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Déjà vu and Fiction: Re-membering the Forgotten Moments.

Déjà vu and Fiction: Re-membering the Forgotten Moments.

Hisham M Nazer

24th January, 2013

The process of writing fiction is very much akin to the process of experiencing a déjà vu, with the differences that the latter is involuntary and actual while the former maintains a potentially creative congruence between the metamathematically and at the same time informally ‘spontaneous’ and the ‘deliberated’, between the ‘actual’ and the ‘intellectual’. Writing stories, when the writer is very much passionate about and engaged in her art, it seems to me, is always a task of remembering the ‘forgotten’ in strange, often possessing, moments, or reliving the lost by unrealizing the self from the web of ‘now’ by means of momentary conscious delusion. As déjà vu gives one the impression that this event must be important and it wants to communicate with her about something she should remember from a life she at rare moments remembers (with obvious uncertainty), the occasional coming up with a story – when it is solicited by an artistic passion alone and not by any publisher, and when it is polished by acquired, and not merely applied, literary crafts – also realizes this instance of acclimatizing the thoughts to a rare state of mind in employing a language that best expresses the best of all events remembered; weaves and construes a series of them in such a way that they appear plausible and almost real, even when the story is surrealistic.

All those impressions, stored in our psyche through the exact process that arbitrary experience triggers, continue to combine images-moments-and-melodies relentlessly, creating a myriad of possibilities that lie latent somewhere in our psychic station to wake up and make us believe- this is a fiction: an untrue account of an impractical event. But that is not true, or to me does not seem to be the only plausible reality of something considered unreal. Humans forget the bits of moments they live with the consideration that they are merely some mundane courses of unornamented continuation, which neither impress nor excite, which does not have the ‘necessary drama’ we always look forward to; they live, or actually simply slip through, those moments without putting much thoughts to their happening, and these are the moments, very much active by their own means and very much conscious about the life that lived them flippantly, that try to find some outlets: expressions that would make their existence known, which, apparently unrelated to the construction of a ‘fiction’, in turn will occasion an epiphany- a revelation of ‘reality’ for the author about herself. This is the moment of bewilderment when a story dawns upon an author, and when someone wonders- did that happen before? This is roughly the moment that Plato describes as ‘recollection’ and the answer to the Socratic commandment- gnothi seauton[1].

What simply happens is that the moments and the visual extensions of the moments which are called ‘images’ get registered to the memory, only to be picked up by the linguistic-culture when someone is trying to conjure the ghost of an event. The ghost appears only with the appearance the conjurer has already designed for it in her sub-conscious mind where the combining process goes on. But no matter what or who designs it, the ghost is there, with its obvious ‘otherness’, and it actually is nothing but a version of the conjurer herself, estranged and therefore available for objective observation. This engenders the moment of realization. This is where the present gets fully known when the past finds a way of realizing it. Thus the story is only a part of us we were previously unaware of. But when it becomes what it must, it is solely because of the influence of a strange moment, a moment epiphanic or like the one experienced during a déjà vu, that makes us reflect a part of us not apparent even to ourselves, and therefore find the unknown bits in that reflection, and through an assimilation of the forgotten and fragmented past, come to the realization of the self. The readers too, apart from enjoying the setting and the art of stuffing that setting with events, also try to find reality in the fiction and for a moment suspend their disbelief[2] and put faith in it, to come near to a reality that someone else, in this case the author, has discovered. The forgotten life remembered in a déjà vu is partly revealed in fragments by the experience of it, just like in fiction is remember the moments that explain the reason of someone’s being who and what she is, who and what she would become without them, and could become in the otherwise settings. Fiction gives probable explanations of the possibilities of the lives not lived, and this exploration of the rest not yet remembered goes on, from author to author, from generation to generation, to come up with a definition of life itself. This is how fiction attempts to fulfill reality- by bringing into light what was neglected in its time and thus presenting, through the delineative examples of real possibilities, a holistic picture of possible realities.

[1] Greek for ‘Know thyself’.

[2] Coleridge’s idea of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’

(a chapter from the nonacademic thesis I’m working on- Fighting Imaginary Threats: a Reply to the Quixotes of Literary Tradition)

By Š Cameron Gray

2013: 01/25
CATEGORY: Essays (Mixed)
Literary
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Religiosity of Artists: the Inescapable Route to Creation

Religiosity of Artists: the Inescapable Route to Creation

Hisham M Nazer

9th January, 2013

What is there in the pages, other than beliefs ineludible? Has it ever happened that an artist has written something that he himself does not believe? or a writer not judged by the beliefs he infuses in his writings? ‘Expression’ is indispensably bound with this ‘belief’ of pseudo-religious kind, even when someone is telling lie, in that the liar believes in the practical necessity of the lie he tells. Belief itself is nothing but an assumption, about the validity of something one is empirically not sure about, or at best a self-construed set of ideas presumed to be true and authentic. But the faith is so emphasized in such cases that there remains no doubt about it, and for a moment appears more certain than anything else. Thus it is always deliberated, as is any kind of modified expression. The liar believes he must deliberate and deliver the lie under the influence and necessity of a moment, whenever this moment may possibly come; and he devises it for his own purpose and we see artists too do the very thing not for unlikely reasons. The thing in fact is more acute in art, and thus art too, no matter how liberal or secular, even no matter how sacrilegious, is fundamentally religious and therefore stands on the common foundation of faith, because it leaves no chance for the artist to deviate, unless unknowingly and therefore self-contradictorily, from what he himself believes. An artist cannot escape this belief that has taken form from the unique machine of his individual identity, because that is what makes him who he is, and why he is an artist, not just anyone. In fact this belief is the working principle behind ‘dialectic’ that happens to be the reason of separation, the heterogeneity of reality that occasions the conceiving of an idea, and in special cases an idea of a poem, or of a fiction.

Every expression is a deliberated act of this belief, a fulfillment of ‘practical necessity’, which in some cases seeks justification or a plausible ground where it may enjoy recognition and then celebration. This sure is a faith of strange kind, not followed consciously and austerely, but lived with with all the more unconscious sincerity, even when the person living with it is totally unaware of its presence. This faith in fact is like the breath of art without which there is no becoming of art at all. It is the force that moves the mind to assume the role of a creator and feel the necessity of creation.

