the popular postmodern view of gender as a social construction rather than an essential part of one's identity. While in one sense Einer/Lili serves as an example of the fluidity and indeterminacy of gender identity, in another she/he dramatizes its essential psychological and biological reality, experienced by Einer/Lili as a necessity which cannot be denied.
One of the doctors that Greta consults tells her about one of his early cases of male to female surgery: "Who would think it possible" he says, "going from man to woman? Who would risk his career to try something that sounds like something from a myth?" On the next page, in a book on gender ambiguity, Einer/Lili reads the myth of Hermes and Aphrodite, whose union produced Hermaphroditus, an intersex character. And, indeed, the transgender character in literature can perhaps be traced back to the metamorphoses and shape-shifting of ancient mythology.
As Greta ponders Einer/Lili's plight, she thinks of him/her as being "on a perpetual track of transformation, as if these changes...would never cease, would lead to no end. And when she thought about it, who wasn't always changing? Wasn't everyone always turning into someone
new?" For Greta, Einer/Lili was just a more extreme and dramatic version of all of us.
A contemporary sub-set of the physical/psychological recovery plot is the story of the transexual, who undergoes physical, psychological, and social transformation to redeem him/herself from the bondage of a body and a gender role that do not fit and to achieve a sense of wholeness and authenticity in a new body and new gender identity.The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff (2000) is a recent fictional version of an experience that has been recounted in transexual autobiographies from Jan Morris' Conundrum (1974) to Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There (2003). In this work of fiction Ebershoff imagines his way into the life of Danish painter Einer Wegener, who underwent the first surgical sex change in Dresden in 1931 to become Lili Elbe, all with the help and support of his/her wife Greta Waud.
What strikes me as remarkable about this novel is the way in which it represents the transexual journey as a biological experience. Obviously, it is a psychological and social experience as well, and the novel portrays it as such. But more than any other account I have read, in this novel the body of Einer/Lili is almost a part of the setting of the narrative. Einer/Lili's body is like a stage on which the transexual drama is acted out. Ebershoff captures the biological, as well as the psychological and social, suffering of Einer/Lili, and explores the erotic dimension of the experience more than any other author I have read. One has the sense that Lili's physical survival depends upon a successful transformation from a male to a female body.
Lili's redemption and liberation from this suffering comes by way of three separate surgeries, during which it is discovered that she has ovaries. The last surgery involves a uterine transplant to make it
possible for her to become pregnant. Ironically, the novel ends with the ominous foreshadowing of Lili's death. The historical Einer/Lili did in fact die about three months after the third surgery, possibly from transplant rejection. Thus this redemptive narrative becomes a tragic one. Lili literally risks her life to save herself, and while her redemption is real, it also ironically leads to her death.
The novel also challenges the popular postmodern view of gender as a social construction rather than an essential part of one's identity. While in one sense Einer/Lili serves as an example of the fluidity and indeterminacy of gender identity, in another she/he dramatizes its essential psychological and biological reality, experienced by Einer/Lili as a necessity which cannot be denied.
One of the doctors that Greta consults tells her about one of his early cases of male to female surgery: "Who would think it possible" he says, "going from man to woman? Who would risk his career to try something that sounds like something from a myth?" On the next page, in a book on gender ambiguity, Einer/Lili reads the myth of Hermes and Aphrodite, whose union produced Hermaphroditus, an intersex character. And, indeed, the transgender character in literature can perhaps be traced back to the metamorphoses and shape-shifting of ancient mythology.
As Greta ponders Einer/Lili's plight, she thinks of him/her as being "on a perpetual track of transformation, as if these changes...would never cease, would lead to no end. And when she thought about it, who wasn't always changing? Wasn't everyone always turning into someone
new?" For Greta, Einer/Lili was just a more extreme and dramatic version of all of us.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Shack
A convergence of coincidences led me to read this book by Wm. Paul Young (2007), which I might not otherwise have bothered with. Three people, none of whom know each other and one of whom doesn't even know me, independently recommended it.
I found myself more interested in the murder mystery and family drama than with the religous fantasy. I was disappointed we didn't get to meet the killer and see him brought to justice. However, I was intrigued by the psychological narrative of a father, estranged from his own father, grieving the murder of his six-year-old daughter finally finding some semblance of resolution by returning to the scene of the brutal crime, the shack. Sometimes, relief from pain can only be found by confronting it directly and moving through it, not by hiding, protecting, avoiding, or repressing.
I found the religious fantasy to be overly contrived. God appears as an African American woman, who is a really good cook. Jesus is accurately represented as a Jewish man, and the Holy Ghost is an Asian woman. Despite the suggestion of an interfaith or multifaith spirituality, I suspect most non-Christian readers will have trouble getting past the dramatization of traditional Christian doctrine: trinity, Jesus as divine, Christ as savior. The non-spiritual, strictly materialist reader may find the whole fantasy quite laughable.
