I hit a wall in my first long argument, so I terminated it. It was a good decision--looking at a blank page on my computer screen allowed me to make a leap into discussing crowds and considering them as manifestations of ideology that didn't seem as appealing at the end of a 17 page argument. I think it might because I just didn't want to write a transitional paragraph, but either way it gave me space to introduce contemporary American politics.
As manifestations of ideas, crowds have a sinister power, in part because they erase individuality. Ignoring the human element allows movements to adhere to grandiose notions of justice, or promulgate vacuum-sealed morality. In short, they ignore human needs in search of an ideal. Warren makes this pretty obvious in his fiction, and his narrators offer anecdotal evidence of the destructive potential this gives the crowd. I've looked a couple of the crowd scenes, and I'm struck right now by the necessity of a leader to channel that energy into change, but also by Warren's interest in the physicality of the crowds. I think he sees a strange combination of the vulgar body and the pure ideal. I haven't quite worked out how this is significant yet, but I do know the more I read Warren the more terrified I am by the awesome potential in the Middle East for transformation--which could work worlds of good or undermine the stability of the globe.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Jack Burden's Perspective
Jack Burden makes a political reading of All the King's Men more difficult. The first-person narrative limits our understanding of Willie Stark's motives and colors the novel's portrayal of his domination of state politics. Jack's resistance to the gritty side of politics--made most evident in his reaction to Willie Stark and Judge Irwin's confrontation, where he says, "to hell with both of them"--precludes him from becoming a political man himself; he is instead relegated to mediocre journalism, having failed at academia.
On one level, he represents rebellion. A product of Burden's Landing, Jack comes from the political and cultural elite. His education and his outlook both arise out of that upbringing. Yet, Jack abandons that lifestyle when he attaches himself to Stark's political machine, distasteful as he finds the political process. Rather than dwell on Willie's ethically questionable methods, Jack finds himself captivated by a man who can "do" something, who can make sweeping changes. The uncomfortable tension between his privileged upbringing and his commitment to Stark's political machine allows him to navigate between the two sides of the populist argument, the wealthy, landed gentry and the poor farmers. Yet, as an apolitical man himself, his unease with the political process makes him unable to render a judgment about which side, if either, makes a more meritorious argument.
His value, then, is his ability to present both sides. He frustrates efforts to evaluate both sides, however, because he himself cannot conclude anything about them.
That he seeks to escape the politics becomes his most significant contribution to a political reading. People of Jack's character and temperament, it seems, are not equipped to enter politics, which necessitates certain sacrifices of morality and conscience. While Willie and Judge Irwin are willing to make these sacrifices for political power, Jack is not. This conclusion reorients the politics of the novel. While the poor farmers and wealthy landowners might be one opposite ends of the political spectrum in terms of policy goals, their political leaders undergo the same corrupting transformation when they enter the political arena.
On one level, he represents rebellion. A product of Burden's Landing, Jack comes from the political and cultural elite. His education and his outlook both arise out of that upbringing. Yet, Jack abandons that lifestyle when he attaches himself to Stark's political machine, distasteful as he finds the political process. Rather than dwell on Willie's ethically questionable methods, Jack finds himself captivated by a man who can "do" something, who can make sweeping changes. The uncomfortable tension between his privileged upbringing and his commitment to Stark's political machine allows him to navigate between the two sides of the populist argument, the wealthy, landed gentry and the poor farmers. Yet, as an apolitical man himself, his unease with the political process makes him unable to render a judgment about which side, if either, makes a more meritorious argument.
His value, then, is his ability to present both sides. He frustrates efforts to evaluate both sides, however, because he himself cannot conclude anything about them.
That he seeks to escape the politics becomes his most significant contribution to a political reading. People of Jack's character and temperament, it seems, are not equipped to enter politics, which necessitates certain sacrifices of morality and conscience. While Willie and Judge Irwin are willing to make these sacrifices for political power, Jack is not. This conclusion reorients the politics of the novel. While the poor farmers and wealthy landowners might be one opposite ends of the political spectrum in terms of policy goals, their political leaders undergo the same corrupting transformation when they enter the political arena.
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Definition of Populism
I've decided on a final definition of populism. The entire thing is too long to reproduce here, but in short:
Populism as an historical concept represents the conflict between labor and capital. For the purposes of this thesis, which will deal with southern populism and the agrarian revolution, labor signifies poor farmers, while capital encompasses wealthy, landed, southern aristocracy. The political goals of this movement include free silver and government control of transportation and communication. Paradoxically, these socially progressive policy goals coexist with populist nostalgia, a sentimental view of rural, agrarian life, and a desire to maintain the status quo.
Warren, though he portrays the socioeconomic conflict to great effect, concerns himself more with the sociocultural implications of the above definition than the socioeconomic ones. Poor farmers have no power over what is considered culturally significant, have no access to the knowledge that drives the political process; the elites do. Simply put, this system decimates any hope the poor might have of contributing substantively to the political process.
This dualistic representation of populism would be remiss if it did not consider Warren's tone when dealing with populist movements. The poor farmer never receives a face, an identity, a history--never anything but a brief description of the exterior. The elites, conversely, are fleshed out and loaded with personality. The conflict, then, is not Manichean; no one could reasonably suggest that the poor farmer is "good" whereas the landed gentry are "bad." Instead, Warren complicates the representation, suggests obliquely that no one involved in the movement or fighting the movement is inherently "good." I intend to expound on this idea by doing a close reading of the first encounter between Judge Irwin and Willie Stark in All the King's Men, post to follow.
Populism as an historical concept represents the conflict between labor and capital. For the purposes of this thesis, which will deal with southern populism and the agrarian revolution, labor signifies poor farmers, while capital encompasses wealthy, landed, southern aristocracy. The political goals of this movement include free silver and government control of transportation and communication. Paradoxically, these socially progressive policy goals coexist with populist nostalgia, a sentimental view of rural, agrarian life, and a desire to maintain the status quo.