2013: 01/09
CATEGORY: Essays (Mixed)
Literary
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The Importance of Insignificance in the Making of a Masterpiece: a Short Hypothesis

The Importance of Insignificance in the Making of a Masterpiece: a Short Hypothesis

Hisham M Nazer

6th January, 2013

In great works of literature, even in the greatest ones, one finds instances, a particular line or some specific phrases, as flatly prosaic as the language now I’m using. Often few lines pose with such insignificant difference and are almost identical with the unceremonious language of the common that they leave a reader wondering why it is considered a masterpiece? “We came then to the foot of a great castle”[1]- how is this line different from any that we find in a bed-time fantasy story or have found in Tolkien? What then is the difference by which we estimate a work, with lines such as this, to be of great merit? Why are they great? Viktor Shklovsky[2], and with him a lot of other literary theorists too, said it is the crafty process of ‘defamiliarization’ which makes a creative mimesis artistic, or simply aesthetically appealing to the senses. But there is and has to be more than just defamiliarization, because in a masterpiece numerous lines are found that are not defamiliarized anyhow. Appealing only to the senses does not curve art in the rough stone of the mundane. The senses work only as some inlets that pass the sensations to help the cognitive mechanism register particular impressions to the understanding and memory. Art strikes somewhere else, a location as abstract as that which it apprehends, a place that exists between comprehension and incomprehensibility – the fissure that allows a reader to delve deeper through it and grasp what is beyond the lines and lose it at the same time. A complete comprehensibility is never a characteristic of a masterpiece, because what I can understand without any effort, I too can design that for someone else’s understanding. It is the inherent obscurity, the symbol, coded in the chosen words, that makes the abcd organized in a particular way- artistic. It is the symbol that makes the reader grope for meaning in a dim light; sometimes to yearn for it when much involvement is involved. The sense of losing something particularly significant entices the cognitive process and makes the mind more engaged in finding something hinted at but entirely absent in the text. The keys that allow authentic appreciation are not in the fragments of a work. They are in the understanding of the details, but not in the details themselves. They are in the details understood within a defragmented construction, allowing every brick to have and generate meanings for the grand and finished structure. And this is done by the immediate incorporation of ‘specification’ with what is deemed general and common. The writer leaves no amount of space between the ‘common’ and the ‘strange’. The texture is thick. The bricks are balanced and glued together with the cement made of understanding of higher kind, capable of manipulating images through words and minds through the images that are distinctly designed by the words. The prose becomes a necessary fall in the rhythm that elevates and intensifies the poetry, brings the latter within a viable context and makes it meaningful with its apparent meaninglessness. Now that is the place- the point where prose and poetry are balanced in a work which makes it great or not so great—the place where the mind of a reader is captured from a prosaic slumber and is invigorated by what comes next in the guise of symbols and suggestive specifications. Thus the above cited line from Inferno intensifies the poesy of the next- “Encircled seven times by lofty walls…” That is how we stand in a little different position than Shklovsky- where strange and common live together, there words find their way to the aesthetic end and become the flowers that emanate art.

[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Inferno IV, line 106.

[2] Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky, a Russian and Soviet critic, who in his Art as Technique explains the concept of defamiliarization on the ground of ‘Algebraic overautomatization’.

2013: 01/06
CATEGORY: Essays (Mixed)
Literary
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The Death of Myth and Mystery: in Defense of Obscure Poetry

The Death of Myth and Mystery: in Defense of Obscure Poetry

Hisham M Nazer

5th September, 2012

Is poetry only a plain mirror that reflects things as they are around in their simple apparent forms, with only slight changes brought about not by ornamental language actually but by the manipulation of language itself? These days most poets are writing reflective poems, and the role of ‘metaphysics’ in poetry, or reflection that transcends facile materiality, is rarely found. Twenty first century seems to be too fast to draw the sanctuary, it’s neglected corners, it’s shadows, the linnets that fly over it, it’s majestic structure, but too slow to plunge into it, or even deeper, to penetrate into the core of simple ’cause’ through complex layers- the cause that has occasioned the multiplicity of faith and has driven men to seek peace and enlightenment in isolation from a world too pregnant with chaos. What man isolates himself from? The cause remains always there, in the mind, in the unconscious, in the ‘background’ of the sanctuary, outside the silence of the walls, beyond the voices of the monks. This background is forgotten. Poetry no longer takes any interest in it. It has ceased to be philosophical- the philosophy that causes the search for ’cause’ and the connection among two or more (actually innumerable) apparently dissimilar things. Poetry has ceased to fall back into the chaos where it originally came from. Should I be given the privilege to answer what’s the aim of poetry-in-itself (excluding the role of readers), I would say- Truth—the Truth that accumulates all possible forms of reality, no matter how much multifarious they are, and aims at an undetermined assimilation- of beauty, subtlety and sound. What exactly is beautiful, subtle and melodious? Probably the whole human civilization throughout all the ages has searched for the answer to this question, though not a single time without failure. For the diversity of human choice and taste, there’s no anchor to be dropped at any particular port. Yet some would say- the path to this truth, or to this poetic excellence, like spirituality, is and should be simple. Their argument is that this makes truth or beauty comprehensive and effective. I happen not to deny the whole idea, but as there’s not one single path to enlightenment, there’s not one single path to the peak of poetry either. It’s more contingent and undecided because unlike individual spiritual ascension, it includes a subject and an object, the latter being painfully heterogeneous. Let me remind you a line from Tagore- “Simple things cannot be said simply.” Intellectuality may not flow like the water of a river (I said ‘may not’, because true intellectuality is smooth like anything) or may not impress and stir the yet uncultured region of human psychology, but the religion of intellectuality is that it takes a lot in its course, like a tornado, and at the end leaves an epic of destruction- an echo of eco-harmony and natural justice.

