A library is growing in Norway.
The Future Library is a time-capsule project, of sorts. A thousand trees were planted in a Norwegian forest this summer, to be harvested in a century's time. Every year until the day of the reaping, a different author will be invited to contribute a story to this library. The catch? The story will remain unread until these trees are made into the paper on which these works will be printed. The writers who contribute towards the beginning of the century won't likely live to see their books published. And that's sort of the point. In a hundred years, none of the originators of the project will be around to see its completion.
It'll be interesting to see what authors end up participating. It takes a certain sort of writer to produce a work that will likely be published posthumously, and to be happy with having completed it, without any notion of where it might stand in public opinion or among literary critics. It's fitting that the first contributor to the Future Library is Margaret Atwood; a science fiction writer is likely to agree with the notion of art as time capsule for future generations.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/margaret-atwood-new-work-unseen-century-future-library
Her story about the "lost" Haida manuscript in the above Guardian article is particularly apt. Who knows how language might change in a century? We certainly think differently than our ancestors did in the early 1900s. We find references to iceboxes and horse-drawn carriages archaic, for example, and there are many words that have disappeared from common usage in the past hundred years. It begs the question of whether authors who are consciously writing for the future, without the preconditions of a contemporary readership, would choose to write differently. To what extent, after all, does art demand and audience?
I am reminded (as I often am) of the Percy Shelley poem "Ozymandias," as well as of Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech. The Future Library seems simultaneously an endeavour without ego and perhaps the greatest projection of self-preservation instinct an author can have.
I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Eleanor Catton on Literary Elitism, Some Thoughts
I recently read this year's Man Booker Prize winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It's a sprawling epic of a mystery novel set in Australia during the gold rush, and brings together a large cast of close third-person characters. It's tremendously ambitious and very well-written, though to me, it seems a little "constructed" -- in large part due to the constraints of its narrative structure, which assigns each of the viewpoint characters an astrological symbol, and bases each chapter on an astrological interaction.
I then found this article that Catton wrote on elitism within the literary community -- a topic I've discussed quite a few times with people in the publishing industry, with fellow English majors, and with people who are enthusiastic readers but not involved with such communities:
http://metromag.co.nz/metro-archive/eleanor-catton-on-literature-and-elitism
Catton writes eloquently on the subject of literary criticism, and the idea of critics and qualified tastemakers in general. Her biases are, of course, obvious: she's the winner of a major literary prize, and a product of the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) system, which teaches what is considered serious literature. (I have some of my own pet peeves with that school of thought, one of which is their rather rigid definition of what might be considered "serious literature" -- often snubbing genre fiction of equal quality -- but that's neither here nor there.)
Biases aside, Catton makes some excellent points. There is a difference between quality as discerned by a critic -- presumably someone well-educated and qualified specifically for the role -- and enjoyableness as experienced by the lay reader. That's part of the value of a degree in literature, after all: the ability to recognize quality and to critique. (That's not to say that only English majors are qualified to write novels, or that all novels are written by English majors -- it's merely that, statistically speaking, such an education is more likely to confer the necessary skills.) Also, it's less a matter of creation as it is of appreciation. There's always a context, an artistic tradition, in which a work of art is produced, and it's a critic's job to bring her knowledge of said context to bear when judging the merits of the piece. In the case of prizes, that's especially true: the only way to evaluate a novel as "better" or "worse" than any other novel, given the subjectivity of the reading experience, is to view it in the context of greatness, meaning, and technical mastery as established by the books that came before it. Obviously, any individual critic might have, say, a penchant for Shakespeare and a gripe against Dostoevsky -- personal preferences that color her judgment -- but across many readers, scholars, and thinkers over the centuries, "the canon" has generally been tested and found to be a functional measure of quality.
These books are not necessarily the most "enjoyable" to read -- in fact, many of the best books are, to a certain degree, difficult. They require a level of thought and engagement from the reader that makes the experience that much more rewarding. After all, art is in many ways a conversation -- with its creator, with all the art that preceded it, with its audience, and with the criticism and study that it engenders. People these days -- Americans, especially -- are culturally obsessed with the idea of genius, of creation springing forth like Athena from the mind of Zeus, without taking into account the foundation (personal or societal) laid in preparation for the act of creation in the present. (I've previously written about this here.) Just as a writer -- an artist in any medium, really -- learns the craft by studying the greats, so too should an informed and conscientious reader strive to be a better appreciator and critic by putting in the work to understand a novel in its proper context. Only then can the reader really evaluate the book, whether her reaction is positive or negative, or (most often) somewhere in between. A thoughtful and articulate negative criticism of a book, I find, usually requires the deepest literary background, because the critic must develop a good sense of what the book and its author were attempting to do, and where the work fell short, as compared to literary masters who did it well.
Anyway. This is a topic of particular interest to me, so I expect to revisit it later. Also, I imagine it won't go away anytime soon, so there will probably be more articles, and more perspectives, that catch my eye.
I then found this article that Catton wrote on elitism within the literary community -- a topic I've discussed quite a few times with people in the publishing industry, with fellow English majors, and with people who are enthusiastic readers but not involved with such communities:
http://metromag.co.nz/metro-archive/eleanor-catton-on-literature-and-elitism
Catton writes eloquently on the subject of literary criticism, and the idea of critics and qualified tastemakers in general. Her biases are, of course, obvious: she's the winner of a major literary prize, and a product of the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) system, which teaches what is considered serious literature. (I have some of my own pet peeves with that school of thought, one of which is their rather rigid definition of what might be considered "serious literature" -- often snubbing genre fiction of equal quality -- but that's neither here nor there.)