Warren, though he portrays the socioeconomic conflict to great effect, concerns himself more with the sociocultural implications of the above definition than the socioeconomic ones. Poor farmers have no power over what is considered culturally significant, have no access to the knowledge that drives the political process; the elites do. Simply put, this system decimates any hope the poor might have of contributing substantively to the political process.
This dualistic representation of populism would be remiss if it did not consider Warren's tone when dealing with populist movements. The poor farmer never receives a face, an identity, a history--never anything but a brief description of the exterior. The elites, conversely, are fleshed out and loaded with personality. The conflict, then, is not Manichean; no one could reasonably suggest that the poor farmer is "good" whereas the landed gentry are "bad." Instead, Warren complicates the representation, suggests obliquely that no one involved in the movement or fighting the movement is inherently "good." I intend to expound on this idea by doing a close reading of the first encounter between Judge Irwin and Willie Stark in All the King's Men, post to follow.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A Thesis Outline?
I've spent the past week since I embarked on this project considering how to create a dramatic conclusion rather than the process by which I'd arrive at it. I've read and re-read, and finally boiled my thoughts down to a brief outline of points.
1) Warren's definition of populism. This, I think, will be the most critical part of the thesis. I intend to draw on Warren's letters, novels, poems, books, and statements to establish a working view of what populism is. Drawing on historical primary and secondary sources that discuss populism as well as Warren's personal experience with the political movement, I hope to establish both a hard and fast definition of what characterizes populism and an attitude toward the movement with which to judge it. That is, if Warren finds the kind of grassroots politics that come along with populism distasteful--and I think he does--then I'll color my evaluation of populism with Warren's ideas and attitude. My intention with this method is to arrive at last at a reasonable speculation of what Warren would think of contemporary American politics. A few works I intend to use in this evaluation include All the King's Men, Night Rider, At Heaven's Gate, Democracy and Poetry, and The Legacy of the Civil War. From these sources, I believe I can garner a holistic picture of populism as Warren portrays it.
My tentative, working definition of populism based on what I have read and considered thus far:
Populism as a political system pits the crowd against the ruling elite in a struggle for control. Its success means the rise of the so-called "common man;" it asserts that "the plainest, poorest fellow can be Governor if his fellow citizens find he has got the stuff and the character for the job." Its domination of the political system signifies more robust social programs and hails a redistribution of wealth; it holds that though "there is a passel of pore folks living in [the state] and no mistake, but the state isn’t poor. It is just a question of who has got his front feet in the trough when slopping time comes." Its rhetoric demonizes an abstract government whose services do not match the taxes it receives to the satisfaction of its constituents.
The crowd will figure prominently in my discussion, as I believe the crowd mentality fuels a populist movement and, more importantly, is the characteristic of populist movements that Warren most strongly despises.
2) Populism's impact on the American political landscape. This is the point that inspired my thesis originally, given the Tea Party's ascendance in the nation's most recent mid-term elections and Obama's mobilization of youth for support during his Obama for America campaign. I have a few sub-points I hope to integrate into this discussion:
a) The emergence of populist attitude--that is, how populism becomes a viable political movement. I intend to go to Willie Stark's initial election in All the King's Men to examine some of the circumstances surrounding that event, and then compare that with the Tea Party victories in 2010 and Obama's victory in 2008. Here, I suspect that populism results from distrust of the existing governmental apparatus or from a disconnect between the engine of government and the people it serves. I hope to establish that populist sentiment arises out of similar circumstances, regardless of partisanship.
b) Populist rhetoric--using speeches from Warren's political characters, I intend to analyze rhetoric to determine populism's ethos, as well as pathos that populist politicians evoke. I believe that discovering the main thrust of these speeches and the kind of emotion it generates will shed important light on the circumstances that lead to populist political movements. I intend to take these analyses to speeches made by President Obama and Tea Party politicians to compare their speeches both to Warren's view of populism and to each other. That way, I can determine whether or not partisanship alters the representation of the government--I think it likely does--and assess the validity of Warren's view of populism as a guide to understanding contemporary politics. The more correlation I find between the rhetorical devices he employs and the rhetorical devices contemporary politicians employ, the more valid I feel his beliefs will be in evaluating populism in the 21st century. A side tangent I think would be interesting here would be the crowd's response to populist rhetoric--both the crowds in Warren's novels and the crowds in the blogosphere/Twittersphere who disseminate political rhetoric.
c) Populism's sustainability. The poetic justice that meets Willie Stark in the capitol suggest that Warren does not view populism as a sustainable movement--or at least, that he views populist politicians as unsustainable, a point I will return to later. Here I want to arrive at a conclusion regarding the extent to which populism influences American politics--the kind of things that last as opposed to the transience of the movement. Here, I hope to show that Warren augurs the downfall of populism by illustrating the downfall of its representatives in government.
My first and second topics dealt largely with institutions and ideas. In the next point, I want to focus more on the individuals who make populism a viable movement rather than the ideology of the movement itself. Which brings me to...
