Homo Homini Lupus

You've heard the phrase, "dog eat dog."

Homo homini lupus is the Latin phrase for "man is wolf to man." This was Sigmund Freud's view of human behavior, which we glimpse in many not only in history but in dramatic pieces ancient or modern.

Much of drama, especially tragedy, but also comedy, is about human aggressiveness and failure. Human aggressiveness towards weaker or different people, or human failure to be liberated, perfect, happy, and so on, can fill up millions of books, but plays have a way of capturing our worst and best moments.

Read this excerpt from Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontent and write a 50-word comment on the exchange that humans make for civilization (i.e. what do we give up and what do we gain?). And finally explain how this leads us to watch drama (whether comedic or tragic).

M*A*S*H~Remembering Robert Altman

One of the 20th century's best filmmakers, Robert Altman, died last week, Thanksgiving week. I was amazed to hear that he continued shooting the film A Prairie Home Companion even while he fought cancer. He will be missed.

I am sure you would find at least one or more of his films fascinating. And although I have not seen his last film, I have seen many of his others--including Gosford Park (2001) and M*A*S*H (1970). To see a full list of his films, click HERE. Ironically, the best-picture Oscar in 1970 went to Patton rather than to M*A*S*H. This is ironic because Patton, directed by Franklin James Schaffner, celebrates the military career of General George S. Patton, Jr. while M*A*S*H is a satirical film about war (specifically the Korean War).

While the choice of Patton for the best-picture Oscar probaby had something to do with the brilliant acting by George C. Scott, you must remember that 1970 was a momentous year in terms of anti-war activity against the Vietnam War. By 1970, one of the largest anti-war rallies was held in Washington, D.C., with about 500,000 mobilizing. Then there were the Kent State shootings. And then we heard that 280,000 U.S. soldiers had died so far in the war. So M*A*S*H was the perfect film to speak of the unrest of the times.

So why did Hollywood choose instead the pro-war film, Patton, rather than M*A*S*H? Did Patton compensate for the terrible feeling about the Vietnam War? And if so, how?

Borat~Comedy Gone Too Far?

This weekend I saw the blockbuster film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The film pokes fun at many prejudices, stereotypes, and stupidities of Americans. In fact, episode after episode on Borat's journey in America, the movie displays the kind of disruptive and comedic power of the satyr plays in ancient Greece. As the main character in Borat cleverly disrupts our sense of reality (or fantasy) with deadpan humor and satire, the laughter pours out.

By the way, because of the way Borat was filmed, with so many unwitting participants in the movie, several of the actors are now suing the makers. My questions to you are these: Why are the satyr plays of ancient Greece so relevant to this film's success? And why are Americans so easy to satirize? You'll need to read the articles on the satyr plays and drama in ancient Greece to answer these questions.

Robinson Jeffers ~ Poet of Darwin and Nietzsche

Robinson Jeffers is one of our most critical poets of the 20th century, for he expressed (often) an anti-modern philosophy (as opposed to a subjective and humanistic philosophy). As his bio indicates, Jeffers had a rich education, grounded in both in theology and literature, philosophy and science. A few of his great modern influences in science and philosophy were Darwin and Nietzsche. These influences shaped a poetry and philosophy of "inhumanism" so that Jeffers could write in his poem "Love of the Wild Swan":

I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One colour, or the glinting flash, or the splendour of things.

He lived on the rocky coast of northern California. A good place for Jeffers, since he believed it was the job of the poet to "reclaim substance and sense, and psychological reality," meaning the natural reality of life, a reality that cares little for humanity. Jeffers believed that the "permanent aspects of life" are those that science observes--NATURE. So as far as human civilization was concerned, Jeffers was pretty grim, as in this excerpt from "Summer Holiday":

When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the towered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain...

Jeffers used the understanding science and human history to come to the conclusion that we are not long for this world. This view of human civilization rubs hard against the humanistic idea that we as humans are critical to the future of life. One might ask why Jeffers wrote poetry at all then. Are there are good reasons why Jeffers would be so anti-human?

Despite this "inhumanism," some scholars believe Jeffers best represents us today. In "Robinson Jeffers: Poet for the New Century," Robert Brophy, a Jeffers scholar, says that Robinson Jeffers was neglected in the 20th century but will not be in the 21st:

Much of what he is being valued for now is what in his lifetime caused neglect and dismissal. As the century turns, he offers his cosmic vision to a world that, aided by NASA space probes and the Hubble and Keck telescopes, is finally awakening to the universe and has begun, in his phrase, to "turn outward." His "inhumanism" is no longer a synonym for misanthropy but a newfound and wonderfully apt word. Through it the ecologist goes beyond a progressive but still selfish sense of mere stewardship toward an awed realization that mankind is only one species among myriad others which have purposes of their own, not human-related, and are part, as Jeffers would say, "one organism." To a world where wilderness is fast being clear-cut, invaded by off-the-road vehicles, and is more stringently asphalt-ringed, his awe for total Otherness, as in his lyric"The Place for No Story," finds healing resonance. His incessant warnings of a population overwhelming the biosphere is no longer rantings. And his verse, stark, uncompromising, terse, incisive is eminently accessible and memorable. Jeffers seems, as it were, born out of his time. He may prove to be the prophet/seer/pathfinder for the twenty-first century.

