some references to masters of mundanity
Michael's reference to Neruda's poem on socks (which I'd LOVE to read -- did I understand you rightly Michael?) has made me think of other great writers on the mundane.
As far as Romantic poets go, it seems easy to point to Wordsworth as fascinated by the mundane -- the way in he tries in his Lyrical Ballads to focus intently on ordinary objects and describe them in "the language really used by men." However, Wordsworth -- if I can generalize -- focuses on the ordinary to find the extraordinary within it, many would say with often ridiculous results (see "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," the poem about daffodils -- I like it, but it's not one of my favorites, and certainly can read pretty silly).
Though I still love the Romantics, my more recent readings have led me to appreciate more writing outside that tradition. One of my favorite reading experiences recently involved the Japanese essayist Tanazaki (I think that's his name) -- his "In Praise of Shadows," which (no suprise for my readers) devotes a LOT of time to describing old-fashioned Japanese toilets, contrasting them with the cold, well-lit sterility of western facilities. I won't say any more, but this is a wonderful essay to which I can't do justice. I know my description may make it sound funny, but it's a truly beautiful and moving essay -- one that moves from the most mundane particulars to profound reflections on cultural divisions -- and does so seamlessly.
I think someone could make an argument that Virginia Woolf is the greatest prose artist in English (and one of the few writers who I think is pretty much smarter than all her critics -- some others I see this way are Henry James and Lord Byron -- I don't know enough about him, but I have similar feeling when I read James Baldwin; I'm sure there are others if anyone wants to share) -- though it depends on what criteria you use. Anyway, her essay "Street Haunting" about going out to buy a pencil is another truly astounding meditation on the (seemingly) mundane.
Finally, I recently discovered G. K. Chesterton's essays, specifically his collection Tremendous Trifles," in which all of the essays are about the mystical lurking within the familiar -- maybe this is more within a kind of Romantic tradition, but Chesterton was an orthodox Christian and ultimately an orthodox Catholic. I don't know too much esle about him, but I love essays like "A Piece of Chalk" and another one on chasing his hat down the street.
BUT, the true master of the mundane in my view is Wesley Willis -- especially the song "Northwest Airlines."
As far as Romantic poets go, it seems easy to point to Wordsworth as fascinated by the mundane -- the way in he tries in his Lyrical Ballads to focus intently on ordinary objects and describe them in "the language really used by men." However, Wordsworth -- if I can generalize -- focuses on the ordinary to find the extraordinary within it, many would say with often ridiculous results (see "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," the poem about daffodils -- I like it, but it's not one of my favorites, and certainly can read pretty silly).
Though I still love the Romantics, my more recent readings have led me to appreciate more writing outside that tradition. One of my favorite reading experiences recently involved the Japanese essayist Tanazaki (I think that's his name) -- his "In Praise of Shadows," which (no suprise for my readers) devotes a LOT of time to describing old-fashioned Japanese toilets, contrasting them with the cold, well-lit sterility of western facilities. I won't say any more, but this is a wonderful essay to which I can't do justice. I know my description may make it sound funny, but it's a truly beautiful and moving essay -- one that moves from the most mundane particulars to profound reflections on cultural divisions -- and does so seamlessly.
I think someone could make an argument that Virginia Woolf is the greatest prose artist in English (and one of the few writers who I think is pretty much smarter than all her critics -- some others I see this way are Henry James and Lord Byron -- I don't know enough about him, but I have similar feeling when I read James Baldwin; I'm sure there are others if anyone wants to share) -- though it depends on what criteria you use. Anyway, her essay "Street Haunting" about going out to buy a pencil is another truly astounding meditation on the (seemingly) mundane.
Finally, I recently discovered G. K. Chesterton's essays, specifically his collection Tremendous Trifles," in which all of the essays are about the mystical lurking within the familiar -- maybe this is more within a kind of Romantic tradition, but Chesterton was an orthodox Christian and ultimately an orthodox Catholic. I don't know too much esle about him, but I love essays like "A Piece of Chalk" and another one on chasing his hat down the street.
BUT, the true master of the mundane in my view is Wesley Willis -- especially the song "Northwest Airlines."
posted by Mark Meritt at 11:30 AM
17 Comments:
I really like Chesterton, though I haven't really read him - he's eminently quotable.
How about St. Augustine: "I piss on it all from a great height."
Albert,
I know I'll sound stupid but I have to ask: Is that really a St. Augustine quote? I can see it -- may be a bold, very "Anglo-Saxon" translation decision.
Speaking of translation, my appreciation for the Tanazaki essay owes a lot, I bet, to a good translation. I'm sure that, could I read Japanese, the original would be much more powerful. But that trasnlator did at least a decent job.
I've read two Chesterton books all the way through and really enjoyed them both (both non-fiction works -- I haven't read his novels). He's a very funny writer, though one who takes on the big questions unpretentiously (another reason why I guess one can't see him as a Romantic in spite of his sublime moments) and with very gentle satire.
