Away from American Literature, momentarily, and onwards to The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. I have read Kim, so this will be my second visit with Kipling.

Night Song in the Jungle

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free -
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call! - Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!

Introductory poem at the start of the first story within the Jungle Book, titled Mowgli's Brothers.

Disney representation of Mowgli.

Work (cont'd)as a foundational and powerful cultural construct.

It is, or should be acknowledged, in Western civilisation that the Bible is the most powerfully generative text of values in our culture. Perhaps, although I am not sure, less so now than previously. 'Work" is so deeply entwined with cultural values of aspiration, ideals and ethics; that it is sometimes hard to discriminate its influence from its associated words. It has had a more explicit currency in today's Western culture given the primacy of the language of economics in popular discourse but it is evident in much earlier cultural iterations such as the Bible.

Consider that the Christian week is comprised of seven days. "Our" week is divided much the same way as the "Creator's", the original labourer God, week into 6 days of production and one day of rest. To be pious, we need to work, and only to rest on the holy day. But it is more than that - it is an important precept of piety to do God's work. And depending upon denomination that work may vary but the important point I would like to concentrate upon is the association between the 'ideal' life and work.

Perhaps, you might quite rightly conclude, that it is unsuprising that the most powerful text of cultural influence, the Abrahamic Bible, should so closely align with our existent or how we actually experience the world. Indeed, a believer would underline this point perhaps as evidence of the creation writ large. However, I would argue that this is evidence of socially and culturally constructed 'meaning' and the important role of utility in our 'subjective' perspective. The durability of the concept of utility or use or 'work' in all its various manifestations underline its huge cultural influence over how we conceive of our selves and how we value ourselves and others in our society. Durability of 'signs' or social ideas such as 'work' have something to do with relevance to the reality of the culture - not suprisingly work or use is full of use or useful.

Rudyard Kipling: Tiger

What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride?
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
Brother, I go to my lair to die!

Tigers


Durga riding a Tiger
Old Palace, Maharao Madho Singh Museum, Kota, Rajasthan, India

Goddess Durga (Hindustani pronunciation: [ˈd̪uːrɡaː]; Sanskrit: दुर्गा), meaning "the inaccessible"[1] or "the invincible"; durga) is the most popular incarnation of Devi and one of the main forms of the Goddess Shakti in the Hindu pantheon.Durga is the original manifested form of Mother Adi-Parashakti. She is Adi- Parashakti herself. The Devi Gita declares her to be the greatest Goddess.Thus, She is considered the supreme Goddess and primary deity in Shaktism, occupying a place similar to Lord Krishna in Vaishnavism. According to Skanda Purana, Goddess Parvati accounted the name 'Durga' after she killed the demon Durgamaasura. Goddess Parvati is considered to be the complete incarnation of Adi Parashakti or Goddess Durga, with all other Goddesses being her incarnations or manifestations. Whatever deity one is worshiping, ultimately, they are worshiping her. Adi Parashakti or Mahadevi, the Supreme power, is called Durga Shakti as per Devi-Mahatmya. Adi parashakti or Devi Durga is a Hindu concept of the Ultimate Shakti or Mahashakti, the ultimate power inherent in All Creation.


Of course, one of the most famous poems in the English Language


Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?


And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?


Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

by William Blake (1794)

British Musuem

Great find. Gatsby might be my favorite book, but The Wire is definitely my favorite show.

A few brief reasons why I like the book so much.

The book's "an easy read," as you wrote above somewhere. I love the book's prose, its sentences, and the seemingly effortless construction. I say seem because Fitzgerald makes an incredibly difficult task look easy.

Fitzgerald was blessed and cursed by his supreme achievement; he wrote something great but couldn't match Gatsby. As Hemingway put it, “His [Scott Fitzgerald's] talent was as natural as the pattern that made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.”

Nick on Gatsby. One of the seemingly effortless constructions is the way the story's told--from Nick's point of view. Can you imagine how the book would have been different if it was told by an external narrator or (lol) Gatsby himself? Fitzerald's doing something "new" here but in a less jarring way than, say, Faulkner, who often switches narrators and is always calling our attention to who's speaking.

The book's freshness. It was written in 1925ish and the book hasn't aged a day. It's shocking how relevant this book is

The ending. One of the alltime great endings, like spine-tingling good.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, Digger--esp as a non-American.

Yep, love the ending. Am I right in remembering that it wasn't a great success until a couple of decades after it was published?

Mowgli made leader of the Bandar Log by John Charles Dollman

John Charles Dollman RWS RI ROI (1851–1934) was an English painter and illustrator.

Dollman was born in Hove on 6 May 1851 and moved to London to study at South Kensington and the Royal Academy Schools, after which he set up a studio at Bedford Park, London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1870 to 1912, and was elected RWS (Member of the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1913. Dollman was also an illustrator, working in black and white or colour for magazines such as the Graphic during and after the 1880s. Some of his early work has been said to have influenced Van Gogh.


Bandar-log (Hindi: बन्दर-लोग), a term used in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to describe the monkeys. In Hindi, Bandar means "monkey" (specifically, the Rhesus macaque) and log means "people" - Therefore, "Bandar-log" means "monkey people." The term has also since come to refer to "any body of irresponsible chatterers."

The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), also called the Nazuri monkey, is one of the best-known species of Old World monkeys. It is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in view of its wide distribution, presumed large population, and its tolerance of a broad range of habitats. Native to South, Central and Southeast Asia, troops of Macaca mulatta inhabit a great variety of habitats from grasslands to arid and forested areas, but also close to human settlements.



