Part 1 falls into an introduction, three main sections and a conclusion.

(i) The short introduction propounds a number of riddles whose meanings will be further developed.

(1) Chapters two, three and four deal with suffering and the enjoyment of suffering;

(2) chapters five and six with intellectual and moral vacillation and with conscious “inertia”-inaction;

(3) chapters seven through nine with theories of reason and advantage;

(c) the last two chapters are a summary and a transition into Part 2.

War is described as people’s rebellion against the assumption that everything needs to happen for a purpose, because humans do things without purpose, and this is what determines human history.

Secondly, the narrator’s desire for pain and paranoia is exemplified by his liver pain and toothache. This parallels Raskolnikov’s behavior in Dostoevsky’s later novel, Crime and Punishment. He says that, due to the cruelty of society, human beings only moan about pain in order to spread their suffering to others. He builds up his own paranoia to the point he is incapable of looking his co-workers in the eye.

The main issue for the Underground Man is that he has reached a point of ennui[1] and inactivity[2]. Unlike most people, who typically act out of revenge because they believe justice is the end, he is conscious of this problem. Though he feels the desire for revenge, he does not find it virtuous; this incongruity leads to spite and spite towards the act itself with its concomitant circumstances. He feels that others like him exist, yet he continuously concentrates on his spitefulness instead of on action that avoids the problems he is so concerned with. He even admits at one point that he’d rather be inactive out of laziness.

The first part also gives a harsh criticism of determinism and intellectual attempts at dictating human action, which the Underground Man mentions in terms of a simple math problem two times two makes four. He states that despite humanity’s attempt to create the “Crystal Palace,” a reference to a famous symbol of utopianism in Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done?, one cannot avoid the simple fact that anyone at any time can decide to act against what is considered good, and some will do so simply to validate their existence and to protest that they exist as individuals. This type of rebellion is critical to later works of Dostoevsky as this type of rebellion is used by adolescents to validate their own existence, uniqueness and independence in the face of the disorder one inherits under the understanding of tradition and society.

In other works, Dostoevsky constructs a negative argument to validate free will against determinism in the character Kirillov’s suicide in his novel the Demons (that sumbebekos is supernatural). Notes from Underground is the marked starting point of Dostoevsky’s moving from his psychological and sociological themed novels to novels based on existential and human experience in crisis.

Notes from the Underground (1864) is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is considered by many to be the world’s first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg.

• Part 1
• Part 2
  

• Existentialism is a philosophical movement which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to it being created for them by deities or authorities or defined for them by philosophical or theological doctrines.
• Emerged as a movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, foreshadowed most notably by nineteenth-century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, though it had forerunners in earlier centuries. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka also described existential themes in their literary works.
• It took explicit form as a philosophical current in Continental philosophy, first in the work of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers in the 1930s in Germany, and then in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir in the 1940s and 1950s in France.
  • Their work focused on such themes as “dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, and nothingness” as fundamental to human existence. Walter Kaufmann described existentialism as “The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life”.
• Although there are some common tendencies amongst “existentialist” thinkers, there are major differences and disagreements among them (most notably the divide between atheistic existentialists like Sartre and theistic existentialists like Tillich); not all of them accept the validity of the term.

• Literature.
  • Since 1970, much cultural activity in art, cinema, and literature contains postmodernist and existential elements.
  • Books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) (now republished as Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick, Toilet: The Novel by Michael Szymczyk and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing strong existential themes.
  • Ideas from such thinkers as Dostoevsky, Foucault, Kafka, Nietzsche, Herbert Marcuse, Gilles Deleuze, and Eduard von Hartmann permeate the works of artists such as Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Szymczyk, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, and Charles Bukowski, and one often finds in their works a delicate balance between distastefulness and beauty.

With Phèdre, Racine chose once more a subject from Greek mythology, already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets, notably byEuripides in Hippolytus and Seneca in Phaedra. In the absence of her royal husband Thésée, Phèdre ends by declaring her love to Hippolyte, Thésée’s son from a previous marriage.

Everything about Phèdre was masterly: the tragic construction, the deeply observed characters, the richness of the verse and the interpretation of the title role by Marie Champmeslé. Voltaire called it “the masterpiece of the human mind.” Contrary to Euripides, Racine has Phèdre dying on stage at the end of the play; she thus has had time to learn of the death of Hippolyte. The character of Phèdre is one of the most remarkable in Racine’s tragic oeuvre. The instrument of others’ suffering, she is also the victim of her own impulses, a figure that inspires both terror and pity.

Certain lines from the play, such as « la fille de Minos et de Pasiphaë », have become classics in the French language; but despite the celebrated musicality of the alexandrine, Racine never wrote poetry just for the sake of beauty of sound. In the character of Phèdre, he could combine the consuming desire inherited from her mother with the mortal fear of her father, Minos, judge of the dead in Hades.

