The Concept of the Other

At first glance, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex might seem rationalistic, old-fashioned-modernist, and above all—male biased. Should this work be valued only for historical reasons: feminists ought to become more aware of their historical milieu? If the answer is yes, then the work should be dismissed for its outdated ideas. Nonetheless, a rationalistic approach will examine that Beauvoir’s concept of “Self” is very much up-to-date and provides clues to some of post-modern feminist dilemmas.

Beauvoir argues as an intrinsic premise that the man has always conceived of himself as the Self (not to be confused with the Cartesian concept of “self”), the essential, and has made of woman—the Other: “In sexuality and maternity woman as subject can claim autonomy; but to be a ‘true woman’ she must accept herself as the Other” (Beauvoir 1272). In addition, it is apparent that Beauvoir utterly rejects the notion of matriarchy, taking a Levi-Straussian stand—the public and even social prerogative always belonged to men. Societies that regarded woman as Mother or Goddess, indicated that woman’s power was attested outside of the human realm. This then seems to prove the woman’s power to be somewhat “magical,” defined by man out of his needs. Unfortunately, man could eradicate that definition when it no longer served his wants and needs. Hence, the power prevailed in the hands of man.

Furthermore, Beauvoir speaks of several elements that make the oppression of woman inimitable: First, in contrast with the oppression of race and class, the oppression of woman is not a fortuitous historical fact. Moreover, it is not an occurrence in time which has sometimes been traversed or reverted. Woman has always been subordinate to man. Second, woman has interiorized the extraneous perspective that man is indeed the essential, and the woman is the inessential. A question arises: What male advantages make men succeed in the first place? The definitive answer consists of two factors: women are physically weaker than men; and women bear children. One might think that these biological facts were used in such context only in primitive times. How much has changed? In modern times, has the invention of the birth control pill (with its continuing problems/side effects) really enabled women to see the difference between sexual relations and childbearing? Contraceptives have certainly changed some perspective, but to say that they are a way in dilating women into a Self, and the problem is solved—won’t be cogent.

Work Cited

De Beauvoir, Simone. “From The Second Sex.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and

Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. 2nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New

York, 2001. 1265-73. Print.

Mass Culture

When the beauty of old definitions finally fade, one is confronted with the doleful prospect of creating new meanings, and in the process he is moved to excavate a feeling of what has gone before. Thus, it is worthy to note that in defining the word “culture,” it is impossible to avoid confusion. Moreover, various definitions from different periods imply that there is no pure measure to it because the word itself can be analyzed using several perspectives as noted by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan in an article called “The Politics of Culture.”

Furthermore, in the eyes of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “mass culture—the culture of television, radio, film, and cheap paperbacks—is a tool of domination.” Instantly, a response formulates, whether these “ingredients” of the above noted term—mass culture—refine the mind, as massively they appeal to the mind. One perspective is that this “mind pollution” is a less appeasing byproduct of industrialization. It is ironic that technology in its high contribution to the fragmentation of life is also, from another perspective, responsible for its amplified relevance. Television, for instance, is a form of technology with its fair share of audiences. So, is it cogent to say that the “amplified relevance” of life, caused by technology is perhaps because audiences, as Rivkin and Ryan assert, “decode’ the cultural messages in ways that allow them to think resistantly about their lives’?”

As the older attractions (religion, conventional family) lose their vibe and “ancient” curiosities seem satisfied, our lives become filled with the mentioned earlier—“mind pollutants”—ignited by ever-alerted cutting-edge industry.

Works Cited

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Print.

Modern Drama--Performance

Time Will Not Tell

Playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Luigi Pirandello, no longer sustained by the literary tradition, inject an uncommon texture to perennial problems that have distinguished the human race in its evolutionary progress. Their works raise questions about the significance of reality and whether one’s life is a performance that is presented reel after reel to a certain audience. While Pirandello’s primary concerns are illusions and self-deceptions of mankind and the nature of identity, Beckett’s vision of the human condition and of the idea that the universe is purposeless, indifferent, and hostile is quite bleak. Both writers, however, Pirandello in his Six Characters in Search of an Author and Beckett in Waiting for Godot exhibit cryptic but logical situations—developing those seemingly illogically—and by continually tossing the coin until both sides are clearly revealed. They manage to convince their audience that the unconventional and not very credible treatment is in fact wholly cogent and convincing. The playwrights stress the ridiculous nature of the empty substance of language, the mere clichés and slogans that make-up one’s everyday performances that further the misunderstanding between individuals, contributing to the bleakness of the human condition. As a result, each individual formulates the strong desire to achieve his own form, in order to transcend the abasement of his condition.