Coming back to what is happening down here, poets are connecting this mundane image with that; using clichéd similes and metaphors extravagantly; writing things soothing only to the ‘senses’. There’s nothing bad or unpoetic about these, but where’s the depth, the long lost classical grandeur? Where the intellectual tradition has gone? Is it officially and unanimously declared obsolete and unsavoury? There are lots of Wordsworths, lots of Keatss, lots of Yeatss even today. These great poets are being followed with great enthusiasm, probably because imitated ‘simplicity’ takes no blame. But where is Eliot? I see him no more in these towns and cities and in their mere motley expressions, in the posh literary parties decorated with ‘candelabras’ or with antique ‘gramophones’. His only remnant is his name. With his death are lost in oblivion the names from myths and mysteries. Convolution is hated, sometimes only because of the incompetence of the individual reader. There’s one thing in poetry that follows the science of relativity, and that is- obscurity. It’s simply like the dolphin-vase illusion created by the Swiss artist Sandro Del-Prete. He who knows it, finds it, and finds what his mind is occupied with. As simple as that!

To the poet who writes a poem, nothing actually is obscure or difficult, and it will be inappropriate to think that he is the only one having no difficulty. A poet who writes poems that incorporate a lot of allusions and hence ‘appear’ obscure to others, simply opens the portal of philosophical insight—a knowledge of much deeper relevance—and offers ecstasy only to those who are truly sensitive and have a powerful vision, whose minds are pregnant with thoughts: about things that are somehow beautiful. Their poetic gift is like the gift of rain- the rainbow: only visible from a certain special angle. Rest assured, no matter how difficult or obscure they are, no genuine poet has ever written or will write poems about things that are not somehow beautiful, subtle and melodious. False art—uninspired passion—when tries to establish itself, becomes an aesthetic impossibility, and can be found out easily by anyone who reads with attention. Therefore there’s no risk, of being manipulated by a false artist and then of relishing something really bland.

I’m not saying that I dislike poems that concentrate on little things and magnify the significance of apparently insignificant objects. I am not saying that I disagree when someone tells me- God lies in the details, and is not nowhere but is now here to be found in everything, even in the mundane. I myself have advocated in some of my essays and articles the grandeur of the insignificant. But who am I? How can I set a standard from my partial ‘estimation’? In an era what or who determines the height of poetry, or which style is more suitable for poetic success and which one isn’t? What about a thing which itself is complex and reflects various shades of colour, thing that isn’t apparent and obvious, but mysteriously intense and euphorically enigmatic? If a poetic journey leads a poet to such an unpopular, unknown and apparently unpoetic state of consciousness where extraordinary and not easily understandable things reveal an intense poetic light and consume him in an utter poetic ecstasy, what then should the poet do other than embrace what has been bestowed upon him? Should he think at that moment of revelation about the popular tradition and what his readers may appreciate? Should he be himself, or just anybody, letting him fall in the torrent of mainstream? I dream of a kind of poetry, a revival of Eliotesque essence, that incorporates not only what is strikingly mundane but also intensely intellectual. I envision such a kind of poetry which not only will sooth my senses, but also will satisfy my mind and will make me curious to see, from a certain height reached at by the cultivation of intellect, the entirety of a complex mosaic or even more.

‘Message d’Amour des Dauphins’ (Message of Love from the Dolphins) by Sandro Del-Prete

2012: 09/05
CATEGORY: Essays (Mixed)
Literary
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Original Art versus Artistic Originality: from the Perspective of a Human Prism

Original Art versus Artistic Originality: from the Perspective of a Human Prism

Hisham M Nazer

30th June, 2012

The word ‘artistic’ has several meanings besides that which is related to art and aesthetics, and among them ‘artificial’ is one: the conscious designing by an intellectual entity—a design by ‘craft’, almost scientific. I used the word ‘entity’ not to sound philosophical, rather by that specific appellation- ‘intellectual entity’, which incorporates a wider variety of agents capable of craft, for example spiders with their cob-webs, or the honey bees with their hives, I proposed a condition which is opposite to that of an original, human artist. And such is the meaning of the word ‘artistic’ in my title. On the other hand ‘Original Art’ is not merely a ‘conscious designing of an intellectual entity’ but a creation, often sub-conscious, of a ‘Human self’.

On a metaphorical note, often to feign an artistic originality, which actually is based on offshoot ‘popular preference’, romantics tend go to Paris ‘to love’ artistically, as a matter of artificial fancy, and not to ‘be found’ in love (with anything) realistically as a matter of normal fact. That is dishonesty, and a lousy effort to design a prospect to prosper. Writing for a purpose, or even to merely ‘please’ readers, is like this: you end up as a rich man roaming around the roads of Paris to find a posh resto, have a few rounds of The Martini, flaunt, laugh-chat-n-talk, entertain and at night go to bed all fuddled and foul. Lo! My dear, art is not served only in a day artistically spent! A true writer never writes to ‘please’ anyone but a ‘need’, self-originated, mysterious and unavoidable. Think of Michelangelo chiseling the rough stone to bring out David in a religiously conservative country! Probably then we would have to stand before a fully dressed David, and the great artist’s talent then would get limited by this addition.

It is by attending this genuine passion that a writer may truly create something extremely artistic, which in turns serves not only an aesthetic end but a realistic and a spiritual one too. Roughly, the ‘thing’ that Literature (or any art-form) essentially is, is more than ‘literature’ itself as we know it. Actually there is no such thing as a ‘true writer’ when we talk about ‘Genuine Art’ and its beyond-the-boundary significances, because the title ‘writer’ is a profession that promises to serve others, sometimes even without a genuine passion for the subject she is dealing with in her writing. So whenever it is about a ‘true someone’ related to any original work of art, it is rather a ‘passionate visionary’, or a sensitive spirit with a strong power of subtle observation and whose mind is pregnant with intense imagination and sensibility. Thus not only the readers get served, but also get spirituallybenefited though the effect remains oblique and often uncomprehended. But that is better than comfortably understanding cheap ‘intellectual entertainment’ devoid of any real depth. A writing coming up from the core of a ‘human’ and not of a ‘social title’ (artist) is far greater, more entertaining and supremely significant than a writing written for a literary purpose. Its embedded purpose will be that of serving the ‘humanity’ (the human essence) and not a bunch of readers who might find someone’s writings excellent for their petty ‘personal estimation’[1]. Yes this may sound ironical that literary writings should not have a literary purpose, but it is true, because a masterpiece becomes a masterpiece when it reaches the ‘humane’ core, and it will definitely reach there if it comes from the same place. Well, God never created this Universe to be appreciated. Then why an artist should? The appreciative acceptance comes naturally by the way, and by this acceptance a writer too comes closer to the Truths about himself. Art after all is an extended expression of the spirit- the beauty of a being that illuminates all and magnifies their beauty as well. Therefore, let us first write, and be a writer later, if that is so necessary.