As a result of an intrigue by the Duchess of Bouillon and other friends of the aging Corneille, the play was not a success at its première. Indeed a rival group staged a play by the now forgotten playwright Nicolas Pradon on an almost identical theme. After Phèdre, Racine ceased writing plays until 1689, when he was commissioned to write Esther by Madame de Maintenon, the mistress of Louis XIV.^[1] As time progressed, however, Phèdre became one of the most famous of Racine’s plays and is now one of the most frequently staged tragedies from the seventeenth century.

Names of characters in French, with their equivalents in English:

• Thésée, or Theseus, King of Athens
• Phèdre, or Phaedra, wife of Thésée, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë
• Hippolyte, or Hippolytus, son of Thésée and Antiope, Queen of the Amazons
• Aricie, or Aricia, princess of the royal blood of Athens
• Œnone, or Oenone, nurse and confidante of Phèdre
• Théramène, or Theramenes, tutor of Hippolyte
• Ismène, confidante of Aricie
• Panope, lady-in-waiting to Phèdre

The play is set at the royal court in Trézène, or Troezen, on the Peloponnesian coast in Southern Greece.

Act 1.
Following Thésée’s six month absence, his son Hippolyte tells his tutor Théramène of his intention to leave Trézène in search of his father. When pressed by Théramène, he reveals that the real motive is his forbidden love for Aricie, sole survivor of the royal house supplanted by Thésée and under a vow of chastity against her will. During her husband’s absence, Phèdre has become consumed by an illicit but overpowering passion for her stepson Hippolyte, which she has kept as a dark secret. Close to death and reeling about half-dementedly, under pressure from her old nurse Oenone she explains her state, on condition that she be permitted to die rather than face dishonour. The death of Thésée is announced with the news that his succession is in dispute. Oenone urges her mistress that, since her love for her stepson is now legitimate, she should form an alliance with him, if only for the future benefit of the infant son of her own flesh.

Act 2.
With fresh hope for her liberty, Aricie reveals to her maidservant Ismène her feelings towards Hippolyte, who promptly appears to declare his love for her. Their discourse is interrupted by Phèdre, who distraughtly pleads for the rights of her infant son, explaining her coldness and personal despair. Suddenly entering a trance-like state overcome by emotion, she involuntarily confesses her hidden passions to her horrified dumb-struck stepson. Sensing rejection, she leaves in a wild frenzy, demanding Hippolyte’s sword to end her torment. Théramène brings news to Hippolyte that Thésée might still be alive.

Act 3.
In desperation Phèdre sends word to Hippolyte inviting him to share the crown of Athens. However, Oenone brings her the devastating news that Thésée has returned in perfect health. To avert Phèdre’s deathwish and her possible betrayal by Hippolyte, Oenone urges that a story should be concocted around his abandoned sword. Seeing Hippolyte by Thésée’s side, Phèdre grants Oenone free rein. After his long period in captivity, Thésée is surprised by his cold reception from his wife and son, each anxious to conceal their passions: Phèdre, consumed by guilt; and Hippolyte, anxious to distance himself from his stepmother’s advances, but unable to tell his father of his love for Aricie.

Act 4.
Thésée has just been told by Oenone that Hippolyte has attempted to take Phèdre by force. Overcome by rage, Thésée banishes Hippolyte and invokes the god Neptune, who has promised to grant any wish of Thésée, to avenge him by his son’s death. Protesting his innocence, Hippolyte discloses his secret love for Aricie to his incredulous father and leaves in despair. Fearing that she might be guilty for Hippolyte’s death, Phèdre determines to reveal the truth to her husband, until she is told of Hippolyte’s love for Aricie. Consumed by jealousy, she refuses to defend Hippolyte further, leaving his father’s curse to run its course. When Oenone tries to make light of her mistress’s illicit love, Phèdre in a towering rage accuses her of being a poisonous scheming monster and banishes her from her presence.

Act 5.
Hippolyte takes his leave of Aricie, promising to marry her in a temple outside Trézène. On witnessing the tenderness of their parting, Thésée begins to have doubts about his son’s guilt. He decides to question Oenone, but it is too late: Oenone has thrown herself to the waves. Théramène brings news of his son’s death, slain in his departing chariot by a horned monster rising from the sea. In the closing scene, Phèdre, now calm, appears before Thésée to confess her guilt and to confirm Hippolyte’s innocence. She finally succumbs to the effects of a self-administered draught of Medean poison, taken to rid the world of her impurity. As an act of atonement and in respect for his son’s parting promise, Thésée pardons Aricie and adopts her as his daughter.