Is there an original or authentic character, person, action or thought? What are people really like? In the business of everyday life, nothing is commoner than the emphatic judgment sweeping and assured in its affirmatives. But as we cut a little deep into the living matter of the spirit, the problem becomes more complicated. Do we ever understand the whole motivation of an action—not in others only but even in ourselves? The thought that follows then, which may or may not invite us to profound reflection, is that all the questions mold and become the bouquet of human drama which is as absurd, as it is painful. The inarticulate homeless woman, for instance, standing off ramp of the 405 freeway’s Nordhoff exit, hopes to communicate a message to humanity with the help of a phrase written on a rectangular cardboard tablet that reads: “HOMELESS PLEASE DONATE.” The woman’s mere performance seems to be summarized in those three words which vaguely insinuate her reality Her urge to convey the dreadful

condition in a slogan that became her creative piece should shock one into awareness of life’s relentless and inconsolable absurdity. The ordinary event of her standing there and looking at the drivers stopped at a red light has formed her character. Her laborious effort of this artistic creation [herself] is itself a dramatic theme, ever rising to “harass and defeat” anyone who tries to interpret it. The spectator tries to digest the phrase by reducing the already compressed statement in his mind, further deflating it into unintelligible scraps of sounds, systematically emptied of significance. The phrase that represented the woman’s reality now holds no gravity to her audience. Thus, forms the notion that understanding is hardly ever possible between individuals because of the meaninglessness of words, the complex multiplicity of human personality, and the tragic conflict between life, which is in constant flux.

Furthermore, Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author addresses the tragic conflict with greatest intensity, and as Pirandello states: “Every imaginary image, every creature of art must have his drama in order to exist . . . all that lives, by the fact of being alive has form” (qtd. in Sogliuzzo 128). The relevance of the playwright’s assertions to the homeless woman then is that the woman is desperate to create a role; her seeking to perform her drama manifests an urge to exist. In the same manner, the Characters in Pirandello’s play gravely seek out a stage where they can perform. Pirandello emphasizes the fluidity of all the elements of production, perpetually set in motion. Drama critic, Antonio Illiano’s comment on the fluxes of life and stage encapsulates Pirandello’s own notions on the topic: “Life has one kind of reality, a transient one—since man is mortal, but art has another kind, since it can outlast its creation, and achieve a permanence we call perennial” (5). In the play, Pirandello’s stage directions imply that everything is a process, even the stage: “From the corner at the back [the technician] takes several stage braces, then arranges them on the floor downstage, and kneels down to hammer some nails in” (492). The stage, much like the Characters, the Actors or the Director, has no permanency, which makes the search for the form even more resolute. The Director’s futile attempts to recreate the six Characters are as irrelevant, as the battle between the Actors and the Characters struggling against each other to establish the supremacy of their own reality. The Director’s illogical approach of recreating the Characters’ experiences and his rapid solutions of rejuvenating their dramas: “Set the stage for the parlor scene. Two wings and a backdrop with a door in it will do, quickly please” (Pirandello 509), proves that the Director tries to establish his own form. However, his attempt to formulate himself conflicts with everybody else’s desire for installation. The want for establishment present in Pirandello’s play and the homeless woman’s urge to communicate her performance to the spectator through art are commensurable as both instances emphasize the desire to declare ascendancy.

However, the question still remains—who is more supreme or in lesser terms “real”: In Pirandello’s play, are the Actors along with the Director more dominant than the Characters, and in the homeless woman’s case, is the woman more supreme than her spectator? The answering to the question will unfold who actually has established the form, and therefore, the ability to exist in a hopeless and meaningless universe. In Pirandello’s play the Characters represent art, as they are the creation of the playwright. The Father wittingly states this notion: “The man will die, the writer, the instrument of creation; the creature will never die!” (Pirandello 497-98). The Characters do not represent life; rather they epitomize art. Although, they seem esoteric, each of the six Characters has his or her own conflict and drama, which is more ordinary or “real” than the Actors who anticipate the Director’s staging and guidance in order to be. In the case of the homeless woman, things are a bit more complicated as it is unclear whether at the moment of the performance the woman lets go of her suffering and completely annihilates herself in her performance, at the same time transcending pain or whether her performance is not mere acting because she does not literally act. Her creation or her art—the piece of the cardboard tablet, exists outside of her, as the phrase only sits on the sign, never voiced by her; therefore, making her superiority vulnerable. As the passing spectator views the sign, he does not instantaneously link the phrase on the tablet to the condition of the homeless woman, but rather sees it outside of her, as another poster or sign which can simply be non-correlative to the person holding it. The short period of being stopped at the red light, does not allow some spectators to fully decipher the woman’s condition, making her not superior, therefore not in her form, and therefore, still in her bleak condition, waiting.

