Ponderings

Tag: literature

  • In Xanadu

    On the 21st October, 1772 the English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born. Coleridge was a prominent member of a rarefied group of writers and artists known collectively as the Romantics. This was an intellectual movement dedicated to the cultivation of the human imagination, regarded as the ultimate source of enlightenment and the key to the development and progression of civilisation.

    In our modern understanding of the term, Romantics are idealistic dreamers with an excessively optimistic perception of human nature and its destiny. Romantics were the heirs of utopians, who themselves had too much faith in humankind, at least in terms of solving the almost intractable problems of existence. However we are living in a time of cynicism and scepticism, and these concepts do not have much significance or resonance, but in the past these ideas were considered radical.

    Writers associated with utopianism include the moral philosopher William Godwin.

    In 1793 Godwin published “An Enquiry Into Political Justice”. This essay fired the imagination of a young William Wordsworth. He implored others, in a spirit of reckless extravagance to “throw aside your books of chemistry” and urged his contemporaries to focus on Godwin’s theories instead. Coleridge himself was encouraged by his message and composed a “hymn” honouring him, announcing in emphatic tones.

    “For that thy voice, in Passion’s stormy day,

    When wild I roam’d the bleak heath of Distress,

    Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way-

    And told me that her name was HAPPINESS.”

    At this time, Coleridge was young and fiery and determined to rid the world of all of its iniquities.

    He was a bold and ambitious young man with tremendous zeal. However he was also afflicted with a sensitivity that was frequently misunderstood and maligned by mainstream society and its institutions. He was invalided out of the Army, and in spite of early academic promise, failed to graduate from Cambridge University. He published his first volume of poetry in 1796, which also featured poems from Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.

    One year later he moved to a cottage in Nether Stowey, Somerset. He resided there for a year and created his best work, including “Kubla Khan”. This visionary, extraordinary poem was composed after an opium induced dream. The poem describes Xanadu, the summer capital of Mongol China. It details Emperor Kublai Khan’s pleasure dome, situated next to a holy river. The poem is a testament to the sacred and hallowed elements of the natural world.

    Voyages into far flung lands are enduring themes in English literature. These are mythic tales which are not meant to be literally true. These are works designed to represent a national sensibility. These reflect a common experience living on a cold, dark island cut off from the rest of the world. The yearning for escape to more exotic climes speaks to an insular people who have a deep longing for a land of promise, a paradise, or even a garden of Eden.

    Coleridge and his fellow Romantics were deeply committed to the artistic recreation of Godwin’s utopia. Utopia is more of a symbol than an actual destination, it represents the centre of goodness and harmony. The political philosophy of utopia has dwindled, but the art it inspired has left a lasting and profound legacy.

  • The Plastic Population

    The 4th of July is a date of immense significance in the United States of America. It is an annual celebration of American independence, traditionally marked with patriotic displays, fireworks and family gatherings. This year, the national festivities have an element of piquancy, in the wake of the Biden/Harris defeat which was widely perceived to be a universal rejection of globalist and “woke” politics.

    However this situation is not new. The USA has always struggled to define its cultural identity. Competing and often contradictory political ideologies are a perennial feature preventing the nation from fully realising itself. Americans themselves will have different ideas about what it actually means to be American, especially in the modern age.

    The defining picture for those of us who are not American, is totally different. The portrait we are shown of Americans is often unflattering. It is quite apt that this was the nation that popularised animation, as the depiction of the average American is cartoonish. It is sad that this caricature of Americans as coarse, obese, loud and over familiar perpetuates. It is, however, a goldmine for writers, who have rich material to play with these stereotypes. Many of them have a field day.

    The stereotype originates from the post-war period, a time of increased prosperity. Many Americans enjoyed the benefits of material comforts and luxuries, but there was a paucity of spiritual meaning in their lives. Their increased wealth meant that they became detached from their ancestors, who endured many hardships in their quest to build a new nation. Their sense of a shared history did not seem to matter to them anymore, as they looked forward to the promises of the future instead.