However, the message of spiritual truth being found in relationship rather than orthodoxy, love rather than rules, and forgiveness rather than dogma is a message that transcends religous boundaries. Even the atheist can appreciate the power of the human spirit freeing itself from the toxic effects of anger, hate, fear, grief, and self-loathing to find peace by letting go of past pain and rejoining the human community.
One recurrent theme kept bothering me. "Original sin" seemed to be defined in terms of "independence" from humanity as well as God. Yet, considerable independence from established religious institutions must have been required to write a book which departs from and, indeed, challenges conventional Christianity. Without independence from human institutions, including institutionalized conceptions of the "spiritual," an encounter with authentic spirituality may not be possible. Furthermore, without some degree of independence from the "spiritual," we would not be capable of consciously experiencing it.
Americans love the redemptive narrative, and this text can be viewed as a contemporary psychological/spiritual version of the "recovery" plot, which has a long American tradition reaching back to spiritual autobiographies of the early Puritans. The traditional pattern of sin--forgiveness--salvation is recapitulated in the more contemporary pattern of dis-ease--reconciliation--restoration to health and wholeness.
I found myself more interested in the murder mystery and family drama than with the religous fantasy. I was disappointed we didn't get to meet the killer and see him brought to justice. However, I was intrigued by the psychological narrative of a father, estranged from his own father, grieving the murder of his six-year-old daughter finally finding some semblance of resolution by returning to the scene of the brutal crime, the shack. Sometimes, relief from pain can only be found by confronting it directly and moving through it, not by hiding, protecting, avoiding, or repressing.
I found the religious fantasy to be overly contrived. God appears as an African American woman, who is a really good cook. Jesus is accurately represented as a Jewish man, and the Holy Ghost is an Asian woman. Despite the suggestion of an interfaith or multifaith spirituality, I suspect most non-Christian readers will have trouble getting past the dramatization of traditional Christian doctrine: trinity, Jesus as divine, Christ as savior. The non-spiritual, strictly materialist reader may find the whole fantasy quite laughable.
However, the message of spiritual truth being found in relationship rather than orthodoxy, love rather than rules, and forgiveness rather than dogma is a message that transcends religous boundaries. Even the atheist can appreciate the power of the human spirit freeing itself from the toxic effects of anger, hate, fear, grief, and self-loathing to find peace by letting go of past pain and rejoining the human community.
One recurrent theme kept bothering me. "Original sin" seemed to be defined in terms of "independence" from humanity as well as God. Yet, considerable independence from established religious institutions must have been required to write a book which departs from and, indeed, challenges conventional Christianity. Without independence from human institutions, including institutionalized conceptions of the "spiritual," an encounter with authentic spirituality may not be possible. Furthermore, without some degree of independence from the "spiritual," we would not be capable of consciously experiencing it.
Americans love the redemptive narrative, and this text can be viewed as a contemporary psychological/spiritual version of the "recovery" plot, which has a long American tradition reaching back to spiritual autobiographies of the early Puritans. The traditional pattern of sin--forgiveness--salvation is recapitulated in the more contemporary pattern of dis-ease--reconciliation--restoration to health and wholeness.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Book of Darwin
In The Book of Darwin (1982) George Gaylord Simpson weaves his own summaries of and commentary on Darwin's life and work in among excerpts from Darwin's writing. There are long sections of detailed observations on everything from cowslips to worms to barnacles. While these sections constitute a fascinating demonstration of Darwin's meticulous powers of observation, data collection,description, and record-keeping, they will tend to put the average reader to sleep.
What will keep most readers awake are Darwin's personal reflections, as well as the development of his thoughts on evolution and religion.
Among these personal reflections are an account of his suffering from chronic illness, his list of pros and cons when contemplating marriage, and the suggestion that as he became more and more absorbed in his scientific pursuits, his ability to appreciate the arts deteriorated.
As he accumulated more and more evidence for the theory of evolution through natural selection, he pondered the implications for religion and concluded, "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone." He notes that "A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'" (137)
In the famous "tangled bank" passage, Darwin referenced "the Creator" as follows: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." (143) Apparently, the decline of his senstitivity to the arts did not affect his appreciation for beauty and grandeur in nature.
With respect to science, Darwin defined it as a process of "grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them." (46) Later, he stated, "From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,--that is, to group all
facts under some general laws." (196) Evolution was the law that best explained his voluminous observations and data collection. It seems he was more interested in the observation and hypothesis-development part of the scientific method than in the testing and experimentation part.
In any case, one comes away from this book full of admiration for Darwin's meticulous attention to detail, his patience and endurance in pursuit of understanding, and his courage in testifying to his truth despite nay-sayers, skeptics, and critics.
What will keep most readers awake are Darwin's personal reflections, as well as the development of his thoughts on evolution and religion.
Among these personal reflections are an account of his suffering from chronic illness, his list of pros and cons when contemplating marriage, and the suggestion that as he became more and more absorbed in his scientific pursuits, his ability to appreciate the arts deteriorated.