Biases aside, Catton makes some excellent points. There is a difference between quality as discerned by a critic -- presumably someone well-educated and qualified specifically for the role -- and enjoyableness as experienced by the lay reader. That's part of the value of a degree in literature, after all: the ability to recognize quality and to critique. (That's not to say that only English majors are qualified to write novels, or that all novels are written by English majors -- it's merely that, statistically speaking, such an education is more likely to confer the necessary skills.) Also, it's less a matter of creation as it is of appreciation. There's always a context, an artistic tradition, in which a work of art is produced, and it's a critic's job to bring her knowledge of said context to bear when judging the merits of the piece. In the case of prizes, that's especially true: the only way to evaluate a novel as "better" or "worse" than any other novel, given the subjectivity of the reading experience, is to view it in the context of greatness, meaning, and technical mastery as established by the books that came before it. Obviously, any individual critic might have, say, a penchant for Shakespeare and a gripe against Dostoevsky -- personal preferences that color her judgment -- but across many readers, scholars, and thinkers over the centuries, "the canon" has generally been tested and found to be a functional measure of quality.
These books are not necessarily the most "enjoyable" to read -- in fact, many of the best books are, to a certain degree, difficult. They require a level of thought and engagement from the reader that makes the experience that much more rewarding. After all, art is in many ways a conversation -- with its creator, with all the art that preceded it, with its audience, and with the criticism and study that it engenders. People these days -- Americans, especially -- are culturally obsessed with the idea of genius, of creation springing forth like Athena from the mind of Zeus, without taking into account the foundation (personal or societal) laid in preparation for the act of creation in the present. (I've previously written about this here.) Just as a writer -- an artist in any medium, really -- learns the craft by studying the greats, so too should an informed and conscientious reader strive to be a better appreciator and critic by putting in the work to understand a novel in its proper context. Only then can the reader really evaluate the book, whether her reaction is positive or negative, or (most often) somewhere in between. A thoughtful and articulate negative criticism of a book, I find, usually requires the deepest literary background, because the critic must develop a good sense of what the book and its author were attempting to do, and where the work fell short, as compared to literary masters who did it well.
Anyway. This is a topic of particular interest to me, so I expect to revisit it later. Also, I imagine it won't go away anytime soon, so there will probably be more articles, and more perspectives, that catch my eye.
Monday, February 3, 2014
"Borges and I" by Jorge Luis Borges
I was just rereading one of my favorite short stories, and I wanted to share it with all of you. It's a very short piece called "Borges and I" by Jorges Luis Borges, and may be found here:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/borg&i.htm
It's not precisely a story, and it's so short that it might qualify more as flash fiction or microfiction -- or perhaps not any sort of fiction at all. I first encountered it, that I can remember, in a philosophy of literature course at university. Even then, I was awed by the way the piece conveys all the meaning of an essay in just a few paragraphs. It's stayed with me, the idea of the human being as a vessel for the creative spirit, much like Athena in the skull of Zeus.
In particular, there's the line "I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me." I find that over the past few years, I've appropriated that term, "justify," for my own use when thinking about creative output, human identity, and self-worth. It's a particularly powerful word in that it demands an answer. A person spends a lifetime striving for that answer -- especially artists, philosophers, creators, and others who feel the need to pursue goals greater than themselves.
It also introduces, in just a few turns of phrase, the dichotomy of solitary creation and human experience. Art is usually a form of commentary and a crystallization of ideas -- even if the artwork and the artist espouse no agenda nor any overt message. Good art requires some understanding of the themes and cadences of human existence, of living our lives on this planet. And yet so often, when an artist in the act is not experiencing anything new of the outside world; rather, he experiences himself in the act of creation. So, in one flesh and one mind, there must be some rub between the human being who lives and learns, and the artist who creates. Is it, then, the artist's fate to oscillate forever?
Just some food for thought, going into the new year. (The lunar New Year was this weekend.)
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/borg&i.htm
It's not precisely a story, and it's so short that it might qualify more as flash fiction or microfiction -- or perhaps not any sort of fiction at all. I first encountered it, that I can remember, in a philosophy of literature course at university. Even then, I was awed by the way the piece conveys all the meaning of an essay in just a few paragraphs. It's stayed with me, the idea of the human being as a vessel for the creative spirit, much like Athena in the skull of Zeus.
In particular, there's the line "I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me." I find that over the past few years, I've appropriated that term, "justify," for my own use when thinking about creative output, human identity, and self-worth. It's a particularly powerful word in that it demands an answer. A person spends a lifetime striving for that answer -- especially artists, philosophers, creators, and others who feel the need to pursue goals greater than themselves.
It also introduces, in just a few turns of phrase, the dichotomy of solitary creation and human experience. Art is usually a form of commentary and a crystallization of ideas -- even if the artwork and the artist espouse no agenda nor any overt message. Good art requires some understanding of the themes and cadences of human existence, of living our lives on this planet. And yet so often, when an artist in the act is not experiencing anything new of the outside world; rather, he experiences himself in the act of creation. So, in one flesh and one mind, there must be some rub between the human being who lives and learns, and the artist who creates. Is it, then, the artist's fate to oscillate forever?
Just some food for thought, going into the new year. (The lunar New Year was this weekend.)
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Reality, Relativity, and Light
I read José Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon last week -- in translation, of course, since I don't read Portuguese. It's excellent, and somewhat stylistically and structurally unusual. But I was struck, in particular, by this line, spoken to the protagonist by his lover (the relationship is rather more complicated than that, of course):
This is especially relevant to the subject matter because the 1147 Siege of Lisbon, about which the protagonist writes, was a manifestation of a centuries-old clash of cultures and religions, a battle between two peoples who understood the same God through different scriptures and different prophets. Elizabeth I once said, in another century about another religious conflict, "I would not open windows into men's souls." Such windows can only be approximated, even in the best of circumstances.
I'm also taken by the Saramago's use of light in this scene -- something one normally associates with visual art rather than with prose. It's ripe with symbolism; the notion of shedding light on something intangible, that our eyes can tell us about reality between two people, &c. I'm reminded of two things:
The second thing is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Our understanding of what goes on inside another person's mind is rather like to the prisoners' understanding of the shadows on the wall. Another person's reality undergoes several layers of translation before it becomes comprehensible to us; the "truth" is distorted by their perception, interpreted by their mind, conveyed by their words, filtered by our ears, and only then is it analyzed by our minds. Plato's prisoners are eventually unchained, but there is no way for any of us to overcome this process of interpretation. The amount that must get lost in translation is mind-boggling. It makes me wonder what a society of perfect communication (of telepathy, essentially) would look like.
