Apologies--I thought I had corrected the page numbers. Here are the correct ones for the readings:
Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage: 617-622; 628 (Switzerland)-635.
Don Juan: 704 (Don Juan and Haidee)-731.
Childe Harold is on something like the Grand Tour--a ritual for Brit young men of family and wealth, traveling the continent for education and pleasure--
And Childe--well, yes, a prince in waiting, but also suggesting a child. Thoughts on how the construction of a child-like sensibility looks here, maybe as compared to Blake's work in the Songs? The passages in Switzerland and the account of the shaping of imagination are one place to start.
It has often been remarked that the Romantics elaborate a poetics of ruin. The scenarios range from ancient castles to fallen monuments of antiquity to, maybe, various ruins and wrecks of humanity. We might catch the Gothic side here--ruins often speak of the downfall of traditional powers and tyrannies (the castles, ruined abbeys, and so on). Ruins may also speak to Gothic interiority--as in Williams' reading of the Mariner, fragmentation and disorientation, a breakdown of self-identity and mastery, some flux of the pre-Oedipal or a similar contact with otherness/alterity. (Terror and especially horror are attendant emotions, closely linked to the Romantic and Gothic sublimes).
Any points of contact in Childe Harold? (Consider Waterloo, e.g.)
Manfred provides a great contrast for Childe Harold.
Another issue. Call it one of sovereignty. A post-Enlightenment subject breaking free from old authority, from Christian religion and hereditary power and privilege. Essentially, the free man of liberty, equality, and fraternity, (as for woman--well, we know it's a complicated tale, starting with Wollstonecraft and Radcliffe).
Man his own sovereign--no god, no master. How does he situate himself now? Does he still need the sacred, or has he given all that up in favor of reason?
We might read Childe Harold performing this free subject, freely traveling, meditating, pondering Europe and history and his own place in the world.
And we might read Manfred doing the same, but in a heightened dramatic treatment and setting.
One potentially frightening and interesting thing--if man is free and sovereign of himself, he makes the rules. And he gives himself meaning. But can he do this on his own or does he still need something beyond himself?
So we get sublime fireworks, spirits and the Witch of the Alps and all the rest. And the role of woman--the notion that as man's other she completes him. With Byron, this may be interesting given his intense attachment to his half-sister Augusta. We have reference to her in Childe Harold and in Manfred we see the incest/narcissism scenario intensify. But is it really narcissism?
Williams would see this as Male Gothic. The Romantic Male Gothic exile, in search of a meaning, of a grounding to his unmoored self, comes to woman. Must "woman" die in some fashion so he can secure an identity?
And of course many things we can say about Byron's voice, style, and language. Compared to Blake or Coleridge, significant differences. His facility with verse and verse forms (the Spenserian stanzas, etc.) was and is impressive, brilliant. So from the technique and craft side, much to consider if you are inclined.
How does the Childe persona get constructed, and how does verse technique play a role there? And the same for Manfred.
Byron's Don Juan offers further grounds for comparison--our reading there is pp. 704-31.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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9 comments:
"It has often been remarked that the Romantics elaborate a poetics of ruin."
I find this a valid remark. We see in Byron's Childe Harold a reference to Babylon and many sections describing in great detail ruins of human dwelling places. The reference to Babylon strikes me as an interesting move on the part that the fall of Babylon is the most enigmatic, lasting reference to a civilization falling inwards over itself that I have come across yet. Babylon is referred to in scripture as part of the Apocalypse. Babylon is also a grand point of comparison for all great empires since its fall.
The rise and fall of great empires is a large point of interest for the Romantics. Is it a preoccupation with the nature of power? All that rises to fruition must fall back into the earth? Is that the grand scheme?
The description of ruined places in Byron(especially) are very vivid, it is almost as though one has wandered into the page and now skirt the remains of the convent grounds. There is an almost understated but over powering beauty about abandoned places. To imagine the goings-on of a place while it was in full function, but now in ruin, holds a certain kind of joy that is hard to put into words and so when it is put into such a form as Byron, and the Romantics (sounds like a indie-band) are able to accomplish, it seems almost akin to actualized perfection.
I liked the poetry of "Childe Harold" - the interesting contemporary analysis of Napoleon at Waterloo, and what it meant for Europe at the time, also the effect the mountains and thunderstorm had on the poet's reflections. In connection with that, one of the most beautiful things I've had a chance to see was when going up in a plane in Colorado Springs and seeing a thunderstorm roll over the mountains at an equal altitude - just about a spiritual experience.
I didn't see much of the character "Harold" in the excerpts given - there seemed to be a lot of discussion of the creation of the character, but every time he came up the footnotes just compared his aspects to those of Byron.
As to the relationship with Manfred, it seems like the characters sprang from the same existence - both talk of being old in experience if not years. But while Manfred has decided to give up his connection, the poet of "Childe Harold" tries to regain what was lost through the creation and assumption of a new character.
I'm not really in favor of the recurring concept of man having his own sovereignty...sounds weird, I know. The distinction is that while I agree with it so far as earthly powers are concerned (government to a degree, religious organization certainly), it seems (and perhaps naturally is)...arrogant? Particularly in mind of this awesome background of the sublimity of nature, man looks a little puny. Additionally, in spite of the poet's assertions, all his past has come to this point where he is no longer satisfied with himself and trying to regain something he feels he has lost - not the best stance for promoting total self-sufficiency.