    In 1952, Kurt Vonnegut published his debut and prophetic novel “Player Piano” which predicted the emergence of what we now define as the globalist technocracy. It is an America dominated by machines, and Americans are the servants, rather than the masters of them.

    It is a desolate, alien landscape, haunted with ghosts from the ancient past, as he notes,

    “Here in the basin of the river bend, the Mohawks had overpowered the Algonquins, the Dutch the Mohawks, the British the Dutch, the Americans the British. Now, over bones and rotting palings and cannonballs and arrow heads, there lay a triangle of steel and masonry buildings…Where man had once howled and hawked at one another, and fought nip-and-tuck with nature as well, the machines hummed and clicked…the fruits of peace”.

    Vonnegut recognised that the American sensibility was characterised by conflict. Violence was at the core of its creation, it seemed embedded within the psyche.

    American society was admired across the world. Many people left their home countries, driven by the alluring promise of success and wealth to find a new life on this vast new frontier. However cultural and spiritual values were frequently set aside in this quest. It did not seem quite so important to acknowledge the principles of the Founding Fathers, those honourable men who built the foundations of the nation on virtue, civility and divine providence. Maintaining a strong and dynamic economy is not enough, a nation can only survive with a shared vision.

    Consequently, the hope that once inspired people dwindled into despair and cynicism. Cultural misunderstandings spiralled into malevolent sectarianism, and the rise of gangs. Civil society was under threat, but in reality this was always tenuous. The majority were afraid of minorities. Prejudice and discrimination seemed inevitable, and this tribal mentality was reactivated once more. In 1971, E.L Doctorow published “The Book of Daniel”, a work of fiction loosely based on the trial and execution of the Rosenbergs.

    Doctorow alludes to the subtle, and not so subtle undercurrents of antisemitism that coincided with the real fears that the USA could be torn asunder by the “Reds”. The fifties were a decade of real paranoia as Americans had only just defeated another foreign threat. Doctorow reflects,

    “Many historians have noted an interesting phenomenon in American life in the years immediately after a war. In the councils of government fierce partisanship replaces the necessary political conditions of wartime…It is attributed to the continuance beyond the end of the war of the war hysteria. Unfortunately, the necessary emotional fever for fighting a war cannot be turned off like a water faucet..like a fiery furnace at white heat, it takes a considerable time to cool”.

    Now, contemporary chroniclers have noted that President Trump has revived a new kind of fiery rhetoric in an attempt to unify Americans.

    However American civic society has been hanging by a delicate thread, it has been riven with cultural divisions for decades. The so-called culture war was a battle driven by the forces of modernity at the expense of tradition. The intransigence stems from those who remain wedded to the belief that progress is both inevitable and unstoppable.

    Vonnegut’s prescient novel predicted the ennui of twenty-first century America, as one of his protagonists laments,

    “People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don’t apply any more. People have no choice but to become second rate machines themselves, or wards of machines”.

    This brilliantly encapsulates the technocracy, and the consequent withering away of American cultural life.

    Americans have been accused of being the chief instigators of artificiality and fake sentimentality. This accusation was levelled against the main creator of such a hollow world, Walt Disney. Doctorow recognised this, in the closing chapter of the novel he observes,

    “The ideal Disneyland patron may be said to be one who responds to a process of symbolic manipulation that offers him his culminating and quintessential sentiment at the moment of purchase”.

    Obviously, the USA is not Disneyland. However individuals like Disney have been guilty of perpetuating an entirely false portrayal of America and its people. It is time now, that the true picture of the country must emerge.

  • A Monstrous Melody

    On the 30th June 1685 the English poet and dramatist John Gay was born. He was a renowned and celebrated satirist and a friend and contemporary of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. These writers were part of an artistic collective called the Scriblerus Club. The club was an informal gathering of esteemed literary figures dedicated to cultivating and expanding their craft through the mutual exchange of ideas.

