A Poem from Someone who Looks Back and Sees Paths that Might have Existed

Let it be forgiven the physical violence made against you. I have forgiven you my Specter though you haven’t sought me. I supposed I might’ve cried when I read the Gospels; I did not know the pain I had been through by the man's corporeal that was much less than His. We live by comparisons but not a higher language exists that can carry my meaning higher— for after all I am no poet, and I did not know a branch on the vine is but a path that could have been taken that we’d not be together in the end but my plans of being are in the past. Burned into my mind, years after separation and stinging words, your Specter witnessed Winter’s delay in our small homes far away. Yearning for homeostasis while we nightmarishly share in macroscopic parallels. Unrequited, you and I, though among pseudo-friends who desire us who perceive you and them as Doppelgangers of what we were meant to be, and interiorly they want you to be coupled in the same way as we were for my surveillance cannot ascribe retribution, reprimand, or punish the understanding we sought and could not reach: what racism exists we have soaked up like a sponge though as ignorant zombies no Doctors exist for there to be a cure.

"Every Individual" ~ Daniel Apatiga

Common sense was once a good term and an entire book was written about the subject and the author was Thomas Paine. And he believed that the human individual does not understand what falsities he has ascribed to when the individual talks about the goodness of the many. But now it is overused by people who have a false idea of what common sense really means. Here's why I think the phrase, "common sense," does not always accurately depict the situation or solve it effectively in day-to-day social multimedia. "Common Sense", by Thomas Paine, was written during the revolution and during that time, slavery was normal, government was seen as the epitome of human failure, and that the good times were the times when there were no leaders. Centuries later, we now think government, if run by ethical and altruistic people, can get large for government should be like the most ethical government ever. It is not a corporate-government nor a dictatorship, for government is best when democracy is exercised to the fullest. If the government is used properly, the betterment of society can be accomplished by implementing creative ideas by creative people that make society better for everyone.

Common sense is not about understanding human motives; it does not represent the goodness of every individual. The original concept of common sense was that the goodness of the individual is often marginalized by the goodness of the pack. However, the goodness of the pack was defined as not including our neighbors. This is because a pack-like mentality has been found to erode individuals' behavior with falsehoods, misrepresentations of the "other," and the spreading of truths that are really untrue. Common sense is not about looking at the best solutions for solving problems like world-overpopulation, immigration, and illegal immigration, since the solutions offered to you ignore the desires and wishes of the increasingly close "other." This other is not someone who exists to the mind of the Nativist who fully subscribe to "Common Sense" as detailed by T.P., and therefore, common sense makes perfect sense to the user who says "that's common sense!" when in fact a better solution exists. Common sense places the goodness of the many over the goodness of the individual, but any attempt at redefining the pack as inclusive lowers the goodness of the pack because the individual divides the pack. Common sense proprietors see individuals as those who do not see the full picture, often, and therefore, any inclination that a better solution exists are unfathomable or dangerous to them. The usage of "common sense" hopes that the reader listens to your fear and anger that is a hope that you will convince the pack to agree: we are all afraid and fearful of the "other." Common sense does not take into account the emotions of individuals who see the best solution, whatever that might be, which is a win-win for everyone. The solution would not be from a close-minded group, e.g. the K.K.K. and the Nazi-USA movement that sees only a win-lose solution that really is a lose-lose for everyone. Indeed, anyone who is creative can come up with a better solution than that, but Artful people are those who are in charge of their minds, emotions, and are confident. I don't know how else to say this, but white-racist, Constitutionalist America is a dying breed, because they defined "common sense" inaccurately. They see the individual as non-creative and as making up the pack and therefore, the pack as missing the point often when a single person speaks for them. My argument is that a single person cannot understand the needs of the many without first being in-tune with himself. My argument suggests those who do not believe in "common sense" do in fact believe in humanity, and that those who say the phrase do not believe in the other's humanity. If you are listening to a person in-tune with themselves, they try to convey meaning and show you how it is rather than make you infer, deduce, and extrapolate what the individual says "makes common sense" since the phrase is inherently exclusive.

"I would tell you if I were not afraid" ~ a poem.

I wrote a poem
because I thought I'd forget about tomorrow.
What they tell you in the tabloids about love
it's wrong.
I am not shy but I am afraid.
I am not in touching distance
but I am here.
I am uncaring
for you are not beside me.
I did not fight
the future conflicts.
I did not command you
to be with me.
I did not give you
my inner thoughts.
I did not compromise
my desire in light of you.
I did not respect you
that fateful time.
I did not convince my Dad
and his wife
that you're the one.
The news is run for them.
.

Gregory of Nyssa and What We May Infer about his Interpretive Community

Daniel Alexander Apatiga

Prof. Lori Branch

Engl: 3140, Sect. 1

Oct. 23rd, 2016

Gregory of Nyssa and What We May Infer about his Interpretive Community

            Gregory of Nyssa (or G.O.N.) offers many interpretations of the divine from the life of Moses.  This suggests that the Christian interpretive community he belonged to was interested in unpacking the deeply hidden symbology from within the Scriptures of Exodus, whose story of Moses parallels in many ways the gospels that narrate the life of Jesus.  At that time, Christians were less likely to have been born Jews than they had been at the founding of Christianity, and so they would not necessarily have been raised to be knowledgeable about Moses’s life.  This was because a limited number of manuscripts existed and the printing press had not been invented by Gutenberg yet (which was in 1440 C.E.).  Also, legally, only monks and literate members of church could have access to the manuscripts transcribed from the Septugint L.X.X. of the stories of Moses.  Finally, the genealogy of Christianity could finally trace itself back thousands of years to the time of Moses when he contributed to its authority.   For these reasons, G.O.N. may have spread the idea that Moses was a monumental figure, though not the son of God, for those who might be converted to Christian ideology from paganism.