I don't know anything about Chesterton, but I think it's true that Virginia Woolf makes the mundane profound--I can think of long passages of _To the Lighthouse_ and _Mrs. Dalloway_ in which nothing much *happens*, exactly (everyone is probably thinking of her descriptions of a woman simply going through the motions of preparing for a dinner party!), but somehow every profound insight you ever almost grasped but were never quite able to put into the words is articulated. She is so great and a lot of what comes across is the meaning just below the surface in the moments of everyday life...yeah. Can't quite say that as well as it deserves to be said.
Mark -
Well, my memory is hazy. Maybe Celine said it. I saw it in a book of quotations I used to own - but years and years ago. So I have no insight as to the translation itself. I always liked the quote.
As far as Chesterton - well, you've read more than I have. I've only seen very short snippets quoted, but from what I know of the man, I'd say our sensibilities are similar.
Sarah -
Still haven't read Mrs. Dalloway. But I share the same sentiments toward To the Lighthouse. In high school, my English teacher declared it her most favorite novel.
Oh, and Mark - I'm not familiar with Tanazaki. Have you ever heard of the Tale of Genji - written I think by a woman - 1600's or 1700's Japan - it's a massive work, and I've only read a tiny tiny portion, but I think there is also a little of the mundane --> sublime.
Wrote a paper on it for my History of Japan class in college and got the only A in the entire class. Too bad I was taking it pass/not pass. I had to "try" to get a B on the 2nd paper so I wouldn't have to kick myself for not going for a letter grade.
I want to add my concurrence with Mark about "Northwest Airlines." I think this is an underappreciated Wesley Willis song, liable to be outshoned by "Rock and Roll McDonald's" or, uh, "Vampire Bat" or something. Willis connoisseurs, give "Northwest Airlines" another listening to if you haven't yet been convinced of its brilliance.
Wesley Willis = \m/
RIP
-Adam
OK, please don't sue me, attorneys for Neruda's estate...
Ode to My Socks
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted with her own
sheepherder hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as if they were
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and the pelt of sheep.
Outrageous socks,
my feet became
two fish
made of wool,
two long sharks
of ultramarine blue
crossed
by one golden hair,
two gigantic blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so beautiful
that for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that embroidered
fire,
of those luminous
socks.
Nevertheless,
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as scholars
collect
sacred documents,
I resisted
the wild impulse
to put them
in a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and chunks of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle
who hand over the rare
green deer
to the roasting spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the
magnificent
socks
and
then my shoes.
And the moral of my ode
is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it's a matter of two
woolen socks
in winter.
I should probably mention as well that it is Stephen Mitchell's translation that I shared.
BTW, I hope my aesthetic pontificating hasn't stepped on any toes...I don't mean to belittle the British Romantics, but I still find that something in their writing just doesn't quite do it for me. I sympathize entirely with their ideas, concerns, themes, etc., but can never escape the sense that the intense left-brain at work in their poetry somehow undermines what they want to say. Of course there is much in their writing that is lovely and moving, but it somehow fails to excite me in the way that, uh, this other kind of poetry does.
I'm still not sure there's an agreed-upon name for it, but I've heard it called "deep image" poetry, which is preferable to Robert Bly's cumbersome "poetry of two-fold consciousness," even though I agree with his ideas. Something about the way it embraces mystery, the subterranean connections between things, the way words leap together and associations are allowed to simply speak for themselves, has always sparked me a lot more...who can account for taste?
Michael,
Aesthetic pontificating? That's what I'm all about! :-)
But serioulsy, all toes are intact -- and I often find my onw tastes in conflict. After all, as I started out saying, I'm finding myself drawn more and more to the concrete and "small" in personal and aesthetic pursuits. One thing that interests me is to find my own tastes and inclinations changing and clashing with each other. I think somewhere within me -- perhaps it's a kind of nostalgia -- there's a diehard Romantic, but that Romantic self clashes with other sides of my character. It was funny; at my dissertation defense I had a Romantics prof and a neo-classical prof arguing, one claiming that my dissertation sort of promoted Romantic aesthetics and intellectual dispositions while the other praised it as an antidote to Romantic "loftiness." I liked that.
What's also interesting to me is how these seemingly opposed categories blur or overlap. For example, in the early Wordsworth we see an intense focus on the concrete and a resistance to the moralizing tags often found in 18th century "nature" poetry, so in some ways the more modern concrete poetry is very much in line with ONE strain of the Romantic tradition -- but how typical is Wordsworth -- or that early Wordsworth -- of Romantic aesthetics? Plus, elsewhere he totally contradicts this move. Then there's Byron, who deflates a lot of Romantic pretention through earthy satire -- at least in Don Juan, because in other poetry he kind trade in bathos with the best of them...