Source: Wikipedia

]]> http://litwithme.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/phaedra-by-jean-racine/feed/ 1 janiiith http://litwithme.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-rape-of-the-lock/ http://litwithme.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-rape-of-the-lock/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 08:02:48 +0000 JC http://litwithme.wordpress.com/?p=51 ]]> The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot’s Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos (334 lines), but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope’s name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version (794 lines).

The poem satirises a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Pope’s friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a period in England when Catholicism was legally proscribed. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to “comically merge the two.” He utilised the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced an entire system of “sylphs,” or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic.

Pope’s poem mocks the traditions of classical epics: the rape of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair; the gods become minute sylphs; Aeneas’ voyage up the Tiber becomes Belinda’s voyage up the Thames, and the description of Achilles’ shield becomes one of Belinda’s petticoat. He also uses the epic style of invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes, and in some cases adds parody to imitation by following the framework of actual speeches in Homer’s Iliad. Although the poem is extremely funny at times, Pope always keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.

The humour of the poem comes from the tempest in a teapot of vanity being couched within the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an epic poem. When the Baron, for example, goes to snip the lock of hair, Pope says,

The Peer now spreads the glittering Forfex wide,
T’ inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev’n then, before the fatal Engine clos’d,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos’d;
Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But Airy Substance soon unites again)
The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever
From the fair Head, for ever and for ever!
— Canto III

Using epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies’ scissors satirises the ridiculous nature of the whole situation.

Source: Wikipedia

Some works to be discussed:

• The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
• Phaedra by Jean Racine

Source:
Introduction to Neoclassicism
Introduction to Neoclassical Literature

Late through October the leaves change colour.
The season has been around so long most
Do not see it go to winter.
From our window-height we watch the year close
In the trees. About us, the rural land
Reflects the sunlight. Far away,
Unglimpsed, the Atlantic makes a band
Of mirrors for Massachusetts. Today,
The scene is exulting: to air and light
Houses, trees and highways seem sensible
Moment to moment; till we can quite
Imagine this world invisible
As instinct on the flood for home
From which all exiled landscapes come.

Source:
A Survey of Malaysian Poetry in English
Journal article by C. S. Lim; World Literature Today, Vol. 74, 2000

Venture out onto the roof garden
of Deanna and Peter Austerberrys’
house on the steep stretch of Huertas
and from that vantage view
overlooking San Miguel de Allende,
watch the imperial Aztec sun,
centripetal, as it sets,
smearing the indigenous sky
livid red with sacrificial blood.

Meanwhile, the gods
drain our blood,
eat our flesh,
feast on our bones
as though they love us.

Soon, encroaching darkness
crouches over the land
and light withdraws in turn,
part of cyclical time
as enfolded in the ancient
screens of painted songs.
Night grows enormous,
creeps across earth\’s fertile belly,
a lover mounting, ready,
ardent for consumation,
stifling once again
day\’s other humdrum songs.

Meanwhile, the gods
drain our blood,
eat our flesh,
feast on our bones
as though they love us.

Newly arrived, the crescent moon,
bashful, watches the whole enactment,
shares in that orgasmic, sacramental
moment which reveals, illuminates
like lightning-bolt
the old, secret religion
that was poetry.
Thus converted, exultant, she
sheds her demureness, ushers in
turbulences of lascivious silver,
performing her public, seductive dance.

Meanwhile, the gods
drain our blood,
eat our flesh,
feast on our bones
as though they love us.

Mexico
December, 1999

I have sailed many waters,
Skirted islands of fire,
Contended with Circe
Who loved the squeal of pigs;
Passed Scylla and Charybdis
To seven years with Calypso,
Heaved in battle against the gods.
Beneath it all
I kept faith with Ithaca, travelled,
Travelled and travelled,
Suffering much, enjoying a little;
Met strange people singing
New myths; made myths myself.

But this lion of the sea
Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail,
Touched with power, insistent
On this brief promontory…
Puzzles.

Nothing, nothing in my days
Foreshadowed this
Half-beast, half-fish,
This powerful creature of land and sea.

Peoples settled here,
Brought to this island
The bounty of these seas,
Built towers topless as Ilium’s.

They make, they serve,
They buy, they sell.

Despite unequal ways,
Together they mutate,
Explore the edges of harmony,
Search for a centre;
Have changed their gods,
Kept some memory of their race
In prayer, laughter, the way
Their women dress and greet.
They hold the bright, the beautiful,
Good ancestral dreams
Within new visions,
So shining, urgent,
Full of what is now.

Perhaps having dealt in things,
Surfeited on them,
Their spirits yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, phoenix,
Garuda, naga those horses of the sun,
This lion of the sea,
This image of themselves.