The Painful Nowning Process

Although this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins is called “Spring and Fall,” it is really more about Fall. Nevertheless, it is among my favorites and, for a variety of reasons which are better not explained, seems peculiarly appropriate today, even if it is April 30:

To a Young Child

Margaret are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
Now no matter, child, the name;
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

I regret that I am unable to reproduce Hopkins’ original “sprung rhythm” stress-marks.

One of the courses I’ve been teaching this semester is an upper-level seminar on Postcolonial Literature, mainly books and films from British/Commonwealth and former British colonies.

Nita’s Wide Angle View of India posted this interesting summary of a comparative study of “cultural variables”:

Hofstede laid out certain ‘dimensions’ of culture which he used to compare different nations. These “dimensions” are not individual traits…but simply “averages” or “tendencies” of whole groups. The Hofstede dimensions are as follows:

• Power Distance (PD) The attitude of people towards differences in power and wealth …countries with a great power distance will have strict hierarchies and this will be accepted by those in the lower levels of the hierarchy.
• Individualism Collectivism (IC) This measures the ability to live in groups or choose ones own path, regardless of what the group/community is thinking or doing. Individual achievement is highly valued.
• Masculinity (MF) This measures a culture’s “masculine” traits like competitiveness, aggression and giving importance to material things and “feminine” traits like sensitiveness, empathy, importance given to quality of life. This masculine/feminine terminology has also been dubbed as Quantity of Life vs. Quality of Life. [...]

Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) This dimension (added later by Hofstede) shows how people react to uncertainty in their environment. This dimension also shows the level of tolerance in a society for differences

Where does your culture or the culture where you grew up fall on the these scales? But note the possible exceptions and criticisms of these hypotheses, footnoted at the end of the post.

In case anyone’s interested the Postcolonial Lit seminar, three intrepid explorers*, has read:

• Possession, by A.S. Byatt (England)
• Anthills of the Savannah, by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
• The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (Australia)
• The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy (India)
• Running in the Family and Anil’s Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka and Canada)
• Foreign Bodies, by Hwee Hwee Tan (Singapore/Netherlands/USA)
• Tsotsi (film–South Africa)
• Lagaan (film–India)
• My Brilliant Career (film–Australia)
• The Dish (film–Australia)

In retrospect, I think (and students agreed) I would have chosen Rabbit-Proof Fence or Whale Rider as one of the films representing Australia/New Zealand. Nevertheless, overall it has been a horizon-expanding semester. Also, I chose Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, because I figured most of us had already read Things Fall Apart. Anthills is so oblique, however, and depends much more on the reader’s being fairly familiar with modern African culture. We all agreed that re-reading Things might have worked better.

*The small size makes the class, officially, three independent studies meeting simultaneously. Still worthwhile, though.

Celebrated as William Shakespeare’s birthday! (see comment for elaboration)

My mother-in-law would like me to note that one of her relatives founded the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Sonnet 94 by Bill S:

They that have power to hurt and will do none
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Slate helpfully guides us to everything we need to know about Shakespeare books, movies, and websites.

Spring is sprung!

Regular public radio listeners may be familiar with The Writer’s Almanac, presented daily by Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame. Every day, a poem and some literary events associated with the day—authors’ birthdays, book publications, etc. In case you miss it on the air, you can read it and listen to the poems online. Today’s is House, by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins.

Speaking of Collins, his “Introduction to Poetry” is in our first-year Introduction to Lit. anthology. Sometimes I think it takes a bit of the pressure off poetry analysis for my students. Sometimes I’m not sure.

After a quiet day at home grading papers, with only two cats for company, I needed an entertainment break and found this:

It’s brilliant!

Author Mark Chadbourn explains the enduring appeal of fantasy fiction:

I don’t write fantasy fiction simply to provide a trap-door from reality. For me, the genre is as much about the world around us as EastEnders [or CSI, Desperate Housewives, or The West Wing, for those who don't watch UK TV].

But instead of coming slap-bang up against it, fantasy charts the unconscious hopes and aspirations of our modern society through symbolism and allegory in story-forms as old as humanity.

It’s about turning off the mobile phone and the computer and remembering who we are in the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves.

Of course, he’s not the first to talk about this. Tolkein said some of the same things in “On Fairy-Stories,” and C.S. Lewis’s explored the territory in “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said.” The two essays, and the two writers’ fantasy writings, are compared and contrasted effectively by David C. Downing in “Sub-Creation or Smuggled Theology: Tolkien contra Lewis on Christian Fantasy.”

Time to re-read The Lord of the Rings or Till We Have Faces?

Yesterday was “Poem in Your Pocket Day.” Sorry if you missed it—so did I, if that’s any consolation, though I had a note-to-self and everything. But since it’s National Poetry Month all the way through April, any day is a good day for carrying a poem in your pocket—on paper or electronically. I think this is a neat concept, even though I still live in the virtual dark ages and can barely enter new numbers in my cellphone—still haven’t figured out how to retrieve voice-messages (so if you’re calling me, don’t bother leaving a message. If I see that I’ve missed a call from you, I’ll call you back).

What poem(s) would I carry in my pocket? I propose a choice of two, in case of mood swings:

The Journey, by Mary Oliver

and this sonnet by John Milton:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

What poem or poems would you put in your pocket?

Last August, former Campbell University President Norman A. Wiggins died; he had served CU since 1967 as President and Chancellor. Today I learned that this past Friday, April 11, Clyde C. Cook, President Emeritus of Biola University, died. Cook was president at Biola during the nine years I was a member of the English department there, and was as much a legend on that campus as Dr. Wiggins at Campbell.

Today is the official launch for my friend K. Dale Koontz’s book, Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon. I was honored to be given a preview of the book and to offer a mini-review (aka “blurb”) that appears on the back cover:

Koontz writes with insight, verve, and humor, informed by a panoramic knowledge of world religions. All the big questions are here, and answers both expected and unexpected.

accompanied by another by the brilliant and busy Rhonda Wilcox. Why write or read a book like this one? Dale says:

Far from disposable entertainment, Whedon’s work goes much deeper, dealing with issues of morality, family and redemption. …
Studying popular culture is important because it is the examination of both what’s going on now and what we as a society focus on. Using examples from popular culture is also a great way to get people interested in big concepts (such as faith) that otherwise might be intimidating or confusing to them.

More about Dale Koontz and her work at her blog.

As for me, I’m off to the first day of the last two weeks of classes!

April is National Poetry Month. I have many favorite poets, but among those who immortalized April, we must acknowledge Geoffrey Chaucer, who reminds us (via the mysterious ChaucerBlogger) that

Bifor Aprille was the cruellest moneth (whatever that meneth!), it was a moneth of coloures and cries, and pilgrymages.

Hear! Hear! Or as Chaucer would have said (perhaps), “Oyez, oyez!”

One of my favorite poems by Chaucer, read aloud in Middle English:

“Truth” or the “Ballad of Good Counsel”

During April, the Academy of American Poets will e-mail you a Poem a Day. I make no representations to the value or appropriateness of said poems, but you can check out those that have been sent so far this month.