Edit: Soon after writing this post, I chanced upon an io9 article about philosophical thought experiments: http://io9.com/9-philosophical-thought-experiments-that-will-keep-you-1340952809@AnnaleeNewitz. The third entry therein, "The Beetle in the Box" (aka the Private Language Argument), is very much like what I discuss above. The second entry, "Mary the Colorblind Neuroscientist" (aka the Inverted Spectrum Problem), is also quite similar to the Allegory of the Cave. It's well worth reading.
Switch on the light, she said, I want to know if this is real. (p264)The relationship between any two people -- even within family, even between people who might have known each other their whole lives -- is a fragile thing. Within that relationship, there are layers of reality, of perception. It's a sort of relativity, even -- one that isn't governed by any laws of physics. His reality and hers could be completely different, and each moment's reality different from the next. It's odd to think that we can never know what another person's reality looks like; the closest we can come is to achieve an understanding of how our reality compares to what we perceive to be their reality, with full awareness that our vantage point colours our reading.
This is especially relevant to the subject matter because the 1147 Siege of Lisbon, about which the protagonist writes, was a manifestation of a centuries-old clash of cultures and religions, a battle between two peoples who understood the same God through different scriptures and different prophets. Elizabeth I once said, in another century about another religious conflict, "I would not open windows into men's souls." Such windows can only be approximated, even in the best of circumstances.
I'm also taken by the Saramago's use of light in this scene -- something one normally associates with visual art rather than with prose. It's ripe with symbolism; the notion of shedding light on something intangible, that our eyes can tell us about reality between two people, &c. I'm reminded of two things:
Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination...So many years after the events of "The Phantom of the Opera," the very chandelier that was associated with the disaster perpetrated by the Phantom is now a source of illumination -- both as a refurbished light fixture, and as a window into the murky past, the audience's introduction to the story. Because it is an inanimate object with a lofty vantage point, it is, in a fashion, the impartial observer of the story. And yet, it is also a crucial "participant" in the story. Its impartiality is not so much due to its placement, a lamp hanging high above the human characters, but rather because it has no free will, no desires or motivations of its own.
~ "The Phantom of the Opera," Act I, Scene 1
The second thing is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Our understanding of what goes on inside another person's mind is rather like to the prisoners' understanding of the shadows on the wall. Another person's reality undergoes several layers of translation before it becomes comprehensible to us; the "truth" is distorted by their perception, interpreted by their mind, conveyed by their words, filtered by our ears, and only then is it analyzed by our minds. Plato's prisoners are eventually unchained, but there is no way for any of us to overcome this process of interpretation. The amount that must get lost in translation is mind-boggling. It makes me wonder what a society of perfect communication (of telepathy, essentially) would look like.
Edit: Soon after writing this post, I chanced upon an io9 article about philosophical thought experiments: http://io9.com/9-philosophical-thought-experiments-that-will-keep-you-1340952809@AnnaleeNewitz. The third entry therein, "The Beetle in the Box" (aka the Private Language Argument), is very much like what I discuss above. The second entry, "Mary the Colorblind Neuroscientist" (aka the Inverted Spectrum Problem), is also quite similar to the Allegory of the Cave. It's well worth reading.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
io9: Why Eugenics is a Bad Idea (aside from all the obvious moral reasons)
I recently read Paolo Bacigalupi's short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories, which is deliciously creepy and dystopian. That anthology, and this io9 article (which I read at around the same time), got me thinking about human genetic engineering on a macroscopic scale:
http://io9.com/5925024/why-eugenics-will-always-fail
Our notions of eugenics can be roughly sorted into two categories: ways to optimize our species (for some agreed-upon and likely artificial optimal characteristics), and ways to eliminate genetic weaknesses (an extremely aggressive, sentient form of Darwinism). The former option represents selecting for a hypothetical upper bound, and the latter would be selecting against a lower bound.
When we talk about eugenics, most of us imagine the first option. The cultural connotation of the term "eugenics" includes the Holocaust, the book Brave New World, and the film "Gattaca" -- all of which involve human rights violations. In selecting for a certain ideal, a society makes mincemeat of the rights of those who fall below the arbitrary cut-off. Because eugenics usually comes with gross restrictions of free will -- and in many cases, murder -- we tend to see it as a purely moral evil. This usually brings about international intervention (the timeliness and effectiveness of said interventions being a different matter entirely), or at least the common recognition that such atrocities ought to be prevented.
The above io9 article lays out a few intuitive arguments against eugenics from a practical perspective, contending that -- morality aside -- it simply wouldn't be effective. They boil down to: imprecision, biodiversity, and the limitations of human foresight. (In essence, the short-term microscopic, the middle-term macroscopic, and the long-term in both. The article explains in further detail.) We don't know enough (and likely will never know enough) to get away with attempting to fashion our species in the image of some ideal -- not to mention that it would be impossible to get all seven billion of us to agree on said ideal in the first place. These are all, however, problems that arise when selecting for an upper bound, a hypothetical ideal specimen of humanity.
A (very) soft version of a scenario where we select against a lower bound is already in place, given amniocentesis and women's right to abort. Many women choose to abort after they receive an abnormal genetic diagnosis -- when the fetus has a genetic or congenital defect that would severely diminish the hypothetical child's lifespan or quality of life. The logic is that never existing -- which, for the record, is distinct from ceasing to exist after a period of existence -- is preferable to a life of pain and suffering with little ability to self-actualize. Self-actualization is incredibly important -- it's what makes us human and distinguishes us from other animals. This form of selection, which can be considered a mild and diffuse form of eugenics, increases the average human being's ability to self-actualize, thereby increasing (in a thought experiment where sentience is quantifiable on a scale) our species's average sentience through conscious choice by prospective parents -- a rough extension of natural sexual selection, in the way that most technologies exacerbate existing dilemmas and play upon existing quirks of human nature, rather than creating new ones where they didn't exist before. (To be clear, I recognize that I just exploded a can of worms -- that humans aren't generally more or less sentient than other humans, and that legally, ethically, metaphysically, &c. we all ought to be considered equally sentient, except in cases of limited ability to consent (i.e. children, mentally disabled persons), in which case laws are made to protect said people.)