Thus, the world without soothing illusions about the human ability to ascend dreadful conditions, the importance of hard work and achievement, the inevitability of process and flux further contribute to the austere condition. When I interviewed the woman about her condition and asked for her reflections, she responded: “They [the drivers] never donate; when they approach me they roll up their windows and don’t look at me as if I am invisible. The only help I get is from the nearby 7 eleven store on Balboa. Yes . . . I never say it. I write it down.” It is clear that the woman is estranged from her universe because she no longer believes in any of the rational schemes that explain it. Much like Didi and Gogo from Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, the homeless woman lives in a world where ferocity and savagery can appear at any moment, often victimizing her directly. Here, this ferocity appears to be the ignorance of the spectator; whereas in Beckett’s play, it is the hopeless uncertainty of waiting for the mysterious Godot. Gogo and Didi live in a world where almost nothing is indubitable, where taking one’s boots off is quite an achievement. However, for the homeless woman, the attainment lies upon her ability to get food. In the play, Pazzo’s assertion of “let us not speak of our generation again” (Beckett 865) emphasizes not only the ignorant nature of his character, but also encapsulates Beckett’s dismissal of language as an infallible source of security. The mere clichés and slogans cannot be counted on to carry meaning precisely, making linguistic purpose simply an approximation. Thus, Beckett shows Gogo and Didi spending most of their time dancing around words, which fail to wrestle their lives into consistently coherent patterns of meaning.

Moreover, Beckett’s description of the places his characters inhabit is graphic, and none of his details of scene are accidental; yet those details mark the absence rather than the presence of the signs of nature and culture. The indeterminate setting of the play “A country road. A tree. Evening” (Beckett 849) holds no detail that would give Didi and Gogo a personal connection to the location. The bare environment compels these two characters to focus upon their basic human processes: taking off boots (849), their inadequate food [carrots] (857), and most importantly their relationship with each other. In the same way, the homeless woman’s setting is also undifferentiated. Although the spectator is aware of her geographical location, still the woman’s constant maneuvers from one venue to the next, in search of food, blurs the concreteness of her coordinates. Besides, the impressionistic scene of the little flowers, where the woman stands, juxtaposes the urban concrete landscape of a freeway off-ramp, creating a space between her and the spectator. The same objectivity of the dramatic form exists in Beckett’s play, where the space, which the spectator sees and the characters who inhabit, are separate. According to Charles Lyons, “We see the scene and, as well, witness the ways in which the consciousness of each character uses the details of that space to establish a sense of his relationship to external reality” (23). The spectator sees every detail of the scene; whereas the two characters, especially Didi, view the land as a barren compass, where [Didi] dwelled “all [those] years” (Beckett 850). Beckett succeeds in creating a critical audience by defining the boundaries of its ignorance. The indeterminate “all these years” and barren land are foils to this oblivion. The character-spectator relationship in Waiting for Godot then is still correlative with the homeless woman’s situation, whose audience is inattentive and does not see every detail of the woman’s setting or in that matter, contemplate the bleakness of her condition.

In addition, from the above relationship, we discern how inevitably isolated man is, not only in the grand universe, but also within himself. In Waiting for Godot, even though the company of another human being is one of the few distractions from the dreadful condition and anxiety, moments of real companionship are transient. Didi’s ignorant address to Gogo “ . . . where would you be . . . [Decisively] You’d be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it” (Beckett 850) shows the characters’ separate streams of thought. The misunderstanding between the two men lies in their ineffective ways of communication. Their need to think merely only aggravates egocentrism which imprisons the characters within themselves. The same way, the spectator from the freeway off-ramp fails to keep ahead of the homeless woman’s reality or to not only communicate with her, but also try to understand her circumstances. As a result, she is left there to wait and transcend her condition through her performance, in search of a form.

Despite the fact that this waiting might imply some kind of hope for their irremediable state; nonetheless, the recurring and static comment of “nothing to be done” echoed throughout Waiting for Godot undermines the notion of hope, invoking helplessness and hopelessness. Beckett’s approach is not an arbitrary choice, but rather a necessary complement to the bleak vision of human condition. The spectator, as a result, experiences what it feels like to live in an absurd world. However random the characters’ assertions about waiting are, they still are not going to move on, and they are not going change their conditions. Under ordinary circumstances the workings of the mind—the anticipation of something, even if it reinforces man’s basic isolation, do provide some comfort. The trouble is, according to Beckett, that “circumstances never remain ordinary for very long” (qtd. in Webb 31). The illusions that seem to give some meaning to life subsequently disappear: Godot never comes, nor does the savior of the homeless woman who will unchain her from her bleak condition.

The homeless woman’s absurd condition can be viewed from the perspectives of the two playwrights who genuinely represent the Theatre of the Absurd. Pirandello’s and Beckett’s plays reflect the absurdity of existence and what it means to live in a universe that falls apart for their characters into a meaningless flux. There is a pondering on the question of the human condition: who are we as humans and what is our short life on this planet really like? In order to have the audience view the absurdity of their characters and their current state, Beckett, for instance, completely undermines the familiar qualities of conventional plays. This, in a way, reflects the juxtaposed locale of the homeless woman freeway off-ramp, who tries to communicate to her audience her bleak condition through the simple phrase of “HOMELESS PLEASE DONATE.” However, this fails, as the tablet is just a repetitive and sometimes cyclical slogan, which apparently does not help her transcend her situation. Her decay continues, despite her attempt to carry linguistic meaning across.

Works Cited

Beckett, Samuel. “Waiting for Godot.” The Norton Anthology of Drama: The Nineteenth

Century to the Present. Eds. Peter Simon, et al. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,

Inc., 2009. 849-905. Print.