At the Red Fort in Agra, India


Agra Fort, is a monument, (Hindi: आगरा का किला, Urdu: آگرہ قلعہ‎) a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is about 2.5 km northwest of its more famous sister monument, the Taj Mahal. The fort can be more accurately described as a walled city.

The present-day structure was built by the Mughals, though a fort had stood there since at least the 11th century. Agra Fort was originally a brick fort, held by the Hindu Sikarwar Rajputs. It was mentioned for the first time in 1080 AD when a Ghaznavide force captured it. Sikandar Lodi (1488–1517) was the first Sultan of Delhi who shifted to Agra and lived in the fort. He governed the country from here and Agra assumed the importance of the second capital. He died in the fort at 1517 and his son, Ibrahim Lodi, held it for nine years until he was defeated and killed at Panipat in 1526. Several palaces, wells and a mosque were built by him in the fort during his period.





Some thoughts on The Jungle Book

There is a child-like quality to The Jungle Book. I wonder to what extent that quality is brought by my pre-conceptions of the text and/or whether there is something within the diction/writing style of Kipling that can be isolated and pointed to that is ---> the device that renders a 'child-like quality'. I presume it must have something to do with the fact that the hero is a young boy that brings forth that type of impression.

Having said that, I suspect that the ambiton of the author is somewhat more than just a child's book. There is a recurring poetic form surrounding the texts and it is apparent that Mowgli could be seen as a totemic and allegorical vessel.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is a very well-paced and beautifully written exploration of the limits of personal transformation in American culture. Fitzgerald also examines the promise of the American ideal - to what extent does 'making it' in American life lead to personal happiness and fulfilment. It could be argued that, with the exception of Nick, all the characters are living in a facade. The lives depicted within The Great Gatsby appear disconnected with reality and that reality never really is brought to bear on these character's except on a very personal level. Perhaps the ability to colour the plot with emotional importance and social relevance in a story where a lack of consequence or care pervades it - is the real genius of Fitzgerald.

Individual

As mentioned before, I am dissatisfied with the concept of the 'individual'. I do not want to contend with the idea that we encounter the world through one's own eyes. But to what extent do we experience the world alone. Most of us, most of the time - are in a social setting and in very important ways it is abnormal to not be a 'social' being. Consider these two examples:

(a) Solitary confinement: our conception of being of 'sound mind' is gradually dismantled if for a sustained period of time we are bereft of human contact. This is a punishment - one of the harsher punishments, indeed , some define this as being inhumane.

(b) Psychopathy or sociopathy: whilst I am not a big fan of psychiatric or psychological discourses, this construct, in all likelihood, hit upon a 'truth'. That is, that the absence of empathy of others is somehow an aberration or 'illness' or something is wrong with that 'individual'. This, also, points to the idea that in some way our 'existent' is foundationally social.

Perhaps, we are not drones in a hive but something of some degree like it.

Hi Digga,

y u read so many books?

Hello.

I think I answer that question within the blog. Perhaps you will find a more complete answer somewhere earlier.

In short, the reasons I am reading so many books this year are:

(a) Self-improvement: I believe in the idea that I promote to my students that we should all be 'life-long learners'.
(b) I hope by reading 100 books of the Classics - I will be able to improve my reading and writing skills
(c) I enjoy reading and having this blog places a priority and imperative towards reading in my life.

The White Seal

Not all of The Jungle Book is set in India. In the far remote northern pacific is the island of St Paul's. One part of the island is Novastoshnah, I assume the history of populating this remote part of the Alsaskan island chain was for whaling.

One penisnsula on St Paul's Island: Novastoshnah beach where the seals inhabit - note in the shaded area of the map.

Saint Paul Island is the largest of the Pribilof Islands, a group of five Alaskan volcanic islands located in the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. The city of St. Paul is the only residential area on the island. The two nearest islands to Saint Paul Island are Otter Island to the southwest, and Walrus Island to the east. St. Paul Island has a land area of 40 square miles (100 km2). St. Paul Island currently has one school (K-12, 100 students), one post office, one bar, one small store, and one church (the Russian Orthodox Sts. Peter and Paul Church). The church is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

A rookery is a colony of breeding animals, generally birds.[1] A rook is a Northern European and Central Asian member of the crow family, which nest in prominent colonies (multiple nests) at the tops of trees.[2] The term is applied to the nesting place of birds, such as crows and rooks, the source of the term. The breeding grounds of colony-forming seabirds and marine mammals (true seals or sea lions) and even some turtles are also referred to as rookeries.

The term rookery was also borrowed as a name for dense slum housing in nineteenth-century cities, and especially London.

I am currently ~110 pages into the text.

You mustn't swim till you're six week old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
As bad as bad can be;
But splash and grow strong,
And you can't be wrong,
Child of the Open Sea!

p107-108

Similes

The more I reflect upon my encounter with the world, the more I think how important similes are to how we approach making sense of our existent.

A simile is a rhetorical figure expressing comparison or likeness that directly compares two objects through some connective word such as like, as, so, than, or a verb such as resembles. Although similes and metaphors are generally seen as interchangeable, similes acknowledge the imperfections and limitations of the comparative relationship to a greater extent than metaphors. Similes also hedge/protect the author against outrageous, incomplete, or unfair comparison. Generally, metaphor is the stronger and more encompassing of the two forms of rhetorical analogies.


