Week 6

                                            Madeleine Vonfoester's "Mother of the Tree"

Birches           by Robert Frost  (1874-1963)

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

The poem above is written in blank verse, as is Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," posted a few weeks back.  Each is autobiographical in depicting the author's childhood playing or adventuring in Nature, and accords philosophical and spiritual dimensions to be found in such experiences.  Of Frost, the editor at Poetry Foundation wrote:

The austere and tragic view of life that emerges in so many of Frost’s poems is modulated by his metaphysical use of detail. As Frost portrays him, man might be alone in an ultimately indifferent universe, but he may nevertheless look to the natural world for metaphors of his own condition (see "Acquainted with the Night".  Thus, in his search for meaning in the modern world, Frost focuses on those moments when the seen and the unseen, the tangible and the spiritual intersect.

    Like the famous American naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau, who found in Nature ground for the well-lived life, these poets acknowledged often feeling a sense of isolation amid humankind, and drew existential lessons from nature, even in or especially in its wild, hard aspects, those most independent of and indifferent to humankind.  Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of Into the Wild, would likewise be drawn to the land, to mountains, rivers, and forest, to wander the American West, in search of personal autonomy, independence from parental control, and mainstream life scripts, embracing austerity, real hardship, danger and radical simplicity rather than social status, wealth, and ease. He wanted  the freedom to be himself in whatever way that manifested.
Excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's Walden:  

   We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

[16]    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."(17)

The Runner                           Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

On a flat road runs the well-trained runner,

He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,

He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,

With lightly closed fists and arms partially raised.

A Farm Picture

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn

A sunlit pasture filled with cattle and horses feeding,

And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.

I Am He That Aches With Love

I am he that aches with amorous love;

Does the earth gravitate?  Does not all matter, aching, attract all

matter?

So the body of me to all I know.

                                                    Redwoods, Jedediah Smith State Park
                  The groves were God's first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant, "A Forest Hymn" 

Hello, class.  How are you?  Essay #3 is due today, but if you need another week, no deduction will be taken.

Today, we'll get to several posts, "A White Heron,"  "Son of Satan" and other assigned works, such as "Music of the Spheres," and "Tintern Abbey." and then, with sufficient dispatch, begin the film Into the Wild.

If you have brought a piece to practice out loud, we will make time for a practice run in the lead-up to the actual recitation by memory week 11. For this I give extra credit points (my carrot). Those who want it will have opportunity to read the piece, this week or next.

The following poem and song has folk roots going back to slave times in America, and the work of abolitionists like John Brown, whose siege of the federal arsonal in support of a slave insurrection at Harper's Ferry, for which he was tried and executed, gave impetus to the American Civil War.  It is an excellent old patriotic piece, if you like that sort!  You can hear it sung on youtube.

Battle Hymn of the Republic              by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord: 


He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath

are stored;


He hath loosed his fateful lightning of His terrible swift

sword:


His truth is marching on. 



I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling

camps;


They have builded Him an altar in the e evening dews and

Damp;,

I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring

Lamps.


His day is marching on. 






I have read a fiery Gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall

Deal;"


Let the Hero born of woman ,crush the serpent with His

heel,


Since God is marching on.





He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call

retreat;


He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment

 seat,


Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
Be jubilant, my feet,


Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

----------------Notes on the Persona, one of Carl Jung's Five Basic Archetypes--------

In dictionaries the word persona is defined as (1) person, and (2) the characters of a drama, novel, etc.  It is related to the familiar words personality, personal, personify, personate, and impersonate, each suggestive of the individual identity, and the ways in which that identity is manifest or portrayed–distinctive appearance, behavior, attitudes, voice, etc.  In Carl Jung's writings, the Persona–the social face or mask– is an aspect of the totality of Self.  It, along with the Shadow, Anima and Animus, coexist in the greater whole.  The Shadow/Unconscious Dark elements of Self stand in contrast to the Ego/Conscious Light elements and bear a compensatory relationship to each other.  Shadow elements are often associated with animal nature, the instincts, that which is ungovernable and uncivilized within us, but which is a source of primal energy, creativity and spontaneity.  Anima and animus are aspects of the Soul Image, an archetypal image of the opposite sex which may appear in dreams and fantasies and which is often projected onto others, particularly in the experience of falling in love.  The study of archetypes and symbols encourages understanding of  how opposites may be transcended or bridged, with the resultant experience being one of wholeness, consciousness and the unconscious melded.  The psychic reality is an essential aspect of Jung's thought, and includes even what is strictly "illusory."  Inner and outer worlds are perceived in images and the contents of psychic processes and experiences at times personified, as in the figures of gods and goddesses.