Illiano, Antonio. “Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author: A Comedy in the

Making.” Italica 44.1 (1967): 1-12. Print.

Lyons, Charles. Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1983. Print.

Pirandello, Luigi. “Six Characters in Search of an Author.” The Norton Anthology of Drama:

The Nineteenth Century to the Present. Eds. Peter Simon, et al. New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. 491-530. Print.

Sogliuzzo, Richard A. Luigi Pirandello, Director: The Playwright in the Theatre. Metuchen,

N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1982. Print.

Webb, Eugene. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Olympia, WA: The University of Washington

Press, 1974. Print.

Cacoethes: Destruction through the Illogical

In Lord Byron’s Sardanapalus the inequitable division of passion and virtue paints an uttermost conflict between the inherently rational and animalistic realms of a being on a canvas of his existence. Sardanapalus, the king of Nineveh and Assyria, is an epicene ruler who distances himself from traditional royal principles. Sardanapalus’s inability to separate vice and virtue is voluntary; nonetheless, the satisfying of his desires through lust and luxury relies on the unconscious deliberations of the non-rational. The insidious, destructive, and malevolent aspects of Sardanapalus’s passions have no self-restraint, diminishing many and bringing about his tragedy. The protagonist’s and his lover’s, Myrrha’s suicides are resulted not only by the king’s compelling emotions and miscommunication, but also by Myrrha’s decision to give in to her lover’s non-controllable irrationality. The play is comparable to Shakespearean tragedies such a Romeo and Juliet; however, it is in direct contrast with Paul’s definition of love in I Corinthians, Plato’s definition of “happiness,” and John Winthrop’s notion of charity. Sardanapalus’s reasons are overwhelmed by his passions, which in turn cast a shadow on his ability to act logically, thus becoming a catalyst to the failure in achieving the praise of his own people and Myrrha, the Ionian slave, further leading him to his doom.

The missing precepts of Sardanapalus’s “charitable” actions are reason and justice—the pellucid positive guides of human behavior. The disorderly elements of the non-rational cloud his judgment, making him to pay frequent homage to his heart rather than to his mind. In the play, the voice of reason, Myrrha, is in stark contrast with Sardanaplus’s pathos. During the hour of possible attack by revolutionaries, Sardanaplus’s mind wanders toward the execution of a festive banquet: “Come, we’ll think no more on’t—/But of the midnight festival” (Byron 26). In direct opposition with his uttering is Myrrha’s logical rejoinder: “’Tis time/To think of aught save festivals. Thou has not/Spurn’d his sage cautions?” (Byron 26). Myrrha’s reasonable assertions illuminate the fact that the king follows his desires, rather than rules the kingdom. The letting go of traditional royal responsibilities foreshadows possible disarray. Sardanapalus’s fallacy lies in his delusional cognition of desire and love, trying to patch the blemishes of certain conditions, such as the upcoming turmoil in a form of rebellion. Nonetheless, reality dictates something irrevocably polarizing to the former analogy: Sardanapalus’s passions and vices mold together as one entity and venture forth for destruction. Wittingly noted by Salemenes, his brother-in-law, Sardanapalus is “short of the duties of a king” (Byron 22). There is a replacement of kingly duties and responsibilities with the urge of lust, which contributes to the disarray in Sardanapalus’s court. The animalistic side of human consciousness becomes the destructive element and is no stranger to Sardanapalus’s cosmos, where reason, as a faculty of mental insight, is a mere derelict in an abandoned shore.

The reminiscence of Sardanapalus to Shakespearean tragedies is almost a given fact, rather than a possible observation. For Sardanapalus, what ought to be valuable (virtue) is regarded cipher and vice versa. When reason rules, the faculties of the body become subdued; however, such approach is the missing ingredient in these plays. Sardanapalus’s overwhelmed address to Myrrha in the moment of hazard is beyond logic, as it manifests internal disposition to irrationality, which is not immune to invasions of mania. The king refers to his beloved Ionian slave: “I love thee far—far more/Than either the brief life or the wide realm” (Byron 27). The vulnerable assertion is responded by Myrrha’s critical stance: “That means thou lovest nor thyself nor me;/For he who loves another loves himself,/Even for that other’s sake” (Byron 27). Clearly, Sardanapalus’s conception of love bears very little relation to Myrrha’s logical address, however “consequential” it seems, yet it proves the arid nature of his actions. As critic Arthur D. Kahn notes, “Sardanapalus is presented as a lax, irresponsible monarch, an incorrigible, effeminate hedonist, unfaithful to his wife and blindly enamored of his paramour” (658). The king is constricted in the labyrinth of his passions whose insecurities surface, and he becomes incapable of focusing his thoughts. These faults are the essence of his character bringing him later to his tragedy.