Through the colonisation of 'I' during learning and development toward the processing and assimilation of 'objects' to our own horizon ---> we necessarily need to adopt similes in our processes of life. The comparison between one and another thing encompassed and enwrapped by a 'sign' and a 'word'. The differentiation between two things that are enwrapped together by a 'sign' whereby we engage a third relationship to redfine and provide the gap, again engages a simile.

Original or imaginative thought provide a new simile and relationship between objects that have otherwise not be signified before. There is a freedom and power to fiction, in the aforementioned construct, that genres of facticity do not have in the same way.


Le Violon d'Ingres (Ingres's Violin)
Man Ray
American, 1924
Gelatin silver print
11 5/8 x 8 15/16 in.
86.XM.626.10


Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.[

The Gatekeeper of Purgatory(not title of poem below)

I saw near me an ancient man, alone
whose face commanded all the reverence
that any son could offer to his sire.

The rays of light from those four sacred stars
struck with such radiance upon his face,
it was as if the sun were shining there.

"Who are you two who challenged the blind stream
and have escaped from the eternal prison?"
he said, moving his venerable locks.

"Who guided you? What served you as a lamp
to light your way out of the heavy night
that keeps the pit of Hell forever black?

Are all the laws of God's Abyss destroyed?
Have new decisions now been made in Heaven
so that, though damned, you come up to my cliff?"

Purgatory Canto I (31-48)




Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95 BC, Rome – April 46 BC, Utica), commonly known as Cato the Younger (Cato Minor) to distinguish him from his great-grandfather (Cato the Elder), was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy. A noted orator, he is remembered for his stubbornness and tenacity (especially in his lengthy conflict with Julius Caesar), as well as his immunity to bribes, his moral integrity, and his famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.

Plutarch wrote:

Cato did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed, and throwing down a little mathematical table that stood by, made such a noise that the servants, hearing it, cried out. And immediately his son and all his friends came into the chamber, where, seeing him lie weltering in his own blood, great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired.

Death of Cato by Pierre Boullion

Catone in Utica by Vivaldi

EMILIA
Cato's retreat
is no longer safe for me.
Caesar in arms does threaten and alarm.
How can I avenge myself now?
My heart, do not change your plans,
even though fate itself may change.
A great soul never strays from its vengeance.

ARIA
Just as the angry sea
throws itself onto the rocks and shore in vain,
the cruel fate cannot strike me down,
and Caesar's pride
cannot scare me.
And on that enemy
that dastardly slew my dearest husband
will I avenge myself for this dishonor.

Link to the full piece of Vivaldi's work Catone of Utica - I have not listened to it yet and there are a number of options for 90mins or more of the piece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Wtg5HA-ys

Punishment of the Proud


Usually in pictures from the Divine Comedy: Dante is following Virgil - so barring any other symbology Dante will be the one behind most often.

"Master, what I see moving toward us there,"
I said," do not seem to be shades at all;
I don't know what they are, my sight's confused."

"The grievous nature of their punishment,"
he answered, "bends their bodies toward the ground;
my own eyes were not sure of what they saw.

Try hard to disentangle all the parts
of what you see moving beneath those stones.
Can you see now how each one beats his breast?"

O haughty Christians, wretched, sluggish souls,
all you whose inner vision is diseased,
putting your trust in things that pull you back,

do you not understand we are the worms,
each born to form the angelic butterfly,
that flies defenceless to the Final Judge?

Why do your souls' pretensions rise so high,
since you are but defective insects still,
worms as yet imperfectly evolved?

Sometimes one sees a corbet, holding the weight
of roof or ceiling, carved in human shape
with chest pressed tightly down against its knees,

So that this unreality gives real
anguish to one who sees it - this is how
these sould appeared, and how they made me feel.

True, some of them were more compressed, some less,
as more or less weight pressed on each one's back,
but even the most patient of them all

seemed through his tears to say: "I can't go on!"

Purgatory Canto X 112 -139 (Speakers in the poem Dante and Virgil)


And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

Isaiah 13.11 (KJV)

Isaiah (US /aɪˈzeɪ.ə/ or UK /aɪˈzaɪ.ə/;[2] Hebrew: יְשַׁעְיָהוּ, Modern Yeshayahu Tiberian Yəšạʻyā́hû ; Syriac: ܐܫܥܝܐ Eshaya; Greek: Ἠσαΐας, Ēsaïās; Arabic: إشعيا Ishiya;[1] "Yah is salvation"[3]) was a prophet said by the Biblical Book of Isaiah to have lived in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.[4][5]

The exact relationship between the Book of Isaiah and any such historical Isaiah remains the subject of ongoing scholarly discussion.[a] One widespread view sees parts of the first half of the book (chapters 1–39) as originating with the historical prophet, interspersed with prose commentaries written in the time of King Josiah a hundred years later; with the remainder of the book dating from immediately before and immediately after the end of the exile in Babylon, almost two centuries after the time of the original prophet. Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed (although not the earliest) of the neviim akharonim, the latter prophets.


Isaiah by Michaelangelo 1509 Sistine Chapel Vatican.

Toomai of the Elephants

One of the stunning Kipling fables in The Jungle Book.



A mahout is a person who rides an elephant. The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut (महौत) and mahavat (महावत), which eventually goes back to Sanskrit mahamatra (महामात्र). Usually, a mahout starts as a boy in the 'family profession' when he is assigned an elephant early in its life. They remain bonded to each other throughout their lives.

The most common tools used by mahouts are chains and the Aṅkuśa (or ankus, anlius) –a sharp metal hook used in the training and handling of the elephant by stabbing the elephant in the head, and in areas like the mouth and inner ear, where the animal is most sensitive.