The danger, then, is where the upper and lower bound options meet in the middle. (I'm resisting the obvious temptation to make some horrible joke about quantum mechanics and relativity here.) It's significant, therefore, that the former option is mandated by an external force and doesn't allow parents to meaningfully consent; the latter option is voluntarily initiated by the potential parents. The lower bound scenario never turns into the problematic upper bound scenario precisely because of this element of free will. The moment it moves from a bottom-up to a top-down approach -- when it veers too close to selection for an ideal, thereby impinging upon the rights of the sentient but non-ideal population -- it becomes the morally degenerate form of eugenics of genocide and dystopian science fiction. There lies the bright-line we should be aware of.
And that's all for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
http://io9.com/5925024/why-eugenics-will-always-fail
Our notions of eugenics can be roughly sorted into two categories: ways to optimize our species (for some agreed-upon and likely artificial optimal characteristics), and ways to eliminate genetic weaknesses (an extremely aggressive, sentient form of Darwinism). The former option represents selecting for a hypothetical upper bound, and the latter would be selecting against a lower bound.
When we talk about eugenics, most of us imagine the first option. The cultural connotation of the term "eugenics" includes the Holocaust, the book Brave New World, and the film "Gattaca" -- all of which involve human rights violations. In selecting for a certain ideal, a society makes mincemeat of the rights of those who fall below the arbitrary cut-off. Because eugenics usually comes with gross restrictions of free will -- and in many cases, murder -- we tend to see it as a purely moral evil. This usually brings about international intervention (the timeliness and effectiveness of said interventions being a different matter entirely), or at least the common recognition that such atrocities ought to be prevented.
The above io9 article lays out a few intuitive arguments against eugenics from a practical perspective, contending that -- morality aside -- it simply wouldn't be effective. They boil down to: imprecision, biodiversity, and the limitations of human foresight. (In essence, the short-term microscopic, the middle-term macroscopic, and the long-term in both. The article explains in further detail.) We don't know enough (and likely will never know enough) to get away with attempting to fashion our species in the image of some ideal -- not to mention that it would be impossible to get all seven billion of us to agree on said ideal in the first place. These are all, however, problems that arise when selecting for an upper bound, a hypothetical ideal specimen of humanity.
A (very) soft version of a scenario where we select against a lower bound is already in place, given amniocentesis and women's right to abort. Many women choose to abort after they receive an abnormal genetic diagnosis -- when the fetus has a genetic or congenital defect that would severely diminish the hypothetical child's lifespan or quality of life. The logic is that never existing -- which, for the record, is distinct from ceasing to exist after a period of existence -- is preferable to a life of pain and suffering with little ability to self-actualize. Self-actualization is incredibly important -- it's what makes us human and distinguishes us from other animals. This form of selection, which can be considered a mild and diffuse form of eugenics, increases the average human being's ability to self-actualize, thereby increasing (in a thought experiment where sentience is quantifiable on a scale) our species's average sentience through conscious choice by prospective parents -- a rough extension of natural sexual selection, in the way that most technologies exacerbate existing dilemmas and play upon existing quirks of human nature, rather than creating new ones where they didn't exist before. (To be clear, I recognize that I just exploded a can of worms -- that humans aren't generally more or less sentient than other humans, and that legally, ethically, metaphysically, &c. we all ought to be considered equally sentient, except in cases of limited ability to consent (i.e. children, mentally disabled persons), in which case laws are made to protect said people.)
The danger, then, is where the upper and lower bound options meet in the middle. (I'm resisting the obvious temptation to make some horrible joke about quantum mechanics and relativity here.) It's significant, therefore, that the former option is mandated by an external force and doesn't allow parents to meaningfully consent; the latter option is voluntarily initiated by the potential parents. The lower bound scenario never turns into the problematic upper bound scenario precisely because of this element of free will. The moment it moves from a bottom-up to a top-down approach -- when it veers too close to selection for an ideal, thereby impinging upon the rights of the sentient but non-ideal population -- it becomes the morally degenerate form of eugenics of genocide and dystopian science fiction. There lies the bright-line we should be aware of.
And that's all for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Friday, August 30, 2013
R.I.P Seamus Heaney
A literary luminary died today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435
I've owned a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf for as long as I can remember, and I've read it cover-to-cover at least three times. It's beautiful, and not just because the parallel text (with annotations!) indicates just how faithfully Heaney translated from the original Anglo-Saxon. Rather, given the cadence and word choice of his modern English, it becomes immediately evident that the translator is himself a poet.
Few poets have been as universally revered in their lifetimes as Heaney was. It has been said, even before today, that he was Yeats's successor as Ireland's foremost poet -- and one would be hard-pressed to find a competitor for the accolade. His original poetry was not only sublime, but also widely accessible -- he was a true poet of the people. His laurels are too many to count (including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Struga Golden Wreath, and the Irish PEN), but in my mind, one of his most significant accomplishments was that he brought poetry to those who might not otherwise consume poetry, who might consider the art too academic, too arcane. He brought beauty and wonder to generations of readers who saw something of themselves set on paper in his words.
He was, by all accounts, a compassionate and upstanding man who was profoundly aware of his position as a voice of the people in a land often rent by civil and religious strife. He tried to balance a sense of cultural heritage and pride of place with a concern for individuals that was evident in everything he wrote. One of my favorite of his poems, "Digging," describes his work as a natural continuation of the life's work of his forefathers, telling the story of several generations in just a few verses. (You can hear Heaney's own rendition of it here.)