3) The populist politician--demagogue or representative of the people? Here I intend to go straight to the characters who represent idealistic populism--or even just plain idealism. Here, Brother to Dragons will prove useful. Jefferson's character in that poem represents the idealistic politician whose faith in government, American exceptionalism, and ideals erases his human-ness from history, leaving modern students of history with a portrait of a titanic thinker instead of a man. In seeking to reclaim the man, Warren redeems Jefferson. The process of reclaiming him will prove useful as I explore the modern constituent's relationship with political figures. I think a comparison of Obama as a president forced to compromise with Obama as the idealistic leader of the liberal movement--all in context of BtD--will yield a better understanding of role leaders play in shaping populist movements. Warren, I think, provides an "out" when thinking about politicians, advocating recognition of shared humanity rather than expecting a larger-than-life change-agent. A few other ideas to explore include:
a) The relationship between politicians and the "establishment." Populism installs representatives of the people in the established government in hopes of effecting a more responsive and more accessible political system. Willie Stark, however, becomes corrupted by the establishment, acknowledging the graft in the very institution he sought to reform. He hides this fact from his constituents, who believe he has created an administration free from crooks. Warren clearly believes in a fallen humanity, and it follows that he would think humanity's institutions would be corrupt. Stark's character further illustrates that broken institutions have the power to corrupt even those who enter to reform them. Out of this point, I hope to conclude not pessimistically about the inefficacy of trying to reform government, but rather to advocate more realistic expectations of politicians dealing with flawed institutions.
b) The Tea Party as a "leader-less movement." One characteristic of populism is its goal of placing politicians in government. The Tea Party deviates from this norm, presenting itself as a movement led by the crowd instead of an individual. I consider the veracity of that assertion questionable, but nevertheless believe the rhetoric suggests an interesting difference worth investigating. This is one sub-point I'm interested in investigating, but not one I have a hypothesis for yet. This is one I'll have to return to.
4) Finally, I'll conclude. I'm unsure what I'll draw out of all of the above yet, because I haven't dug in yet. I intend to address the tension between my second and third points, namely between institutions and individuals. I think this conflict may be at the heart of what this work will mean for using Warren to evaluating the contemporary political scene.
I expect the thesis to follow generally in the order I presented these points, and I intend to investigate them vaguely in that order. There is some overlap, and some points depend on conclusions I make elsewhere, but here's a general outline for my work.
On that note, I'm off to figure out a more thorough definition of populism.
1) Warren's definition of populism. This, I think, will be the most critical part of the thesis. I intend to draw on Warren's letters, novels, poems, books, and statements to establish a working view of what populism is. Drawing on historical primary and secondary sources that discuss populism as well as Warren's personal experience with the political movement, I hope to establish both a hard and fast definition of what characterizes populism and an attitude toward the movement with which to judge it. That is, if Warren finds the kind of grassroots politics that come along with populism distasteful--and I think he does--then I'll color my evaluation of populism with Warren's ideas and attitude. My intention with this method is to arrive at last at a reasonable speculation of what Warren would think of contemporary American politics. A few works I intend to use in this evaluation include All the King's Men, Night Rider, At Heaven's Gate, Democracy and Poetry, and The Legacy of the Civil War. From these sources, I believe I can garner a holistic picture of populism as Warren portrays it.
My tentative, working definition of populism based on what I have read and considered thus far:
Populism as a political system pits the crowd against the ruling elite in a struggle for control. Its success means the rise of the so-called "common man;" it asserts that "the plainest, poorest fellow can be Governor if his fellow citizens find he has got the stuff and the character for the job." Its domination of the political system signifies more robust social programs and hails a redistribution of wealth; it holds that though "there is a passel of pore folks living in [the state] and no mistake, but the state isn’t poor. It is just a question of who has got his front feet in the trough when slopping time comes." Its rhetoric demonizes an abstract government whose services do not match the taxes it receives to the satisfaction of its constituents.
The crowd will figure prominently in my discussion, as I believe the crowd mentality fuels a populist movement and, more importantly, is the characteristic of populist movements that Warren most strongly despises.
2) Populism's impact on the American political landscape. This is the point that inspired my thesis originally, given the Tea Party's ascendance in the nation's most recent mid-term elections and Obama's mobilization of youth for support during his Obama for America campaign. I have a few sub-points I hope to integrate into this discussion:
a) The emergence of populist attitude--that is, how populism becomes a viable political movement. I intend to go to Willie Stark's initial election in All the King's Men to examine some of the circumstances surrounding that event, and then compare that with the Tea Party victories in 2010 and Obama's victory in 2008. Here, I suspect that populism results from distrust of the existing governmental apparatus or from a disconnect between the engine of government and the people it serves. I hope to establish that populist sentiment arises out of similar circumstances, regardless of partisanship.
b) Populist rhetoric--using speeches from Warren's political characters, I intend to analyze rhetoric to determine populism's ethos, as well as pathos that populist politicians evoke. I believe that discovering the main thrust of these speeches and the kind of emotion it generates will shed important light on the circumstances that lead to populist political movements. I intend to take these analyses to speeches made by President Obama and Tea Party politicians to compare their speeches both to Warren's view of populism and to each other. That way, I can determine whether or not partisanship alters the representation of the government--I think it likely does--and assess the validity of Warren's view of populism as a guide to understanding contemporary politics. The more correlation I find between the rhetorical devices he employs and the rhetorical devices contemporary politicians employ, the more valid I feel his beliefs will be in evaluating populism in the 21st century. A side tangent I think would be interesting here would be the crowd's response to populist rhetoric--both the crowds in Warren's novels and the crowds in the blogosphere/Twittersphere who disseminate political rhetoric.
c) Populism's sustainability. The poetic justice that meets Willie Stark in the capitol suggest that Warren does not view populism as a sustainable movement--or at least, that he views populist politicians as unsustainable, a point I will return to later. Here I want to arrive at a conclusion regarding the extent to which populism influences American politics--the kind of things that last as opposed to the transience of the movement. Here, I hope to show that Warren augurs the downfall of populism by illustrating the downfall of its representatives in government.
My first and second topics dealt largely with institutions and ideas. In the next point, I want to focus more on the individuals who make populism a viable movement rather than the ideology of the movement itself. Which brings me to...