Mahout on an elephant; gouache on paper by unknown

Gouache[p](/ɡuːˈæʃ/; French: [ˈɡwaʃ]), also spelled guache, is a type of paint consisting of pigment, a binding agent (usually gum arabic), and sometimes added inert material, designed to be used in an opaque method. It also refers to paintings that use this opaque method. The name derives from the Italian guazzo.

Gouache paint is similar to watercolor but modified to make it opaque.



I just finished The Jungle Book and I will write some thoughts on it in due course.

Next cab off the rank is One flew over the Cuckoo's nest by K Kesey

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey (/ˈkiːziː/; September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)[1] and as a countercultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie," Kesey said in a 1999 interview with Robert K. Elder.




...one flew east, one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo's nest

- Children's Folk Rhyme

The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds, named for the Common Cuckoo of Europe. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos (family Musophagidae, sometimes treated as a separate order, Musophagiformes). Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute. The cuckoo family, in addition to those species named as such, also includes the roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively.

The cuckoos are generally medium sized slender birds. The majority are arboreal, with a sizeable minority that are terrestrial. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority of species being tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Many species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species raise their own young.


Geococcyx californianus — Greater Roadrunner

Neomorphinae is a subfamily of the cuckoo family, Cuculidae. Members of this subfamily are known as New World ground cuckoos, since most are largely terrestrial and native to the Americas.[1] Only Dromococcyx and Tapera are more arboreal, and these are also the only brood parasitic cuckoos in the Americas, while the remaining all built their own nest.

Again Art on madness...

Francisco de Goya, The Madhouse1812-14, oil on panel, 45 x 72 cm, Museum of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid.

Apologies a correction: #514

I stated that there are 2 voices in the Purgatory passage cited whereas there are in fact three: Dante the pilgrim's voice, Dante the poet's voice and Virgil's voice. I came back to correct this because it is an important feature of the Divine Comedy the struggle to reconcile the two voices of Dante within the poem and their perspectives.

Madness: as the absence of reason. To be angry - to be mad. Sleep a time without reason.

A Madman in a Dismal Landscape by Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon (born Bertrand-Jean Redon; French: [ʁədɔ̃]; April 20, 1840 – July 6, 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.

The above was based, in part upon:

The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters by Goya

31. Sleep and Poetry

“As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete
“Was unto me, but why that I ne might
"Rest I ne wist, for there n’as erthly wight
“[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese
“Than I, for I n’ad sicknesse nor disese.”
CHAUCER.

WHAT is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men’s knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
More serene than Cordelia’s countenance?
More full of visions than a high romance?
What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!
Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!
Silent entangler of a beauty’s tresses!
Most happy listener! when the morning blesses
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes
That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise.

But what is higher beyond thought than thee?
Fresher than berries of a mountain tree?
More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal,
Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle?
What is it? And to what shall I compare it?
It has a glory, and nought else can share it:
The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy,
Chacing away all worldliness and folly;
Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder,
Or the low rumblings earth’s regions under;
And sometimes like a gentle whispering
Of all the secrets of some wond’rous thing
That breathes about us in the vacant air;
So that we look around with prying stare,
Perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial lymning,
And catch soft floatings from a faint-heard hymning;
To see the laurel wreath, on high suspended,
That is to crown our name when life is ended.
Sometimes it gives a glory to the voice,
And from the heart up-springs, rejoice! rejoice!
Sounds which will reach the Framer of all things,
And die away in ardent mutterings.

No one who once the glorious sun has seen,
And all the clouds, and felt his bosom clean
For his great Maker’s presence, but must know
What ’tis I mean, and feel his being glow:
Therefore no insult will I give his spirit
By telling what he sees from native merit.

O Poesy! for thee I hold my pen
That am not yet a glorious denizen
Of thy wide heaven - Should I rather kneel
Upon some mountain-top until I feel
A glowing splendour round about me hung,
And echo back the voice of thine own tongue?
O Poesy! for thee I grasp my pen
That am not yet a glorious denizen
Of thy wide heaven; yet, to my ardent prayer,
Yield from thy sanctuary some clear air,
Smoothed for intoxication by the breath
Of flowering bays, that I may die a death
Of luxury, and my young spirit follow
The morning sun-beams to the great Apollo
Like a fresh sacrifice; or, if I can bear
The o’erwhelming sweets, ’twill bring me to the fair
Visions of all places: a bowery nook
Will be elysium - an eternal book
Whence I may copy many a lovely saying
About the leaves, and flowers - about the playing
Of nymphs in woods, and fountains; and the shade
Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid;
And many a verse from so strange influence
That we must ever wonder how, and whence
It came. Also imaginings will hover
Round my fire-side, and haply there discover
Vistas of solemn beauty, where I’d wander
In happy silence, like the clear meander
Through its lone vales; and where I found a spot
Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot,
Or a green hill o’erspread with chequered dress
Of flowers, and fearful from its loveliness,
Write on my tablets all that was permitted,
All that was for our human senses fitted.
Then the events of this wide world I’d seize
Like a strong giant, and my spirit teaze
Till at its shoulders it should proudly see
Wings to find out an immortality.

Stop and consider! life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep
While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep
Of Montmorenci. Why so sad a moan?
Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown;
The reading of an ever-changing tale;
The light uplifting of a maiden’s veil;
A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air;
A laughing school-boy, without grief or care,
Riding the springy branches of an elm.

