Joyce - epiphany of pomes

[ryokan]

The twilight turns from amethyst
to deep and deeper blue,
The lamp fills with pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.

The old piano plays an air,
Sedate and slow and gay;
She bends upon the yellow keys,
Her heads inclines this way.

Shy thoughts and grave wide eyes
and hands
That wander as they list---
The twilight turns to darker blue
with lights of amethyst.

Poetry these days seems often to mean: "Whatever I like!" The result has been a dilution of the deep expressive quality of some of the finest poems ever composed, one above from a still recognised master of the English language. To him, I pay homage each day, and to some few others who create deep expression that transcends and reaches the hearts and minds of many, when read aloud.
Consider: still, in Russia, 40,000 people will assemble to hear poetry read aloud. Here, that's unimaginable, isn't it? Why?

[AbdoRinbo]

If I said that Americans were more isolated from each other than in other countries, I think it would answer both questions. 'Whatever I like' is a statement more than likely coming from a person who does not feel a strong bond between herself and her peers. Americans have had it so easy for so long that it is impossible to imagine such a large gathering for something as simple as a poetry reading. In Russia, their history alone is enough to tell you that these are a people who have been forced into an emotional bond through years of suffering together. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like . . .

You're absolutely right about Joyce though, he was an incredible poet . . . but I think we would split hairs over what should be considered his 'poetry' and what shouldn't (but perhaps I am assuming too much about you). Personally, I regard Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as extended poems that can be read like novels. The 'Proteus' episode alone is enough to warrant Joyce as a poetic genius. Somehow (and the reason escapes me), Joyce has earned few fans on this forum. It is refreshing to see a Joyce enthusiast out there with a little knowledge to share with the public.

[ryokan]

"Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?

Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?


The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire-
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?

'O it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel
wear-
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair."

[AbdoRinbo]

Sounds like Who Goes With Fergus? by W. B. Yeats.

[ryokan]

Greetings,

Thanks for your reply. With respect, Russia was a peasant society well into the 20th c. Therein, it was common among those "illiterate" people to sit around fires at eve'ntide and "sing" stories which were in a true poetic mode. Even today, in E. Europe, this can be heard. "Vox Bulgares" have recoded many "folk songs" with origins in a similar time; the harmonies they can achieve have still mystified western musicologists. That is because they are really _poems_ set to sound. Such people don't even have words for "music" in their languages.

Thus, in Russia, that is a more ancient source of the poetic tradition. Stalin's oppression had little to do with it, save to condense it in an "industrial culture," something unlike anything visited on the 'people' before...; at least, my long long studies of this area's "cultural-anthropological" history led me to such a view. These people had been "singing" stories since before "recorded" history. Some evidence suggests as long as 8,000 years, but that may be limited because one cannot "dig up" clues for this sort of past.

Joyce, when asked, would mention Francis Thompson ("Hound of Heaven") and Gerard Manley Hopkins ("sprung rhythm") as his early inspiration. Intellectually, Freud and the early depth analyses of Hegel, with many many precursors, also intrugued Joyce. See Richard Ellman's fine biography, if you've not already. Europe was in ferment in so many ways beyond the political, at this time, and Joyce _seemed_ aware of them all.

Marxism, its interesting, as an aside, is really just an "industrial model" of the ancient communal systems of the 'peasant cultures,' or "people of the land."
Most "Primal Cultures" still extant proceed "communally," with minimal emphasis on the individual. They also laugh often and celebrate (lots of songs) more than _work_. Joyce's enigmatic comment, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," may be relevant here, somehow (one may substitute "civilization" for "history"). He was always singing, laughing. His daughter, when finally "committed" had the look of a wild animal (pre-civilized) in her eyes. Joyce noticed this, and it touched him deeply. She'd gone all the way back, in her soul, where he'd gone only with words.

