widdershins

Eternal sunshine

John Massengale posts some thought-provoking reactions to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Noting that the title quote is from Alexander Pope's (I think, vastly underrated) poem Eloisa to Abelard, he comes up with a big "so what?" about the film, which suffers from too deep a split between mind and body, god and matter.

Most of us wonder why we're here and what life means, but there's a limit to the number of times you want to see the Unhappy Answers of the Most Confused. . . . It's NOT like 50 years ago, when Nihilists like Jean-Paul Sartre were expressing the inchoate thoughts of many. Kaufman's clever script disguises the fact that at their root his ideas have become cliches that express beliefs the culture has passed by. . . .

Read more at Veritas et Venustas.

Ulysses

Another snippet of poetry I memorized long ago was the ending of Tennyson's Ulysses (see also the "Ulysses" section of this chapter of Tennyson's Major Poems). Here it is as I remembered it:

though we are not now that strength which in days of old
moved heaven and earth --- that which we are, we are;
one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I was 17 when I memorized this, and I remember convincing my fellow graduating seniors at my high school that this should be our class poem, and so it was included in our graduation ceremony invitations, yearbook, and other places. It was particularly fitting for our school, because the motto of the school from its founding 8 years before had been "to seek, to share, to find", possibly because someone else had misremembered Tennyson in yet another way before me.

The poem speaks of a great leader near the end of life, not being satisfied with just getting by, but determined to rejoin his companions and go out once again to strive against the forces. It's an odd thing for a high school graduation, in retrospect, where the unbounded future promise is more present. It just goes to show I was ready to be an old man from an early age.

The full poem is well worth reading. It is particularly noteworthy for its inventive and memorable turns of phrase: I am a part of all that I have met; I will drink life to the lees; to rust unburnished; life piled on life; to sail beyond the sunset; though much is taken, much abides....

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alone

"I cannot recite a single poem," linguist John McWhorter says, as interviewed in the New York Times. "You can take a Russian teenager and say recite some poetry, and they will give you strophes of Pushkin. We can't do it. The only equivalent for an American under a certain age is literally Dr. Seuss or theme songs."

Once again, I am so out of step. Memorized poetry has been one of the riches of my life. One of the earliest poems I memorized was "Alone", by Edgar Allan Poe. It gives me great delight to continue to recite this poem (mostly to myself, appropriately). It speaks to me of a kindred spirit, both deeply and sadly alienated from other people, and yet still caring about the fact. It speaks to me of a cloud that hangs over the proceedings, no matter what, the ability to see the downside, negativity always at the center of attention.

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

The heart of the poem to me has always been "and all I loved, I loved alone." Until recent years, I felt that the poem really should have ended there, and for a while I could not remember the rest of the poem (until it suddenly came back to me). My own interpretation of the line has always been to stress the last word: "all I loved, I loved alone", emphasizing my own sense of aloneness, felt so poignantly even at an early age. A couple of years ago I learned that the handwritten original of the poem (it was written in an autograph book and not published until after his death) apparently emphasizes the second "I", so that the line as written was "all I loved, I loved alone." This subtle distinction makes a world of difference. The emphasis is on the "I", as opposed to the "they", thus emphasizing the social context that all of this aloneness takes place in. One imagines a grey figure huddled to himself in the midst of a large crowd, perhaps.

I was 9 years old when I memorized this poem, and I've probably said it to myself at least once a week since then. Thank you, Mr. Poe.

Memorizing poetry that moves you brings it to life. Reciting it to other people activates it in your life even further. It is one of the true joys of civilized living.

What are some of your favorite memorized poems?

Brightness falls

Thomas Nashe's poem Summer's Last Will and Testament contains the famous line "Brightness falls from the air" -- or does it? God of the Machine points out why it's likely that it was hair that brightness originally fell from.