A star has fallen.
Edit: I just discovered that Seamus Heaney's last words, delivered via text message, were "Noli timere" (Latin for "Be not afraid"). How fitting -- he was a poet to the last.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435
I've owned a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf for as long as I can remember, and I've read it cover-to-cover at least three times. It's beautiful, and not just because the parallel text (with annotations!) indicates just how faithfully Heaney translated from the original Anglo-Saxon. Rather, given the cadence and word choice of his modern English, it becomes immediately evident that the translator is himself a poet.
Few poets have been as universally revered in their lifetimes as Heaney was. It has been said, even before today, that he was Yeats's successor as Ireland's foremost poet -- and one would be hard-pressed to find a competitor for the accolade. His original poetry was not only sublime, but also widely accessible -- he was a true poet of the people. His laurels are too many to count (including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Struga Golden Wreath, and the Irish PEN), but in my mind, one of his most significant accomplishments was that he brought poetry to those who might not otherwise consume poetry, who might consider the art too academic, too arcane. He brought beauty and wonder to generations of readers who saw something of themselves set on paper in his words.
He was, by all accounts, a compassionate and upstanding man who was profoundly aware of his position as a voice of the people in a land often rent by civil and religious strife. He tried to balance a sense of cultural heritage and pride of place with a concern for individuals that was evident in everything he wrote. One of my favorite of his poems, "Digging," describes his work as a natural continuation of the life's work of his forefathers, telling the story of several generations in just a few verses. (You can hear Heaney's own rendition of it here.)
A star has fallen.
Edit: I just discovered that Seamus Heaney's last words, delivered via text message, were "Noli timere" (Latin for "Be not afraid"). How fitting -- he was a poet to the last.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Faulkner on Literature, Humanity, and Immortality
On Sunday, I had dinner with my friend Brett after an afternoon visit to the Met. I was telling him about an amazing, inspiring book talk I'd recently attended: it was a conversation between Adam Johnson, a Stanford English professor and this year's Pulitzer winner in fiction, and Fredrik Logevall, a Cornell history professor and the Pulitzer winner in nonfiction, moderated by their editor, David Ebershoff, of Random House.
Brett was reminded of (and sent me) this particular speech delivered by William Faulkner on the acceptance of his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html
It's brilliant and quite worth reading (and not very long) -- so do actually read it! Faulkner's claim is, essentially, that literature -- the written word, storytelling, art -- is humanity's way of achieving some semblance of immortality. He writes not of the genetic "immortality" perpetuated by our biology, of course; I think one of the prerequisites of sentience is a consciousness of meaning greater than base instinct. Rather, Faulkner speaks to our legacy as a species -- the ideas, the intellectual and creative achievements by which humanity might define itself.
Literature is one such vehicle. I would hesitate to call it a record -- that term falls too much in the realm of historiography (which is itself an ambitious and meaningful endeavour, of course) -- but perhaps one might consider literature the pared-down essence of what it means to be human. In books, in art, we see reflected not only the best (and the worst) -- but also the deepest, truest, and most beautiful aspects of ourselves. In literature, we are immortal -- not only the writer, and sometimes not the writer at all (Homer is the example that comes to mind) -- but we, as a sentient species, are captured, burnished, chased in silver -- forever.
Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment centuries earlier:
Brett was reminded of (and sent me) this particular speech delivered by William Faulkner on the acceptance of his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html
It's brilliant and quite worth reading (and not very long) -- so do actually read it! Faulkner's claim is, essentially, that literature -- the written word, storytelling, art -- is humanity's way of achieving some semblance of immortality. He writes not of the genetic "immortality" perpetuated by our biology, of course; I think one of the prerequisites of sentience is a consciousness of meaning greater than base instinct. Rather, Faulkner speaks to our legacy as a species -- the ideas, the intellectual and creative achievements by which humanity might define itself.
Literature is one such vehicle. I would hesitate to call it a record -- that term falls too much in the realm of historiography (which is itself an ambitious and meaningful endeavour, of course) -- but perhaps one might consider literature the pared-down essence of what it means to be human. In books, in art, we see reflected not only the best (and the worst) -- but also the deepest, truest, and most beautiful aspects of ourselves. In literature, we are immortal -- not only the writer, and sometimes not the writer at all (Homer is the example that comes to mind) -- but we, as a sentient species, are captured, burnished, chased in silver -- forever.
Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment centuries earlier:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(Sonnet 18, lines 13-14)
Monday, June 3, 2013
If I Used Twitter
my post for the night would be:
Helping my sister with an English project on Julius Caesar -- haven't had this much fun with Shakespeare since college! #EnglishMajorArmadilloThat is all.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
What Would You Do with a Time Machine?
I've been asked the above question quite a few times (I think it happens to history majors fairly frequently), and my answer tends to vary depending on the classes I happen(ed) to be taking, the books in my bag, the day of the week, &c. By now, I do have a list of responses that I cycle through and explain in depth at parties (which, for me, are of the variety that includes social dancing, board games, home cooking, or karaoke).
This is an answer I've given before, because I think it's one of the great tragedies of the classical world:
This is an answer I've given before, because I think it's one of the great tragedies of the classical world:
I imagine the "Dark Ages" would have turned out quite differently had the libraries of Egypt, Rome, and all the other great ancient cities not burned. So much knowledge -- especially in the sciences -- was lost, setting human progress in the West back several centuries. If I had a time machine... I would definitely go back to save the second volume of Aristotle's Poetics, and Aristarchus's text on astronomy, and Ovid's Medea, and Euripides's lost plays...