3) The populist politician--demagogue or representative of the people? Here I intend to go straight to the characters who represent idealistic populism--or even just plain idealism. Here, Brother to Dragons will prove useful. Jefferson's character in that poem represents the idealistic politician whose faith in government, American exceptionalism, and ideals erases his human-ness from history, leaving modern students of history with a portrait of a titanic thinker instead of a man. In seeking to reclaim the man, Warren redeems Jefferson. The process of reclaiming him will prove useful as I explore the modern constituent's relationship with political figures. I think a comparison of Obama as a president forced to compromise with Obama as the idealistic leader of the liberal movement--all in context of BtD--will yield a better understanding of role leaders play in shaping populist movements. Warren, I think, provides an "out" when thinking about politicians, advocating recognition of shared humanity rather than expecting a larger-than-life change-agent. A few other ideas to explore include:
a) The relationship between politicians and the "establishment." Populism installs representatives of the people in the established government in hopes of effecting a more responsive and more accessible political system. Willie Stark, however, becomes corrupted by the establishment, acknowledging the graft in the very institution he sought to reform. He hides this fact from his constituents, who believe he has created an administration free from crooks. Warren clearly believes in a fallen humanity, and it follows that he would think humanity's institutions would be corrupt. Stark's character further illustrates that broken institutions have the power to corrupt even those who enter to reform them. Out of this point, I hope to conclude not pessimistically about the inefficacy of trying to reform government, but rather to advocate more realistic expectations of politicians dealing with flawed institutions.
b) The Tea Party as a "leader-less movement." One characteristic of populism is its goal of placing politicians in government. The Tea Party deviates from this norm, presenting itself as a movement led by the crowd instead of an individual. I consider the veracity of that assertion questionable, but nevertheless believe the rhetoric suggests an interesting difference worth investigating. This is one sub-point I'm interested in investigating, but not one I have a hypothesis for yet. This is one I'll have to return to.
4) Finally, I'll conclude. I'm unsure what I'll draw out of all of the above yet, because I haven't dug in yet. I intend to address the tension between my second and third points, namely between institutions and individuals. I think this conflict may be at the heart of what this work will mean for using Warren to evaluating the contemporary political scene.
I expect the thesis to follow generally in the order I presented these points, and I intend to investigate them vaguely in that order. There is some overlap, and some points depend on conclusions I make elsewhere, but here's a general outline for my work.
On that note, I'm off to figure out a more thorough definition of populism.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Final CURO Presentation Speech
I began this summer with an ambitious project. In my proposal, I suggested that after eight weeks of intensive reading, I could “find God.” Since that time, I have read intensely, but do not know that I am any closer to finding anything remotely resembling a deity. Instead I have been forced to look at my proposal, where I say that I intend to disperse the moral complications in the unfaltering light of literary analysis. A bold boast, everyone will agree, I’m sure, and one that does not, simply because pure intellectual analysis cannot, encompass the passion, poignancy, and power of Robert Penn Warren’s struggle.
For the sake of emphasizing the intelligence of the man, I present to you an abridged version of his CV. He was born in Guthrie, KY in 1905, graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt at the age of twenty, received a master’s degree from the University of California in 1927, did some graduate work at Yale, and finally received a B. Litt. from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar at the age of 25. He has published, ten novels, sixteen volumes of poetry, a volume of short stories, a play, a collection of essays, one biography, three historical essays, one criticism of Theodore Dreiser and one of Hermann Meville, and two racial studies to say nothing of the books to which he’s contributed or edited. He remains one of the most decorated poets in American history, being the first poet laureate of the United States, the only author to have won the Pulitzer Prize for both Fiction and Poetry, and a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Among other awards, he was honored to be made Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, received the Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize, the Emerson-Thoreau Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a MacArthur Foundation Award. The man is, to quote R.W.B. Lewis, “the most complete man of letters of our time.”
Though perhaps no longer a part of our twenty-first century time, Warren nonetheless remains one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century; the enduring power of the work cannot be underscored enough nor can the passage of time detract from it, for Warren’s struggle is humanity’s, his despair the modern despondency, his joy the contemporary bliss. Bliss, joy, elation, exhilaration, these are the abstractions for which Warren searches, for which I was searching. I continue to regret the fact that I titled my project “finding God,” because of the various religious notions of that word. What I am looking for transcends the dogma and stricture of religion; I am on Warren’s metaphysical journey. He explores many different ideas of this fulfillment in his work, sometimes rejecting it totally, but always probing the possibility of personal redemption with surgical exactness. The question for readers of Warren is twofold: firstly, why waver at all, exhibiting such reticence to grasp a sublime moment and experience it, and, secondly, what purpose does doubt serve in the larger context of Warren’s work and life?
To answer the first part of this question, I went directly to the text to examine for myself Warren’s poetic journey. And what a journey it is! I have requested that the CURO office provide you with copies of two poems which illustrate perfectly the vacillation between spiritual awareness and nihilistic despair in Warren’s work. From reading these poems, you can tell immediately that Warren’s concern is for human realization, of identity and of the indefinable concept of “joy,” but the first, “Delusion?—No!” describes perfectly a sublime moment, the feeling of exhilaration, and contentment indicative of spiritual fulfillment, while the second, “Covered Bridge,” contains all the elements of regret, anguish, and decay that evoke the “metaphysical chill,” as Warren says in Brother to Dragons, suggestive of a speaker resigned to a desolate spiritual life.