Considering a stylistic perspective in comparing Sardanapalus’s “passion-over-reason” stance to Romeo’s and Juliet’s tragedies, analyzes the former’s artificiality in terms of expressing his affections toward his subjects or mistress. Sardanapalus’s “benevolence” toward his court is contingent, and his enthusiastic speeches do not have a powerful crescendo, despite Byron’s abundance with exclamation points throughout the king’s sentimental speeches: “I have by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:/I made no wars, I added to new imposts,/I interfered not with their civic lives,” (22). Similarly, Juliet’s unconsciousness caused by a potion is exaggerated by her family, emphasized in the play with legions of exclamation marks in the family members’ passages such as “O me, O me! My child, my only life!” (Shakespeare 4.5.19). Capulets’ absurd over-dramatization of situations and obsessive grief-play at a particular scene gives insight to the idea of miscommunication and over-sentimentality, showing that these are possible causes of the tragedies. Further, Romeo acts in the same over-dramatized manner, ignoring all and residing his attention to the potion which is part of his dramatic speech deliverance, rehearsed earlier in his mind: “Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavory guide!” (Shakespeare 5.3.101). The artificiality of passionately staged worries and pity form the question whether such innovations are taken too far. In Sardanapalus, such factitiousness is proven to be present, despite the king’s earlier persuasion of his “benevolence”: “So my dogs’ are;/And better, as more faithful” (Byron 22). It can be stated that both plays’ protagonists’ optimistic views, ornamented with artificiality, are heartening; nevertheless, the present metaphors and similes do not always succor furnishings what they pretend to be implying.

Using a platonic perspective in analyzing Sardanapalus’s passions will illuminate the deleterious causes of his tragic end. Let us pretend for a moment that values, in general, are objective and are inherently instantiated in one’s physical realm. However, any value, to some extent may seem valueless considering different points of views. Furthermore, in order to consummate what is indeed the most valuable, one ought to strive for the ideal, the “Form” of the value that contains no such contradictions. The quest for the ideal value can only be attained by intellectual means—through reason. By rationalizing, one ascends the obscure values of the physical, faulty world in order to grasp, for instance, the Form of Justice or Wisdom. Sardanapalus, as the object of this analysis, drives away from such strife, embracing his passions. When criticized by Salemenes, “another thing thou knowest not,” (Byron 12), Sardanapalus responds in rather satirical fashion, basing his assertion on the word “virtue”: “Not know the word!/Never was word yet rung so in my ears—/Worse than the rabbles’s shout, or spliting trumpet;/I’ve heard thy sister talk of nothing else” (Byron 12). Sardanapalus, the non-oppressive king, is strictly constricted into the visible realm; thus not being able to combine noesis and dianoia in order to pursue happiness. His vices—love for lust, luxury, and artificiality are not representative of the Form; however hazy, however dubious. As Rupert Clendon Lodge suggests, “The Platonist regards all such roads, as commonly understood, as failing to lead one, with any sureness, to anything worthy the name of happiness” (226). The king is mistaken where happiness lies, and his constant rejections of criticism prove a weakness of his will. Plato’s passage encapsulates the above-mentioned more precisely: “In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that either of them is the good—for the good is yet more prized” (500). Whatever Sardanapalus considers to be the path to happiness, runs counter to his real desires, thus shifting all the failures to being non-deliberate. Such approach justifies the tragedy; his and Myrrha’s suicides, undeniably blaming one of the faculties of human psychological make-up—the appetite. The potent appetite of passions conquers reason, ignorantly causing destruction and self-destruction.

Sardanapalus’s definition of love is different than Myrrha’s comprehension of it. For Sardanaplaus, love is equivalent to pleasure; however, for his beloved, that is not the case. Sardanapalus’s definition of love can be contrasted with Paul’s depiction of it in I Corinthians. Since for Sardanapalus, love’s worthy competitor is pleasure, the occurrence of the latter subduing the former is not impossible; in fact, such stance betrays not only the welfare of the being adapting such faculties, but also it is harmful to the well-being of communities. Although indirectly, yet Paul contrasts Agape, the highest form of love, with the impatient, the boastful, the malevolent—all that fits Sardanapalus’s definition of love:

[Love] doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth no in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether ther be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (The Holy Bible, I Cor. 13:5-8)

Sardanapalus has no self-control or moral restraint and most importantly, cannot stand criticism. Sardanapalus’s ability to enamor his beloved Myrrha fails, as his words are not steeped in the highest form of love, but in lust. His apparent gift of speech knows nothing of virtue; moreover, offering nothing eternal. The humble willingness to allow such love and oppress the destructive elements is missing from Sardanapalus’s definition of love. It is not to be confused that there is an expectancy of the king to know the scriptures; rather, the concept of such love (Agape) should be praised and valued. Sardanapalus’s failure to act in such a manner; moreover, embracing fleeting passions, lead to the destruction of his court and to his inevitable doom.