            A problem existed in the early Christian community: was the divine something magical, or was it explainable?  G.O.N. believed that the divine could not be mistaken as being finite or limited in nature—it was infinitely “good.”  That is because he believed evil was limited by virtue, which is good, and the divine is good (G.O.N., page 5).  He defends his reasoning by examining the symbology of Moses’ miracles: the finding of Moses by the daughter of the Pharoah at the river bank; the symbol of the staff becoming a snake and then eating the other staffs that became snakes; how the plagues were proverbial in symbology; why the tall mountain was high where Moses communicated with God; how he defined a foreigner and how he thought Christians should deal with them; how we might learn about fleeing from battle and the bigger picture; what paradoxes were encountered when seeking the divine; and what are the problems with pleasure seeking?  In a macroscopic parallel sort of way, Jesus was a lot like Moses in that his father was absent from his life.  G.O.N. rightly notices that “…[Moses] did not choose the things considered glorious by the pagans, nor did he any longer recognize as his mother that wise woman by whom he had been adopted, but he returned to his natural mother and attached himself to his own kinsmen” (G.O.N., page 9).  Next, the symbol of the staff had been missed, according to G.O.N..  His interpretation suggests that the staff itself was solid and lifeless, and when it became a snake it was like the serpent in the story of Adam and Eve.  So why would the divine provide something like this to Moses?  G.O.N. believed that conquering evil requires evil, and Moses showed this by having Moses’ staff that became a snake eat the other snakes that the pagan sorcerers conjured.  Jesus, though in many ways was an impressive prophet in stature who did not deal with battles and wars the same way that Moses did, because even though he lost the battle of his life, he won the war without lifting a finger.  In that way, Moses was at first gentle to his oppressers.  Satirically, G.O.N. possibly recognized that the Kings and despots in power wanted a bloodier and a literal alternative than what Jesus taught.  But without Moses, Jesus would not have been possible.  Next, the plague of the frogs is symbolic in itself because “being a man by nature and becoming a beast by passion, this kind of person exhibits an amphibious form of life ambiguous in nature.  In addition, one will also find the evidences of such an illness not only on the bed, but also on the table and in the storeroom and throughout the house” (G.O.N., page 50).  Jesus never used a plague against his enemies except in his parable against the priests of the synagogue, perhaps, and the use of magic in curing the sick and diseased (since we do not know how he accomplished those tasks other than from the divine), which were by comparison, harmless but hurtful to himself.  G.O.N. further states, “let us not draw the conclusion that these distresses upon those who deserved them came directly from God, but rather let us observe that each man makes his own plagues when through his own free will he inclines toward these painful experiences” (G.O.N., page 55).  The moral of the death of the newborn, a plague, is according to G.O.N., “when through virtue one comes to grips with any evil, he must completely destroy the first beginnings of evil (G.O.N., page 57).  On the same page, he says of the Pharoah’s murderous intent, “neither of these things would develop of itself, but anger produces murder and lust produces adultery” that were later inscribed by the divine as commandments, notably.  Regarding the lamb’s blood that was painted on top of each doorway of the Israelites, G.O.N. argues that “no opposition from the blood resists his entrance: that is to say, faith in Christ does not ally itself with those of such a disposition” (G.O.N., page 59).  On the same page and rather darkly, G.O.N. states of the divine that “…the firstfruits of the Egyptian children [must be destroyed] so that evil, in being destroyed at its beginning, might come to an end.” However, Jesus would not have made such a logical leap.  I have issues with the lesson that G.O.N. extrapolates here, since the Holocaust of the Jews made by Nazi Germany was precisely because of this logic.  Lastly, the eleventh plague—the collapsing of the Red sea on the chariots is in itself symbolic for a different reason: “if… we by ourselves are too weak to give the victory to what is righteous, since the bad is stronger in its attacks and rejects the rule of truth, we must flee as quickly as possible (in accordance with the historical example) from the conflict to the greater and higher teaching of the mysteries” and he later states, “…let us reprove the teachers of evil for their wicked use of instruction”  (G.O.N., page 36).  Jesus, though, did not seek the consequence of this despite being a Jew, and was condemned to his death by crucifixion, resurrection, and later ascension into heaven.  Next, G.O.N. believed that the concept of a foreigner or an alien should be limited to those who do not believe in the word of Christ (aka. Christians), because the concept of the other is a person who is a non-believer. This is directly from the ten commandments that defined worshipers of the divine as having only one God.  Next, a paradox exists when seeking the divine: G.O.N. states that “…every concept which comes from some comprehensible image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God” (G.O.N., page 81).  Finally, pleasure seeking, according to G.O.N., should be abhorred, because “…the person who lacks moderation is a libertine, and he who goes beyond moderation has his conscience branded…” (G.O.N., page 121).

Like Jesus, Moses sought truth for it is “…always the same, neither increasing nor diminishing, immutable to all change whether to better or to worse (for it is far removed from the inferior and it has no superior), standing in need of nothing else, alone desirable, participated in by all but not lessened by their participation---this is truly real being” (G.O.N., page 38).  Yet, in terms of the search for perfection, which is good, and thus, a part of the divine, Moses differs from Jesus.  If we believe G.O.N.’s interpretation of the life of Moses, because the apostle Mathew states Jesus as saying, ‘Therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect’” (G.O.N., page 6).  On that same page, G.O.N. states “…the perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness.”  G.O.N. believed that the life of Jesus perhaps could not be interpreted without first interpreting the life of Moses. 

   Gregory of Nyssa.  The Life of Moses.  HarperCollins, 2006. Print.

Logic, Magic, and Structure in the Dreams of the Early Prophets

Daniel Alexander Apatiga

Prof. Lori Branch

Engl: 3140, Sect. 1

Sept. 28^th, 2016

Logic, Magic, and Structure in the Dreams of the Early Prophets

   Logic falls apart in typical dreams, yet the motif of dreams experienced by the early prophets and VIPs were narrated as logically infallible, realistic visions in Genesis and Exodus that occurred magically by an entity known as God; these dreams held hidden symbols within the imagery that would dictate the life of later individual. Nowadays, dream interpreters are rare, and many people do not even think about their dreams, or where they come from-generally, we accept dreams as having a mystical quality. Ironically, society can also preclude people who allegedly hallucinate, like cultural communities who are labeled schizophrenics, or hallucinogenic drug junkies. Moreover, uncanny parallels exist between the future or the past in connection with the narrative of a dream that has lasting effects on a human being. In terms of theme, the surreal dreams experienced by the prophets catalyzed change, progress, and sometimes tragedy. This led the children of Abraham towards the Promised Land where they became as numerous as the stars.

          A "prophetic dream" is like a naked foreshadow in contemporary art-it conveniently suggests to the eye of the beholder what will unfold. This evocation, notably, is evidence of a magical presence to these prophets. And, by magic, we presume it means, anthropomorphically, that an outside, invisible or otherworldly force, causes imagery in the dream, mystically. In my essay, I will scrutinize closely the visions of Abram, who became Abraham, and his sons and how their visions of a faceless God who would appear in the shape and guise of an unimagined dream. These dreams were what pushed forward the movement of the narratives. My main focus of this essay will be the dream Laban has in which God tells him, supposedly, that he should not speak with Jacob because this would be poisonous to God's plans. In retelling the dreams that would subsequently come true, I do not take on faith that the omniscient narrator of Genesis was immortal: he was immortalized of the spiritual and mystical answers provided by the Scriptures. (This omniscient narrator was also most likely confined by poetic and oral tradition, so the many stories were in all likelihood appended on top of each other.) This prophetic dream of Laban's occurs only once, whereas the sons of Abraham have dreams in two, noticeably, suggesting that non-Israelites are not as loved as the aliens:

²² On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.  ²³ So he took his kinsfolk with him and pursued him for seven days until he caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.  ²⁴ But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night, and said to him, “Take heed that you say not a word to Jacob, either good or bad.” (Bible 54).