Not to bore you by conjuring up the ghosts of English literature classes past, but I feel it necessary to discuss, however briefly, a few of the key literary elements which contribute to the broader themes of Warren’s oeuvre. In “Delusion?—No!” we begin with a speaker who has climbed a mountain to look out on the sunset. Note the setting. We begin our journey with Warren “at crag-edge,” teetering on the cusp of our shared experience, beyond the “sweat and swink” of quotidian existence. Yet observe how Warren nevertheless fastens his speaker to the earth, not with the trusses of the caged bird, but with the dawning realization that fulfillment may be found there. The first stanza hinges on a single word, almost, in the following line: “atmosphere almost too heavenly/Pure for nourishment of earthbound/Bone.” We have already established that the goal of this poetry is to ascertain a means of obtaining spiritual nourishment, and Warren informs us now that true purity, the purity of clear air, of a “momentous, muscular thrust/Skyward” cannot satisfy humanity’s longing. Observe how “the heart as it downward fled” goes not towards heaven, towards “no sensation but blueness,” but to “cliff, cleft, gorge, chasm, and, far off,/Ravine cut in the flattening but still high glitter/Of earth.” Even flying high, “Hawk-eyed…upon the emptiness of air,” Warren’s imperative is not to gaze raptly heavenward, but to “survey/Each regal contortion/And torturous imagination of rock, wind, and water, and know/Your own the power of creating all.” Warren, in emphasizing the earthbound, has drawn attention to humanity itself. Unable to subsist on the pure air of heaven, but caught up in the rapture of its clarity, the speaker returns to earth to spread the joy of “the fundamental discovery” he has made on the mountaintop.
Where “Delusion?—No!” communicated an immediacy of tone which drove the action from the first word to the climactic, thunderous assertion that the experience was no dream but reality, “Covered Bridge” eschews the experiential urgency for a more measured poem of memory. The action is less defined in this particular poem, but it is primarily a lament for the speaker’s purposelessness. The past tense combined with the rhyme slows the poem down, for sake of nostalgia and of the speaker’s listlessness. Time, often redemptive in Warren’s work for the old, simple adage that a new day brings new opportunity, time and memory here separate the speaker from his youth so much so that it seems “another self.” The precipice found in “Delusion?—No!” serves as a springboard for the spiritual experience; in “Covered Bridge” we have no such precipice, but a sandbar. Instead, Warren considers starlight, an obvious symbol of the “motionless, holy” ideal for which his speaker yearns. But it is no heavenly pure atmosphere here, but merely a reflection of ideals the speaker has long since forsaken. More, reflected in nature, the starlight, ideal purity, and the speaker, a mere member of a fallen humanity, cannot connect to the spiritual experience in the same way the other speaker did. He cannot even come close to the ideal purity, guarded as it is by “the riffle by the sandbar.” And so he bemoans his lost youth and fragmented identity until he has lost even starlight “to prove identity” by holding up his hand “scarcely visible in that gloom.” Unlike the “divine osmosis” in which the speaker gives as much of his identity to the experience as he takes from it in “Delusion?—No!” the speaker here thinks that “Going. Just going.” would be enough. Isolation, separation, and fragmentation characterize the speaker’s failure to give way to the same transcendence as the other.
These analyses are by no means complete; they serve simply to allow for a few quick contrasts before a conclusion. First, the transcendental experience succeeded when the speaker, though high on a mountain, descended to earth and failed when the speaker began on earth and looked heavenward. Second, the first poem immerses the speaker in the natural world; “Covered Bridge” separates him from it. Third, “Delusion?—No!” shows direct interaction, participation even, in his own transcendence, where in the second there is no such action. Finally, the first poem ignores any personal history or memory the speaker may have collected in his life, the experience is one of those that can be described perfectly by the concept of “carpe diem,” a Latin phrase meaning “seize the day.” The second, weighted by memory and identity crisis, prohibits any such seizing.
What can we conclude? In answer to the first bit of my two-part question, why struggle, we can say that he is insecure because his life—all our lives—are struggles. Vacillation, uncertainty, doubt—these are mainstays of existence. Warren cannot embrace wholeheartedly the optimism found in “Delusion?—No!” all day, every day; more, humanity cannot possibly sustain such an experience. The profundity of that speaker’s faith is ephemeral, the power of his experience once in a lifetime. The evolution of Warren’s work, like the evolution of his life, reflects spiritual highs and lows, shows the actuality of fulfillment and the death of hope. In a larger context, Warren struggles because the struggle reflects reality, a conclusion which allows us to answer our second question: what does Warren’s struggle mean? It means that, because he is human, and however he celebrates humanity’s genius, its depravity, and its power of creation, he recognizes that the struggle often means more than any conclusion at which he arrives. It means that, because he is human, he knows that pure idealism cannot be maintained in context of the vagaries of life, that, because he is human, he knows that wholesale despondency, as in “Covered Bridge,” belittles the meaning of existence. It means that, because he is human, in the soul-wrenching inner conflict he finds the hope that, just once, he may transcend the mortal limit. And that would be enough.
Thank you.
For the sake of emphasizing the intelligence of the man, I present to you an abridged version of his CV. He was born in Guthrie, KY in 1905, graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt at the age of twenty, received a master’s degree from the University of California in 1927, did some graduate work at Yale, and finally received a B. Litt. from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar at the age of 25. He has published, ten novels, sixteen volumes of poetry, a volume of short stories, a play, a collection of essays, one biography, three historical essays, one criticism of Theodore Dreiser and one of Hermann Meville, and two racial studies to say nothing of the books to which he’s contributed or edited. He remains one of the most decorated poets in American history, being the first poet laureate of the United States, the only author to have won the Pulitzer Prize for both Fiction and Poetry, and a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Among other awards, he was honored to be made Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, received the Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize, the Emerson-Thoreau Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a MacArthur Foundation Award. The man is, to quote R.W.B. Lewis, “the most complete man of letters of our time.”
Though perhaps no longer a part of our twenty-first century time, Warren nonetheless remains one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century; the enduring power of the work cannot be underscored enough nor can the passage of time detract from it, for Warren’s struggle is humanity’s, his despair the modern despondency, his joy the contemporary bliss. Bliss, joy, elation, exhilaration, these are the abstractions for which Warren searches, for which I was searching. I continue to regret the fact that I titled my project “finding God,” because of the various religious notions of that word. What I am looking for transcends the dogma and stricture of religion; I am on Warren’s metaphysical journey. He explores many different ideas of this fulfillment in his work, sometimes rejecting it totally, but always probing the possibility of personal redemption with surgical exactness. The question for readers of Warren is twofold: firstly, why waver at all, exhibiting such reticence to grasp a sublime moment and experience it, and, secondly, what purpose does doubt serve in the larger context of Warren’s work and life?