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
io9: Galileo's Ship Was One of the Oldest Relativity Though Experiments
It has always irked me, a little, when people claim that Einstein "invented" relativity. The man was a genius, to be sure, and contributed greatly to our understanding of general and special relativity in modern physics -- but the idea of relativity existed well before him. The term itself is quite broad, encompassing everything from temporal and spatial relativity to more nebulous perspective- and human interaction-based concepts; it hardly seems possible that despite hundreds of years of innovation in math and physics, relativity only arose within the past century. Certainly, there have been a number of similar (if more rudimentary) observations throughout history, such as Zeno's paradox(es). One of the oldest examples dates from the Renaissance:
http://io9.com/galileos-ship-was-one-of-the-oldest-relativity-thought-486468038
It sounds like a very low-tech version of Einstein's lasers-on-a-train thought experiment, doesn't it?
This brings to mind a blog post from about a year ago... Straying away from the sciences for a moment, relativity as an abstract concept -- even models of relative perspective uncannily like the sort of thought experiments Einstein proposed -- seems to have existed in the literary and cultural milieu for quite a while. It's reasonable to conjecture that there was some cross-pollination. (Eliot, for example, even drops an allusion or two to relativity in "The Waste Land.") The idea of relativity is marvelously intuitive (albeit in a slightly mind-bendy way) and quite useful in describing life alongside other sentient beings.
http://io9.com/galileos-ship-was-one-of-the-oldest-relativity-thought-486468038
It sounds like a very low-tech version of Einstein's lasers-on-a-train thought experiment, doesn't it?
This brings to mind a blog post from about a year ago... Straying away from the sciences for a moment, relativity as an abstract concept -- even models of relative perspective uncannily like the sort of thought experiments Einstein proposed -- seems to have existed in the literary and cultural milieu for quite a while. It's reasonable to conjecture that there was some cross-pollination. (Eliot, for example, even drops an allusion or two to relativity in "The Waste Land.") The idea of relativity is marvelously intuitive (albeit in a slightly mind-bendy way) and quite useful in describing life alongside other sentient beings.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
A Journal of the University Years
Here is a slightly fictionalized account of my evolution as an English major, illustrated entirely using armadillos:
The dark days of pre-med... ("Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore!'")
Upon overhearing my former classmates:
"And how much reading do you have?" (See, I remember exactly how much chemistry homework I used to get.)
Or, in my case...
Everyone else: working on group projects in Gates (Stanford computer science building) until 2am
Me: holed up alone in dorm room, on the floor, open books spread out in concentric circles around me, writing papers
I look back at my blogging history from last year and cringe at the truth this armadillo speaks.
And then...
3am? That's cute. It was more along the lines of: peers blearily at the mess of paper (no longer neatly arranged in concentric circles), peers blearily at the small army of tea-stained mugs invading said papers, wades through the detritus of the all-nighter to find a printer as the first rays of sunlight illuminate the room.
But wait! Right before I hand it in...
P.S. -- Don't deny that you laughed at the post title.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
English Major Armadillo, or, Memes I Wish Would Catch On
I started reading this tumblr recently...
http://fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo.tumblr.com
I am so very amused. Now, should the question arise, I can tell non-bibliophiles that I am an armadillo (not this kind of armadillo, mind you). If not a separate species, certainly we're a tribe unto ourselves, at least on the internet(s). Exhibit A: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.
Someone please make one for history majors. How about History Major Kangaroo? Or History Major Hippopotamus (which has a nice alliterative ring to it)? (If there already is one, please do send it my way! One can never have too many nerdy web-humor sites bookmarked.)
Edit: There is one! It's called History Major Heraldic Beast, which is much cleverer than either kangaroo or hippopotamus.
http://fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo.tumblr.com
I am so very amused. Now, should the question arise, I can tell non-bibliophiles that I am an armadillo (not this kind of armadillo, mind you). If not a separate species, certainly we're a tribe unto ourselves, at least on the internet(s). Exhibit A: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.
Someone please make one for history majors. How about History Major Kangaroo? Or History Major Hippopotamus (which has a nice alliterative ring to it)? (If there already is one, please do send it my way! One can never have too many nerdy web-humor sites bookmarked.)
Edit: There is one! It's called History Major Heraldic Beast, which is much cleverer than either kangaroo or hippopotamus.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Girls Who Read
A moving, thought-provoking pair of essays on literature and love:
"You Should Date an Illiterate Girl"--
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/dont-date-a-girl-who-reads/
"Date a Girl Who Reads"--
http://littlemissdorkette.tumblr.com/post/3118512524/date-a-girl-who-reads-by-rosemarie-urquico
(Read these first, if only for context. I don't completely agree with them -- the bit about lying, for instance -- but I share the general sentiment, quite deeply.)
I don't think I could love someone who doesn't appreciate books. Words are love; words are life (and livelihood -- I'm in publishing, after all). Literature lends one's love the richness of a thousand loves, imbues one's life with the joys and sorrows of a thousand lives. There is a reason why love poems have lost none of their power over the centuries, why stories continue to move readers to tears and laughter. There is a reason why books still burn. They are dangerous -- and so is love.
I want to live life gloriously, in many colours, with as much passion and splendor as any of the heroes of story and myth. Yes, introduce me to books I haven't yet read, places I haven't yet seen, words I can't yet wrap my tongue around, and I will do the same for you. I don't mind sharing a bed with lords and ladies, Victorian gentlemen in morning coats, bonneted midwives, princesses, admirals, magicians, demons, lovers. They're the distant cousins whose faded features we see etched in black and white, whose stories we know through irregular letters, whose children we have never kissed but love already. When we close our books and turn off the lights, they recede into our minds again, a trick that flesh-and-blood house-guests never seem to have mastered. And yes, when they make me cry, hold me. This, too, shall pass.
I want to die without regrets, or failing that, I want to die regretting only what I have done, rather than what I never did. I want to die having learned something new every day of my life. I want to die doing something I love, something I've never done before, or perhaps something I've enjoyed doing every day, every week, with the people I love most in the world. I want to die between the pages of a book, or in the arms of a loved one, or perhaps both at once. It's possible. With the right book, and the right person, they are much the same, after all.
I believe it's possible. Do you?