          Structurally, since most of Genesis and Exodus use symmetrical parallelism in its strophes, this, like fractals, (where if we were to zoom out, the image of what was before appears approximately the same), we see that parallels exist in a fractal space that also occurs in the overall form of the Bible. What is most spellbinding concerning these macroscopic parallel fractals is that uncanny apparitions of the past era are relived, which makes me think, to some effect, we must be reliving the past in a parallel, macroscopic way, whether we are moderately limited or unnoteworthy to this fatalism, aka., the past history repeats itself. For instance, microscopically, a sentence is followed by a parallel sentence that conveys the same meaning except slightly differently, like in Hebrew Poetry that employs Chiasmus structures. And, macroscopically, we see that Jacob had twelve sons, and like Jacob, Jesus had twelve apostles. Furthermore, like Jacob's sons who favor a murdering of Joseph, the apostle Judah betrays Jesus. (The apostle Judah sells him for 30 silver linings to the authorities, and similarly, Jacob's son, Judah, sells Joseph to the Ishmaelites for "20 pieces of silver.") Of course, a lot of time had passed, events developed, and new characters come and forgotten before this fractal parallel occurs. So, these parallels naturally led me to a question: if this omniscient narrator, (because he or she had recounted the Prophets' lives through many life-spans and who had maintained a similar tone and diction throughout) had garnered the truth about the dreams, particularly, through whatever means, are the most lifelike dreams prophetic? Of course, I'm not holy, or a Prophet, but maybe a missed moral message was left behind by the ancients-that vivid dreams are extremely important to the future of humankind. Take the Pharaoh's dream that would be interpreted by Joseph, a son of Abraham:

After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, ² and there came up out of the Nile seven sleek and fat cows, and they grazed in the reed grass. ³ Then seven other cows, ugly and thin, came up out of the Nile after them, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. ⁴ The ugly and thin cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. And Pharaoh awoke. ⁵ Then he fell asleep and dreamed a second time; seven ears of grain, plump and good, were growing on one stalk. ⁶ Then seven ears, thin and blighted by the east wind, sprouted after them. ⁷ The thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Pharaoh awoke, and it was a dream. (Coogan 67).

         In this dream, Joseph interprets it and it is later fulfilled. The dream, like a normal dream, does not make sense; events do not unfold naturally because time is sped up. In the structure of this dream, the sentences are not recounted in typical parallelism, but embellished contrasts make the sentences progress in an alarming way. For instance, verse four to five have complete opposite images-that of waking up and that of falling asleep. This occurs symmetrically from the point of the period with antonyms in retrograde. Joseph suddenly knows that "...the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about" (Coogan 68). This is not contradicted as far as I know in the Pentateuch. But how did Joseph come to that conclusion, logically or magically? He had successfully interpreted the dreams from two separate people-the cup-bearer and the chief-chef-the dreams of which had similar characteristics. The dream from the cup-bearer and the dream from the chief baker were completely opposite yet they uncannily resembled each other:

⁹ So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, ¹⁰ and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms came out and the clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹ Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” ¹² Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days; ¹³ within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer.  (Coogan 66).

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, ¹⁷ and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” ¹⁸ And Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; ¹⁹ within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!— and hang you on a pole; and the birds will eat the flesh from you.” (Coogan 67).

         Also, it is interesting to note that these two unimportant persons, the cupbearer and the chief-chef, are later macroscopically paralleled in the last supper of Jesus where he holds a cup like the cup-bearer-the holy grail-but his lowly status as the chief-chef providing to the poor ceases to exist as soon as Jesus is crucified shortly after the meal. But, Jesus as the cup-bearer is spared death when he is resurrected, (though he is shortly returned to heaven and God). Jesus dies at three pm and is for three days dead and then he was resurrected.

         The numbers three and two seem important to one another in terms of structure, and how God magically communicates in prophetic dreams. Mathematically, two is the first prime number and is how Joseph knew that they were prophetic dreams: two is the minimum for the existence of parallelism. Two divides into half the numbers from zero to infinity. Like the things that are evil and those that are good, each might be divided into two groups of equal size, since for each good act there is an opposite, correspondingly evil act. In Pharaoh’s dream, he dreams twice; one of these dreams is disturbing: a dream that suggests to Joseph seven years of famine. Interestingly, Pharaoh’s second dream does not occur because Joseph saves many Egyptian lives by realizing it is a message from God. The number three plays an important role as aforementioned in prior paragraphs: three branches, three days before events come to pass for the cupbearer and chief-chef. How did Joseph logically interpret three branches on a vine as meaning three days? It is not possible--it is irrational, transcendental, and unlikely unless God "helped" him. Interestingly, the Bible does not say God told him specifically that a vine's branch symbolizes a day, rather, he had extrapolated this from somewhere.

         The author of these texts must have had knowledge about the prophets' dreams first hand unless the stories were passed down from generation to generation. So what differentiates a commonplace dream from a prophetic one? In all likelihood, though this is not talked about, Abraham and his descendants had many dreams that were not recounted because why? Because they were not prophetic. So what should those dreams mean to the spiritual individual? And, how does one have knowledge that God is the one who speaks when a voice in a dream could easily be mistaken for a person? The mystical is easily demystified in those dreams by the prophets, but of course, they are prophets. But, the dream's prophecy, consequent interpretation, and then realization suggests that it has a magical, logical infallibility to it.

Works Cited

The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Edition with Apocrypha. Gen. Ed.

Michael D. Coogan. Oxford UP, 2010.

Love Poem #1, from "Imaginary Beings"

Damn it, you would make a great conversationalist.
They say that “I am American,
You are my enemy.”
They do not see the goodness, intelligence,
And elegance of your stride through the trees.
It’s what they say that’s disheartening.
They would violate every nerve of your body,
And your spirit speaks to me:
I am not your opponent.
Through your green eyes, perfect face,
Your beauty is shallow,
Your mind, deep.
I see in that withdrawal of your expression,
In your live video lingerie pieces that do not,
Would not come off,
That at last I have found a friend,
An equal, a partner.
In your smile, I am somehow exotic,
I am somehow more powerful, magical.
And politics set aside, for what does it matter
if they are right, but it does if I am.
If you are wrong, you believe that I am just one of them;
I tell you that this is not so,
without hurting your essence.
You would not blow a distant kiss since you are a character in a book.
One day, while you were sitting with me in our fire camp,
You left and never believed me
And you and I never became us.
Days later, while tending to the crop,
News came to my ears
They won and your dignity was not spared;
Every nerve of your body exploded.

"The Native American" ~ a poem.

You make your own town,

You make your own friends.

But none of them are really yours.

Ever wondered why?

Have you ever paused

And thought about where you live?—

In the shadows of a forest,

The Native American shines his arrow.

He holds on to his past,

And yet he embraces the present.

It explodes in his face.

Stevens, Crane, and Plath and their Imagery at the Ends of their Poems

Daniel Alexander Apatiga

Professor Simmons

English 3420

7-28-2015                                                                    

All three poets—Stevens, Crane, and Plath—search for a special effect at the end of their poems that is often achieved through an image.  As in a play’s final act there is a resolution. At the end of the play, when the last word has been spoken, the special effect is this lingering where there is no more text.   The stronger the lingering effect, the stronger the quality of the poem.  Arguably, this effect can only be attained by understanding the close relationship between the reader and the narrator (or poet).  This relationship depends upon the imagination of the poet and, as Yvor Winters outlines in his review of Crane’s poetry, what he or she considers great: the values, morals, artistic outlook that the poet has on poetry itself (Winters).  This special effect differs from poem to poem obviously, but also differs from poet to poet.  My essay will look at these authors’ poems with the strongest imagery, or most affecting imagery, with special attention to the ending of poems. 