Joyce's integrity (intellectual, historical, emotional) was rare, beyond all this; as you may know, his response to questions about _Finnegan's Wake_ would often be, "It will keep the professors busy for years." and "Its best understood if it is sung." Joyce's fine baritone and his devotional awareness to ancient lives (with deep background studies of Giambattista Vico's "histories") gave the final 'cast' to his masterpiece, FW. Indeed, Vico's "four ages of man" are apparent in _Ulysses_ and _Finnegan's Wake_.

There is a fine film done by Fiona Flannagan in the 80's, "Joyce's Women," which is likely only available in University Libraries, if anywhere. It portrays a depth of understanding of women and their "pastoral history." It is _sans pariel'_. Locate it if you can, and look for, if not familiar, Joseph Campbell's _first_ work, _A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake_. It too, is a _masterpiece_.

As you surely know, the "Wake" is filled with layer upon layer of cross-references, just as the psyche is layered by multiple cross-influences, as is culture by layering of historical influences, etc. This was Joyce's genius. The poems are, thus, like little fine crystals, or the "net of gems" in Buddhism, of which Joyce was also aware. Indeed, as his wife, Nora, said: "Oh, Jimmy, he knows _everything_."

The inimitable Normon O. Brown, now gone, who taught at U.C. Santa Cruz for near 50 years, composed many works based on Joyce, Freud, Hegel (_Closing Time_, _Life Against Death_, etc.), and the "depth analysis school of thought," now profoundly out of favor in the Brave New World Order.

Yes. Well, perhaps Joyce _did_ know everything. A fine U.S. author without peer, John Champlin Gardner (_Grendel_, _Sunlight Dialogues_, _Jason and Medea_, etc.) once said: "There are those who know more than any one _can_ afford to know...." His homage to Joyce and his daughter. Rhythm like Joyce's, Gardner's, is so rare in prose. Gardner's _Jason and Medea_ is a book-length prose poem, an epic, on the scale of "Gilgamesh" (he was working on a scholarly book of "Gilgamesh" when he died); well worth looking for, if a Joyce devotee.

Yes, more than an "enthusiast," here. More, a pilgrim; an homage-maker....
Thanks again,
Ryokan

P.S. Yeats...; yes, many authors remind of something that can be found in Joyce somewhere.

[ryokan]

Quickly,
Your 'signature' from Rimbaud, brings the pre-civilization impulse back to mind. Rimbaud certainly struggled with "getting back" and failing. Most see still extant "primal people" as expressing "crass laziness." Methinks they do protest _too much_.

Bruce Chatwin's long studies of primal people led him to wonder at our "migratory past." He said, "We are all migrants at heart, following the seasons, the creatures, the sun. That impulse is now narrowed and channeled into 'vacations.'" Sad that he drank tainted water in China in 87 or he might have proven the thesis.

BTW, of the few remaining Primal People on the planet, the people of Chiapas Mexico are about to endure another assault by the oil hungry nations. Pres. Fox has abrogated a treaty and signed the permission without consulting the folks in Chiapas, and the sacred rainforest, untouched for many centuries, may be about to fall, along with simple people who just want to be left alone to live without shopping malls, fast food, and tainted air, people who sing, wander, and enjoy life, if let be....

Enough, and enough, nought.

[AbdoRinbo]

With respect, Russia was a peasant society well into the 20th c. Therein, it was common among those "illiterate" people to sit around fires at eve'ntide and "sing" stories which were in a true poetic mode.

With respect to what? (Perhaps if you toned the verbiage down a little other people might join in on this discussion.)

Thus, in Russia, that is a more ancient source of the poetic tradition. Stalin's oppression had little to do with it, save to condense it in an "industrial culture," something unlike anything visited on the 'people' before.

In any case, I agree with you; I just don't see how the two are mutually exclusive. Am I overlooking some deceptively trivial fact?

Intellectually, Freud and the early depth analyses of Hegel, with many many precursors, also intrugued Joyce. See Richard Ellman's fine biography, if you've not already.