At another instance, Sardanapalus’s idea of love is in contrast with John Winthrop’s concept of charity. Unlike Sardanapalus, Winthrop has a personal motive for reassessing his spiritual state and the commonwealth of the people. There is the idea that love must come from the soul; moreover, charity or love toward another being only a manifestation of well-ordered life. Furthermore, he dwells on the soul’s purest faculties; whereas Sardanapalus tries to initiate Utopia based on bodily elements. His love for the court and the people of Assyria is exemplified by artificiality. Salemenes recognizes the need for avoidance of luxury and warns Myrrha of the dangers of such attitude: “ . . . to have him king, and yours, and all/He should, or should not be; to have him live,/Let him not sink back into luxury” (Byron 76). This is not the way to the commonwealth, and certainly not Winthrop’s idyllic society, in which everyone has need of the other, and all work together in a bond of brotherly affection (Winthrop 69). Sardanapalus’s aristocratic pride disables him be the leader who is capable of building “a city on the hill.” Although at times he is the “benevolent” emperor—“enough/For me, if I can make my subjects feel/The weight of human misery less” (19); nonetheless, at many instances he is a bloodthirsty despot, ready to “use the sword/Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff” (Byron 21). He speaks of “vile herds” referring to citizens who have “grown insolent with feeding” (Byron 21), his pride verging on disgust. His ironical attitudes and ineradicable pride are the seeds of his illogical behavior, which is a result of his uncontrollable passion that imprisons and oppresses him. The sense of communalism is the missing ingredient from Sardanapalus’s reign, so evident in Winthrop’s “Model of Christianity.”

Sardanapalus’s excess sentimentality becomes a barricade for his acting of kingly duties, making him vulnerable to illogical judgments. At one instance, his refined sensibility is ornamented with his love for luxury, capturing the essence of his character. He is poetic and touched by the slave’s death: “Slain! Unrewarded!/And slain to serve my thirst: that’s hard, poor slave!/Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with/Gold” (Byron 74). Sardanapalus’s vernacular assertions create a sense of deceit that not only poses a threat to himself as an individual, but also to the whole nation of Assyria. According to drama critic, Charles J. Clancy, “Sardanapalus is the catalyst of the play’s antagonism. His poetic language develops, by means of false starts unsuccessful concrete examples, and, on occasion, unsuccessful literary and cultural anachronisms (70). Such poetic reality clouds Sardanapalus’s mind, disabling him to sense complicated and serious situations or events such as war. His search for personal satisfaction and meaning in life disable him to capitalize situations that ought to be dealt with much consideration. Sardanapalus’s reason is missing a link to the controlling button to his emotions, therefore, leaving him non-adaptive to his world, which is not forgiving to adaptive failure.

Doesn’t history inform that rulers and sovereigns practice power rather gladly, finding it easy to vindicate their peculiar use of it by reference to necessity? The necessity appears in the form of overwhelming passion in Byron’s Sardanapalus. The king is caught in a paradox he has created, by molding his definition of love with his definition of pleasure. When uncontrollable lust and desires sink in, the result is tragedy, as reason becomes possessed by lower, bodily faculties. The corrupting effects of such emotions become apparent in the subservient rebellion and Sardanapalus’s and his lover’s suicides. Sardanapalus’s escape from responsibility and his clear adaptation to artificiality invoke images from works such as Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. Despite the similarities to other works, the play can be contrasted with a segment of Paul’s ponderings on love and Winthrop’s idea of charity. The king’s “charity” fails, as does the strife to grasp platonic happiness.

Works Cited

Byron, Lord. Sardanapalus. Print.

Clancy, Charles J. “Death and Love in Byron’s Sardanapalus.” Drama Criticism 24 (2005).

66-73. Print.

Kahn, Arthur D. “Seneca and ‘Sardanapalus’: Byron, the Don Quixote of Neo-Classicism.”

Studies in Philology 66.4 (1969): 654-71. Print.

Lodge, Rupert Clendon. “Platonic Happiness as an Ethical Ideal.” International Journal of

Ethics 36.3 (1926): 225-39. Print.

Plato. “Republic VI.” Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: from Thales to Aristotle. Eds.

Cohen, S. Marc, et al. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.,

2005. 477-503. Print.

Shakespeare, William. “Romeo and Juliet.” The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. Eds.

Stephen Orgel, et al. Penguin Books Inc.: New York, 2002. 1257-1294. Print.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Iowa Falls, IW: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001. Print.

Winthrop, John. “A Model of Christian Charity.” 69-83. Print.

Just something about it . . .

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Diction and Tone--A Powerful Crescendo

After great pain a formal feeling comes--

The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

“After great pain a formal feeling comes—

Pondering on McConvillian Synthesis

** McConville's essay (not available) is an interpretation of "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

McConville’s interpreation of Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters” as a possible biblically referenced piece of work is impressive because too often the second voice in the poem is neglected.