Here I must pin something I wrote before, and though then I talked particularly of poets, my opinion about the writers working on any genre of literature (or any form of art) is same:

This has become an age of ‘neo-classical post-modernism’, with lots of description (which was a classical trend) essentially meaning nothing, signifying nothing, and feeding a sensitive mind, eager to read some genuine ‘poetry’, with Nothing. Unassociated images. Incoherent lines. The monarchy of ‘Surrealistic Voodoo-Realism’. These are all today’s trend. Today poets have taken refuge under the shelter of incompetent semi-literate readers, entertaining them like fools of a cheap carnival. You have words and you have a pair of eyes! Thou hast become a poet! Now write whatever you want. The readers will find beauty even in the craps you will write. Probably Eliot here meant the poets when he made the London typist say- “I can connect nothing with nothing.” I believe, and with which a majority will probably disagree, that genuine poetry is impossible without intellectually and spiritually vigorous a mind, a mind that is excessively sensitive and reflective, a mind that is able not only to understand the philosophies of life and existence but also to see them in almost geometrical clarity, feel them and dance with them in ecstatic joy. A poet of such propensity thus will be able to see all the philosophies not revolving around their particular functions, but with an unclouded and unbiased mind, will see them all functioning and working together towards The Supreme Beauty and the Supreme Truth. A poet after all is not a composer of beautiful lines only, but is a harbinger of Truth and is a bearer of Beauty, pure and divine. A poet is not a puppeteer who must make his dolls dance in such a definite way so that the audience may laugh or applaud. Poets are “only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed.”[2]

All this being said, I would like to add that of course there is a need for shaping or fashioning a writing for readers after being written. But that too consists only of proof-reading and re-modeling sentence structures, maybe also of increasing the clarity or making a write-up presentably coherent. But choosing a specific subject matter, re-considering a belief for readers or writing something in a definite style because readers like it are absolutely out of question.

[1] Matthew Arnold, The Study of Poetry.

[2] Plato, Ion

2012: 06/30
CATEGORY: Literary
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Behind the Lines of Poetry

Behind the Lines of Poetry

Hisham M Nazer

9th November, 2011

“He pondered deeply, like diving into deep water. He let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lay, because to identify the causes, it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to emit, like rays of light, what is inside of them.”[1] – Hermann Hesse.

The things that lie behind the lines of poetry are not much poetic apparently. At least the maximum number of people would say that. But, poetry is scattered everywhere. There are so many things to write about. Lately after traveling imaginary lands so much with a company similarly imaginary, my vision has rested upon what lies before and around me in abundance. When the face is smiling divinely, surely ‘love’ has taken the highest seat in the heart. In like manner, when art is found in everything, surely the heart has transformed into a poetic temple. But, the mind cannot be poetic first and then find beauty everywhere, rather when the mind comes closer to the beauties of nature in ecstasy, it necessarily becomes poetic. That is why there is no particular way of becoming a poet. A higher sense of perceiving reality is acquired through perceiving all with love. What is essential is- passion.

Every direction of energy must be prompted by something that already exists, and this whole thing we call in one word- reason or ‘cause and effect’. That is to say that there cannot be any ‘effect’ without any ‘cause’, ‘mind’ (mind here refers to thoughts) without ‘matter’. An unprompted movement then is a symptom of lunacy and therefore unreasonable, or in very rare cases can be an instance of extreme mystical experience. What stems from these facts is the idea that there is a subtle difference between romanticism and fancy, in that: romantic ideas are the heights of ‘rational imagination’ where fancies are unrealistic flight of ‘irrational whim’. Romanticism, as I understand it, is not in ‘being different’ for the sake of an astonishing effect, rather in portraying the known in an unknown manner, where the unknown is nothing unimaginable, nothing odd, nothing unreasonable or even new, but simply is a manner of portrayal never ‘thought of’ before. Further we can conclude that poetry is not a product of gifted higher sensibility or of a refined mind rather we can trace its source in the matter (nature), if we agree that whatever we are/become is an end or continuation of some ‘environment prompted ideas/characteristics’. What we can claim to be ours here that makes poetry happen is only a sensitive, an ecstatic personality that observes things passionately. And that proves that poetry essentially does not depend upon a poet to be, rather poets merely are some mediums through who poetry, that is truth and beauty, expresses itself and gets manifested. But I even doubt that we can cultivate this passion independently from the environment. Because our psychology (of which passion is a property) is never independent of the realities around us, in fact it is merely a receive-mechanism that helps the body to sustain by systematically (which is mysterious as well) reflecting the happenings around us (survival logic/psycho-mathematics). And these realities are constantly dynamic, hugely different from each other, and are painfully innumerable. For this dynamic variety and a constant change, there is no specific direction in which matter influences the mind; there is no fixed end of our psychological development. So, the variety of our thoughts is actually a result of the variety of matter. What we think we are superior for is but a gift of nature, of everything else other than us. The intense feelings then are some treasures, cast ashore by the ocean of reality. We can’t deny one truth that to understand something we must relate it to something else. Without relating the things that are past to the mental scheme-mechanism that works for the proposal/expression of a newly conceived idea, we cannot utter a single line, or even think. The process of the becoming of a poem is nothing different. Even Dante built his infernal monument using the bricks of a world that he already knew, or Milton who gave Satan a human shape with just exaggerated qualities. We can find hyperbole there, but I am afraid there is nothing in Milton’s Paradise that goes beyond the reach of human imagination. In the visuals of this epic, there are things strange, but not alien. Even we understand God in our own language, from our own reality, and hence the immanent idea of God is not something that we conceive by any means extraordinary, not even the idea of an Ultimate Transcendental Reality. That’s why in order to stop humanity from limiting God’s reality by describing Him in human language, the neo-Platonist, the father of Western Transcendentalism, Plotinus suggested absolute silence, what his disciple Porphyry, one the forefathers of Western Scholasticism, later termed as ‘negative theology of positive transcendence’. In short all these mean what wise Solomon once said thousands of years ago- “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiasties 1:9). Everything is bound within a synthesis—an effect—an integration. Everything is nothing but an expression of a grand aggregation. The fundamental process in which poetry is formed is no exception.