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then I will pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually
Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I’ll pass
Of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass,
Feed upon apples red, and strawberries,
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees;
Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places,
To woo sweet kisses from averted faces, -
Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white
Into a pretty shrinking with a bite
As hard as lips can make it: till agreed,
A lovely tale of human life we’ll read.
And one will teach a tame dove how it best
May fan the cool air gently o’er my rest;
Another, bending o’er her nimble tread,
Will set a green robe floating round her head,
And still will dance with ever varied ease,
Smiling upon the flowers and the trees:
Another will entice me on, and on
Through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon,
Till in the bosom of a leafy world
We rest in silence, like two gems upcurl’d
In the recesses of a pearly shell.

And can I ever bid these joys farewell?
Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life,
Where I may find the agonies, the strife
Of human hearts: for lo! I see afar,
O’er sailing the blue cragginess, a car
And steeds with streamy manes - the charioteer
Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear:
And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly
Along a huge cloud’s ridge; and now with sprightly
Wheel downward come they into fresher skies,
Tipt round with silver from the sun’s bright eyes.
Still downward with capacious whirl they glide;
And now I see them on a green-hill’s side
In breezy rest among the nodding stalks.
The charioteer with wond’rous gesture talks
To the trees and mountains; and there soon appear
Shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear,
Passing along before a dusky space
Made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase
Some ever-fleeting music on they sweep.
Lo! how they murmur, laugh, and smile, and weep:
Some with upholden hand and mouth severe;
Some with their faces muffled to the ear
Between their arms; some, clear in youthful bloom,
Go glad and smilingly athwart the gloom;
Some looking back, and some with upward gaze;
Yes, thousands in a thousand different ways
Flit onward - now a lovely wreath of girls
Dancing their sleek hair into tangled curls;
And now broad wings. Most awfully intent
The driver of those steeds is forward bent,
And seems to listen: O that I might know
All that he writes with such a hurrying glow.

The visions all are fled - the car is fled
Into the light of heaven, and in their stead
A sense of real things comes doubly strong,
And, like a muddy stream, would bear along
My soul to nothingness: but I will strive
Against all doubtings, and will keep alive
The thought of that same chariot, and the strange
Journey it went.
Is there so small a range

In the present strength of manhood, that the high
Imagination cannot freely fly
As she was wont of old? prepare her steeds,
Paw up against the light, and do strange deeds
Upon the clouds? Has she not shewn us all?
From the clear space of ether, to the small
Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning
Of Jove’s large eye-brow, to the tender greening
Of April meadows? Here her altar shone,
E’en in this isle; and who could paragon
The fervid choir that lifted up a noise
Of harmony, to where it aye will poise
Its mighty self of convoluting sound,
Huge as a planet, and like that roll round,
Eternally around a dizzy void?
Ay, in those days the Muses were nigh cloy’d
With honors; nor had any other care
Than to sing out and sooth their wavy hair.

Could all this be forgotten? Yes, a sc[h]ism
Nurtured by foppery and barbarism,
Made great Apollo blush for this his land.
Men were thought wise who could not understand
His glories: with a puling infant’s force
They sway’d about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul’d!
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d
Its gathering waves - ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer nights collected still to make
The morning precious: beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead
To things ye knew not of, - were closely wed
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
And compass vile: so that ye taught a school
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit,
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task:
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race!
That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face,
And did not know it, - no, they went about,
Holding a poor, decrepid standard out
Mark’d with most flimsy mottos, and in large
The name of one Boileau!
O ye whose charge

It is to hover round our pleasant hills!
Whose congregated majesty so fills
My boundly reverence, that I cannot trace
Your hallowed names, in this unholy place,
So near those common folk; did not their shames
Affright you? Did our old lamenting Thames
Delight you? Did ye never cluster round
Delicious Avon, with a mournful sound,
And weep? Or did ye wholly bid adieu
To regions where no more the laurel grew?
Or did ye stay to give a welcoming
To some lone spirits who could proudly sing
Their youth away, and die? ’Twas even so:
But let me think away those times of woe:
Now ’tis a fairer season; ye have breathed
Rich benedictions o’er us; ye have wreathed
Fresh garlands: for sweet music has been heard
In many places; - some has been upstirr’d
From out its crystal dwelling in a lake,
By a swan’s ebon bill; from a thick brake,
Nested and quiet in a valley mild,
Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild
About the earth: happy are ye and glad.
These things are doubtless: yet in truth we’ve had
Strange thunders from the potency of song;
Mingled indeed with what is sweet and strong,
From majesty: but in clear truth the themes
Are ugly clubs, the Poets Polyphemes
Disturbing the grand sea. A drainless shower
Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power;
’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm.
The very archings of her eye-lids charm
A thousand willing agents to obey,
And still she governs with the mildest sway:
But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs,
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end 245
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.

Yet I rejoice: a myrtle fairer than
E’er grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds
Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds
A silent space with ever sprouting green.
All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen,
Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering,
Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing.
Then let us clear away the choaking thorns
From round its gentle stem; let the young fawns,
Yeaned in after times, when we are flown,
Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown
With simple flowers: let there nothing be
More boisterous than a lover’s bended knee;
Nought more ungentle than the placid look
Of one who leans upon a closed book;
Nought more untranquil than the grassy slopes
Between two hills. All hail delightful hopes!
As she was wont, th’ imagination 265
Into most lovely labyrinths will be gone,
And they shall be accounted poet kings
Who simply tell the most heart-easing things.
O may these joys be ripe before I die.