In his essay, “Genesis and ‘The Lotos-Eaters,’” McConville states: “the lines allow the reader to believe that the poem is transferring from waking-life to a dream,” referencing the poem’s “Along the cliff to fall and pause did seem” (Tennyson 10). The earlier assertion of the word “courage” molds with the stated lines above with its unequivocally placed accent, providing a trochaic response to the unfaltering iambics of the mariners’ mourning. Such rejoinder indeed triggers the dream vision; furthermore, the author here treats the aesthetic experience in its imaginative rather than its observable qualities. The symbolic landscape, reminiscent of Eden, as McConville states: “A return to Eden, perhaps?” emerges as the imagination’s own kingdom, something that grants form to the inner life of the aesthetic. This biblically ornamented version of reality for which the mariners relinquish their collective life is found not only in the elevated awareness drawn from the splendor of the external world, but exists merely with the volitions laid asleep and the grip of the external world upon consciousness broken. The mind can move in liberation, through unbounded space amidst that chimerical order produced by dream which forms the poem’s major analogue.

from "On Sublimity"

"The universe is not wide enough for the range of human speculation and intellect. Our thoughts often travel beyond the boundaries of our surroundings. If anyone wants to know what we were born for, let him look round at life and contemplate the splendour, grandeur, and beauty in which it everywhere abounds. It is a natural inclination that leads us to admire not the little streams, however pellucid and however useful, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and above all the Ocean. Nor do we feel so much awe before the little flame we kindle, because it keeps its light clear and pure, as before the fires of heaven, though they are often obscured. We do not think our flame more worthy of admiration than the craters of Etna, whose eruptions bring up rocks and whole hills out of the depths, and sometimes pour forth rivers of the earth-born, spontaneous fire. A single comment fits all these examples: the useful and necessary are readily available to man, it is the unusual that always excites our wonder."

--Longinus (first century C.E.)

Milton's Paradise Lost (Book I)

Paradise Lost Book I: The Soaring Song

The most basic story of our civilization is embedded in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The narrative is in the most demanding genre of the time—in epic form, that man had developed and elaborated. Anticipating too much from this piece is nearly unconceivable; rather expecting the inaccurate things is not difficult. Paradise Lost has its similarities to the classics: The Aeneid, The Odyssey, and The Illiad; however, reading this blazing work of art only through its predecessors is nearly a crime. For doing so prevents the reader to live its artistic originality and its pedantic resoluteness. For Milton, “Truth is his aim and the elimination of untruth is essential” (French 470). The cognition of truth and beauty is the suitable way to patch the blemishes of humanity. The chronology of events in this work is crucial for observing significant effects and helps to draw parallels and contrasts throughout the epic. It is not an easy task to hold the events of Paradise Lost, particularly Book I, in mind and approach the piece as a coalesced body of work. Sin, death, and deception mould together as one entity and venture forth for more destruction. Bringing Satan to the reader’s attention as the Fiend of Book I, Milton clearly deprives him of being the hero; although that is not the case in Books II to IV. Milton justifies the ways man has disobeyed God, but at the same time emphasizing the significance of obeying the Omnipotent.

Only God has both the sovereignty and the worry for man that is indispensable, if connotation is to be made of the conspicuous rudimentary. The first twenty-six lines of the poem are like the prelude to an oratorio; they hold the intonations and dominant designs that appraise its thematic tautness. The lines display Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience and the paradise that soon to be lost. “The beginning corresponds to the sequence in Virgil’s Aeneid, from the fall of Troy through the journey to the founding Rome” (Kerrigan, et. al 12). The lines “At last within a land delectable/Their journey lay, through pleasurable bowers/Of groves where all is joy,—a blest abode!’ (Virgil 6.639-41) correspond with “Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,” (Milton 1.5). By translating Virgil’s epithet, Milton is acknowledging he is informed of the classics and indicating that he has mastered their format. Later, Milton invokes the “heavenly Muse” (1.6) as the divine entity of the Trinity showing that his muse (poetic inspiration) is above the classics and surpasses Virgil, Homer, and others. On the other hand, Milton’s supplication is exceedingly modest, indicating his everlasting dependence on God.

The purpose of the beginning of the poem is apparent to the reader: “. . . justify the ways of God to men” (Milton 1.26). However, some critics are not so sure of this utterance. C. S. Lewis asserts that “the real function of these twenty-six lines is to give us the sensation that some great thing is now about to begin” (41). Along with the sensation of the good thing to come, there is also the spiritual preparation: “And chiefly thou O Spirit, that dost prefer” (Milton 1.17), and also perpetuating in “. . . what in me is dark” (Milton 1.22). Milton’s optimistic views on humanity are heartening; nevertheless, Miltonic metaphors and similes do not always succor furnishings what it pretends to be furnishing. Although it has been asserted that Milton is justifying the ways of God to men; sometimes the idea seems hazy and dubious. Many times it takes on a polar form which will assert: justifying man’s ways to God. “[The infernal serpent] first seduced them to that foul revolt?” (Milton 1.33) suggests that Milton defends the faulty humans. His word “seduces” is chosen carefully, in which Milton tries to indicate the humans’ partial innocence. However, the word also connotes a deviation of the will and a turning from the right reason. Its physical connotations are to be developed in two aspects: first, Satan’s conversation with Eve while seducing her, instigates nightmares of serpents engaging sexually with women; yet the other view is more unambiguous: Adam is not deceiving or deceived, but plainly overcomes with female allurement. In this remark, another possible conflict is instituted: reason and order versus passion and chaos. According to David M. Miller, Milton’s argument is, “the fall occurs not because the flesh gives pleasure but because sense usurps the place of reason and lures the will to act against man’s best interest” (83). This tentatively answers the question “Why did they commit the sin?” implying the illogicality and the contrariness of disobedience.