Yes, I have read the Ellmann biography of Joyce (very fine indeed), but I think it is a popular misconception that Joyce was 'intrigued' by Freud. Ellmann himself seems to think that Joyce found Freud too late to have a profound impact on his art. At any rate, I was at a collector's bookstore just off campus at the University of Michigan where I found a first edition copy of the first work of criticism on Joyce--Svevo on Joyce by Italo Svevo (Joyce's good friend in Trieste, as you well know). Svevo spent a good third of his little book on the issue concerning Joyce's debt to Psychoanalysis, which is nonexistent (other than Joyce's own puzzling form of it) based on Svevo's account. (Joyce was quoted as saying, 'Well, if we need it, let us keep to confession', which has a far greater sense of irony when you consider his stance toward the Catholic Church).

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," may be relevant here, somehow.

Of course, that quote is the Joycean platitude. Everday someone has a new theory about what it really means.

His response to questions about _Finnegan's Wake_ would often be, "It will keep the professors busy for years." and "Its best understood if it is sung." and "Its best understood if it is sung." Joyce's fine baritone and his devotional awareness to ancient lives (with deep background studies of Giambattista Vico's "histories") gave the final 'cast' to his masterpiece, FW. Indeed, Vico's "four ages of man" are apparent in _Ulysses_ and _Finnegan's Wake_.

Yes, his responses to questions about Finnegans Wake are total slapstick. I'm still not sure exactly where you're going with all of the info., though . . . Vico's 'four ages of Man' were used as a model for FW, but I don't think anyone else on this forum is likely to know exactly what that means or why it is significant. Perhaps you could slip a little footnote in each time you reference a particularly complex or shrouded piece of literary pop-trivia.

If not familiar, Joseph Campbell's _first_ work, _A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake_. It too, is a _masterpiece_.

I've not read the Skeleton Key so I won't touch on it, though I am an avid fan of Joseph Cambell (I used to watch his special on PBS when I was younger). I have read The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, though. Half of that book is about Joyce anyway, so I fully understand what you mean when you refer to his 'masterpiece'.

This was Joyce's genius. The poems are, thus, like little fine crystals, or the "net of gems" in Buddhism, of which Joyce was also aware. Indeed, as his wife, Nora, said: "Oh, Jimmy, he knows _everything_."

Are they little fine crystals, or do we interpret them that way? Personally, I don't think Joyce was aware of 90% of cross-references that the scholars have uncovered. With a book as purposely vague and impossible to generalize as Finnegans Wake, it goes without saying that more is going to come out of it than what went into it (a literary perpetual-motion device, if you think about it).

Sometimes Joyce's pomposity humors me. I remember reading about how he tried to coax his son-in-law to give him a synopsis of Huckleberry Finn so he could incorporate it into FW. With all respect to Joyce, that's just lame.

Yes, more than an "enthusiast," here. More, a pilgrim; an homage-maker....
Thanks again,
Ryokan

Good luck on your intellectual 'Odyssey'. Don't get lost at sea, though.

[AbdoRinbo]

Who am I kidding? Everyone gets lost at sea . . .

[ryokan]

8) Greetings A.Rnbo,

Ironically, here in the "blooming, buzzing confusion" (Wm. James) of the "Sillycon Valley," Joseph Campbell's "Power of Myth" with Bill Moyers was replayed tonight.

U. of Michigan. I recall most of upper Michigan from a trip there during the 70's, when gas was still 40cents/gal. Real nice.

Re: your points raised - I apologize for the "wordy" style, but the "stream of consciousness" does not ebb with age, nor has it neap tides. Say what's essence and sign off. I'm just an old guy.

Svevo was an excellent source of early scholarship re: Joyce. And, ("tone it down...." OK) confession and psychoanalysis are not unrelated; the latter just takes longer than confession, tho the former has lasted longer.... "What a mnincing mness it all makes."
Joyce and Freud were symbiotic, in that age, seems to me. Check out early Freud, esp. Jeffrey Masson's book, _The Assault on Truth_. Yeah, I know. What is "truth." Once, there was....