Poetry & Politics~Czeslaw Milosz

I would like to share with you so much about contemporary poetry, but I do not have the time in this college course.

So I will do my best by introducing you to one of the finest poets of our age. This poet may best typifiy the heart of poetry in Eastern Europe over the last 50 years. The poet's name is Czeslaw Milosz.

Although growing up and living in a country with totalitarian rule, Milosz wrote poetry that challenged the state; he chose, as many other Polish writers did at the time, political poetry. But this enterprise--merely publishing your own thoughts about the government or society--could land you in prison or grant you an execution. And yet as Milosz himself admits in this interview with Malgorzata Anna Packalén, Polish writers had to be political.

Without doubt Polish literature’s constant struggle with history. There is simply no other country in Europe that suddenly disappeared from the map for over 100 years as Poland did in 1795, when it was partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. After a brief respite between the First and Second World Wars, Poland lost its statehood again in 1939 when it was divided in an agreement between Hitler and Stalin. All of this is complicated, of course, and it isn’t easy to explain to foreigners the martyrdom of Polish literature and its struggle for liberation, especially if you want to avoid unnecessary pathos. But we Poles are all too aware of the heavy burden that history has forced upon us. Polish writers were thrown into all this against their will, and these historically difficult situations also meant that they were forced to take a political stand.

While battling the regime with words and ideas that challenged his homeland's totalitarian regime, Milosz defected to the France, seeking political asylum from the People's Republic of Poland. In 1960, the poet joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. And by 1980, Milosz won the Nobel Prize in Literature--the highest writing honor internationally--the very year that Poland was experiencing the end of Communism. So it was understandable that in 1989, Milosz began dividing his time between Krakow and Berkeley. In 2004, he died while in Poland at age 93.

So why should a poet be so political?

Because justice and honesty matter to the poet. As the American poet Robert Hass has written, for a poet to be political he or she must

make images of justice: make ideal images or make outraged images or just do witness. There are all the usual tasks . . . It’s part of the job of being a poet, but you’ll always feel a little bit like a voyeur and a tourist writing those poems. And a little uneasy reading them. But the choice is that or silence, and so you do it . . . The trick—I’ve seen it in Milosz’s work especially—is to write very honestly about the actual dilemmas, which means thinking about them clearly, which means not flattering yourself that you know what the solutions are . . .

Notice Hass' reference to Milosz. Why does he refer to Milosz? As Milosz himself wrote:

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?

Obviously, poetry has some mission that is political and spiritual, according to Milosz. Is there a reason, given Milosz' Polish background, that poetry would be so political? Or is this political bent a poet's duty? Please discuss.

A Sonnet by Sydney ~ Struggle of Mind and Body

The sonnet is a well-known form of poetry and favorite of poets in the European tradition. Often used to express love, the sonnet compresses much passion into a "little song."

Please learn the different forms and characteristics of the Italian, English, Spenserian, and Modern sonnets. By doing so you will have a grasp of sonnets that will assist you in identification of poetry and understanding of these "little songs."

Here's one sonnet as part of a series that the Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sydney wrote. Read this sonnet and identify the form (Italian, English, etc.). Then identify how the form assists Sydney in expressing his struggle between love/lust/sex and ideas/mind/eternity, or between Eroticism and Platonism. Which does Sydney choose? Why?

Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be,
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
O, take fast hold; let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to death,
And think how evil becometh him to slide
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell, world! thy uttermost I see:
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.

Carpe Diem Poetry

The seventeenth-century British poet Robert Herrick wrote many poems exemplifying carpe diem (Latin for "seize the day"). Carpe diem is the attitude of one who lives for the day, who responds to the phrase "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you will die" by living it up immediately. Here is a carpe diem poem by Herrick:

I fear no earthly powers,
But care for crowns of flowers;
And love to have my beard
With wine and oil besmear'd.
This day I'll drown all sorrow:
Who knows to live tomorrow?

Please comment on how this lyric expresses the attitude of carpe diem. Also comment on the sound of the three rhyming couplets in this six-verse lyric and how the sounds reinforce the "live it up today" attitude.

Andrew Marvell is another of several seventeenth-century British poets who expressed carpe diem in his poetry. One of Marvell's best examples of this attitude is "To His Coy Mistress."