I like that Manfred does not buy into the idea of immortality so readily. It makes him almost the romantic antihero since roamnticism and the gothic are all about downfall and ruin. Although one could argue that Manfred is already ruined because of his loss of love and the circumstances surrounding it. There is something noble about his deterrence from the idea of immortality. He truly is the hero of the story eventhough he is ruined.
Both Manfred and Childe Harold depict characters that are Byronic heroes - they are brilliant and haunted by something, and also exiled from society (Manfred was isolated in the Alps, Childe chose his exile by touring Europe). I think this fact contributes to the whole "man his own sovereign" concept. When characters like this contain such a wealth of knowledge or are seeking such knowledge, what more do they need? If they know all they believe they need to know, then what could any higher power provide them?
In response to Joy, I think man is inherently selfish as a means of survival. Humans will do what they need to do to ensure their longevity, regardless of how it affects other people. I think this selfishness also includes arrogance. As higher life forms with the capabilities to think and feel beyond what other creatures can, we have this built-in sense of superiority and, in my opinion, sense of self-sufficiency where we no longer need anything beyond ourselves. Maybe these two pieces serve as commentary on that - in favor of, or against, I guess could be argued.
I see Childe's journey as giving himself meaning. Does this journey count as something "outside of himself" or is it part of himself because he chose to undertake it? He decided to give his own life meaning, is that not sovereign?
On another note, I found this interesting:
"According to Jerome McGann, by masking himself behind a literary artifice, Byron was able to express his view that "man's greatest tragedy is that he can conceive of a perfection which he cannot attain."
This can be seen in Childe Harolde and Manfred, also something to think about...
The death of a woman in Byron's Manfred allows the character to become the Gothic male exile creature. He needs this loss to become one that lives on the outskirts of society. The Gothic Male Exile theme shines through in Manfred. He creates his own rules and disregards religion. The acknowledgement that spirits who do not align themselves with Christianity is a poke at the religion itself. The quest for knowledge is also a part of the exile motif and an example of breaking free from Christianity. Knowledge led to the downfall of man in the Bible and in Manfred. Manfred is the epitome of disregard for religion, trying to find his own fate free from his past.
Really thoughtful, interesting, and well stated comments--I am enjoying reading.
More to say--I need to ponder or maybe just listen for a while.
(And I do need to move us over to blogging as authors--coming soon. If you receive an invitation from blogspot, please accept and join, so I can put everyone on the blog as authors.)
I think the discussion of man having his own sovereignty is relevant when looking at Manfred and Childe. These two pieces are intriguing and thought-provoking because they raise the question: can we as human beings really even exist without having this sort of arrogant mentality? Perhaps we could, but would that really be living? I think this sense of superiority is innate in each of us. Maybe not to the extent that Manfred and Childe show, but at the very least, it does give us something to think about. What more can one need after they have reached the epitome of knowledge and greatness in their own mind? Can spirituality truly bring humility and grace even if an individual cannot see beyond the shadow of their own superiority?
A principal function of the gothic has always been to explore the negative or sinister underside of what is otherwise perceived to be societal, technological or scientific “progress.” There are many themes at play in the gothic; death, decay, blood, excess, transgression of moral and social norms and rules, and so on. Nevertheless, one theme emerges quickly in any reading of the gothic literature as being clearly definitive of the genre, and this is the central, animating figure at its heart: the figure of the monster. If monsters are definitive of the gothic, then, we need a definition of “the monster”, or monstrosity. The most definitive way to define monsters and monstrosity is negatively, by defining them in opposition, as otherness.
So we have the gothic self – disordered, leaky, and lacking sovereignty versus the liberal self. Some of the features of the gothic self, defined in opposition to the liberal self, as being dependence, disorder, imbalance, leakiness, and lack of self-control. Here it is illustrative to expand upon the key gothic notion of the monster. It has already been suggested that the monster is “the other”. More specifically, though, monstrosity in gothic horror is closely linked to the concept of the “abhuman”. Given that the prefix “ab-” means a loss of, or a move away from, we can define the concept of the abhuman as involving a loss of, or a move away from, humanness.
So when we look at Childe Harold and Manfred as free and self-sovereign men, I do not view them as characters to be admired or modeled after. Rather I view them as the gothic self. Their lack of sovereignty in God or any higher power, I believe condemns them. They become the monster.
I think it was interesting that both of these pieces Manfred and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage dealt with the loss of a woman. In Manfred , it is Astarte, who is apparently dead and whom Manfred attempts to find through the seven spirits. In CHP , Byron interjects into his own writing about the loss of his daughter Ada. Of course, she is not dead, but she is basically dead to him because of the seperation of he and his wife.
In my mind, this interjection is at least part of the reason behind writing this poem about a young man disillusioned with life and therefor wandering around in search of something else. I believe the piece is more personal to Byron that he originally intended it to be, much like the footnote mentioned.
Both of these pieces have that theme in common. They have both lost women in their life and miss them deeply, so they wander the wilderness, looking for answers.
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