"You Should Date an Illiterate Girl"--
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/dont-date-a-girl-who-reads/
"Date a Girl Who Reads"--
http://littlemissdorkette.tumblr.com/post/3118512524/date-a-girl-who-reads-by-rosemarie-urquico
(Read these first, if only for context. I don't completely agree with them -- the bit about lying, for instance -- but I share the general sentiment, quite deeply.)
I don't think I could love someone who doesn't appreciate books. Words are love; words are life (and livelihood -- I'm in publishing, after all). Literature lends one's love the richness of a thousand loves, imbues one's life with the joys and sorrows of a thousand lives. There is a reason why love poems have lost none of their power over the centuries, why stories continue to move readers to tears and laughter. There is a reason why books still burn. They are dangerous -- and so is love.
I want to live life gloriously, in many colours, with as much passion and splendor as any of the heroes of story and myth. Yes, introduce me to books I haven't yet read, places I haven't yet seen, words I can't yet wrap my tongue around, and I will do the same for you. I don't mind sharing a bed with lords and ladies, Victorian gentlemen in morning coats, bonneted midwives, princesses, admirals, magicians, demons, lovers. They're the distant cousins whose faded features we see etched in black and white, whose stories we know through irregular letters, whose children we have never kissed but love already. When we close our books and turn off the lights, they recede into our minds again, a trick that flesh-and-blood house-guests never seem to have mastered. And yes, when they make me cry, hold me. This, too, shall pass.
I want to die without regrets, or failing that, I want to die regretting only what I have done, rather than what I never did. I want to die having learned something new every day of my life. I want to die doing something I love, something I've never done before, or perhaps something I've enjoyed doing every day, every week, with the people I love most in the world. I want to die between the pages of a book, or in the arms of a loved one, or perhaps both at once. It's possible. With the right book, and the right person, they are much the same, after all.
I believe it's possible. Do you?
Monday, February 11, 2013
NYTimes: Richard III, Lost and Found
In recent news -- making both archaeological and regular news headlines around the world -- the bones of Richard III were discovered under a parking lot in Leicester:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?hp
I'm inclined to be more sympathetic towards Richard III than literature portrays him (Shakespeare's play was an instrument of the Tudor smear campaign against the Plantagenets). He probably suffered from "younger sibling syndrome," as did many "spare heirs" of monarchs in the Middle Ages -- see Scar vs. Mufasa in The Lion King (and play "spot the Shakespeare references"). This was also probably exacerbated by his uninspiring physical appearance -- see Tyrion Lannister in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. (Especially in those days, physical birth defects were seen as portents of ill fortune.) Richard came by the throne in a slightly roundabout way that involved some unsavory tactics; certainly, he can't have been completely innocent in the Princes in the Tower episode. But he was by and large a competent administrator who contributed significantly to the nascent English legal system and, notably, lifted most public and private censorship of written work -- not a move to be taken lightly, especially given the political turmoil surrounding his ascension and reign. He was ruthless, to be sure, sometimes excessively so, but his were much more violent times. (Nasty, brutish, and short would be about right.) Richard III was not, among his peers, particularly remarkable in his ruthlessness -- which the Tudors, Shakespeare, and partisan historians conveniently forget.
Anyhow. I imagine it must have been a fascinating experience for the modern-day descendants of Richard III, a few of whom contributed some DNA to the project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?hp
I'm inclined to be more sympathetic towards Richard III than literature portrays him (Shakespeare's play was an instrument of the Tudor smear campaign against the Plantagenets). He probably suffered from "younger sibling syndrome," as did many "spare heirs" of monarchs in the Middle Ages -- see Scar vs. Mufasa in The Lion King (and play "spot the Shakespeare references"). This was also probably exacerbated by his uninspiring physical appearance -- see Tyrion Lannister in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. (Especially in those days, physical birth defects were seen as portents of ill fortune.) Richard came by the throne in a slightly roundabout way that involved some unsavory tactics; certainly, he can't have been completely innocent in the Princes in the Tower episode. But he was by and large a competent administrator who contributed significantly to the nascent English legal system and, notably, lifted most public and private censorship of written work -- not a move to be taken lightly, especially given the political turmoil surrounding his ascension and reign. He was ruthless, to be sure, sometimes excessively so, but his were much more violent times. (Nasty, brutish, and short would be about right.) Richard III was not, among his peers, particularly remarkable in his ruthlessness -- which the Tudors, Shakespeare, and partisan historians conveniently forget.
Anyhow. I imagine it must have been a fascinating experience for the modern-day descendants of Richard III, a few of whom contributed some DNA to the project.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
NYTimes: A Religious Perspective on the Newtown Massacre
I have, on occasion, made my views on religion known to readers of this blog. (I don't think religion and politics should be taboo topics of conversation, so long as disagreements are civil and rational.) I consider myself secularly spiritual. I personally think of religion as a blend of mythology and morality, but I have great respect for religious people who live by the true tenets of their creed (which I don't think include holy wars, persecution of minorities, or evangelism), and I believe that the hearts of most religions are benevolent and peace-loving. I appreciate the value of the moral guidance and comfort that religion can bring to believers in difficult times. This is an example of such:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/dowd-why-god.html?hp&_r=0&gwh=02A7DB3DBD76598A7F25B51569ED6491
This man reminds me of Victor Hugo's Bishop of Digne, one of the first and finest examples of religious men I'd encountered.
Merry Christmas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/dowd-why-god.html?hp&_r=0&gwh=02A7DB3DBD76598A7F25B51569ED6491
This man reminds me of Victor Hugo's Bishop of Digne, one of the first and finest examples of religious men I'd encountered.
Merry Christmas.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Abstruse Goose: In Cabin'd Ships at Sea
Whitman in the modern age (courtesy of Brett):
http://abstrusegoose.com/477
(You may have to click on the image to make the font a more legible size.)
It frustrates me to no end when people claim that poetry written long ago is irrelevant to life today. Part of the appeal of literature is its timelessness -- that while the specific time and place depicted might be past, human nature has not changed over the centuries. (I maintain that the Oedipus Cycle is one of the original family dramas. Would anything that messed up air on modern television? (Wait, A Game of Thrones is now on HBO. I take that back.))