All I can say is, more poems about socks please! :-)
Oh my God... did I really write "outshoned" in my message? I am mortified, and I can't figure out how to edit my comment. I really need to proofread...hopefully, no one reads my comments, anyway.
I loved the socks poem, Michael... now would that be an *example* of the "deep image" poetry you are talking about?
Sarah, since the whole "deep image" thing is not a unified "school" in the usual academic sense but a rough way to describe a certain approach to poetry (one that eschews the lofty syntax and left-brain-centrism of most English language poetry at least until WWI--though there are traditions in other languages that go back further--in favor of a more lean and concrete approach intended to bypass the interference of the rational brain), I think it's OK to characterize Neruda that way...at least in a rough sense.
According to Wikipedia,
"Deep image is a term coined by U.S. poets Jerome Rothenberg and Robert Kelly in the second issue of Trobar. They used it to describe poetry written by them and by Diane Wakoski and Clayton Eshleman.
In creating the term, Rothenberg was inspired by the Spanish canto jondo ("deep song"), especially the work of Federico García Lorca and by the symbolist theory of correspondences.
In general, deep image poems are resonant, stylised and heroic in tone. Longer poems tend to be catalogues of free-standing images.
The deep image group was short-lived in the manner that Kelly and Rothenberg used.
It was later redeveloped by Robert Bly and used by many, such as Galway Kinnel and James Wright. The redevelopment relied on being concrete, not abstract, and to let the images make the experience and to let the images and experience generate the meanings. This new style of Deep Image tended to be narrative, but was often lyrical."
I'll second the association with Bly. Even those his poetry tends to be clumsy and telegraphed, his work as a critic and translator and theorist is very important to this body of work, and many of those who fall into this group are intellectually indebted to him.
Though he's not usually mentioned in any direct connection to this approach, I think William Carlos Williams is definitely an important precursor via his mantra "No ideas but in things!"
Thank you, Michael--it's very interesting to me! Though I admit I don't totally understand still, because if the poetry is "stylized" and "heroic in tone," that seems to coincide with the earlier poetry (in my mind "lofty syntax" and a "heroic tone" would likely go together) and *doesn't* seem consistent with letting images "speak for themselves" as concrete and not abstract (the "stylized" part specifically doesn't seem to fit). And the term "lyrical" makes me think of the Romantics! In short, I am not a poetry person. I *like* poetry, but I don't think I fully understand the distinctions among the schools...I always end up saying, "But that sounds just like so-and-so's predecessor school!" I probably need to go back to grad school; but I would rather be shot. Well, almost rather.
Michael,
I agree -- the sock poem (pretty high brow of me, huh?) is great. It's got wit, beuty, and suggestiveness, depth combined with concreteness. Not deep or specific comments on my part, but they're honest. :-)
I definitely see the connection to modernist poetry -- e. g., Williams -- I thought of that when you first started presenting definitions. I wonder -- is Philip Larkin at all associated with this group? Maybe not... I also thought a bit of Denise Levertov, but I could be way off.
Not to sound like a broken record, but I think Sarah is right about the way these categories overlap. I can't get out of my head that the "no ideas but in things" mantra of the modernists connects back with Wordsworth's call for the poet to "look steadily at his object," though I think one could make a useful distinction by saying that a Wordsworthian poet (especially the later Wordsworth) looks at the object and then meditates out loud about its sublimity or beauty, whereas a Williams or Neruda would try harder to let the object "speak" (for) itself. Yeah, the Romantics were big on the lyric. Perhaps this is the crux of the issue -- the Romantics really defined the lyric as a very personal, often autobiographical form -- maybe the modern or "deep image" lyric works against that personal or autobiographical bent in Romantic lyric -- don't know, just thinking out loud.
Yeah, I should have added that when I *read* the poem Michael posted, I thought of Williams too and "no ideas but in things." It was only when I read the *theory* that I got confused *because in theory it didn't sound so different from the poetry I thought it was defining itself against). Theories confuse me.
To be honest, I'm not sure what the writer of that entry means when describing "deep image" poetry as lyrical. I can't comment at all on the earlier "deep image" school since I know nothing about either Rothenberg or Kelly, but I'm not sure there's much about the Bly-era 2nd-generation guys that would count as "lyrical"...chalk that up, perhaps, to the inherent fallibility of Wikipedia and/or my laziness in quoting things wholesale. Ah, well...
I'd say the Neruda poem copied here is pretty representative in general of the tone and aesthetic approach of the poets we're talking about. If you liked it, you should check his "Ode to Salt." He wrote a couple lengthy series of odes, and many of them are brilliant examples of what Bly calls the "object poem"--i.e., an in-depth study of (duh) an object, with wildly free-associative tendencies that are nevertheless more concrete than rhetorical, more intimate than abstract.
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