The thing is that my proposition does not ‘advocate’ empirical experience to be the sole ‘reason’ behind poetry, but it is merely the beginning, the source. I too believe in ‘a priori’. I too know that I can write about Tibet, though I have never been there. That was not my argument. But can I write about Tibet if I have no idea of any mountain/hill at all, if I have no idea of stone, of height, of hardness? Yes, I traveled back this far, in the very beginning of our cognition. You can write poems on Olympus, where no human has ever set his feet. I can write poem on Olympus. Everyone can. Strange isn’t it? We have no experience of it, yet we can. And isn’t it more strange that I appear to be contradicting my own opinions? No, I’m not. When you will write about Olympus, you will use images that you have known in this world. How Milton wrote about that Golden Pandemonium, though he has never experienced one? But, do we not know what Gold is? Do we have no idea of grand monumental building? Now this is my argument. We cannot think what we cannot think. We cannot think anything which we have no least idea of from our prior knowledge, from what we already know. Talking scientifically, H2o is nothing new. It’s merely a combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen. Even if you keep dividing the strangest new chemical outcome resulting out of a complex chemical reaction, at the end you will find the basic molecules of this earth that you already know. None can deny that, not even God. Vinci had never seen Jesus and his twelve disciples. His canvas/setting was what he knew from his surroundings, and the color/style was his mind. Both combined, he gifted us his masterpiece- ‘The Last Supper’.

We are bound to rely upon our surroundings, our past, our material and ideal history to think or to create. Today I would like to say- ‘Being’ is the mother of all invention—‘being’ that is existent from the beginning of this universe till now, and this very ‘being’ is the reality that has presented human soul with the power of composing poetry. Can those who think art is independent of base matter—base in comparison to the supposed grandeur and greatness of imagination—paint the soul as it is, or describe God as He is? Can abstract art convey any exact meaning other than the meaning we apply to it, other than the meaning we want to deduce and understand? No matter who we are, unless we surrender ourselves to the abundance of nature, unless we turn to what lay scattered around for the elements that together will compose our imagination, none of us can hope of creating anything at all, let alone art.

[1] Siddhartha, First part, Awakening.

2011: 11/09
CATEGORY: Literary
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Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: a tragedy or comedy?

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: a tragedy or comedy?

Hisham M Nazer

27th May 2011

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is traditionally considered as a comedy for its happy ending. Whether The Merchant of Veniceis truly a comedy or a tragedy in guise (as Shakespeare’s characters) depends upon our opinion: who the protagonist is? For me, it is undoubtedly a tragedy, for in my opinion, Shylock here suffers more than any romantic tragic hero. Antonio-Bassanio-Portia’s happy life provokes in me only a sense of detestation for them, when in contrast I see that old Jew going out of the court in shame and in utter dismay. The dazzling grandeur of Portia’s pleasure palace in Belmont and their silly tease-deception makes me think also of the dull and lonely Venetian streets where now plods a wronged father, a converted Jew, a disgraced human, a Shylock. They (the traditional protagonists) are twice the villain in performance than Shylock in intention. “The villainy (Christians) teach” Jews, is not at last executed by Shylock, as he thinks he will in act 3, scene 1, but is again repeated by the Christians themselves. Shylock in reality does not seek revenge. He seeks- equality, and this he has to do in a roundabout way, because by then, they are left with no ways by Christians. Christians’ behaviour against Shylock (or all the Jew of that time) was a result of an ancient grudge, therefore much romantic and false in nature. But Shylock’s detestation is a matter of present cry. The Jews carry a burden of forgotten time, when the Christians make them carry it, remembering the past. Shylock’s bond is justified in that out of constant despair and humiliation he has, yes passive I would say, taken this decision. What he does, or intends to do, is what Christians themselves compel him to do. Moreover the superfluity of Bassanio’s conduct: in his intention of marrying ‘fair Portia’ and borrowing money from his dear friend to impress her, even at the cost of this dear friend’s life, is what makes him a disgusting character, in nature whimsical, selfish and utterly lacking judgement. Antonio, out of mere friendly love consents Bassanio’s lunacy, and borrows money from the person whom he has spat on numerous times in public. Moreover, Bassanio’s whole conduct with Portia is a naked deception, because he goes there in Belmont in the pose of an affluent prince, when even the dress he wears is bought from the money he has borrowed from his friend, and likely will never be able to repay by himself, only if by Portia. The fair Portia too is not fair to his love, and deceives him in such a way by acting the Doctor, and causes such tensions that it makes a rather observing audience to think that she’s indeed well versed in playing pranks, unlike a respectable princess. Her test is merely her childish whim, an adventure, which she herself acknowledges. Moreover, the choosing of husband too is so superficial. I wonder how much love is there than pure fancy. Only Shylock is genuine in all his acts, and therefore he is my protagonist, and this play is a tragedy.

If not purely a tragedy, can it be called a tragicomedy? But I would add here a little more. Whatever he is in ‘then’s’ today, all his love for money, greed, mercilessness is an outcome of long oppression. His faults are not ‘individual’ but ‘communal’, as too Antonio’s grudge against Jews is not typical of him, but of the entire of the then Christian society. What will we do if we’re let to live in a certain part of community (a ghetto) like exiles, free to walk but not beyond the boundary drawn by Christians, your enemies (according to the history, Jews became by then offensive in defense, when Christians were the active offenders, offending to feed and incite their hatred anew)? When we’re not allowed free trade? When we’re spat on constantly in the face though you’ve uttered not a single sound, have not shown a single gesture of enmity? Scorned, disgraced, thwarted repeatedly, though we’re as innocent as a lamb? Shylock is no individual. He is in one body the whole of Jewish community living in Venice at that time, or more specifically, he is all the Christians’ hatred towards Jews personified. Oppression makes him villain, though he himself doesn’t oppress. In that age there was no sentiment in Jews and Christians alike like we have today in accepting an elopement. More painful it was then for them when the elopement had their daughter as the heroine of it, and the man with who she had eloped belongs to the religion that had oppressed them in every possible way, dragging them down from the title of human to such extremities where they are seldom more than some street dogs. In circumstances as these, what can an old man do? What would we do? It’s easy to sing of virtue, but difficult to be virtuous when everyone around us has robbed us, and has left us with nothing but shame. So, yes though it may sound awkward, but still Shylock’s evil pursuit is justified.