Seriously, if you think poetry is outdated, quote your girlfriend some Yeats or Neruda or Shakespeare. Or, if you have a boyfriend, some Anne Bradstreet or Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
R.I.P. Ray Bradbury
He died this week (on the 5th). The New York Times obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/ray-bradbury-popularizer-of-science-fiction-dies-at-91.html?_r=1&ref=arts&gwh=DAB304701677810DA93A673A1510F1D2
I first learned of it from Neil Gaiman's blog, actually. He was tapped to write a tribute piece in The Guardian, and he paints a beautiful portrait of this science fiction maestro:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/06/ray-bradbury-neil-gaiman-appreciation
We all knew that Bradbury was a pioneer of the genre. We all admired his skill, his imagination, his understanding of human nature. This reveals a side of him that, sadly, many of us never encountered -- the genuine, kind human being. People like that are precious.
Here's another:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120608-meeting-the-master-ray-bradbury
I love his devotion to the book as an object (something I'm more than a little afraid that e-readers will kill off), especially seeing as he was a science fiction writer. (I have an e-reader, but I feel the same way about books, which increasingly makes me appear a troglodyte among my peers.) I love his enthusiasm. And of course, as Gaiman so eloquently depicted it, his kindness.
Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/ray-bradbury-popularizer-of-science-fiction-dies-at-91.html?_r=1&ref=arts&gwh=DAB304701677810DA93A673A1510F1D2
I first learned of it from Neil Gaiman's blog, actually. He was tapped to write a tribute piece in The Guardian, and he paints a beautiful portrait of this science fiction maestro:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/06/ray-bradbury-neil-gaiman-appreciation
We all knew that Bradbury was a pioneer of the genre. We all admired his skill, his imagination, his understanding of human nature. This reveals a side of him that, sadly, many of us never encountered -- the genuine, kind human being. People like that are precious.
Here's another:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120608-meeting-the-master-ray-bradbury
I love his devotion to the book as an object (something I'm more than a little afraid that e-readers will kill off), especially seeing as he was a science fiction writer. (I have an e-reader, but I feel the same way about books, which increasingly makes me appear a troglodyte among my peers.) I love his enthusiasm. And of course, as Gaiman so eloquently depicted it, his kindness.
Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Oven Bird (by Robert Frost)
I'm taking a Poetry and Poetics course this quarter, and I just finished writing a paper on this particular Frost poem. I'd never read it before this class, but I've come to really like it. (That's the funny thing about papers/assignments; by the end, you come to either love or hate whatever it is you've been working on.) Anyhow, I thought I'd share:
The Oven Bird
by Robert Frost (1916)
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
Frost, here, is lamenting the end of an era, which I thought was eminently appropriate to our impending graduation. (Does putting it in writing make it real?) Perhaps that's why the poem resonated with me so, more so than it might have at another point in my life. I know well that Frost is writing about being a middle-aged poet, thinking he's past his prime or being eclipsed by the younger generation of more experimental contemporary poets, but it's a similar sentiment. There's this sinking feeling that accompanies the idea of leaving the Stanford bubble, of being a continent away from the people I've come to know and love. It does feel like the best few years of my life might be slipping through my fingers -- though of course, I hope I'll do greater things with myself in future. I have regrets, I have anxieties, and I have the deep-seated, overwhelming sense of nostalgia for a passing age that Frost portrays so well in "The Oven Bird."
The Oven Bird
by Robert Frost (1916)
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
Frost, here, is lamenting the end of an era, which I thought was eminently appropriate to our impending graduation. (Does putting it in writing make it real?) Perhaps that's why the poem resonated with me so, more so than it might have at another point in my life. I know well that Frost is writing about being a middle-aged poet, thinking he's past his prime or being eclipsed by the younger generation of more experimental contemporary poets, but it's a similar sentiment. There's this sinking feeling that accompanies the idea of leaving the Stanford bubble, of being a continent away from the people I've come to know and love. It does feel like the best few years of my life might be slipping through my fingers -- though of course, I hope I'll do greater things with myself in future. I have regrets, I have anxieties, and I have the deep-seated, overwhelming sense of nostalgia for a passing age that Frost portrays so well in "The Oven Bird."
Thursday, May 31, 2012
io9: Blowfish-Man Film
This is somewhat disturbing, and so quintessentially Japanese:
http://io9.com/5914061/watch-a-man-turn-into-a-blowfish-in-one-horrifying-short?tag=trailer-frenzy
I'll admit, I watched that trailer about five times, with what I'm sure was an expression of horrified fascination on my face. The CGI is really something; it's in that zone between extremely realistic and "you know it's impossible even though your eyes tell you otherwise." It evokes the sort of feeling that Neil Gaiman's or China Miéville's writing does; the milieu is rather Lovecraftian.
http://io9.com/5914061/watch-a-man-turn-into-a-blowfish-in-one-horrifying-short?tag=trailer-frenzy
I'll admit, I watched that trailer about five times, with what I'm sure was an expression of horrified fascination on my face. The CGI is really something; it's in that zone between extremely realistic and "you know it's impossible even though your eyes tell you otherwise." It evokes the sort of feeling that Neil Gaiman's or China Miéville's writing does; the milieu is rather Lovecraftian.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Fire and Ice (by Robert Frost)
I presented this very famous poem today in a history class about Einstein and his work. It's a beautiful little piece, and it's interesting to consider in the context of relativity and nuclear technology.
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost (1920)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I'm doing my paper on the cultural conversation between 20th century literature and Einsteinian physics. Relevant authors (of which I'll be discussing some subset in the paper) are people like Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, and of course, Robert Frost.
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost (1920)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I'm doing my paper on the cultural conversation between 20th century literature and Einsteinian physics. Relevant authors (of which I'll be discussing some subset in the paper) are people like Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, and of course, Robert Frost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)