March 03, 2004
Boal, Enzensberger, and Baudrillard
At the conclusion of the selection from Theater of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal writes that the main goal of the theater should be the “liberation of the spectator, on whom the theater has imposed finished visions of the world” (352). His conclusion is that the spectator becomes a voiceless victim of bourgeois drama, unable to do anything but passively accept visions of the world reflected by the artistic powers-that-be: “The spectator is less then a man and it is necessary to humanize him, to restore to him his capacity of action in all its fullness” (352). for Boal, the theater is not about catharsis, where all potential action is purged, but about change that begins with the theater: “dramatic action throws light upon real action” by allowing the spectator to become actor and direct the action, not to remain a passive receptacle for others’ perspectives (Boal 352).
March 02, 2004
Some Characteristics of the Literary Epic
Difference in the condition of the composition leads to a difference in the character of the poetry. Because Homer composed for recitation, his composition is in some ways freer and looser than Virgil’s. Both of Homer’s poems have a majestic plan — less closely woven than the Aeneid; their episodes are more easily detached from the whole and may be enjoyed as separate poems. The Greek epic poet composes on a grand scale, and could not always expect to recite his poems in their entirety; therefore, Homer’s epics share looser methods of composition — though they are not a collection of separate lays. They are single poems with single plans and consistency of language. Homer’s art is oral — Virgil’s is written. Virgil writes for the readers — i.e., he operates less with phrases and formulas than with single words; he fashions sentences carefully and individually; he takes care to avoid omissions, contradictions, and inconsistencies; he uses carefully planned poetic texture and exquisite choice of words and significance. Homer’s oral epic is characterized by it simplicity, strength and straightforwardness, movement of lines, splendid climax, singleness of effect, and unbroken maintenance of tragic or heroic mood. The real difference between primary and secondary epics results from distinctions of origins and character — whether oral or written.
Continue reading "Some Characteristics of the Literary Epic" . . .Odysseus
Always setting forth was the same,
Same sea, same dangers waiting for him
As though he had got nowhere but older.
Behind him on the receding shore
The identical reproaches, and somewhere
Out before him, the unraveling patience
He was wedded to. There were the islands
Each with it women and twining welcome
To be navigated, and one to call “home.”
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to.
—W. S. Merwin
An Ancient Gesture
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years,
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very bet tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture, — a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope…
Penelope, who really cried.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
March 01, 2004
The Sea Call
When Odysseus met Tieresias in the underworld, the prophet told him that he would reach home, but would then take another journey to a land where people live who know nothing of the sea. In this excerpt from a modern sequel to the Odyssey by the twentieth-century Greek poet Nicos Kazantzakis, Odysseus has returned to Ithaca. Sitting by the hearth with his family, his eyes alight with excitement, he relates his adventures. But then . . .
Continue reading "The Sea Call" . . .The Cyclops and the Ocean
Moving slowly…against time…patiently majestic…
the cyclops…in the ocean…meets no Ulysses…
Through the night…he sighs…throbbing against the
shore…declaring…for the adventure…
A wall of gray…gathered by a slow touch…slash and
slither…through the waiting screens…separating into
nodules…making my panes…accept the touch…
Not content…to watch my frightened gaze…he clamors
beneath the sash…dancing on my sill…
Certain to die…when the sun…returns…
Tropical Storm Dennis
August 15-18, 1981, Florida
—Nikki Giovanni
Ulysses
At the last mountain I stood to remember the sea
and it was not the sea of my remembering
but something from an augur’s madness:
sheep guts, bird guts, ox guts, smoking
in a hot eye. Was this my life? Dull red,
dull green, blood black, the coils still writhing
the last of the living thing: a carnage
steaming into the smokes of a sick dawn.
February 29, 2004
The Lotos-Eaters
“Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
Ulysses and the Siren
SIREN. Come, worthy Greek, Ulysses, come,
Possess these shores with me;
The winds and seas are troublesome,
And here we may be free.
Here may we sit and view their toil
That travail in the deep,
And joy the day in mirth the while,
And spend the night in sleep.
February 26, 2004
Kafka's Reading List
I think we ought to read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us with a blow in the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the kind of books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into the forests far from everyone, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
—Franz Kafka (anyone know the source?)