Yes, I know few here will be attracted to this subject. I admit to having always sought the _exceptional_. "To each his own..., poison." I am not trying to attract anyone. This is just an exchange, with no necessary point, rather like life, if one looks into it. Even J. Campbell thought so. If there is any "point" (he says) its _sacrifice_; that's the central point of Buddhism. Bodhisattva.

I think there is enough evidence to conclude that J. was well aware of most of the connections in FW. It was how he "awakened." The "vague" bits are the roiling surface of a very deep sea. Find Campbell's _Skeleton Key_ at the U of M Library. Sure to be there. Lots of more than circumstantial evidence. This takes _cultural/literary_ analysis, like Normon O. Brown and the "depth" school, now gone.

The Irish, like Yeats, and so on.

"Pompous (sic)" Hmmm.... Find a floundering flapping filleted response to that one, he chortelled to hissef'. Such epithets usually are applied by those unsure...; o well.

Its all an odessey, neh? I didn't get the impression you were kidding anyone.... Some get lost, some don't. It remains that the evidence for preliterate cultures doing just fine without print is well established. Ancient cultures in Europe were _matrilinial_ (see Maria Gimbutas) before about 1800 BC. Aboriginals in Aust. have been there for up to 60,000 years. Males and Females have well-defined roles, and 0 hubris. Europeans showed up, and everything changed in the "blink of an eye."
Mongolia.... Sorry. There is so much evidence.

Ummm: We seem to think our time is the most important, somehow.... Our ways better than anyone else's.
Curiouser and curiouser. Remember Anne Carson: "The whole notion of progress requires a powerful lot of imagination." This never ending "war" costs 4 mil. a month, all for oil. "The Evil One" just stage dressing - as usual. The English said that about the Kaiser, for goodness sake. Propaganda. We're not immune, sorry to say. Read Gore Vidal.

Its the journey that matters, so they say. T'aint no mo'.

Peace and happiness,
Ryokan

[ryokan]

8)
Whoops. "Americans more isolated...." _The Lonely Crowd_. circa 1956.

'Nuff
Sweet dreams.

[AbdoRinbo]

You're a very 'white' intellectual, did you know that?

Let's see if I can eat through that thick layer of jellied bombast you've spread out before me. I'll just go line-by-line ('when in doubt').

Ironically, here in the "blooming, buzzing confusion" (Wm. James) of the "Sillycon Valley," . . .

Ah, the salt mines of the 'information age'. I am now beginning to see and understand the communication breakdown in the US and the rest of the western world--excessive amounts of coffee and cyber-surfing (riding that 'wave of the future', right?).

U. of Michigan. I recall most of upper Michigan from a trip there during the 70's, when gas was still 40cents/gal. Real nice.

Actually, UofM is in the lower southern half of Michigan. From where I live (which lies on the fringes of Detroit), the campus is about 15 minutes west. By 'upper' do you mean the Upper Peninsula?

Re: your points raised - I apologize for the "wordy" style, but the "stream of consciousness" does not ebb with age, nor has it neap tides. Say what's essence and sign off. I'm just an old guy.

Your style is not so much 'wordy' as it is grammatically squalid. But, then again, that's not just any style, that's the 'stream-of-conscious-flow' we're talking about. It's a very handy tool to have when writing literature (and I'm sure, in the most secret regions of your mind, you believe what you are writing is actually 'literature'), but it barely makes sense as a technique when educating people (or just chit-chatting). In fact, it has the power to ruin education for the rest of us; after all, it is your consciousness and only you truly understand what it means. Look at it this way: Joyce never used the 'stream of conscious' technique to explain his novels; he talked about them in clear and simple logic.

And, ("tone it down...." OK) confession and psychoanalysis are not unrelated; the latter just takes longer than confession, tho the former has lasted longer.... "What a mnincing mness it all makes."
Joyce and Freud were symbiotic, in that age, seems to me.

Who ever said they were 'unrelated'? They have more in common with each other than most people realize, and I think that is what Joyce was trying to communicate. That really wasn't my point, though. At any rate, he didn't care much for either one.