    The club shared similarities with other literary salons in continental Europe, where contentious theories of the day were debated at length in coffee houses. However, there was an important cultural distinction which differed from the affairs of the high-minded intelligentsia of Paris or Vienna, in that its primary purpose was to mock the earnestness and pomposity of the self-appointed intellectuals.

    The English have always regarded intellectuals with suspicion, and sometimes with scorn. Continental Europeans, in contrast, have a tendency to place learned people on a pedestal, and would never even consider the prospect of questioning their reputation, let alone make fun of them. In England though, many suspected that there were individuals with affectations and pretensions, but in reality they had no real intellect or literary talent whatsoever.

    While the greatest literary minds on the Continent collaborated to produce work of the utmost profundity, in London the atmosphere was infused with cunning and mischief. The Scriblerians were focused solely upon the art of satire. They invented a character who embodied the shallow cynicism of the eighteenth century intellectual, Martin Scriblerus, and named the club after him.

    Scriblerus is insincere, dull and vapid. His entire personality is fake, designed chiefly to impress the publishing houses, and as a consequence will adopt any fashion or cause for his own gain. He even passes off other people’s work as his own, to acquire personal glory without putting in any thought or effort.

    In the summer of 1716, Swift made a suggestion to Pope about writing a play set in Newgate prison. Gay was inspired by this suggestion, and the result was the tour de force, “The Beggar’s Opera”. This proved to be so influential that it spawned numerous imitations. It is widely considered to be a satire on the corrupting influences of the Whig administration, and the perceived tyranny and thievery of the leader, Sir Robert Walpole.

    The character of Macheath, a devious highway robber, was modelled on Walpole. Audiences loved it, and recognised the allusions. The opera exposes the hypocritical nature of the rich and powerful, who frequently escape punishment while the poor and weak are always condemned for the same crimes.

    It is timely to revisit this, as the current administration of the UK is being accused of enacting two-tier justice, and condemning the poor and weak to their fate. Humour is often the best weapon to attack such regimes. It is much more powerful to wield wit in self-defence, as it is clever and insidious in its methods and execution.

  • A Ghostly Language

    On the 7th April, 1770 the English poet William Wordsworth was born. It was fortuitous that he was born amidst the magic surroundings of the Lake District. This is a unique and astounding area of natural beauty, a phenomenon shaped by ancient geological history. The story of its creation is a thing of wonder.

    Glaciers created a distinct landscape of scooped-out valleys, accompanied by a rough scree of angular stones which combined to form breccia. Skiddaw Slates were deposited first, then volcanic rocks emerged to produce the mountainous region of Langdale Pikes and Helvellyn. During the later Ice Age, an ice cap spread through the valleys which widened and deepened them. Once the ice retreated, piles of glacial debris known as moraines blocked the mouths of the valleys and produced the lakes.

    Wordsworth could not help feeling enthralled by the nature that surrounded him, he spoke about “the ghostly language of the ancient earth”. He was a romantic poet, but he was also a product of the Enlightenment, an era of scientific and philosophical innovation which replaced theological dogma. Writers and thinkers cultivated a new respect for the natural world, and even developed an entirely new form of religious devotion to the Earth.

    However this was just a revival of the old religion, the only exception was that they had discovered the language to illustrate it. Intellectuals were living under the misapprehension that they were living in an age of reason and had divested with superstition. Their illusions were shattered in the age of post-revolutionary terror that was inflicted upon continental Europe. This island was always immune to the contagion of radicalism, even the aberration of Cromwell was swiftly corrected. The ancient institutions of monarchy and church merely evolved with the changing times.

    Wordsworth alluded to the preservation and conservation of our ancient landscape in his “Guide Through The District of the Lakes”. He imagined the solitary walker looking across the lakes and opined, “he may see or hear in fancy the winds sweeping over the lakes, or piping with a loud voice among the mountain peaks and lastly, may think of the primeval woods shedding and renewing their leaves with no human eye to notice, or human heart to regret or welcome the change”. Such plaintive words speak to a distinctly English soul.

