Plato: Euthyrpho, Crito, Phaedo
Surprisingly accesible. Although I can't really decide whether to attribute the ideas to Plato or Socrates, I agree with them nonetheless. I especially like that the discussion of Piety ends abruptly and without resolution. I suspect Platocrates is positing that 'Piety' is a meaningless word, in that it cannot be defined satisfactorily, and that its only use is demagoguery.
Abelard and Heloise: collected letters
Disappointing. What's the big deal? Romeo, Tristan, and Troilus he ain't. His supposedly romantic letters are rude, terse, misogynist, and altogether free from beauty. She is a bit more savory, and the tension between religious restraint and amorous desperation is palpable, but still does not live up to the hype.
unless . . .
Also included in this collection were excerpts from anonymous letters sent by a similar couple in the twelfth century. Scholars have suggested based on usage and grammar analysis that the anonymous letters are actually written by Abelard and Heloise. If this is so, Wow! Zing! The smoldering poetry and exhausting lust in these few fragments is zesty indeed, and would change my opinion entirely if they were indeed the authors in their precloistering.
On a personal note, I certainly can relate to Abelard's choice of monkhood after his disfigurement. I feel the same way myself lately. Of course, I'm far too impatient for the monastic life, but I have considered it. And I wonder if he would have maintained his affection for Heloise if he still had his cock.
Christopher Marlowe: Edward II
All you Marlovian conspiracy theorists out there can go sit on your thumbs. Shakespeare he ain't. For all my issues with Willy, he blows this sucker out of the water. I'm sure Edward II, supposedly his most dramatically advanced work, is nice to see on stage, but even the worst of Shakespeare (probably Twelfth Night, although you will disagree) outstrips him mightily in content, flow and especially language. I can't think of a single speech from Edward that made me want to reread, digest and memorize it, while every page of Shakespeare inspires that response.
Sirach, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The Song of Azariah.
Fascinating as far as Apochrypha go, but still lacking the gravitas of the rest of the Bible. Sirach himself notes that his book is not to be taken as scripture. Filled as it is with valid observations (and the occasional distaff blunder), Solomon he ain't. Personal note: Azariah has long been one of my favorite characters in the Bible. This little fragment reinforces that stand.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
Miscellaneous
Deepak Chopra: The Path to Love
Not the sort of thing I would usually pick up, but interesting nonetheless. Chopra has a real knack for putting complex metaphysical truths simply without being condescending or diluting them beyond usefullness. At the same time, so much of the book was written to those who already have significant others and wish to improve their relationships, I didn't feel like I got as much out of it as I might have.
Tacitus: The Annals
Something tells me I have read this book out of sequence. I was able to follow the successions and personal dramas easily, but my incomplete grasp of Roman politics and government made certain of the other details difficult to grasp. I has to invent mnemonics to remind myself that a Quaestor was less important than an Aedile, who was less important than a Praetor, who was less important than a Consul, and so on. Still, eventually I will return to this (and to Plutarch) and refine my inderstanding. Also, some of the most fascinating sections of The Annals are lost to prosperity: Caligula's reign, and the last two years of Nero's.
Not the sort of thing I would usually pick up, but interesting nonetheless. Chopra has a real knack for putting complex metaphysical truths simply without being condescending or diluting them beyond usefullness. At the same time, so much of the book was written to those who already have significant others and wish to improve their relationships, I didn't feel like I got as much out of it as I might have.
Tacitus: The Annals
Something tells me I have read this book out of sequence. I was able to follow the successions and personal dramas easily, but my incomplete grasp of Roman politics and government made certain of the other details difficult to grasp. I has to invent mnemonics to remind myself that a Quaestor was less important than an Aedile, who was less important than a Praetor, who was less important than a Consul, and so on. Still, eventually I will return to this (and to Plutarch) and refine my inderstanding. Also, some of the most fascinating sections of The Annals are lost to prosperity: Caligula's reign, and the last two years of Nero's.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Federico Garcia Lorca: Selected Poems
I find that I have learned something about poetry during this little translation kick on which I have been. Part of the reason it was such an easy undertaking to translate Borges, as I have mentioned, is that his poetic vocabulary is rather limited. Once I learned the words for nightingale, mirror, and labyrinth, I was set. Of course, it also helped that Borges is, as poets go, remarkably consistent in terms of theme, but that's another essay altogether.
The same is true of Lorca. Now that I have learned the words for gypsy, mud, and putrid, and have become fluent in the conjugation of the verbs 'to groan' and 'to wail', I find that the going is a bit smoother. Of course, it was at first confusing that he makes such extensive use of the imperfect indicitave and subjunctive tenses, which are scarcely used in English, but I adapted.