Everything is connected. In a complex numeric structure, there is no odd number, for the odds add up to the construction of the whole and lose their negative prominence. This is about Shylock’s last act, which we term as brutality and label him altogether as a brutal man. About his lamenting for money instead of his own daughter, how can we forget the then social norms? Children had minimum value to and freedom from their parents. If we contrast, Portia does not give vent to her wishes and does not flee from the abstract house of her father (his will) even after his death, for till she marries Bassanio, there’s no choice of her own, while Jessica does escape with Lorenzo because she is a free-willed woman, and gives love the superior place to money. This is all romantic. Good to watch from a distance, but from within a dire situations, they but mean something else to reality, much grimmer and frustrating. It is no matter for today if a Jew falls in love with a Christian, but it did matter then, when the society was much conventional and primitive in concern of beliefs; when religious sentiments were given the highest priority. Shylock’s lament for money instead of his daughter has three causes. One, he is a usurer, and his life depends upon money. Two, as I said earlier, he is no individual, but a representative of his community, and in this particular case about ‘daughter elopement and lamenting for money’, of the entire Venetian society, including Christians too. Three, there’s no way by which he can turn Jessica’s independence into submission, for free-will is harder to be bent than iron. Portia has no character of her own till the trial, but Jessica has her own ideas, dreams and actions, though at last she becomes rather silent. It is easy to tame and direct a submissive character like the former, but the later lies out of this binding boundary. Lamenting for her is out of question, not because Shylock does not love her, but because she doesn’t deserve it, and has lost her existence by her own choice. Think of the shame the old Jew must have felt. Even the situation is in no exception today, in our modern society. Now one option being opted out, what remains to the old Jew when his own daughter has wronged him? Why should he lament over his daughter when she has done nothing worthy to be lamented over, and additionally have robbed her own house? Here Shylock has shown reason, in contrast with Antonio’s unreasonable consent to Bassanio’s filthy plea. What is the reason behind Bassanio’s wish to marry Portia? Love? Not at all! It is clearly stated in the play that he wants to marry her because this marriage will prove to be his fortune—financial fortune to be specific. Now think a little further. After everything, years later if when Portia is dead, Bassanio’s daughter elopes with a Jew, taking with her all his money, will he lament over his daughter, or his money? What we are blaming in Shylock, can be found in every character if they are put to situations as his, and that is why it would be improper to call him brutal in isolation, making it one of the prominent features of his character. Actually in my last analysis, it is a play showing how Reason triumphs over Whim, and how Whim, only because it has maximum sympathy, in turn triumphs over Reason.

And lastly, if we give way to emotion and appearance to direct our judgement, we will fail to see the truth behind the actions of the characters in this play. But if we give reason—the principle of ‘cause and effect’ that governs human life—the highest seat, we can see what happens for what, and why then it happens at all.

2011: 06/25
CATEGORY: Literary
1 comment

Introducing Proesy: A New Form of Literature

Introducing Proesy: A New Form of Literature

Hisham M Nazer

16th June 2011

The story of the making a new kind of short-story, which I will call ‘Proesy’, is short. The word Proesy is a blend of the words ‘Prose’ and ‘Poesy’ (poetry). It is usually of 1,500 words, though can be shorter or slightly bigger. It departs from the line of traditional short-story in that there will be no story line in proesy, and therefore, it will be composed of ‘moments’—moments carrying intense emotions—emotions leading towards observations—and observations towards revelations, and apparently at places it will sound like a prose, saying things philosophical or spiritual, carrying with them profound truth. Personally, I never know in the middle of my proesies what shall be the end of them. The uncertainty proves to be so spacious that it creates a scope for me of building there a condensed monument of every imaginable size, shape and style. I can twist it; curve it at any moment I want, at the requirement of my very-present passion-for-truth. Memory alone will not govern my mind—the time of Wordsworth’s remembering in tranquility being over—rather, an ecstatic uncertainty should and would, to hem finer brocade. Intense passion and passionate intensity of observation, and the urge to know what is even unknown to the writer—as if the creator Himself doesn’t know what he is actually creating—will breed the lines. Therefore the tension arising out of this creates a certain atmosphere, and the last stroke of perfection then makes the creator take delight in his own image (his truth). This method of writing proesy, un-preconceived, creates a ground for the readers where they themselves can participate in its intricacies, mutely, when they read it. Thus they can share the tension, and can share the extreme joy of revelation that the writer himself feels at the end of writing his proesies. In this way the originality of the passion that fed the sheet is never hampered and is extended to the readers too. Believe me, only to amuse has never been the inclination behind my writing short stories, and that is why I have conceived the form of proesy and have devoted myself in developing it. Clowns amuse by their elaborate eloquence, explaining each and every folly they possess, and often with a sudden strikingly true remark. But, my proesies should be like God who reveals himself at last by revealing truths first. It must strike the competent readers with its mosaic, for I do not posit my writings towards common people merely to earn money or immediate fame, but my sole intention is to plant seeds that one day will turn into trees that will give fruits, and then the common people too can relish someday, though probably at a distant day. It is like philosophy. Few peruse, and even fewer understand essentially, and thereby implement, when the common people enjoy in a later time a certain kind of change for this implementation. It is not didacticism I’m talking about, nor do I care about the extrapolation of my ideas, that are strictly mine. Probably novels give that scope, but not proesies should, in my opinion, be compelled and devised to occasion that. There must not be any manipulated end for the sake of the writer’s belief, for this alienates the theme from the general recognition (the theme should not also be too cliché, for then it will lose critical appreciation). The goal is of presenting a situation, not of ideas, but of few truths that are fundamental, demonstrable, ordinarily striking (not fantastically) and very much native to all human being. There will not be a story line, rather, like I said earlier, a ‘situation’—a ‘moment’—which is real, genuine, passionately encountered, and sincerely reflected upon. It will not be a heap of deliberately extraordinary events and of amusing, sudden, and un-premeditated improbable turns, but will be a whole of very much ordinary and real happenings; decent and mature in tone, and certain in treatment of the happenings (remember the uncertainty that I think is necessary is the uncertainty of the end of proesy) where there is no deliberation in the movement, rather uncertainty, though it will always observe the law of time and space. To make it clearer, the presentation will be certain, when the end will be not, and will remain in mist until it is reached at. Through surer steps, the adventurous gallant traveler will reach to an unknown mountain (and he was in such a journey where there was a possibility of encountering mountains in the path), not improbably to find God standing there offering him immortality, but to realize his own smallness before the huge mountain and the futility of his arrogant pursuits. The realization in itself bears the profundity of God, and thus ordinary steps lead that gallant to the realization of extraordinary which makes him meek, decent, amiable and docile to the forces of nature. Thus glory is achieved. Amusement will die soon to the more sober truth of human life. But obviously some base writers will write amusing stories, to entertain an equally illiterate mass. We can excuse them for that on the ground that literature should reach all, indiscriminately.