First, this essay will delineate Steven’s poetry and how his imagery reveals a lot about his interests and character; the essay will also explore how Stevens often employs some sort of contradiction within the last few lines that makes the reader wonder whether he or she fully understood the poem.  The essay will draw from many examples for demonstrating how the endings of his poems employ imagery in a way that demonstrates this intellectual equivocation.   Then, the essay will explore Plath and how the endings of her earlier poems and those in the later collection of poems, Ariel, seem to reflect fatalist beliefs.  Then, this essay will analyze Crane in a manner agreeing with Winter’s assessment.  Crane’s poetry has much sadness as an effect and a nationalistic, romanticism to it, as Winters writes in his critique of “The Bridge.”  I will draw from examples of Crane’s poems, exploring how their endings achieve a special effect through nationalistic or romantic imagery.  Finally, this essay will compare the imagery of these three poets.  This essay will hopefully draw contrasts from other authors, especially since Sylvia Plath has had many obstacles that she had not overcome as a writer perhaps because of her gender, whereas Crane had his homosexuality as a source of bias that people had against his poetry.  The essay’s final paragraphs will explore how Plath is similar to Crane in the same respect that Winter wrote his review of Crane.  The paragraphs will contrast Crane’s endings to those in Ariel, which were Plath’s last poetry before she committed suicide.  The conclusion will briefly discuss the importance of having a special effect, or a “goosebumps” effect, in poetry.

Stevens has a knack for including sexual innuendoes, and his interest in women pervades much of his earlier poems in “Harmonium,” and the images in the poems’ endings often reflect this.  His special effect at the end of many of his poems affects his reader with a taste of hetero-erotic love for a particular woman.  In the “Plot against the Giant,” the final stanza has the image in its final few lines of lips and throats, which reveals his interest in sexual intercourse: “Heavenly labials in the world of gutturals, / It will undo him” (Stevens 6, lines 6-7).  What will be undone is left purposely ambiguous, but I picture him undoing his belt or something important to a woman.  In the following poem in the collection, “Infanta Marina” has the last few lines about something flowing and uttering a “subsiding sound.”  This suggests sexual arousal. “The Snow Man” introduces the reader to Stevens’s character as being cold, and so the final image that he expresses is a contradiction about existence: “For the listener, who listens in the snow, /And, nothing himself, beholds / Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is” (Stevens 8, lines 13-15).   Those lines have the special effect of asking me: why is that something that is there nothing?  This image is unlike the endings with strong sexual innuendoes that I have described already, but the special effect is: this “nothing” could refer to the unseen, and by unseen we mean his body, mind, and desires—again, something that is left purposely unspecific.  The first two poems rely more strongly upon sex, however, for evoking a certain kind of reading-pleasure.

Stevens’s later poems take on many contradictions in the images of their final lines.  And as the poems progress chronologically to near his death, I believe that his poetry takes on a retrospective tone of youthful age and yet is not reminiscent, or positive.  In “The House Was Quiet and the World was Calm,” the narrator takes the persona of the reader of the poem: the poem knows exactly what the reader is doing, which is “…reading leaning late and reading there” on the last line (Stevens 312).  The special effect of this image is of self-reflection and is uncanny; the reader gleans a keen sense of Stevens’s knowledge of the reader; the reader often finds himself (or herself) in a situation very similar to the one described in the above poem.    And the sexual innuendo latent in Harmonium is no longer so powerful.  This self-reflection puts the reader in a state of lingering after he or she has read Stevens’s poem by forming a contradiction: the “summer and night” cannot possibly be “the reader leaning late.”  (Although part of that sentence makes sense, conjoining the two independent clauses is characteristic of Stevens that forms something akin to an oxymoron, though far more complicated).  In “Large Red Man Reading,” the imagery is consistent and reminiscent with that of “The House Was Quiet and the World was Calm,” except it is more climactic in the end: “Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts, / Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are / And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had / lacked” (Stevens 365, lines 21-27).  Why would he say “thin” or “spended” about hearts?  Well, they are bi-oppositional images to “wide” and “freshly;” so, the final image has a negative tone to it, which is more pronounced than the earlier poem.  The special effect I received from reading this ending image was the illusion of having access to the narrator’s thoughts without actually knowing them, because he continues the theme of “nothingness” even in this poem.  If deciphered further, Stevens has a fascination with animate bodily features that seem to possess amorphous qualities in his later poems.   For instance, in “This Solitude of Cataracts,” the poem is about a man who is observing a river, and the narrator takes on an omniscient, science-fiction-like diction, because of the special effect on the final lines: “Without the oscillations of planetary pass-pass, / Breathing his bronzen breath at the azury center of time” (Stevens 366, lines 18-19).  (The word “azury” is a motif that is in the prior poem, L.R.M.R.).  What is the center of time?  And why mention planets that make passes around it?  Like a planet, a human or more particularly, a partner, can oscillate, and this man who breaths the metal bronze is purely speculative just like a man reading from his “blue tabulae” in the poem, L.R.M.R..  Both poems have a similar special effect: this notion of the “center of time” and “feelings that they lacked” (from each respective poems) are both metaphysical symbols for “nothingness;” and so as his poems get progressively more out there, they also have a stronger special effect.  In “The Plain Sense of Things,” or T.P.S.T., the tone of the narrator remains similar to that in his earlier works, though it has allusions to a book—Lord of the Flies—and the imagery of it made me think of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” with the twirling clouds.  The reality aspect of the poem is surreal, but in the end, we are given a sudden truth as a special effect: “The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this / Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, / Required, as a necessity requires” (Stevens 428, lines 18-20).  What is this necessity?  Is it the narrator’s sexual drive?  Again, the necessity is a metaphor for something absolutely ambiguous. In “The Planet on the Table,” Ariel is the subject of the poem who suddenly outpours his thoughts that were “if only half-perceived, / In the poverty of their words, / Of the planet of which they were part” (Stevens 450, lines 14-15).  The “they” could be referring to his poems; and so the special effect of the last imagery of the ending of the poem evokes a sense of death for poetry.  To the omniscient, mythological narrator who is grasping these large objects or has a Godlike perspective on things, every human being on earth has a “poverty” of “words” for describing anything substantial. Again, Steven’s poetry gets more and more dismal and less positive as they progress chronologically.  In “The River of Rivers in Connecticut,” the ending image of a river “…that flows nowhere, like a sea” on the last line seems contradictory to reality—fantastical—as it defies the laws of physics, yet the reader must look in the poem for complete understanding.  The contradiction lies in a situationally ironic scene: the eye-of-the-beholder, who is the narrator (or Stevens), is making the keen observation that the reader likes ambiguities when seeing the world and does not with effort see the larger perspective: there might be fish in those rivers; there is also a history with that river with respect to the Native Indians who lived there before our arrival.  The special effect of the last image is a questioning of what the river is if it flows nowhere.  Can it then be a river?   The next poem, “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself,” has a purposely vague title, but the content is clearly about a bird that Stevens will revisit again as a motif in “On Mere Being,” his last poem.  The ending image of the former poem, N.I.A.T.B.T.I., also asks what reality is to Stevens and how can it be knowledge if it appears as a hallucination: 

“That Scrawny cry—it was

A chorister whose c preceded the choir.

It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its horal rings,

Still far away.  It was like

A new knowledge of reality.”  (Stevens 452, lines 13-18)

               The poem’s last image—that of the mind grasping a new thought—is like experiencing a hallucination because of the way the narrator moves about in this poem from image to image.  This has the special effect of questioning whether what the narrator had heard was part of reality or not, because knowledge might not be knowledge at all—it might be scientifically flawed or incorrect, though a paradigm nonetheless.  Either way, this “new knowledge” is only the reader who knows what has happened (a fact established earlier in the poem). 