To answer the first part of this question, I went directly to the text to examine for myself Warren’s poetic journey. And what a journey it is! I have requested that the CURO office provide you with copies of two poems which illustrate perfectly the vacillation between spiritual awareness and nihilistic despair in Warren’s work. From reading these poems, you can tell immediately that Warren’s concern is for human realization, of identity and of the indefinable concept of “joy,” but the first, “Delusion?—No!” describes perfectly a sublime moment, the feeling of exhilaration, and contentment indicative of spiritual fulfillment, while the second, “Covered Bridge,” contains all the elements of regret, anguish, and decay that evoke the “metaphysical chill,” as Warren says in Brother to Dragons, suggestive of a speaker resigned to a desolate spiritual life.
Not to bore you by conjuring up the ghosts of English literature classes past, but I feel it necessary to discuss, however briefly, a few of the key literary elements which contribute to the broader themes of Warren’s oeuvre. In “Delusion?—No!” we begin with a speaker who has climbed a mountain to look out on the sunset. Note the setting. We begin our journey with Warren “at crag-edge,” teetering on the cusp of our shared experience, beyond the “sweat and swink” of quotidian existence. Yet observe how Warren nevertheless fastens his speaker to the earth, not with the trusses of the caged bird, but with the dawning realization that fulfillment may be found there. The first stanza hinges on a single word, almost, in the following line: “atmosphere almost too heavenly/Pure for nourishment of earthbound/Bone.” We have already established that the goal of this poetry is to ascertain a means of obtaining spiritual nourishment, and Warren informs us now that true purity, the purity of clear air, of a “momentous, muscular thrust/Skyward” cannot satisfy humanity’s longing. Observe how “the heart as it downward fled” goes not towards heaven, towards “no sensation but blueness,” but to “cliff, cleft, gorge, chasm, and, far off,/Ravine cut in the flattening but still high glitter/Of earth.” Even flying high, “Hawk-eyed…upon the emptiness of air,” Warren’s imperative is not to gaze raptly heavenward, but to “survey/Each regal contortion/And torturous imagination of rock, wind, and water, and know/Your own the power of creating all.” Warren, in emphasizing the earthbound, has drawn attention to humanity itself. Unable to subsist on the pure air of heaven, but caught up in the rapture of its clarity, the speaker returns to earth to spread the joy of “the fundamental discovery” he has made on the mountaintop.
Where “Delusion?—No!” communicated an immediacy of tone which drove the action from the first word to the climactic, thunderous assertion that the experience was no dream but reality, “Covered Bridge” eschews the experiential urgency for a more measured poem of memory. The action is less defined in this particular poem, but it is primarily a lament for the speaker’s purposelessness. The past tense combined with the rhyme slows the poem down, for sake of nostalgia and of the speaker’s listlessness. Time, often redemptive in Warren’s work for the old, simple adage that a new day brings new opportunity, time and memory here separate the speaker from his youth so much so that it seems “another self.” The precipice found in “Delusion?—No!” serves as a springboard for the spiritual experience; in “Covered Bridge” we have no such precipice, but a sandbar. Instead, Warren considers starlight, an obvious symbol of the “motionless, holy” ideal for which his speaker yearns. But it is no heavenly pure atmosphere here, but merely a reflection of ideals the speaker has long since forsaken. More, reflected in nature, the starlight, ideal purity, and the speaker, a mere member of a fallen humanity, cannot connect to the spiritual experience in the same way the other speaker did. He cannot even come close to the ideal purity, guarded as it is by “the riffle by the sandbar.” And so he bemoans his lost youth and fragmented identity until he has lost even starlight “to prove identity” by holding up his hand “scarcely visible in that gloom.” Unlike the “divine osmosis” in which the speaker gives as much of his identity to the experience as he takes from it in “Delusion?—No!” the speaker here thinks that “Going. Just going.” would be enough. Isolation, separation, and fragmentation characterize the speaker’s failure to give way to the same transcendence as the other.
These analyses are by no means complete; they serve simply to allow for a few quick contrasts before a conclusion. First, the transcendental experience succeeded when the speaker, though high on a mountain, descended to earth and failed when the speaker began on earth and looked heavenward. Second, the first poem immerses the speaker in the natural world; “Covered Bridge” separates him from it. Third, “Delusion?—No!” shows direct interaction, participation even, in his own transcendence, where in the second there is no such action. Finally, the first poem ignores any personal history or memory the speaker may have collected in his life, the experience is one of those that can be described perfectly by the concept of “carpe diem,” a Latin phrase meaning “seize the day.” The second, weighted by memory and identity crisis, prohibits any such seizing.
What can we conclude? In answer to the first bit of my two-part question, why struggle, we can say that he is insecure because his life—all our lives—are struggles. Vacillation, uncertainty, doubt—these are mainstays of existence. Warren cannot embrace wholeheartedly the optimism found in “Delusion?—No!” all day, every day; more, humanity cannot possibly sustain such an experience. The profundity of that speaker’s faith is ephemeral, the power of his experience once in a lifetime. The evolution of Warren’s work, like the evolution of his life, reflects spiritual highs and lows, shows the actuality of fulfillment and the death of hope. In a larger context, Warren struggles because the struggle reflects reality, a conclusion which allows us to answer our second question: what does Warren’s struggle mean? It means that, because he is human, and however he celebrates humanity’s genius, its depravity, and its power of creation, he recognizes that the struggle often means more than any conclusion at which he arrives. It means that, because he is human, he knows that pure idealism cannot be maintained in context of the vagaries of life, that, because he is human, he knows that wholesale despondency, as in “Covered Bridge,” belittles the meaning of existence. It means that, because he is human, in the soul-wrenching inner conflict he finds the hope that, just once, he may transcend the mortal limit. And that would be enough.