A pre-conceived story, therefore in my opinion, is dishonesty, because then the writer writes following the lines that are already in his mind, artificially made up; he fails to entertain variety and lacks amplitude and subtlety. Like poetry, the making of a proesy too should be inspired by moments, native and poignant. Fixing the end in a state of mind less involved with the environment and less intense compared to the actual vibration of that environment—when the writer is out of the stage, meditating it as an outsider—occasions the dishonesty I was talking about. When the writer is actually doing it, when the work is in progress, who knows his temporal-ecstasy of creation may make him take another turn, which no doubt will be more plausible and honest. In the making of a proesy combining images—images that carry specific sentiments—it is undeniable that a particular image is conceived for the effect of the ones that precede it, and that a particular time has particular effect, and this effect will definitely be a just end of honest reflection. Then the final revealing end will not be farther, when images, supplied by the unconscious (stored in some other time by conscious observation), combined, pave the way to the ultimate stroke of the story. Probably T. S. Eliot in his famous essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ has struggled to establish somewhat a similar point. I think his propositions are enough to explicate my points, if not to make them obscurer upon incompetent understanding, and though he talks about poetry, I believe the making of a proesy is not different from the making of a poem. He observes:

“The last quatrain gives an image, a feeling attaching to an image, which “came,” which did not develop simply out of what precedes, but which was probably in suspension in the poet’s mind until the proper combination arrived for it to add itself to. The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. . . . The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. . . . It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not “recollected,” and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is “tranquil” only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. Of course this is not quite the whole story. There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him “personal.””

And even Wordsworth, denounced by Eliot himself with such a meticulous expression as this: “we must believe that ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’ is an inexact formula.”, seems to express something similar, at one place of his ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’:

“Not that I mean to say, that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but I believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose.”

Fancy to me cannot be a ground for writing a proesy, nor should mere entertainment be the goal of it. Like poetry it must have revelations, in each of its well knitted lines, mounting up to a truth that will surpass the whole set of truths that are displayed earlier in the story. I’ve found that little things are of great significance when I’m writing a proesy. They occasion the involvement of readers, which I believe is necessary.

2011: 06/16
CATEGORY: Literary
3 comments

“My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow”: An Interpretation

“My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow”: An Interpretation

by Hisham M Nazer

22nd May, 2011

Marvell’s ‘vegetable love’ imagery has been interpreted in numerous ways, but nowhere have I found the truly plausible. What is more obvious than anything else is that ‘vegetable’ grows ‘up’ excising the layers of ground, towards the sky. There’s animation in it, though slow; there’s blooming in it, though barely noticeable,—as too a growing relationship cannot be seen from outside in its essential pace, but only from a distance,—distance that makes it appear slow, (like the speed of an airplane is slower when it is seen from the ground). It suggests that the ‘becoming’ strives to transcend the ‘origin’ in ecstasy (more when it’s love), though a certain part always remain grounded, which corresponds so aptly to the theme of going beyond time and space and the reality of this poem To His Coy Mistress. The seed no longer remains, and loses its identity to the name– tree, as primary affection gives way to the feeling of love. The lines “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow” with their apparent hyperbolic tone paradoxically presents us with a rather flat statement: that the growth should be ‘vaster than empires’ which gives us immediately a horizontal picture, rather than a vertical one which traditionally associates ‘transcendence’. It suggests the idea of accepting the ‘time and space’ though in such a language and with such a show that it renders, with all its conceits, the opposite; that their love, though in temperament it seems the poet is telling the contrary, and is weaving exaggerated dreams upon his pure whim, is neverthemore above the ‘space’, let alone beyond it; that it grows and covers the space, rather than going beyond it as the lover ironically suggests it should when they have ample time. The conceit it threefold. First the imagery of vegetable and its suggestion. Then the expression and intention. And lastly the truth behind the romanticism. These lines of the first paragraph so ambiguously, yet vividly upon second, third or fourth thought, foreshadow the second paragraph, where the lover says: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity.”

2011: 05/22
CATEGORY: Literary
3 comments

The Language of Poetry: A Quick Reflection

The Language of Poetry

by Hisham M Nazer

28th April, 2011

Photographer: Hisham M Nazer

True poetry is like classical movies and vice versa. Without any ‘special effects’ classical movies create such an effect in the mind that even in hundred years, people don’t forget their names (for example ‘Schindler’s list’ or ‘Shawsank Redemption’ or ‘Citizen Kane’). So is the case with good poetry. When on the other hand, most recent movies with loadsof ‘especial effects’ fail to cut any least impression in the mind of a connoisseur (for example ‘Transformers’ or ‘G. I. Joe’, or all those movies what we term today as ‘commercial movies’). So does poetry with grandiloquent words and difficult poetic diction fail to impress the mind that is peacefully waiting to discover truth from the rhythmic lines (rhythmic for the images themselves, not for the rhymes and all those prosodic rules); to come across truth in a pleasanter and striking way than what he easily with an effort can derive from philosophy. It often happens that few writers (so-called poets) throw us in great pain by presenting us with his intellectual musings. Seldom there is any striking meaning in them, any revelation, but always full of a colour so disturbingly gay and artificial, fooling us in believing that we’re actually reading something very grave and serious. The true seriousness lies in the meaning, and not much in the language that hopes to convey it. Creating effect without deliberately introducing any ‘special effects’ is the art and craft of a master poet. Poets should also follow this without least hesitation, leaving behind their desperate urge of ‘becoming’ a poet by introducing typical poetic words. Though there is one thing more that should also be thought of. Style and manner, that is– diction and movement of language in a work of art should have a parallel depth with its content. That what I’m depicting should determine the style and manner of my language; that when I am portraying delicate things with subtle imageries, the language in like manner should be simple and plain: letting the simple things be played upon simplicity. Again when there’s need of depth, a need that is unavoidably encountered when someone is writing tragedy (in any sense), or poetry that dissects the nature of melancholy or of deep human sentiments and yearnings, like those of Keats, the language must compliment the mood and gravity of the events, and may thereby borrow expressions from the vault that stores and sustain words that are typical of poets and poets alone, from the ancient time till now. Prose, which is more akin to the language of a man than of a poet, rarely takes in these typical words in its expressions that many think are poetic, and therefore these special words can seldom be understood by a more general multitude, and are always reserved for a class of scholar who are academic—whose approach to poetry is more systematic than ecstatic; more perfunctory than sentimental. And these words found their sprouting renaissance in the 18th century, in the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The very mentioning of the word ‘Melancholy’ reminds me of two poems, one by Keats and the other by Coleridge. The second stanza of Keats’s ‘Ode on Melancholy’