Despite the fact that one of the themes of Book I, especially the opening part is man’s disobedience, Milton refuses to start his poem with man. His poem begins in medias res, pushing all the existence theories beyond the known in a strenuous attempt to have the macrocosm of evil and agony comprisable, and an extraterrestrial agent is customarily at fault. The serpent is the agent in Genesis, yet there is no clue whether the serpent embodies the Fiend. Milton impels the evil canon a step further, for not only the snake is a physical, sensual organism—an animal and beyond human analysis, it is undeniably possessed by Satan: “[God] had cast [the serpent] out from Heav’n, with all his host/Of rebel angels . . .” (Milton 1.37-8). Milton here is concerned with serious metaphysical question as how is it possible for such a celestial entity as God to have created such an imperfect being as man?

The paradox of good and evil appears to be ineluctable as one might as well ask the question as to why God creates an angel who tempts him? The malicious being exists prior to the creation of mankind; therefore, the worry should not be concentrated upon the origins of evil, but upon man’s foremost encounter with a given power of wickedness. There is nearly no information on Satan’s fall until we are solidly fixed in Eden; pride is what leads Satan, previously known as Lucifer, to envy God and therefore to revolt, revolt to be expelled from heaven. The poem does not begin with Satan’s rebellion, although it would make more sense in terms of chronology. However, Milton’s goal is not in starting the poem with the origin of evil, but trying to teach of man’s disobedience. Milton does not attempt to justify God’s ways to devils. Satan is already fallen: “Nine times the space that measures day and night/To mortal men, he with his horrid crew/Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf” (Milton 1.50-52). The fall of the demonic angel manifests the evil’s existence in opposition to good. If the epic is to prolong our curiosity, a credible controversy must exist to divert the notion that the Fiend might succeed. At least in the upcoming Books, Milton describes Satan as the hero. However, a solution to the paradox is adroit. The strategic outcome of the conflict is given, absolute in the nature of Milton’s universe, Satan has to lose. On the other hand, the tactical product of the conflict is also given, Satan has to win.

A simile intended to focalize our prospect of the countless stunned legions of hell, right before they are stirred by Satan, at the same time focalizes our sense of the tranquil order of the creation, and of coming of the dark clouds, also and of man’s endurance through God’s prudence and his will. Satan, positioning himself clear of the rout, contrives to provoke his legions to novel evil deeds: “Of that inflamed sea, he stood and called/ His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced/Thick as autumnal leaves . . .” (Milton 1.300-03). The scenes Milton indicates, mimic hell’s defeat before the Fiend’s voice is heard. Whatever seeks to demolish the tranquility of “autumnal leaves” lies lifeless as “scattered sedge” (Milton 1.304). The continuity of the similes hinges on the middle image of Orion, which sketches both Satan’s power to rouse the fallen hordes and God’s power to scatter and destroy them: “Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed/Hath vexed the Red Sea coast,” (Milton 1.305-06). A further instance compares the legions of hell to “bees in springtime” (Milton 1.768-69). It is plainly a simile that diminishes hell while it amplifies creation. The absurdity of Satan’s condition makes him to submit to the destructive element. Milton’s cosmos is nothing if not purposive; liberty and independence lie in obedience to God, living under his providence, not in self-assured rebellion. Decisively, the Fiend is caught in a paradox: he only exists in self-assurance, yet for this assurance not to be fake, there must be no God; and if God does not exist then what is the Fallen Angel doing in hell? Milton, through his verse, tries to assert that nothing and no-thing exist outside of God.

The significance of Milton in the literary tradition cannot be overestimated. In his Paradise Lost, he adapts the diminished view of man’s place in the grand scheme of universe. The posing of eternal, paradoxical questions as to the nature of man, of his place in the cosmic mass, and his relationship to transcendence seem to be Milton’s greatest achievement, at least in Book I. The integration of fundamental questions into a talking piece is starkly modern. Milton’s blank verse has so many interwoven patterns that at some instances one may regard the work as non-English verse. As one editor puts it: “The way the world is imaged in Paradise Lost, in passionate fullness of detail, isoriginal. Milton’s cosmos; however, orderly, has always something of life’s capacity to surprise” (Carey et. al. 447).

Works Cited

Carey, John, and Alastair Fowler, eds. The Poems of John Milton. London: Longman

Group Ltd., 1968. Print.

French, Milton J. “Milton as a Historian.” PMLA 50.2 (1935): 469-79. Print.

Lewis, C. S. “The Stule of Secondary Epic.” Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical

Essays. Ed. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Print.

Miller, David M. John Milton: Poetry. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. John Leonard. London: Penguin Group, 2000. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Eds. Kerrigan, William et. al. New York: Modern Library,

2007. Print.

Vergilius, Publius Maro. The Aeneid of Virgil. Trans. John Connington. Ed. Edgar S.

Shumway. Boston: The Macmillan Company, 1910. Print.