               In Stevens’s last few poems, the poem “A Mythology Reflects Its Region,” is largely about poetry as an art form, arguably, since he talks about the image as though it is something that can change.  The last lines are complicated and are built from conceits and contradictions: he says it is in his region, but is the region then not universal if “he” refers to the reader.  So why does Stevens end with a specific image: “And it is he in the substance of his region /Wood of his forests and stone out of his fields / Or from under his mountains” (Stevens 476,  Lines 9-11)?  The special effect of the poem is that the perspective of the poem has a large, grandiose conclusion about imagery, which is that “The image must be of the nature of its creator” (Stevens 476, line 5).  And then he narrows that vision to his own, which is a description of a forest and mountains presumably in the Appalachians.  Stevens could also be driving at the individual who has only a limited set of experiences from which he can describe things.  In his last poem, “Of Mere Being,” the last imagery is again on the subject of birds, but this time the narrator is more observant—almost as though he wishes he could go back in time and do things over again:

“The palm stands on the edge of space.

The wind moves slowly in the branches.

The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down” (Stevens 477, lines 9-12). 

               “Dangl[ing] down” produces an image equivelant of a facial expression that humans can read.  Although, the notion of a palm standing “on the edge of space” suggests that the narrator himself, like prior poems have suggested, has a limited, narrow perspective on life, because “space” is a big concept, astronomically, and a potted palm is small and humble.  Furthermore, “fire-fangled feathers” of a bird suggests that this is no ordinary bird—nay, it is phoenix—though he does not explicitly say it is.  When the phoenix dies, it resurrects itself.  So in a sense, Stevens likens himself to mystical creatures, Jesus, or he believes in the Hindu concept of reincarnation at least.

               Sylvia Plath’s early poems seem evocative of a mood or an emotion rather than a constant questioning as evoked by Stevens, since her ending images usually end on a dismal note.  This is, I believe, characteristic of her fatalistic beliefs.  In the poem, “Bucolics”, the poem is about two lovers who walk together in a kind of medieval romantic fantasy gone sour, since the language used is rather English and the setting rather simple.  The ending stanza has a lot of imagery packed in it:

“Now he goes from his rightful road

And, under honor, will depart;

While she stands burning, venom-girt,

In wait for sharper smart to fade.” (Internal.org)

               This knight who is with her who is on this “rightful road”—that seems suggestive of the right path, which is with her, the narrator of the poem.  There is a lot of metaphor in this poem for something larger, like relationships in general.  “While she stands burning, venom-girt, / In wait for sharper smart to fade” suggests that the knight abandons her while she is hurting, which seems foretelling of her own future, when Ted Hughes hurts her and she commits suicide.   In “Pursuit,” a poem about sexual foreplay more-or-less if the words are taken for metaphors: “There is a panther talks me down: / One day I’ll have my death of him;” (lines 1-2).   (If she is indeed using the ancient use of “death” to mean orgasm, than the rest of the poem can be construed to mean sexual foreplay).  The last image of the poem, which is this image of a panther climbing the stairs has little special effect other than the fact that someone very threatening (if the panther should be taken as a conceit for a man) is approaching who can do God-knows what to the narrator.   If it were just a panther, then it would not make sense that it would climb the stairs as some kind of pet.  Sylvia Plath’s earlier poems lack that special effect, somewhat, that causes a lingering after-effect than her later poems.

               Sylvia Plath’s later poems in her collection, Ariel, have something somewhat in common: the contemplation of suicide.  Because of this, the ending image is more dismal than in her earlier poems and they have the illusion of something grander that is underway—like she is heading somewhere better.  In her poem “Gulliver,” we see where she gets her idea for being small and insignificant in the Bee poems just by the title of it.  The ending image of that poem is somewhat damning to men in general, and is in that respect daring and strong: “That resolve in Crivelli, untouchable.  / Let this eye be an eagle, / The shadow of his lip, an abyss” (Plath 56, lines 22-25).  The ending image has the special, lingering effect of imagining letting men grow old and weary while she enjoys life without them.  In the poem prior to “Gulliver,” “Berck-Plage,” we see a somewhat psychedelic painting of an image: “And a naked mouth, red and awkward./ For a minute the sky pours into the hole like plasma. /There is no hope, it is given up” (Plath page 55, lines 16-18).  “Plasma” has multiple meanings, because it could either mean plasma from the blood that is where the blood “is suspended” and is “protein-rich” according to the OED; or, Plasma could mean the fourth state of matter (that which is beyond gas and is the state of matter in the Sun).  Both meanings are applicable, which can arguably give a poem its inherent strength, whenever this is true—although, I prefer the latter meaning of the word “plasma.”   The ending image has the grand concept of hope becoming dismal.  In her poem “Getting There,” the image of “Lethe” is again brought up as it had been visited to before in her prior poems; it means according to the OED:  “A river in Hades, the water of which produced, in those who drank it, forgetfulness of the past.”    The ending image is suggestive of her desire to forget the past and that she cannot because Lethe is pure fantasy.

“And I, stepping form this skin

Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces

Step to you from the black car of Lethe,

Pure as a baby” (Plath 59, lines 66-70).

               The lingering effect of this poem is strong, of which evokes a questioning of why she uses war-torn imagery earlier in the body of the poem and then closes it with becoming “pure as a baby”—truly climactic in terms of a special effect.  In “Medusa,” the imagery at the end of it is rather negative sounding: the imagery is that of a couple who are together yet it means the exact opposite—she is far away and he has no intention of being with her.  The last line of the poem leaves a bitter emotion in my mind, because it represents something that is relatable and is located in a dark, dismal place in the unrequited mind: “There is nothing between us” (Plath 61, line 41).  In “The Moon and the Yew Tree,” the poem’s content seems dismal and bleak, especially towards the last image: “Their hands and faces stiff with holiness. / The moon sees nothing of this.  She is bald and wild. / And the message of the yew tree is blackness—blackness and silence” (Plath 65, lines 25-28).  This has the overpowering effect of imagining life from the perspective of a tree, which implies she understands trees, or will soon.  Her last poem, “Wintering,” seems to take the word “bee” and flip its meaning to “to be” as a special effect:

“Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas

Succeed in banking their fires

To enter another year?

What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?

The bees are flying.  They taste the Spring” (Plath 90, lines 46-50).

               Despite it clearly written as “bees” and not be’s, her complaints of living with other people and not wanting to meet other people makes me wonder whether she had considered this secondary, homophonic meaning.  The last poem, of which I will set my music to, has many double-meanings that mystify femininity, perhaps because she is planning on ceasing “to be” in its entirety.  “Wintering” somewhat reminds me of a poem by a German poet: “Erl Konig.”  The last two lines is packed with many images at once and Plath omits some obviously final-sounding lines that I would have written, such as “They do not taste the Christmas roses anymore because she is dead.”  She sums up her life in this poem, suggesting that it was meaningless as if she were a mere “bee.” 

