The High and the Low

     I just finished reading Life of Pi for the third time. For simplicity's sake, Yann Martel tells a story about a boy lost at sea with a tiger in a life boat. Every time I read it different lines strike me - so it goes, I guess, with any story. In this reading I found an excerpt that I would like to share.

"High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar."

     Obviously, you will see the connection I'm meaning to make here. I read this short passage and was halted at its unbelievable connection to one of the most prominent themes we've discussed this semester. There is a further connection, though, that this allows me to realize only after writing my final project. The quickest connection between the high and the low is madness. In madness, or wise-foolishness as Euterpe so deemed it, a supreme understanding is found; in her presentation, Euterpe used Puck as an example, "the only one who understands dreams." In the moment cited above, Pi is delirious, driven mad by his experiences at sea: and he finds clarity and sanctuary.
     It is an epiphany I am, perhaps, quite late in seeing, but it's one of the most important, I think. Shakespeare uses madness as the highest form of wisdom in every play we've read this semester; he especially uses the "sane" character's labeling and ignorance of the madness as a tool to show the high's being blind to real wisdom. The low are high only because they are mad.

Frederick Turner and Infinite Nothing

     When Frederick Turner drew in class the diagram of All (the known world) and Nothing (the unknown) he drew from the cusp of the All circle a figure eight that circled back into All and out into Nothing. This served to represent the journey of the poet who is blazing a trail into the world of "airy nothings," but needs still to remain in "local habitation." He pointed out as he drew it, "It's a sort of figure eight movement." What he did not point out (but I assume he noticed) is that this shape represents infinity. I thought that was most interesting. It seems, eventually, that science must end; one day, it should strictly define all the known world, right? Isn't that the point? Turner said, "The poet goes to the edge of the world to understand 'nothing.'" The poet infinitely pushes to the edge of definitive-ness and defines even more. The poet's journey is infinite. Turner drew this without even initially realizing it's true importance for me, and again, I thank him for his contribution.

Frederick Turner and Old Age

     There are quite a few thoughts I have been meaning to get up here, but just never did. The time is ripe for it, I think. I don't want to smash all of these separate ideas into one post, so consider the next three or four pieces belated responses to the last couple weeks.
   
     At his poetry reading Frederick Turner said something, almost as an aside, that struck me; it seemed so important at the time that I scrawled it on my ticket, and I don't even remember the context now. He said, "It's a strange country, this being old." And that's a beautiful image, isn't it? I immediately thought of all the older characters in the works we have read this semester and how they function, how their age factors in. Probably quite obviously, King Lear stuck to the forefront of my mind, and it was King Lear who most inspired the short story I wrote for my final project. In his old age, he searches for assurance: assurance of his daughter's love, yes, but also of his entire purpose, his manhood. The scene I most obsess over in the explication of my short story (titled, I might add, "The Words of the King") is Act 3, Scene 4 with Lear and Edgar lost in the tempest. In this scene every single time Lear speaks - excepting four short instances - he either asks a question or wishes to ask a question. It's as if only in the midst of a great storm (the real physical representing his mental state) does Lear realize all of these questions he holds unanswered. Only in the midst of a great storm does he realize he doesn't, in fact, know everything he wishes to know. His old age acts as a shove - a desperate indicator that he has so little time to learn. He ignores Gloucester and the other men attempting to "save" him from the storm, berating Edgar, "[his] philosopher," in hopes to obtain the answers he's so desperate for as quickly as he can.
     Without Turner's fleeting comment, I could not have written the short story that I did, and I thank him.

I did it.

I finally wrote a sonnet.

Sonnet 4
I was never supposed to fall in love.
Forever, I thought, I'd cower and run.
Forever, I thought, I'd look down on above,
But I got it in the end; love's won.
I've read all these books, and I know all this
Language not to be used 'round you. Bespoken
Cannot explain or tell truth. Gone amiss
Are the days I knew my true emotion.
You speak to me numbers not in my thought.
That's why I need you; you know what I don't;
You say what I can't; you are what I'm not.
Lacking courage to say the words, I won't.
I cannot speak it, so I'll sing my love.
Come fly with me to see worlds from above.


I'll send it in the mail presently, and hopefully I'll have an entertaining story to share later.

Sisyphus

     Still trying to write a sonnet - still not working. For this one, Bob Dylan and Hamlet served as inspiration.

Sonnet 3
Oh jingle jangle morning, disappear
Silhouette by the sea. I know of days
When in just one small moment you will fear,
And you will leave in applause of a praise.
Appraisal and reprisal please. Just sway.
For on what Earth, no matter, matter's not.
You, driven mad oh bawdy bodkin. Stay.
Just leave the love you desperately sought.
Just join me in a jingle jangle morn.
Forget about today 'til our morrow;
Leave behind sunken swelling horror sworn.
Just join with me, and sing it all in sorrow.
And in the jingle jangle morning sing your song.
And in the jingle jangle mourn. Get along.

Jebrina: The New Hamlet

     Over the weekend I participated in a lifting competition with my friend, Jenna. As we stood on the starting line, waiting to begin the half hour performance, one of the officials turned to us and asked, "Are you ready?" Laughing, my friend and I turned to each other. She said, "Are we ready?!" And I responded, "Of course we're not ready," or something of that sort. It was at this moment I wished I had the ready wit and language of Hamlet. What would I have said if I could?

Official: Are you ready?
Jenna: Are we ready? What is it that we prepare for?
Sabrina: Surely not this bar and this weight.
Jenna: Ah, but to complete it in time.
Sabrina: And is it this short half hour with which we fight? Or is it grander? Isn't always grander?
Jenna: So, Official, what you ask us - are we ready to fight against the grandest essence and stretch of life? I suppose we must be.
Sabrina: For what other choice do we have? What other choice do we have but in pushing this bar from ourselves to shove the constraints of time from our minds?
Jenna: Then is this short half hour merely an allegory for the rest of life and the time that wastes?
Sabrina: Or a test! To calculate our handle on't. Is this your test of which you question us, Official? Are you the umpire and the king? Or am I?
Jenna: Or am I?
Official: It doesn't really matter at this point. The contest is over. We're cleaning up; you should probably go.
Sabrina: Ah, it doesn't really matter.
Jenna: Did you hear? Quantum Mechanics has disproved matter. It does not even exist!
Sabrina: Ha! Official, do you hear? It does not even exist. No matter.
[Jenna and Sabrina wander off stage as their continuing discussion wanders with them.]
Official: Someone should probably take them to the student health clinic. 

 Jebrina: The New Hamlet

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I came across this proverb in another class and thought it very Hamletian.
It also brought a new light to the quote from Richard III, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse."