Guido Cagnacci Allegory of Human Life
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that "poetry reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities." We discussed this idea last week in looking at the doubleness or duality of various familiar concepts: nature/art; temporal/eternal; mortal/immortal; mutable/immutable; one/many; yin/yang; black/white; good/evil. In art we find representations of nature's creations, and of human creation–the art work is itself a human construct. In the painting above, the artist has depicted a largely nude woman, flowers in her right hand, an hourglass in the other, and a human skull supporting her arm. Above her head is the image of an ourobouros, a snake swallowing its own tail, an ancient symbol of eternity, and of the natural cycle of continuous birth and death, creation, destruction, and recreation that is fundamental to life as we know it.
Poets and other artists (scientists too) invite us to look and to see more deeply into the nature of human experience and the world around us, encouraging us to pay attention so that we may appreciate the infinite natural wonders all around us. William Blake shows the power of attention and imaginative connection in a series of paradoxes in "Augeries of Innocence": "To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower" is one way he expresses this capacity for seeing beyond the given, seeing the limitless connections between life forms.
We looked at will look at Oscar Wilde's short story "The Artist"; there Wilde dramatizes the opposition between The Pleasure that Abideth for a Moment, and The Sorrow that Endureth for Ever. In the story, the artist is an archetype of the creative human, one who will "fashion an image" from imagination and the stuff of experience to express something of what we feel inwardly or subjectively in our life's journey. The materials the artist uses, as with artists and creative endeavor of whatever kind, are those that have been used before, or can be found in raw natural form, for new-fashioned expression.
I reproduce here below definitions of Nature and Art:
NATURE
1
a : the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing : essence
b : disposition, temperament
2
a : a creative and controlling force in the universe
b : an inner force or the sum of such forces in an individual
3
: a kind or class usually distinguished by fundamental or essential characteristics <documents of a confidential nature> <acts of a ceremonial nature>
4
: the physical constitution or drives of an organism; especially : an excretory organ or function —used in phrases like the call of nature
5
: a spontaneous attitude (as of generosity)
6
: the external world in its entirety
7
a : humankind's original or natural condition
b : a simplified mode of life resembling this condition
8
: the genetically controlled qualities of an organism
9
: natural scenery
A definition of Art, from Carl Jung's "The Poet": Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. . . .
A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says: "You ought," or: "This is the Truth." It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions.
And from Annie Dillard's "About Symbol": All art may be said to be symbolic in this sense: it is a material mock-up of bright idea. Any work of art symbolizes the process by which spirit generates matter, or materials generate idea. Any work of art symbolizes juncture itself, the socking of eternity into time and energy into form.
Figurative language is the primary mode of poetry, language compressed and concentrated and made expressive and evocative through association. Figuration or tropes take different forms, as metaphor, personification, simile, symbol, synecdoche, metonymy, irony, hyperbole, pun. Figurative language is used to make imagery, the patterns of represented objects, feelings, and ideas we find in poems. We speak of literal and figurative language; the former expresses the ordinary sense or actual denotation of the word or words, and the latter expresses an unusual sense or use for expressive purposes, to convey beauty, vividness, the numinous or ineffable, etcetera. So to call a woman a rose is a figurative use of the word rose, and the qualities of the two become identified by close association. A woman's beauty, like that of the rose, is transitory, passing, a symbol of life's changeability and vulnerability to death and decay. A work of art, unlike a flower, may be seen as a human gesture or means of fixing for all time, the ideas embodied therein. Life is short, but art is long, as the saying goes. We will see this theme suggested or articulated in various works.
In the following free verse poem by Alice Walker, “A Woman Is Not a Potted Plant,” an extended metaphor of a potted plant is used to organize the whole piece and to show by opposition the power, independence, and range of a woman, a "wilderness unbounded" (lines 28-29).
A Woman Is Not a Potted Plant by Alice Walker
A WOMAN IS NOT
A POTTED PLANT
Her roots bound
to the confines
of her house
a woman is not
a potted plant
her leaves trimmed
to the contours
of her sex
a woman is not
a potted plant
her branches
espaliered
against the fences
of her race
her country
her mother
her man
her trained blossom
turning
this way
& that
to follow
the sun
of whoever feeds
and waters her
a woman is wilderness
unbounded
Homework: Read Emerson in "Nature," Sarah Orne Jewett's short story "The White Heron" and Guy de Maupassant's "Simon's Papa". Be prepared for questions covering the material–plot, setting, characters, symbols, and themes.
Essay1/Week One: Due week 3
Essay 1: In 350-500 words, discuss the images and actions, and the feelings and ideas associated with those discussed, in one or more of the poems or prose pieces presented. Focus in particular on the speaker’s evocations of the natural world: plants, animals, insects, day, night, the earth, the sky, the stars, time, the seasons . . . . Trace the effects, what the poet or author sees in these, and the use he/she makes of them in creating the piece.
Type and double-space the lines. Give your essay an original title. In the discussion, reference each piece by title, enclose the title reference in quotation marks, and include the author’s full name. Thereafter you need only use the last name (never the first alone).
Provide several direct quotations to illustrate and support your claims. When quoting lines of poetry (not of prose) use a slash between lines to show where the lines break, and include the line numbers in a parenthetical citation, as follows: Emily Dickinson writes: “Truth–is as old as God–/His Twin Identity/And will endure as long as He” (lines 1-3).
Indent successive lines of four or more in the block format, beginning two tab stops from the left margin. The block format requires no quotation marks: Dickinson imagines something almost unimaginable–the death of God:
And perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity. (lines 5-8)
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