Will not some say that I presumptuously
Have spoken? that from hastening disgrace
’Twere better far to hide my foolish face?
That whining boyhood should with reverence bow
Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach? How!
If I do hide myself, it sure shall be
In the very fane, the light of Poesy:
If I do fall, at least I will be laid
Beneath the silence of a poplar shade;
And over me the grass shall be smooth shaven;
And there shall be a kind memorial graven.
But off Despondence! miserable bane!
They should not know thee, who athirst to gain
A noble end, are thirsty every hour.
What though I am not wealthy in the dower
Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know
The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow
Hither and thither all the changing thoughts
Of man: though no great minist’ring reason sorts
Out the dark mysteries of human souls
To clear conceiving: yet there ever rolls
A vast idea before me, and I glean
Therefrom my liberty; thence too I’ve seen
The end and aim of Poesy. ’Tis clear
As anything most true; as that the year
Is made of the four seasons - manifest
As a large cross, some old cathedral’s crest,
Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore should I
Be but the essence of deformity,
A coward, did my very eye-lids wink
At speaking out what I have dared to think.
Ah! rather let me like a madman run
Over some precipice; let the hot sun
Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down
Convuls’d and headlong! Stay! an inward frown
Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile.
An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle,
Spreads awfully before me. How much toil!
How many days! what desperate turmoil!
Ere I can have explored its widenesses.
Ah, what a task! upon my bended knees, 310
I could unsay those - no, impossible!
Impossible!
For sweet relief I’ll dwell

On humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay
Begun in gentleness die so away.
E’en now all tumult from my bosom fades:
I turn full hearted to the friendly aids
That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood,
And friendliness the nurse of mutual good.
The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet
Into the brain ere one can think upon it;
The silence when some rhymes are coming out;
And when they’re come, the very pleasant rout:
The message certain to be done to-morrow.
’Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow
Some precious book from out its snug retreat,
To cluster round it when we next shall meet.
Scarce can I scribble on; for lovely airs
Are fluttering round the room like doves in pairs;
Many delights of that glad day recalling,
When first my senses caught their tender falling.
And with these airs come forms of elegance
Stooping their shoulders o’er a horse’s prance,
Careless, and grand - fingers soft and round
Parting luxuriant curls; - and the swift bound
Of Bacchus from his chariot, when his eye 335
Made Ariadne’s cheek look blushingly.
Thus I remember all the pleasant flow
Of words at opening a portfolio.

Things such as these are ever harbingers
To trains of peaceful images: the stirs
Of a swan’s neck unseen among the rushes:
A linnet starting all about the bushes:
A butterfly, with golden wings broad parted
Nestling a rose, convuls’d as though it smarted
With over pleasure - many, many more,
Might I indulge at large in all my store
Of luxuries: yet I must not forget
Sleep, quiet with his poppy coronet:
For what there may be worthy in these rhymes
I partly owe to him: and thus, the chimes
Of friendly voices had just given place
To as sweet a silence, when I ’gan retrace
The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease.
It was a poet’s house who keeps the keys
Of pleasure’s temple. Round about were hung
The glorious features of the bards who sung
In other ages - cold and sacred busts
Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts
To clear Futurity his darling fame!
Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim
At swelling apples with a frisky leap
And reaching fingers, ’mid a luscious heap
Of vine leaves. Then there rose to view a fane
Of liny marble, and thereto a train
Of nymphs approaching fairly o’er the sward:
One, loveliest, holding her white hand toward
The dazzling sun-rise: two sisters sweet
Bending their graceful figures till they meet
Over the trippings of a little child:
And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild
Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping.
See, in another picture, nymphs are wiping
Cherishingly Diana’s timorous limbs; -
A fold of lawny mantle dabbling swims
At the bath’s edge, and keeps a gentle motion
With the subsiding crystal: as when ocean
Heaves calmly its broad swelling smoothiness o’er
Its rocky marge, and balances once more
The patient weeds; that now unshent by foam
Feel all about their undulating home.

Sappho’s meek head was there half smiling down
At nothing; just as though the earnest frown
Of over thinking had that moment gone
From off her brow, and left her all alone.

Great Alfred’s too, with anxious, pitying eyes,
As if he always listened to the sighs
Of the goaded world; and Kosciusko’s worn
By horrid suffrance - mightily forlorn.

Petrarch, outstepping from the shady green,
Starts at the sight of Laura; nor can wean
His eyes from her sweet face. Most happy they!
For over them was seen a free display
Of out-spread wings, and from between them shone
The face of Poesy: from off her throne
She overlook’d things that I scarce could tell.
The very sense of where I was might well
Keep Sleep aloof: but more than that there came
Thought after thought to nourish up the flame
Within my breast; so that the morning light
Surprised me even from a sleepless night;
And up I rose refresh’d, and glad, and gay,
Resolving to begin that very day
These lines; and howsoever they be done,
I leave them as a father does his son.

finis

1818
John Keats

Whoa! Maybe I should have broken that poem up into parts......

I might have to read that in the morning - just wanted to grab it into my thread before it slips my memory.

Scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Given that this is a gambling website, I suppose an offering to the Gods of 2+2 would eventually need to be made. Also, I suspect that the degens amongst my small readership would probably enjoy it. I am not sure if this appears in the movie, but McMurphy and the card games in the ward are a key scene in the development of the comraderie that develops in the ward under McMurphy's magnetic personal spell.