As he accumulated more and more evidence for the theory of evolution through natural selection, he pondered the implications for religion and concluded, "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone." He notes that "A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'" (137)
In the famous "tangled bank" passage, Darwin referenced "the Creator" as follows: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." (143) Apparently, the decline of his senstitivity to the arts did not affect his appreciation for beauty and grandeur in nature.
With respect to science, Darwin defined it as a process of "grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them." (46) Later, he stated, "From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,--that is, to group all
facts under some general laws." (196) Evolution was the law that best explained his voluminous observations and data collection. It seems he was more interested in the observation and hypothesis-development part of the scientific method than in the testing and experimentation part.
In any case, one comes away from this book full of admiration for Darwin's meticulous attention to detail, his patience and endurance in pursuit of understanding, and his courage in testifying to his truth despite nay-sayers, skeptics, and critics.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Identity Politics and Poetry
Of all forms of literature poetry is probably most popularly perceived as being above politics. But consider some of the Best Loved Poems of the American People (Felleman 1936): "Paul Revere's Ride" (Longfellow), "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England" (Hemans), "Concord Hymn" (Emerson), "My Madonna" (Service), "The Indian Hunter (Cook). The most lyrical of nature poems become political in the context of environmental exploitation and pollution; the sweetest love poems become political in the context of gender power imabalances, heterosexism, and homophobia.
Yet each of the above could be read in terms of universal themes: patriotism, heroism, historical memory, cultural myths, good and evil, natural beauty, human love and attraction.
But what of a self-consciously political poet, such as Audre Lorde, whose identity as African-American, female, and lesbian was a dominant theme? How can she speak with the voice of a black woman and reach the ear of a white male? Can she be valued for her lesbian eroticism and at the same time for her universality?
The Black Unicorn
The black unicorn is greedy.
The black unicorn is impatient.
'The black unicorn was mistaken for a shadow or symbol
and taken
through a cold country where mist painted mockeries
of my fury.It is not on her lap where the horn rests
but deep in her moonpit
growing.
The black unicorn is restless
the black unicorn is unrelenting
the black unicorn is not
free.
It's clearly an expression of black female, perhaps also lesbian, identity, but surely a white male can appreciate greed, impatience, misunderstanding, mockery, anger, restlessness, determination, oppression, perhaps even gender inversion.
And how does a straight reader relate to lesbian eroticism? Gay or straight, male or female, black or white, I dare you to read her most erotic lesbian poems and not find an expression of the universal eroticism of earth and moon, flesh and fire, mountain and forest, animal heat...
On A Night of The Full Moon
I
Out of my flesh that hungers
and my mouth that knows
comes the shape I am seeking
for reason.The curve of your waiting body
fits my waiting hand
your breasts warm as sunlight
your lips quick as young birds
between your thighs the sweet
sharp taste of limes
Thus I hold you
frank in my heart's eye
in my skin's knowing
as my fingers conceive your warmth
I feel your stomach
move against mine
Before the moon wanes again
we shall come together.
II
And I would be the moon
spoken over your beckoning flesh
breaking against reservations
beaching thought
my hands at your high tide
over and under inside you
and the passing of hungers
attended forgotten
Darkly risen
the moon speaks my eyes judging your roundness
delightful.
Yet each of the above could be read in terms of universal themes: patriotism, heroism, historical memory, cultural myths, good and evil, natural beauty, human love and attraction.
But what of a self-consciously political poet, such as Audre Lorde, whose identity as African-American, female, and lesbian was a dominant theme? How can she speak with the voice of a black woman and reach the ear of a white male? Can she be valued for her lesbian eroticism and at the same time for her universality?
The Black Unicorn
The black unicorn is greedy.
The black unicorn is impatient.
'The black unicorn was mistaken for a shadow or symbol
and taken
through a cold country where mist painted mockeries
of my fury.It is not on her lap where the horn rests
but deep in her moonpit
growing.
The black unicorn is restless
the black unicorn is unrelenting
the black unicorn is not
free.
It's clearly an expression of black female, perhaps also lesbian, identity, but surely a white male can appreciate greed, impatience, misunderstanding, mockery, anger, restlessness, determination, oppression, perhaps even gender inversion.
And how does a straight reader relate to lesbian eroticism? Gay or straight, male or female, black or white, I dare you to read her most erotic lesbian poems and not find an expression of the universal eroticism of earth and moon, flesh and fire, mountain and forest, animal heat...
On A Night of The Full Moon
I
Out of my flesh that hungers
and my mouth that knows
comes the shape I am seeking
for reason.The curve of your waiting body
fits my waiting hand
your breasts warm as sunlight
your lips quick as young birds
between your thighs the sweet
sharp taste of limes
Thus I hold you
frank in my heart's eye
in my skin's knowing
as my fingers conceive your warmth
I feel your stomach
move against mine
Before the moon wanes again
we shall come together.
II
And I would be the moon
spoken over your beckoning flesh
breaking against reservations
beaching thought
my hands at your high tide
over and under inside you
and the passing of hungers
attended forgotten
Darkly risen
the moon speaks my eyes judging your roundness
delightful.
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