               Hart Crane’s collection of poems, “White Buildings,” has many poems that lack a special effect though to other readers the poems might be evocative of just that.  In “Emblems of Conduct,” the poem’s content is about “spiritual gates” as its main motif, since he has the last two words of each stanza containing them.  What this spiritual gate leads to is a mystery and he does not explain, leaving it purposely ambiguous.  In the last stanza and last few lines, the significance of “spiritual gates” is that there is separation between people, places, and groups by this abstract concept: “Dolphins still played, arching the horizons, / But only to build memories of spiritual gates” (Crane 4).  In “My Grandmother’s Love Letters,” Crane’s grandmother is dead and he is morning her absence.  In the last stanza, the ending image of nature having an anamorphic quality such as “laughter” is suggestive of his Grandmother’s presence after all: “And the rain continues on the roof / With such a sound of gently pitying laughter” (Crane 5, lines 25-6).  In “Garden Abstract,” Crane foreshadows perhaps his own suicide: by drowning.   The ending image has an uncanny effect as though the narrator or is the God of the Sun: “Drowning the fever of her hands in sunlight.  /She has no memory, nor fear, nor hope / Beyond the grass and shadows at her feet” (Crane 8, lines 10-12).  In “Stark Major,” Crane uses “death” in its obsolete connotation, which is important in understanding the ending image of the poem: “Walk now, and note the lover’s death. / Henceforth her memory is more / Than yours, in cries, in ecstasies / You cannot ever reach to share” (Crane 8, lines 23-4).  Perhaps Crane was bisexual, since this poem is latent with passionate jealousy for a woman who is in the throes of intercourse with another man.  Or is Crane jealous that the man who the woman is with is without Crane?  Crane uses, in the last line, imagery that is evocative of the dismal realities of unrequited love, and he paraphrases this beautifully.  “In Shadow” is a poem perhaps about Crane’s homosexuality since the ending image of the poem elides over “her” whoever she might be:

“’Come, it is too late,--too late

To risk alone the light’s decline:

Nor has the evening long to wait,”—

But her own words are night’s and mine.” (Crane 10, lines 13-16)

The poem is clearly about a male fantasy for a woman, yet this woman might be a man (to Crane); it stresses the importance of confidence and perhaps having a confidant, which again has a beautiful special effect.  The last image, “night,” has the symbolic meanings of darkness, despair, and being blind in general, which is how Crane might have perceived the woman as through those lenses.  In the collection of poems, Powhatan’s Daughter, “The Harbor Dawn” takes the reader back to when the white Westerners met Native Americans for the first time; and, the ending image produces romantic imagery for this innocent event:

“The fog leans one last moment on the sill.

Under the mistletoe of dreams, a star—

As though to join us at some distant hill—

Turns in the waking west and goes to sleep” (Crane 39, lines 37-41).

               Of all the authors, Plath has the most lingering after-effect at the ends of her poems, because of how she jumps from image to image at a rapid pace.  Winters has the most abstractness and is the most enjoyable for reading when the reader has spare time.  Crane’s narrator is somewhat of an enigma because of the irony between his life and his poems, yet this irony is absent when it comes to images of drowning since he committed suicide that way.  Similarities between various works can be observed: especially between Crane’s “Garden Abstract” and “Getting There” by Plath, mostly in each respective poets’ desire for a strong, lingering effect in the last few images of their poems. 

Bibliography

Crane, Hart.  Hammer, Langdon, Ed.  Hart Crane : Complete Poems and Selected Letters.  New York: The

Library of America, 2006.  Print.

Wallace, Stevens.  Wallace Stevens : Collected Poetry and Prose.  New York: The

Library of America, 1997.  Print.

Plath, Sylvia.  Ariel : The Restored Edition.  New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.

Winters, Yvor. Uncollected Poems and Essays.  August 6^th, 2015.  Web.

"The Hallucination." a poem.

Father,
she's on an airplane disappearing above the clouds of snow flakes.
I have a picture of her on my laptop.
I saved the picture so that I can remind myself an important facet of life;
I need a will for I may die.
I threw the photo to the ground,
but it was my laptop that suffered the most.
My vision of my eyes are lost in Father's image.
My laptop destroyed is stored among my artifacts of my past.
The hallucination is etched,
carved into my nerves,
into my DNA.
Father,
I imagined she flew on an airplane towards the sunset.
What I really didn't mention was that I had a hallucination.
I sat behind the bars of the police vehicle and then--a hallucination!
It hung on the back of the front seat right before my brown eyes.
I turned to the thick window,
and she still sat there in front of me right after a police officer asked me,
"Are you having a hallucination?"
To which I replied, "Yes, I am."
I know the hallucination was surreal
because the image of her was the one who cried for help from Police.
Interpersonal relationships,
unions come and go,
for Father doesn't know my life of unrequited love,
Good bye!

Women’s Power and Crossdressing in “Twelfth Night” and "As you Like it"

Women’s Power and Crossdressing in “Twelfth Night” and "As you like it" by Shakespeare

Female crossdressing in “Twelfth Night” and “As you Like it” symbolizes a yearning for power from women.  In “As you Like it,” the symbol of crossdressing is a reaction against the unfairness of society because Rosalind has been exiled by her uncle from her father’s rightful kingdom, whereas, in “Twelfth Night,” cross dressing is done as a reaction against a dismal situation: the lack of income for Viola (or a desire of working among men).  In “As you like it,” Rosalind decides to cross-dress because of her lack of a stable relationship with Duke Ferdinand.  In both plays, not only does cross-dressing represent the lack of power the heroines have for acquiring a male-dominated position—as a servant of Orsino’s for Viola and as a conversationalist for Rosalind—but it also symbolizes a desire of being with the opposite sex for them both.   For instance, Orsino, who does not recognize the situational irony (until the end of “Twelfth Night”) of perceived reality from the fact that Cesario was a woman, Orsino would have appreciated the symbology of cross-dressing as not only an art, but as a means of seduction.  In “As you Like it,” Rosalind’s search for her father began as a consequence of Duke Ferdinand’s decree of banishment and her desire to also be among men, like Orlando.  She does this so that she can gleam information from Orlando, whom she loves. 

In both plays, the act of cross-dressing challenges Shakespeare’s audience at the time about the notion of the merits of the sexes: are women in fact more varied in personality than they seem?  It would appear so.  In Shakespeare’s time, a huge rift between the perceived abilities of men and women manifested itself as a reproduction of the so-called separation of spheres.  In Shakespeare’s time, women, who were typically viewed as lower, mainly sexual beings, rarely entered the domains of masculine power, because of their perceived merit.  And most men believed in their own natural right to dominate over women.  The motif of cross dressing, in the plays, challenges that notion; the plays seem to suggest that women are the ones who dominate over men.  Also, the matriarch, Queen Elizabeth I, presumably would have been someone who could appreciate the concept of crossdressing in a male-dominated political environment.

In “Twelfth Night,” the fact that Orsino cannot see past Cesario’s guise implies one of two possibilities: either he is too dumb to realize that there might be foul play involved, or, her guise is so well done by the Captain that even the keenest of human beings cannot decipher her true identity.  Does Shakespeare expand on the former possibility in the play?  No.  In this fictitious situation, Viola does not point out that Orsino seems less intelligent and daring than her, even though Viola goes unnoticed as a man, right under his nose.  But, Orsino, recognizing the importance of there being a man with him of whom he can confide in when talking about Olivia, states: “There is no woman’s sides / Can bide the beating of so strong a passion / As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart / So big, to hold so much.  They lack retention” (1813; lines 91-94).   

The motif of crossdressing in “As you Like it” is also used in a way to reveal a deep, inner loathing for certain individuals such as Duke Ferdinand.  Rosalind crossdresses because she does not want to be found by “thieves”: “Beauty provoketh theives sooner than gold” (1636; line 104).  Also, she implies that Duke Ferdinand is a coward, which is why she wants to become a man:

“Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did suit me all points like a man,

A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart,

Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will.