Here is an extended taste for your enjoyment:Pg 72-73 (the narrator is the big Native American 'Chief' Brodhum)

I could of watched McMurphy at that blackjack table all night, the way he dealt and talked and roped them in and led them smack up to the point where they were just about to quit, then backed down a hand or two to give them confidence and bring them along again. Once he took a break for a cigarette and tilted back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head, and told the guys, "The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it. I learned that when I worked a season on a skillo wheel carnival. You fe-e-el the sucker over with your eyes when he comes up and you say, 'Now here's a bird that needs to feel tough.' So every time he snaps at you for taking him you quake in your boots, scared to death, and tell him. "Please, sir. No trouble. The next roll is on the house, sir.' So the both of you are getting what you want."
He rocks forward, and the legs of his chair come down with a crack. He picks up the deck, zips his thumb over it, knocks the edge of it against the table top, licks his thumb and finger.
"And what I deduce you marks need is a big fat pot to temptate you. Here's ten packages on the next deal. Hey-yah, comin' at you, guts ball from here on out..."
And throws backs his head and laughs out loud at the way the guys hustled to get their bets down.
That laugh banged around the say room all evening, and all the time he was dealing he was joking and talking and trying to get the players to laugh along with him. But they were all afraid to loosen up; it'd been too long. He gave up trying and settled down to serious dealing. They won the deal off him a time or two, but he always bought it back or fought it back, and the cigarettes on each side of him grew in bigger and bigger pyramid stacks.
Then just before nine-thirty he started letting them win, lets them win it all back so fast they don't hardly remember losing. He pays out the last couple of cigarettes and lays down the deck and leans back with a sigh and shoves the cap out of his eyes, and the game is done.
"Well, sir, win a few, lose the rest is what I say." He shakes his head so forlorn. "I don't know - I was always a pretty shrewd customer at twenty-one, but you birds may just be too tough for me. You got some kinda uncanny knack, makes a man leery of playing against such sharpies for real money tommorrow."
He isn't even kidding himself into thinking they fall for that. He let them win, and every one of us watching the game knows it. So do the players. But there still isn't a man raking his pile of cigarettes - cigarettes he didn't really win but only won back because they were his in the first place - that doesn't have a smirk on his face like he's the toughest gambler on the whole Mississippi.

Skillo wheel: I could not find any google reference for this game. I assume it is a variant of The Big Six Wheel.



Carnival games
While the majority of game operators run honest games[citation needed], some people are wary of carnival games. This is because carnival games in the past gained a reputation for being dishonest. It is interesting to note the term "mark" (meaning sucker) originated with the carnival.[2] When dishonest carnival game operators found someone who they could entice to keep playing their rigged (slang term: "gaffed") game,[3] they would then "mark" the individual by patting their back with a hand that had chalk on it. Other game operators would then look for these chalk marks and entice the individuals to also play their rigged game.


Confidence trick

A confidence trick (synonyms include confidence scheme and scam) is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, in the classical sense of trust.
The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or "con-trick") is often referred to as a confidence (or "con") man, woman or artist, or a "grifter". The first known usage of the term "confidence man" in English was in 1849 by the New York City press, during the trial of William Thompson. Thompson chatted with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch. He was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.

Not to be confused with William Thompson, Mayor of Chicago during the Capone era - another confidence man?

William Thompson was an American criminal and con artist whose deceptions caused the term "confidence man" to be coined.

Operating in New York City in the late 1840s, a genteely-dressed Thompson would approach an upper-class mark, pretending they knew each other, and begin a brief conversation. After initially gaining the mark's trust, Thompson would ask "Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?" Upon taking the watch (or, occasionally, money), Thompson would depart, never returning the watch.[1]

Thompson was arrested and brought to trial in 1849, in a case that made newspaper headlines across the country. The New York Herald, recalling his explicit appeals to the victim's "confidence," dubbed him the "confidence man." Per the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the term was printed in The New Orleans Picayune.

The Thompson case was a major inspiration and source for Herman Melville's 1857 novel The Confidence-Man.

Your notes on similes reminded me of this poem by Ogden Nash, which I think you'll enjoy...


Very Like A Whale

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.


Ogden Nash

Well played, DB.

Thanks for the poem.

I will try not to blanket my prose with snow.

Sleep and Poetry: Stanza 13 Keats (full poem quoted in #518 above)

But off Despondence! miserable bane!
They should not know thee, who athirst to gain
A noble end, are thirsty every hour.
What though I am not wealthy in the dower*
Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know
The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow
Hither and thither all the changing thoughts
Of man: though no great minist’ring reason sorts
Out the dark mysteries of human souls
To clear conceiving: yet there ever rolls
A vast idea before me, and I glean
Therefrom my liberty; thence too I’ve seen
The end and aim of Poesy.

* dower: a widow's share for life of her husband's estate.
I think alot of writers will relate to the above passage.

Return to lost in translation
I was sitting and reading in my backyard this afternoon. Observing the sounds of Rainbow Lorikeets having a party in the bottlebrush trees surrounding my house, only ever so often spying one or two out when they fed in my line of sight.


Swainson's Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus) - a "true parrot"

Callistemon citrinus

My mind was floating ideas about what the birds might be saying - warnings of danger, stay away from me even hmmmm bottle brush (homer simpson style). And my thoughts returned to that idea I was considering last week about: What is lost in translation?
I thought perhaps if we looked at the process of a discourse. My construct would look something like this.

What is stated? What is meant? What is understood?

What is stated? Is either what is uttered or written.

What is meant? Is what was intended to be uttered or written.

What is understood? Is the reader's/hearer's reception of it.