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Warren's Penchant for Paradox
Warren’s writing always leaves me feeling slightly inadequate, in a way—his ability to twist words into totally new connotations always surprises me. For a short list of examples, in “Pondy Woods” the vultures’ eyes are “hieratic,” which is a form of writing used primarily for religious texts by the noted mystic St. Clement of Alexandria. In many other instances, Warren imbues nothingness with substance, making nothing something in itself. That particular paradox will undoubtedly prove particularly significant for my discussion of Warren’s work in that he sees nothing as a void, nothing as “nonexistent.” I can’t say that he doesn’t toy with the idea of purposelessness, but I can’t anywhere find a gaping maw waiting to consume humanity—unless it’s History.
I guess for the most part it’s the paradox that leaves me feeling inadequate, no matter how significant I realize it must be. Nothingness as a concept leads me to consider emptiness, a space where nothing exists. And yet Warren discusses how nothingness “roars” about him, how he can hear the sound of reality coming through. If my writing seems confused here, it’s because I myself am absolutely confounded that somewhere in this emptiness Warren finds a justification for life.
Hand in hand with the problem of nothingness is the various speakers’ reaction to it. Alone, Warren’s speakers find themselves longing for human contact. Alone, they need above all else to forge a connection with someone. Alone, they embrace nothingness and discover meaning.
While I would think that a moment like that, alone at night, would leave the individual hungering for human contact for the rest of his life, this is not the case with Warren. In fact, in company in broad daylight, Warren’s speakers often shrink from their fellows. On a personal level, this seems to me perfectly reasonable. I can think of a number of nights alone that I’ve pondered what it means to know someone. On the other hand, logical scrutiny makes this assertion seem absolutely ludicrous. What twist of human nature has it that we as sentient, feeling beings should reject company when we have it and long for it when it is gone?
Even if it’s reflective of true human nature, Warren imbues his melancholy speakers with more regret than most probably feel in similar situations, more, certainly, than I have ever felt. And this, too, is a reason I feel somewhat inadequate—Warren seems more aware than I that this is a true reason for remorse; I think that Warren takes it upon himself to emphasize this failing on my part in the poetry to draw my attention to it.
Confused yet? I am. But at the same time this paradox is so indicative of the true nature of humanity that I feel it necessary to unravel it. In terms of Warren’s concept of individuality, it’s easy to see the need to balance “being your own person” and “being like everyone else.” Why vacillate between two extremes, though? Why not take some sort of middle road? I don’t know yet—but I’m going to try to figure it out.
I guess for the most part it’s the paradox that leaves me feeling inadequate, no matter how significant I realize it must be. Nothingness as a concept leads me to consider emptiness, a space where nothing exists. And yet Warren discusses how nothingness “roars” about him, how he can hear the sound of reality coming through. If my writing seems confused here, it’s because I myself am absolutely confounded that somewhere in this emptiness Warren finds a justification for life.
Hand in hand with the problem of nothingness is the various speakers’ reaction to it. Alone, Warren’s speakers find themselves longing for human contact. Alone, they need above all else to forge a connection with someone. Alone, they embrace nothingness and discover meaning.
While I would think that a moment like that, alone at night, would leave the individual hungering for human contact for the rest of his life, this is not the case with Warren. In fact, in company in broad daylight, Warren’s speakers often shrink from their fellows. On a personal level, this seems to me perfectly reasonable. I can think of a number of nights alone that I’ve pondered what it means to know someone. On the other hand, logical scrutiny makes this assertion seem absolutely ludicrous. What twist of human nature has it that we as sentient, feeling beings should reject company when we have it and long for it when it is gone?
Even if it’s reflective of true human nature, Warren imbues his melancholy speakers with more regret than most probably feel in similar situations, more, certainly, than I have ever felt. And this, too, is a reason I feel somewhat inadequate—Warren seems more aware than I that this is a true reason for remorse; I think that Warren takes it upon himself to emphasize this failing on my part in the poetry to draw my attention to it.
Confused yet? I am. But at the same time this paradox is so indicative of the true nature of humanity that I feel it necessary to unravel it. In terms of Warren’s concept of individuality, it’s easy to see the need to balance “being your own person” and “being like everyone else.” Why vacillate between two extremes, though? Why not take some sort of middle road? I don’t know yet—but I’m going to try to figure it out.
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Slightly Premature Picture of a Paper
With the upcoming presentation, I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the paper. I must confess that I started the summer with the supposition that I knew ahead of time what I would write on; now, having invested no small amount of time in reading, I am completely unsure. I resort here to outline form, as this idea (which is admittedly in its infancy) is vague at best and incomprehensible at worst. I include a few other points that I would like to make about structure and form of the paper to give a better sense of what I’m going for here. I feel it necessary to thank my elementary school teachers, without whom I would never have drawn the web that led to the reasoning I’ve outlined below.
1. Identity—I’ve recently begun to feel that Warren’s sought after spirituality may, in fact, be simply an extension of the self into nature and humanity. I have begun assembling a list of examples and contextualizing them to get a better feel on this; however, the major pattern that led me to this conclusion is Warren’ treatment of History, with a capital “h.”
2. History—Warren obviously deals in two kinds, his own personal history and the history of the nation (or world, as the case may be). National history deals in mythic figures and events, like the annus mirabilis of Brother to Dragons and the stiff, idealistic Founding Fathers in the poem of the same title. Personal history, as in Court Martial, is something more along the lines of a lyric retrieved from Warren’s memory. Personal history seems to me to be the more important of the two, as it is directly involved in shaping individual identity as separate from history’s communal humanity.