We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,

As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it with their semblances.” (1636; 108-114)

In contrast, Viola crossdresses mainly so that she can receive work, and she knew beforehand whom she was going to work for: “Orsino.  I have heard my father name him / He was a bachelor then” (1795; lines 24-25).  She was either not overly impressed with Orsino’s intelligence or was overly confident with the Captain’s ability to hide her identity. 

The symbol of crossdressing also implies it has, as a prop, the power of connecting people like a dating service between people of the opposite gender, which is not a bad thing.  In “Twelfth Night,” Orsino, who is consumed, in terms of time, by the homosocial bonds of his friends, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, would not have fallen in love with Viola at the very end if she presented herself as herself because he was preoccupied with his male fantasies of being with Olivia.  Later, in the end of the play, Viola’s and his marriage actually falling through symbolized hope exists for cross-dressers.  Moreover, Viola’s search for power through the symbol of cross-dressing and her eventual marriage to Orsino implies that Orsino may have even recognized Cesario’s guise from the beginning and was secretly planning on marrying him/her: “Dear lad, believe it; / For they shall yet belie thy happy years / That say thou art a man” (1799; lines 28-31).

The act of cross-dressing as a motif in both plays avoids the discussion of women’s inequality during Shakespeare’s time period, yet the motif is a step in the right direction.  In “Twelfth Night,” were Viola a woman and she were allowed to work for Orsino as a woman, would not that have been a more radical and less crowd-pleasing choice on the part of Shakespeare? Although the play would lose some of its comedic high-points, Viola as herself—a woman—would have allowed, perhaps, for a more realistic treatment of the struggles of women in Elizabethan England.               

In terms of the heteronormative, cross-dressing in both plays breaks the norm.  Towards the middle of “Twelfth Night”,” Orsino, feels homoerotically in love with Cesario because of his feminine qualities: “Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe / Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, / And all is semblative a woman’s part” (1799; lines 30-33).  Orsino’s statements, to me, seemed typical of a heterosexual man who might be questioning another man’s or his own masculinity especially in a situation like that (where a woman is actually playing the part of a man).  Orsino’s predicament of finding a mate seems momentarily clouded by Cesario’s femininity.  The act of cross-dressing in both plays represents a challenge to straight-men’s comfort zones. 

Cross-dressing is inherently unethical because of its misleading qualities.  The very fact that Viola must “conceal” herself on line fifty as a “eunuch” so that she can work with Orsino is a challenge for Viola to pull of (pg. 1795)?  But, at least, Viola’s cross-dressing at least brings Orsino into an uncomfortable position.  And furthermore, how would Orsino meet other women if he’s constantly preoccupied thinking about a single woman—Olivia?  Viola breaks social norms by cross-dressing yet it was for the better, becsause Orsino and Cesario (Viola) marry.  But before then, Orsino wastes too much time contemplating a perfect world in which his fantasies come true:

“Tell her my love, more noble than the world

Prizes not quantity of dirty lands.

The parts that fortune hath bestowed upon her

Tell her I hold as giddily as fortune;

But ‘tis that miracle and queen of gems

That nature pranks her in attracts my soul” (1813; lines 79-84). 

But, even if Olivia did consent to Orsino’s wishes, cross-dressing would have seemed even more unethical.  The only woman who meets the requirements of Orsino is in fact Viola, who’s in disguise.  The events that unfold in the play do not lead to Orsino’s original fantasies; he does not have extra obstacles that he climbs so that he can be noticed.  Orsino also has a right to choose whom he wants to marry and has set the ground rules/laws it would seem (even without his knowing) so that no woman can approach him.

The symbol of cross-dressing as a yearning for power, in both plays, exposes character weaknesses from those in the vicinity of a cross-dresser.   For instance, in “Twelfth Night”, Viola faces Olivia, (who can be arguably said to have a crush on Cesario because of their immediate connection with one another), and exposes her disdain for Orsino’s ears.  In “Twelfth Night,” furthermore, Orsino is confronted by Olivia in a manner that is quite cold, which goes against his fantasies of bedding and marrying her; only a cross-dresser who is audacious enough who can seduce him would merit his hand in marriage.   And whenever Olivia speaks with Orsino in the play, she has a much colder tone than Viola’s, suggesting Viola and Orsino, although not what Orsino originally intended, seems like the right choice.  Olivia also implies that Orsino is fat: “If it be aught to hears the jab and retorts sardonically, “Still so cruel?” (1840; line 106).  Further examples exist in the play where Olivia omits the “my” from “my lord”: “Still so constant, lord” on line 107 on the same page; and Orsino seems more preoccupied with Cesario than with Orsino, “Whither, my lord?  Cesario, husband, stay” (1840; line 138).  The play’s ending in act V, suggests male power over women’s sexual choices are really limited.  However, men had the power of wealth and a steady income whereas women simply did not.  In “As you Like it,” Rosalind expresses her knowledge of men in her act as Ganymede in a fashion that is quite insulting, yet humorous.  Her lines seem to imply there’s much more to her character, which may have been hurt by past experiences than what meets the eye.  When conversing with Touchstone, Ganymede states about the love engravings/letters he has found in the forest: “Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree” (1651; line 103).

               The cross-dressing symbol that is throughout the play indicates a failure of society, and perhaps of the play, in terms of rectifying gender inequality. To that end, Viola’s and Rosalind’s initial decisions of crossdressing indicates that they are intelligent, strong-willed, and non-traditionalist women Shakespeare is writing about.  And although Shakespeare fails at mentioning any allusions to Queen Elizabeth I, in that time period, having a female matriarch as a country’s leader would have been enlightening and revolutionary.  Viola’s and Rosalind’s characters might be allusions to Queen Elizabeth I, who surpassed all expectations of what a Queen could do. 

Bibliography

Greenblatt, Stephen, Walter Cohen, Jean Howard, Katherine Maus, eds.  “The Norton Shakespeare”.  2^nd

ed.  New York; W.W Norton, 2008. Print.

Inferences on the Absence of Cupid in Venus and Adonis by Shakespeare

Inferences on the Absence of Cupid in Venus and Adonis

Shakespeare broke Gender norms in the epic poem, Venus and Adonis, although the omnipotent, androgynous narrator of the epic love poem introduces what the reader expects to be a male fantasy.  Adonis faces a Goddess who’s extroverted sexually and wants him.  Although Venus embodies the ideal female corporeal, she does not fit the typical feminine personality.  Venus can be perceived as an “aggressive” or assertive woman in light of traditional gender roles. Venus, who portrays herself as a sexual object does not overturn the common gender roles that society expects of women assuming that Venus would not have complete control over her chosen love object.  She also just desires instant sexual gratification.  In this epic poem, she does:  “…sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, / And like a bold-faced suitor ‘gins to woo [Adonis]” (Shakespeare 635, 5-6).  Typically, women are expected to desire more than just sexual gratification.  They are expected to desire friendship, companionship, something more than erotic love (altruistic, fatherly, or motherly).  