Sometimes there is a misunderstanding where what is stated and what is meant is in one or more ways misinterpreted by the reader. It could be that what is stated and what is understood are exactly the same - and it is what is meant that is the cause of the "misunderstanding".
But you could also have a perfect meeting between what is meant and what is understood - yet that being somehow different to that which was stated. Which is a very interesting instance - because it suggests something surplus being communicated: implied social value, inferred by other text not disclosed or even something as concrete as body language such as a "raised eyebrow".
Sometimes translators can fossick out that proverbial "raised eyebrow" by historical investigation or biographical, anthropololgical inferrence or evidence. But sometimes it slips through the gaps.

That surplus is sometimes hidden within the umbrella of common usage - the embedded context. This is what gives lie to the idea that language is not heavily if not fundamentally a social and discursive construct. Perhaps there is a horizon beyond which meaning is lost from us in translation which no 'reason' or 'sleep' can retrieve.


I wonder if all my thoughts are parroting others I have heard before. If I had a better memory I could know, a draught from Eunoe:

The water here on this side flows with power
to erase sin's memory; and on that side
the memory of good deeds is restored;

It is called Lethe here, Eunoe there
Beyond, and if one does not first drink here,
he will not come to know its powers there-

the sweet taste of its waters has no peer.

Purgatory Canto XXVIII (127-133) [the voice is Matelda]

Dante encounters Matelda (Matilda) Maignan (1881)

Matelda: She is the woman that the poet encounters in the Garden of Eden before Beatrice. Characterized by an absolute beauty, both in appearance and gestures, symbolizes the human condition before the original sin (some critics argue instead that it is Matilde di Canossa). She will plunge Dante in the waters of the two rivers Lethe and Eunoe , an essential rite before the ascent to Paradise in Heaven.

On the subject of translations, I took a course back then that was quite intellectually stimulating : "L'ecrivain immigrant au Quebec" (The immigrant writer in Quebec).

These authors would write in French which would be at best their second language (so no translations were involved). What was interesting, was their relationship with a dialect which is not their mother tongue.

You become less emotionally involved with a language if you learned it for practical reason (like I did with English), as oppose to growing up and perceiving the world through this way of communicating.

Although referring to the identical objet in alternate languages, words can hold a different emotion connotation from one dialect to another. For example, the words "living room table" can refer to the plain and simple object to me in English, but might bring back some emotional memories in French of family dinners that took place on this object. Or maybe a better example, a word like "maman" as oppose to the more neutral "mother".

Following this line of thought, I believe that a reader's relationship to a certain language will be similar to a writer's one, and he will therefore engage differently a book depending if it is written in his mother tongue or not.

I realize that I am a bit far from your initially thought here, but just wanted to bring a different insight.

Social and Cultural Discourses on Meaning (cont'd)

You may have, up until this point, thought that my ruminations on meaning are somewhat esoteric. That they are not really grounded in your experience of the world - that they hold no 'meaning' for you. So, with that in mind, I would like to turn our gaze toward social and cultural constructs that appear on the edges or, even, in opposition to dominant cultural values.

The three main types of 'values' that have disruptive impacts on people's encounter with the world are: gender, ethnicity and sexuality. We have some very well defined notions of the 'norm' in these values ---> some are explicitly represented and reproduced in dominant discursive mediums like mass media. In general, they are 'European' (white), male and heterosexual.
When people have different ideas about themselves generated either by genetics - being a woman, 'black' or 'gay' ---> the inability to live up to or fulfill ideals of the dominant discourse can lead to destructive and damaging lives. Some examples:
(a) High levels of plastic surgery to modify ourselves to meet hyper-real, idealised body image.
(b) Youth suicides - particularly high amongst gay men ---> who cannot meet or are impossibly challenged by the intersection between social ideals of gender and sexuality.
(c) Extremely high incarceration rates amongst minority 'ethnic' groups.

With the above in mind: I found this following passage from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest particularly evocative.
P140 (again reminder narrator is 'Chief' Budham: half Columbia Indian, tall, silent, deaf, "Chronic", Mad. * black boys are the workers in the Asylum.)

And later, hiding in the latrine from the black boys, I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was. There'd be my face in the mirror, dark and hard with big, high cheek-bones like the cheek underneath them had been hacked out with a hatcher, eyes all black and hard and mean-looking, just like Papa's eyes or the eyes of all those tough, mean-looking Indians you see on TV, and I'd think, That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me then; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted. It don't seem like I ever have been me. How can McMurphy be what he is?

Saturn Devours his Son by Goya 1819-1823

In the most classic and well known version of Greek mythology, Cronus /ˈkroʊnəs/ or Kronos /ˈkroʊnɒs/[1] (Greek: Κρόνος [krónos]) was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus.

Cronus was usually depicted with the harpe and a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose Uranus, his father. In Athens, on the twelfth day of the Attic month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia was held in honour of Cronus to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that, as a result of his association with the virtuous Golden Age, Cronus continued to preside as a patron of harvest. Cronus was also identified in classical antiquity with the Roman deity Saturn.

Approximately 200 years earlier to Goya:

El Dios Saturn (Cronus devours Poseidon) Peter Paul Rubens 1636-1638

You become less emotionally involved with a language if you learned it for practical reason (like I did with English), as oppose to growing up and perceiving the world through this way of communicating.


The above intrigues me. It makes me ponder what actually takes place in the experience of listening to the 2nd or 3rd language within your head. I wonder if you could describe and expand upon what takes place and this 'emotional attachment'?