    It is an integral part of the English sensibility to find solace in nature, as J.B Priestley notes in his 1934 work “English Journey”, “give the English a foot or two of earth, and they will grow flowers in it; they do not willingly let go of the country-as the foreign people do-once they have settled in a town; they are all gardeners, perhaps country gentlemen at heart”. Our ancestors understood the sacred nature of the landscape, and we have always felt an atavistic longing to return to our roots. Wordsworth will always be the poet of the Lakes, and we must continue to remember him.

  • A Glass of Blessings

    On April the 3rd, 1593 the poet and Anglican priest George Herbert was born. He was born into a prominent and influential Anglo-Welsh family. His ancestors included luminary figures, one notable member was the Earl of Pembroke. Herbert’s older brother Edward became the learned and respected Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Edward was revered as a renowned philosopher and theologian who later acquired the sobriquet “the father of Deism”. This philosophy championed the dual power of nature and reason.

    The Herberts elevated education and the arts as noble pursuits. His esteemed family background meant that his ultimate destiny was certain, it was inevitable that he would make his mark as a man of letters. When he was eight years old, the family moved to a dwelling close to the Charing Cross in London.

    At that time, this now unremarkable London landmark still had profound national, and spiritual significance. It was one of the twelve “Eleanor crosses”, dedicated to Eleanor of Castile. These were memorials commissioned by King Edward I to remember his late, lamented wife, and these were built at strategic points across his kingdom. Although three centuries had passed since its construction, Londoners understood the importance of the monument. The sixteenth century playwright George Peele composed a drama based on the life of the King, and devoted a section of the play to the assembling of the Charing Cross. The location, at the heart of the capital, was imbued with myth. Many other writers sensed the resonance of the King’s crosses, and inspired poems of a distinctly visionary nature.

    The poetic and numinous elements of central London had a tremendous influence on the young Herbert. His spiritual sensibility continued to invigorate him throughout his literary career. His faith in a higher power provided a comforting light during the darkest episodes in his life. In spite of his privilege he was prone to episodes of ill health. He experienced tubercular disease and prolonged fevers which stifled his intellectual ambitions.

    Nonetheless his inner resilience and resolve carried him through his years at Cambridge, where he ascended to the position of fellow. In 1619 he was appointed assistant to the University Orator. The Orator’s role fascinated him, and it helped deepen his understanding and appreciation of the art of rhetoric. It gave him an important grounding in his future career as a poet. He ascribed to Cicero’s maxim that the purpose of oration was to teach, to delight and to persuade. Meanwhile his mother, Magdalen, was encouraging him to seek a vocation in the Church.

    Magdalen was an educated and well connected lady who regularly entertained respected figures like John Donne and William Byrd. Both used their considerable talents to promote Christian virtue. A year later Herbert himself became the University Orator. In 1623 he delivered a “farewell oration” to King James I who was on a visit to the University. The King was so moved by the sermon that he requested a written copy. Emboldened by the flattery of the King, and supported by his cousin the Earl, Herbert entered the realm of politics and he represented the constituency of Montgomery. However when the King died, his enthusiasm for politics ebbed away.

    Herbert felt that he was drifting through life. In 1626 this period of torpor and ennui ended when he finally entered the priesthood. He was assigned to minister at the small parish of Leighton Bromswold in Huntingdonshire. This relatively unassuming English village was situated close to Little Gidding, an Anglican religious community later immortalised by T.S Eliot. In Herbert’s mind, however, this was a place that encapsulated the English soul. The founder of Little Gidding was Nicholas Ferrar, a close friend and confidant. Ferrar became a mentor to him, even in times of despair and doubt. He helped to cultivate and refine his poetry.

    In 1629 he moved to another parish, Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton, which was near Salisbury. While serving as rector he worked on his poetry, which had spiritual themes. He entrusted his collection to Ferrar. Unfortunately four years later his tuberculosis returned and he died. Ferrar published his entire work the same year, and he wrote the preface. Ferrar’s intervention introduced an entire readership to some of the most affecting religious poetry ever written. It is poignant to consider that in his short, painful but immensely productive life Herbert continues to inspire us today.