Adonis, likewise, fits the ideal physique for his gender.  He loves to hunt, and he would seem like he embodies the perfect heterosexual male.   However, he is weak in the field of battle: “Upon this promise did he raise his chin, / Like a divedapper peering through a wave / Who, being looked on, ducks as quickly in” (Shakespeare 637, 85-88).  So the typical hero archetype attributed to him goes contrary to heroic form.  In other English epics such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero has substantial strength and overcomes difficult tasks.  This is not so in Venus and Adonis or in The Tragedy of Coriolanus, where the soldier-hero is murdered. 

In Shakespeares’s day, relationships were traditionally initiated by the male.  Adonis does not, however, pursue Venus.  After he did not kiss her, Venus is unhappy. “’O puty,’ ‘gan she cry, ‘flint-hearted boy! / ‘Tis but a kiss I beg-why art thou coy?’” (Shakespeare 637, 95-96).  But Adonis desires mainly to hang out with his friends within the homosocial environment: in the end, Adonis appears to be a weak, uninterested, uncharismatic man who dies an unmanly death.  And despite being weak, he insists that, “I have been wooed as I entreat thee now / Even by the stern and direful god of war, / Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow / Who conquers where he comes in every jar” (Shakespeare 637, 97-99); the God of War, Mars, has influence over him.  Adonis claims to “favor reason” over “lust” (Shakespeare 653, 792).  Although, Adonis’ obssesion about his reputation with the God of War seems the most irrational of either Venus or himself despite his preference for reason in terms of normative gender roles. 

Shakespeare, exceptionally, does not overturn gender roles when it comes to male interest in war.  This results in tragedy because Venus’ aggression fails to protect Adonis, which flips the female role on its head.  The absence of Cupid can be said to lead to this tragedy, because if he had been present, he would have shot an arrow into Adonis, and Adonis would have fallen in love with Venus.  Then Adonis might have heeded her warnings from her premonition:

“…I thy death should fear;

And more than so, presenteth to mine eye

The picture of an angry chafing boar,

Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie

An image like thyself, all stained with gore,

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed

Doth make them droop with grief, and hang the head” (Shakespeare 650, 660-6)

In this premonition it shows the weakness of Adonis: that he is incapable of killing a measly, smallish creature.  A stereotype of men, and expectation, really, of contemporary society (because of Nationalism) can be devolved as follows: men go to war or hunt and women do not (until recently).  This separation of spheres that Shakespeare breaks indicates that men are weak, also, and do not fare well all the time as expected.  The poem makes a subtle plea to the audience: are all men who cannot go to war, let alone hunt successfully, and succeed, undesirable?  Yet, Shakespeare says this is not so, because Venus claims she loves Adonis.  Regardless, he does not believe that she truly loves him—that her “love” for him is in fact an infatuation of some kind:

“If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,

And every tongue more moving than your own,

Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s song,

Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;

For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,

And will not let a false sound enter there” (Shakespeare 652, 775-80) 

Venus plays dead in order to kindle some kind of love from within Adonis: “And at his look she flatly falleth down, / For looks kills love, and love by looks reviveth…” (Shakespeare 646, 463-4).  Venus’ playing-dead trickery also sets up the reader for the real death of Adonis later on in the narrative.  In a way, Shakespeare uses this binary opposition—that of make-believe and that of real life.  The reader takes away this belief about love from the epic poem.  For a female lover, Venus, who is unrequited, she must evoke fantasies and delusions in Adonis if she will take him to bed.  In terms of gender reversal in terms of roles, typically the male dies instead of the female both in an earlier point in life (women live longer), and also, men sacrifice themselves in war for their significant other (as well as country).  The moral message of the epic poem, as indicated by the following stanza, suggests that idealized love can only be realized through death.  Only through the violent, physical touch can one snap the deluded Venus back into life:

“He wrings her nose, he strikers her on the cheeks,

He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard;

He chafes her lips a thousand ways he seeks

To mend the hurt that his unkindness marred” (Shakespeare 646, 475-8).

Here, violence is shown to have a place in love, which is actually reflective of heteronormative sexuality; however, this is one of the few instances in which gender roles are not reversed. 

Cupid’s absence from the epic poem symbolizes the importance of true love rather than the necessity of a mythological figure, Cupid, to initiate it.  The “true love” described in the poem is initiated by Venus, the female, herself, in such a way that she is said to “conquer” Adonis: “Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey, / And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth. / Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey” (Shakespeare 647, 547-8).  There they proceed to have sexual intercourse:

“And having felt the sweetness of the spoils, with blindfold fury she begins to forage. 

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack” (Shakespeare 648, 553-58). 

Were Cupid in the poem, Adonis would without a choice love Venus ‘till he dies at an old age, as wished for by Venus earlier on in the poem.  Shakespeare’s convenient omission of Cupid suggests a loss of power on behalf of Venus, who typically commands Cupid.  In terms of gender roles, this loss of power, according to the moral message of the play, suggests that women should not expect men to lay before them at an instant.  This may or not be a gender role reversal as it highly depends on the woman in question and her personality.

In terms of breaking gender norms, nature’s preference for either sex with egalitarianism in mind, and nature’s preference of humans over other animals in monotheism, nature prefers Venus.  Venus’ uncanny ability to communicate with animals and understand things that Adonis cannot, either in the form of promonitions, (which is a common motif in Shakespeare’s plays such as Julius Caesar, where Caesar’s wife has a vision that he will be murdered), compensates for her “natural” weakness as a female.  This power over nature for it to grant her clues has many symbolic meanings.  The grasping of her leg by the plant can indicate nature’s sensitivity to her; nature does not want her to grieve; or nature does not want her to prevent the death of Adonis, which is predestined: 

“And as she runs, the bushes in the way

Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,

Some twine about her thigh to make her stay. 

She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,

Like a milch doe whose swelling dugs do ache,

Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake” (Shakespeare 655, 871-6). 

Also, in that quote, the narrator calls Adonis a fawn, which is notably an animal: so Shakespeare’s diction makes use of the opposite of personification, or dehumanization.

            Adonis’ death reinforces the theme of gender reversal and another moral message: gender role reversals can lead to tragedy when a man ignores a loving woman’s advice.  Since Adonis has faulty reasoning, he goes to hunt the boar and then Venus finds him dead in a delusion: “If he be dead—O no, it cannot be,” (Shakespeare 656, 937).  The moral appears to be this: although the female lover may appear to have delusions, be weak, or seem stupid, she rightfully has them.  This, even though society seems to put pressure on the male, who stereotypically desires a sane, stable woman.  Venus later finds out that she had a delusion, not a vision of the future that proved correct, so events can prove that the delusional are not in fact delusional:

“O Jove,” quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I

To be of such a weak and silly mind

To wail his death who lives, and must not die

Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!” (Shakespeare 658,1015-8). 

But in Venus’ delusion, it later proves that she was correct; also, Venus believes she can woo Adonis and does.  Again, likewise, Venus speaks with animals and they respond.  Adonis, though, in actuality, died, as she had feared:

“And in her haste unfortunately spies

The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight;

Which seen, her eyes, as murdered with the view,

Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew” (Shakespeare 658, 1029-32).

In the last line above, note that the narrator alludes to stars, entities that refer to destiny or fate, a common theme throughout with respect to the gender reversal between men and women: Adonis and Venus rejected heavenly-sanctioned gender roles, and the result was therefore fated to be tragic. 

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. “Venus and Adonis." The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford

Edition. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen.  New York: Norton and Company, 2008, 635-662. Print.