I am certain therefore, that the same will be true as I undertake the reading of Octavio Paz, and furthermore that the same is true of poetry in all languages, including my own. My English lexicon is simply so comfortable that I don't notice when a poet uses the same word repeatedly. By contrast, I never learned the words for 'carnation' or 'iodine' in High School Spanish class, so their repetition in Lorca is startling, memorable and telling. I intend to revisit some of my poetry and see what words have established squatting rights in my verse. Perhaps it will be equally illuminating.
Another aspect of Lorca's work that makes it more complicated than Borges' is his inconsistency of theme. Although his tone never wavers from the passionate disillusionment and reminiscence of a Marica out of place, he draws constantly from folk tradition that is only indirectly revealing of his intent. Many of his poems are not only in the form of traditional Andalusian or Gypsy songs, but they also draw from those themes. Therefore, when the married woman has an affair on the bank of a river as in La Casada Infiel, one really must dig to extract Lorca's meaning--which I take to be the disconnect between the pleasure of pale thighs and the dawn.
The central poem of the collection, Oda A Walt Whitman, is the key to unlocking Lorca. The raillery he here unleashes against gay culture underlies most of his other work, especially when it touches upon the subject of erotic love. He declares, "No Haya Cuartel!" against those "Madres de lodo, arpias, enemigas sin sueno (where's a tilde when I need it?)" I have personally met those men! "Asesininos de palomas! . . . emboscadas en yertos paisajes de cicuta (one of Lorca's favorite words)." By contrast, there exist "los clasicos, los senelados, los suplicantes / os cierran las puertas de la bacanal." These are the real men, those who can live with such poetry as Lorca reveals in his later work, especially the volume "Divan Del Tamarit." The Gacelas held here (about which form I need to learn more) made me gasp with amazement and cry flavorless tears, neither of joy or sorrow. The desperate love, the men pierced by fountains who spill their blood in in a widening shadow on the silk of their divans, the reclining nights of a single golden moment, this is the world I am terrified and ecstatic to inhabit. There are no gay bars here.
The same is true of Lorca. Now that I have learned the words for gypsy, mud, and putrid, and have become fluent in the conjugation of the verbs 'to groan' and 'to wail', I find that the going is a bit smoother. Of course, it was at first confusing that he makes such extensive use of the imperfect indicitave and subjunctive tenses, which are scarcely used in English, but I adapted.
I am certain therefore, that the same will be true as I undertake the reading of Octavio Paz, and furthermore that the same is true of poetry in all languages, including my own. My English lexicon is simply so comfortable that I don't notice when a poet uses the same word repeatedly. By contrast, I never learned the words for 'carnation' or 'iodine' in High School Spanish class, so their repetition in Lorca is startling, memorable and telling. I intend to revisit some of my poetry and see what words have established squatting rights in my verse. Perhaps it will be equally illuminating.
Another aspect of Lorca's work that makes it more complicated than Borges' is his inconsistency of theme. Although his tone never wavers from the passionate disillusionment and reminiscence of a Marica out of place, he draws constantly from folk tradition that is only indirectly revealing of his intent. Many of his poems are not only in the form of traditional Andalusian or Gypsy songs, but they also draw from those themes. Therefore, when the married woman has an affair on the bank of a river as in La Casada Infiel, one really must dig to extract Lorca's meaning--which I take to be the disconnect between the pleasure of pale thighs and the dawn.
The central poem of the collection, Oda A Walt Whitman, is the key to unlocking Lorca. The raillery he here unleashes against gay culture underlies most of his other work, especially when it touches upon the subject of erotic love. He declares, "No Haya Cuartel!" against those "Madres de lodo, arpias, enemigas sin sueno (where's a tilde when I need it?)" I have personally met those men! "Asesininos de palomas! . . . emboscadas en yertos paisajes de cicuta (one of Lorca's favorite words)." By contrast, there exist "los clasicos, los senelados, los suplicantes / os cierran las puertas de la bacanal." These are the real men, those who can live with such poetry as Lorca reveals in his later work, especially the volume "Divan Del Tamarit." The Gacelas held here (about which form I need to learn more) made me gasp with amazement and cry flavorless tears, neither of joy or sorrow. The desperate love, the men pierced by fountains who spill their blood in in a widening shadow on the silk of their divans, the reclining nights of a single golden moment, this is the world I am terrified and ecstatic to inhabit. There are no gay bars here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)