Joyce always had an interest in the human conscious. He kept a notebook in which he recorded his and his wife's dreams, that is why his knowledge of, and influence by, Psychoanalysis has been considered suspect. 'Freud's Traumdeutung appared in late 1899, but Joyce's interest in dreams is pre-Freudian in that it looks for revelation, not scientific explanation' (Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, [footnote] p. 85). But the best explanation came from Joyce himself: 'Why all this fuss and bother about the mystery of the unconscious? [. . .] What about the myster of the conscious?' (Ellmann, p. 463). They might have each benefited from the other, but there is a very thin direct-link between the two.

"To each his own..., poison." I am not trying to attract anyone. This is just an exchange, with no necessary point, rather like life, if one looks into it.

So you believe that I should read your response the way you think I should read the experiences of my life--with an awe-inspiring desire to uncover every bit of knowledge and every pattern that is contained within? Personally, I think life is as complex or simple as we want it to be. (Do you overwhelm yourself with purpose and meaning out of the fear of simplicity?) Pynchon gave an interesting take on the world: 'Putting the control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened--that you had dispensed with God. But you had taken on a greater, and more harmful, illusion. The illusion of control. That A could do B. But that was false. Completely. No one can do. Things only happen, A and B are unreal, are names for parts that ought to be inseparable. . . .' (Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, p. 30). A lot of times we try and break the universe down--separate its parts--to the point where it is not just a matter of A and B, but an endless amount of other parts that become impossible to comprehend, yet we keep plugging away trying to find some pattern in the universe, something to hold on to. Life is best kept simple.

I think there is enough evidence to conclude that J. was well aware of most of the connections in FW. It was how he "awakened." The "vague" bits are the roiling surface of a very deep sea.

That's tough to say for sure when you consider that Joyce died less than two years after it was completed and published. Additionally, he didn't give the same kind of commentary for Finnegans Wake as he did for Ulysses (no schema, either). I offered you my opinion, that's all.

"Pompous (sic)" Hmmm.... Find a floundering flapping filleted response to that one, he chortelled to hissef'. Such epithets usually are applied by those unsure...; o well.

How charming.

I'm assuming you understand two basic concepts: 1) that 'pompous' is the proper spelling and 2) 'pomposity' is the corresponding noun. So why the '(sic)'?

Moving along, I'm sure you are convinced that you have no peers when it comes to understanding Joyce. Great. Go climb a mountain. And don't let the artistic atrophy of our generation torture your artist soul. We know how heavy that can weigh on the hearts of the sensitive and world-weary.

[ryokan]

8) I''ve climbed many a mountain and wandered wild through many a forest, from temperate rainforests to the peaks of the N. Sierra. I walked the Pacific Crest Trail in the days before dayglo spandex.

I know where U of Mich. is - We just avoided cities on that trip.
You'd make one fine psychiatrist - Pynchon, and so on.... Yes, indeed.

To the younger generation: Peace and happiness.

Let it flow, as Nature does everywhere, from the most distant nebulae to the tiny Berryessa Creek here....

RYokan

[ryokan]

8) "You speak to me of history, of nationality, of religion. I shall try to steer clear of those nets."
-James Joyce

[AbdoRinbo]

Well, if it isn't our good friend, the cry from the Wilderness . . .

. . . Perhaps you would like it if I attacked that Joyce quote. Eh?

But, alas, 'you are right, for today'. -- Arthur Rimbaud

[ryokan]

8)

"The way of Nature avoids force"
-fr/ a Lummi Native American
(circa 1987)

I would prefer integral discursive exchange from "attack."
Looking into the ancient eyes of the Native American Shaman all those years ago, I felt the call of _wilderness_ deeply, like the call of kin wolves far into the wilderness. Forever after, that has been my only "home."

Of course I know it wasn't an _attack_ notion, really.... Norman O. Brown, who held the chair of "History of Consciousness" at UC Santa Cruz for near 40 years also stated that Joyce "knew nearly everything," including the Koran.
Makes sense, yes?

Peace
Ryokan