The theme of the residency this term, from the first to the last was "bittersweet": happy in the sad, pleasure in pain,If it makes you happy why are you so sad,etc? Why can't poets write happy poems? Because usually joy makes you forget to write. Lolita is high contrast -- ecstacy, pain, rape, communion -- but painted in what at first appears to be grey, but on closer inspection, a fine hash of black and white. But not every text is sad: Let's not ignore Christopher Smart and his eternal "Jubliate Agneau"... but he was mad; is it only with madness that joy is urgent enough to express?
I am memorizing this Herbert poem. Notice the activity of God, and the passivity or receptivity of the man... or for the irreligious, for 'God and man,' substitute the 'beloved and the lover.'
Bittersweet
- G. Herbert
Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou does love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.
I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
and all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.
2 comments:
A good "mantra" and a true one.
And Christopher Smart was mad? I never knew this. I love the poem "From Jubilate Agno" which begins "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry..." But I guess it is a little bizarre that the poem goes on for 4 pages about the actions of a cat.
Post a Comment