“But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.”

has such a swift use of poetic words, that it convinces the reader: there is indeed a need that must be fulfilled. Here obviously the mood is guiding the tongue, or the pen; the sentiment is electrifying the expression-in-mind to such an extent that the actual expression is bound to abide by the intensity of the sentiment when the poet is translating his thought into language. Then in ‘Dejection: An Ode’ by Coleridge we find these instances: in the first stanza,

“This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence

Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade

Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,

Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes

Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute,

Which better far were mute.”

Few lines latter:

“I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming-on of rain and squally blast.”

In the second stanza:

“O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,

To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,”

Despite the words used in these lines that are typical of poetry, they don’t have that air about them that they are deliberately added, merely to sound poetical. The lines must not give an impression that they are written with much effort, abiding by the rule of poetic-grammar and diction; they must not make us feel that the poet knows a lot of words, for rarely do people seek to appreciate the construction than the content, the meaning, the life in between the lines. Difficult words restrict the harmonious flow of understanding, and make the reader become stiff. Surely there the appeal of a poem ends, much pathetically. Consider these lines of Lewis Carroll from his Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872:

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Matthew Arnold though in his famous canonical essay ‘The Study of Poetry’ has talked in length so much about how the use of language should be, yet he himself does not follow his own rules that he ventured to set. In his poem ‘Growing Old’, in the penultimate stanza, he sounds much artificial:

“It is to suffer this,

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:

Deep in our hidden heart

Festers the dull remembrance of a change,

But no emotion -none.”

But again he creates such euphoria in his poem ‘Dover Beach’ by the flow and honesty of his language, that they appear almost classical in conveying striking meaning through subtle imageries, if not in presentation:

“The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;–on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.”

This is what almost exactly Shakespeare did. Take this example from Macbeth, act I, scene II:

“For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’e steel,

Which smok’d with bloody execution.”

This is probably the craftiest line I’ve ever read from Shakespeare. The idea is too complicated, the event is too grave, but the language has sprinkled such a flavour upon these lines that a little concentration reveals what Shakespeare intended to mean. Many ask: how steel can smoke? Actually he meant that Macbeth was fighting in a cold land, that’s why his sword too was cold. Now blood is hot (not sexy), we all know that. If something hot comes in contact with something cold, what comes out? Smoke. Now let us take another example from Shakespeare, from his Othello:

“These sentences to sugar, or to gall,

Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:

But words are words.”

In this instance it is needful that the language be lofty because the event is of great importance to the speaker, namely, Brabantio. The bringing of more or less unknown poetical words is psychological; it must be done in harmony, and where it is necessary. In these cases the poet must feel his characters. I cannot restrain myself from quoting Sartre here: in a drama “It is not the character who becomes real in the actor, it is the actor who becomes unreal in his character.” Now is this possible if the writer writes merely to overwhelm his viewers, than letting his artists feel comfortable with the characters? In no dissimilar way the objects that we depict in our works should be described in such a language that is native to them. Like if I try to speak of a delicate leaf, almost falling from the tree that stands leaning over the skirt of a pond, touching the water and making ripples in it, with a language so lofty and full of difficult diction, the calm and spontaneously glorious projection of reality itself will be disturbed, and will prove to be an injustice to the beauty that is more naive. It must be taken to consideration that when we are speaking of things that themselves are beautiful, artificial language is rarely needed. It is of high concern that we should not try to lift a single feather with so lofty a force, as did Alexander Pope in his Rape of the Lock, though his purpose was classified. Just look at that man Tennyson, or Wordsworth. Their poems are beauty in themselves! Here’s one instance from Tennyson’s Medley The Princess, (this particular portion is popularly known as ‘Tears, Idle Tears’):

“Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.”

Here I must immediate quote few lines from Arnold’s ‘Growing Old’ again to occasion a comparison between the last line of the above quoted stanza, and the one from Arnold’s:

“`Tis not to see the world

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,

And heart profoundly stirred;

And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,

The years that are no more!”

The first quoted lines may not have high sounding words in them, may not have vibration when recited, but surely is so pregnant with imageries and meaning, that makes it rather more universal than individual, while the second quotation from Arnold clearly shows a use of language that is more rigid and artificial—it shows an urge to sound poetic, therefore becoming less appealing than they were intended to be. Arnold was thirteen years’ younger than Tennyson. Sadly and ironically this gap of thirteen years had made him sound much older and aged than Tennyson himself. Tennyson’s language has the fluidity that poetry demands, so has Yeats. This single line from his ‘The Second Coming’ shows meticulously– which class of poetry he belonged to, or still belongs and will belong forever:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”

This line is one of its own kind, so striking, so subtle, so true but yet– so simple. Excepting English poets, those poetic lines from Arabic mystics too were simply striking: “How long will you keep pounding on an open door, begging for someone to open it?” (St. Rabia). I’ve tried here to show that the language of poetry should be so well thought out and well-matched with the content, yet accompanied by a much natural and spontaneous flow, that the reader must find what he expects from a ‘poem’, and must not discover himself in an awkward situation for the difficulty of vocabulary. Probably that’s why though Eliot’s ‘Waste Land’ is so famous in the society of elite scholars, but his ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is more dear to this world for its moving simplicity and less obscure presentation.