The ancient goddess figure called Aphrodite/Venus personified feminine beauty, the bloom of spring, love, and uninhibited, unself-conscious sexuality.  Only the virgin goddesses Athena, Artemis, and Hestia were said to be immune from her power (Huffington The God of Greece).  She has a heavenly and earthly aspect, a light and a dark side, to which our instinctual desire for love may have acquainted us.  She is not to be toyed with.  The arrows of her son Cupid (Eros) will magically transform some, and fatally poison others.

                                                   Venus at Her Mirror

In the Morning                      by Steve Kowit (1938-  )

In the morning

holding her mirror,

the young woman

touches

her tender

lip with

her finger &

then with 

the tip of 

her tongue

licks it &

smiles

& admires her

eyes.

Cosmetics Do No Good           by Steve Kowit (1938-  )

Cosmetics do no good:

no shadow, rouge, mascara, lipstick–

nothing helps.

However artfully I comb my hair,

embellishing my throat & wrists with jewels,

it is no use–there is no

semblance of the beautiful young girl

I was

& long for still.

My loveliness is past,

and no one could be more aware than I am

that coquettishness at this age

only renders me ridiculous.

I know it.  Nonetheless,

I primp myself before the glass

like an infatuated schoolgirl

fussing over every detail,

practicing whatever subtlety

may please him.

I cannot help myself.

The God of Passion has his will of me

& I am tossed about 

between humiliation & desire,

rectitude & lust,

disintegration & renewal, ruin & salvation.

Response 4  (350 words minimum, due week 7 or 8):  Discuss what you find most compelling in recent story, poem or film presented thus far.  Refer to specific scenes and images and the ideas and feelings they elicit.  You may convey freely your personal associations and /or memories of like experiences in the development. Handout with questions included for film option.

Final Project Composition Description

Due week 10 or, if you must, week 11, the final composition is an individual creative piece of 1000 words length, fictional or non-fictional: poetry, short story, brief play, essay, or some combination of the genres.  You might consider rewriting or remaking some well-known story, myth, or fairytale. If you choose to write a short story or other fictional piece and the word count falls short, an introduction to the piece, discussing your creative intent and influences, may serve for any shortfall in the main text. Short stories or fictional works should be plausibly developed and structured to maximize aesthetic and dramatic engagement of the reader.

Original illustrations in whatever medium you choose may be used to enhance the presentation and substitute for any minimal word shortfall (of 200-300 words). Double space and title your piece.

All essays must address themselves to a literary text(s) and/or theme and make reference to particular textual sources.  You may write on a theme developed in any one or several of the various texts looked at this quarter.   You may choose to write a personal essay that recounts your own “journey,” with references to and/or comparisons to stories or poems read; in short, you may write a piece that illustrates certain literary plot lines or themes in terms of your own personal experience. Double space and title your piece.  

If you are writing a standard interpretative essay that focuses on the specific construction and meaning of a text, introduce subject texts by title and author up front.  The introductory paragraph(s) should make clear what point you intend to develop as a thesis, and the body paragraphs should set forth the material textual evidence and examples that have led to your thesis claim.  Your aim is to show readers how a text may be read in the manner you are claiming.  Provide support for your thesis through use of direct quotation, paraphrase and summary where necessary. 

Topic Suggestions:

*Explore natural images that provide us with a way of thinking about human feelings and the self, the life cycle from birth through death, the effects of time’s passing, our place in the natural world, what we need and want from life.

*Explore stories that illustrate particular conflicts between generations, as between children and parents, men and women, or between the relatively powerless and those who have power– be it superior physical strength, age, or perhaps the authority of tradition, custom, and law on their side.  

*Explore the individual’s search for meaning in the world, or of those characters whose experience is of a kind that seems to offer insight and understanding as regards some particular subject, whether the importance of family, role models, the need for independence, distance, freedom, strength, courage, fortitude, a quiet space to reflect and create, etcetera.