3. Memory—As the only primary source for most personal history, memory, for all its faults and failings, appears frequently in the poetry. This is where I am least sure, as Warren treats memory abstractly. It is obviously related to his notion of History and Time, but in what way I remain unsure. I can assert Warren’s mistrust of memory, since it cannot ever reveal truth. Yet, I can equally assert that Warren finds memory to be the fountainhead of Truth, the distorted version of reality that can be remembered.
4. Guilt—Another extension of memory (in addition to Truth), I think guilt may represent to Warren the human disappointment in being singularly incapable of being true to the nature of its ideals. He thinks it better to forget failings of that sort, as in Crime when he orders the reader to envy a murderer for his forgetting. I was reminded of Donne’s Holy Sonnet IX where Donne calls on God to forget rather than forgive his sins. Rather than asking God to forget, Warren begs the self to forget. Warren sees something cleansing (maybe even cathartic) about forgetting transgressions rather than tormenting himself with them.
5. Fear—This one is partly my own intuition, partly scrutiny of Warren’s tone. I feel one reason he could not fully give over to the Transcendental school of thought was his inability to give all of himself blindly to any ideology. He wanted so desperately to be original and to retain a sense of self as separate from the literary giants who came before him that he could not accept it wholesale. I think there’s also a fear that he could be wrong about everything he’s putting forth in his writing—he certainly doesn’t buy into the idea that he should believe in something for the simple act of belief, whether true or not—so he communicates some of that through his speakers’ failures.
6. 1st person—I’ve thought a great deal as well about how I plan to communicate my ideas. I feel that writing in the first person will remove some of the pretension from my essay, as I am, after all, nothing more than an undergraduate. I also think that I can lift the tone from a purely academic piece to one where I can communicate my own self-discovery from this summer, laying side by side what I have learned from Warren with what I want the academic community to observe in his poetry.
7. Evolution—All that being said, particularly the part about my own journey this summer, I think it’s important to note that Warren’s poetry and life are bound up in the same History and Time. The obvious changes in style, thematic elements, and ideals across his entire literary corpus show how he constantly remade himself, an important observation if I plan to focus on identity and the self in context of spirituality.
I understand that the above is ambitious and perhaps even overwhelming. I also understand that this is incredibly premature, because no matter how developed that idea may be I’ve still got several weeks to work everything out and read more critical interpretations of Warren. At the same time, this manner of looking at Warren struck me heavily while re-reading Promises, and I thought it important to record it lest I forget.
1. Identity—I’ve recently begun to feel that Warren’s sought after spirituality may, in fact, be simply an extension of the self into nature and humanity. I have begun assembling a list of examples and contextualizing them to get a better feel on this; however, the major pattern that led me to this conclusion is Warren’ treatment of History, with a capital “h.”
2. History—Warren obviously deals in two kinds, his own personal history and the history of the nation (or world, as the case may be). National history deals in mythic figures and events, like the annus mirabilis of Brother to Dragons and the stiff, idealistic Founding Fathers in the poem of the same title. Personal history, as in Court Martial, is something more along the lines of a lyric retrieved from Warren’s memory. Personal history seems to me to be the more important of the two, as it is directly involved in shaping individual identity as separate from history’s communal humanity.
3. Memory—As the only primary source for most personal history, memory, for all its faults and failings, appears frequently in the poetry. This is where I am least sure, as Warren treats memory abstractly. It is obviously related to his notion of History and Time, but in what way I remain unsure. I can assert Warren’s mistrust of memory, since it cannot ever reveal truth. Yet, I can equally assert that Warren finds memory to be the fountainhead of Truth, the distorted version of reality that can be remembered.
4. Guilt—Another extension of memory (in addition to Truth), I think guilt may represent to Warren the human disappointment in being singularly incapable of being true to the nature of its ideals. He thinks it better to forget failings of that sort, as in Crime when he orders the reader to envy a murderer for his forgetting. I was reminded of Donne’s Holy Sonnet IX where Donne calls on God to forget rather than forgive his sins. Rather than asking God to forget, Warren begs the self to forget. Warren sees something cleansing (maybe even cathartic) about forgetting transgressions rather than tormenting himself with them.
5. Fear—This one is partly my own intuition, partly scrutiny of Warren’s tone. I feel one reason he could not fully give over to the Transcendental school of thought was his inability to give all of himself blindly to any ideology. He wanted so desperately to be original and to retain a sense of self as separate from the literary giants who came before him that he could not accept it wholesale. I think there’s also a fear that he could be wrong about everything he’s putting forth in his writing—he certainly doesn’t buy into the idea that he should believe in something for the simple act of belief, whether true or not—so he communicates some of that through his speakers’ failures.
6. 1st person—I’ve thought a great deal as well about how I plan to communicate my ideas. I feel that writing in the first person will remove some of the pretension from my essay, as I am, after all, nothing more than an undergraduate. I also think that I can lift the tone from a purely academic piece to one where I can communicate my own self-discovery from this summer, laying side by side what I have learned from Warren with what I want the academic community to observe in his poetry.
7. Evolution—All that being said, particularly the part about my own journey this summer, I think it’s important to note that Warren’s poetry and life are bound up in the same History and Time. The obvious changes in style, thematic elements, and ideals across his entire literary corpus show how he constantly remade himself, an important observation if I plan to focus on identity and the self in context of spirituality.
I understand that the above is ambitious and perhaps even overwhelming. I also understand that this is incredibly premature, because no matter how developed that idea may be I’ve still got several weeks to work everything out and read more critical interpretations of Warren. At the same time, this manner of looking at Warren struck me heavily while re-reading Promises, and I thought it important to record it lest I forget.
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