11.
The Fields of Theater, Drama, and Poetry
Ann and Jerry have started
dating. Friends are not certain what brought on this relationship because Ann
is a convert to Islam and Jerry is a Jew, but it is clear that they are
spending time together. Something is also happening that friends of the Dean
notice: he is showing signs of fatigue. They have recommended that he see a
doctor, but he has been too busy.
Kathleen is in late pregnancy without a new boyfriend. She has located a
place to have her baby with the support of her parents.
Professors Benedict and Kornberg
went out to dinner together last night and talked about the last class
discussion on the evolution of music. She has been trying to convince him that
the philosophical problem of “matter versus mind” has already been solved.
Music is grounded in both sides of this binary – like the particle and the wave
in physics. The sound of music is physical in the air and in the brain, while
simultaneously non-physical in the mind and spirit. The neurons in the brain
are active in conjunction with the mind’s activity, but certain ideas and
feelings transcend the understanding of scientists: consciousness works at a
higher level of vibration than that of the body. The mind has evolved with its
own governing system of higher thought, feeling, and meaning, and these go
beyond the capacity of science to assess. But the subject is so complex that
Professors Benedict and Kornberg were not able to reach a conclusion. They come
to class hoping for more insight about their on-going debate.
The Dean has been requiring “test essays” from students every
three weeks. The essays are on the topics discussed in class that connect with
the reading assignments. Students research these assignments and propose their
own ideas. As students arrive, he hands the recent essays back, graded with
commentaries, and then tells the class how proud he is of their work. He
reminds them that the assignment for today has been for them to bring
poetry.
The Dean:
We
have with us Professor Bertolt Simon from our Theater Arts Department. You know
about his superb plays and his capabilities as a director. Students tell me he
is one of the best teachers on campus.
We
also have with us Professor William Burns who teaches poetry in the Department
of English. He will share his thoughts about how poetry links with evolution.
In
the back row you see Professors Benedict and Kornberg. And finally, Professor
Britten was so interested in our last discussion on music that he has rejoined
us. And you all know that Ann, a
member of our class, is majoring in theater; she will contribute to our
discussion on the history of theater that Professor Simon is about to
introduce.
Professor
Simon, thank you so much for joining us today.
Professor Simon: It
is a pleasure to be here. The Dean has spoken to me about your study of
evolution. We have talked about his perspective and some of your contributing
ideas. “I know nothing about evolution,” I told him; but he replied, “Just tell
the class something about the history of theater. They will take it from
there.” “Okay,” I answered, “I am here
to learn.”
Dean: Start us off
with that history, and we will all think together. (The Dean writes on the blackboard:
The History of Theater
Prof. Simon: Thank
you. Well, you all know Ann (nodding in
her direction). She will begin with the ancient history of the theater. She
has done some research on the matter, so I defer to her for now; I will pick up
where she leaves off.
Ann: Thank you. (Although a little nervous, she stands up
proudly.)
I
found the beginning of history in what is called “folk theater.” (looking at her notes) Let’s see...
In
Indian
theater began to develop in a serious way with the Rigveda and its hymns. The Ramayana
and Mahabharata became the first
plays in
Professor Simon:
(Interrupts). Ann has studied theater
from around the world, but it would take her more than an hour to tell you the
whole story. So, Ann, would you …summarize.
Ann: Yes sir. (speaking with more confidence) The
earliest recorded theatrical events I could find took place in
Should I go on?
Professor Simon: I have an idea on how to
quicken the story. Why not go ahead and give the class that timeline you made
on the history of theater?
Ann: (brightening) Yes. I brought copies of the chart with me to give to
the class. It will give us a chance to see the story quickly. Then we can talk
about periods that are of special interest. But everyone should understand that
this list of events is my own selection. It starts with the Greeks, a little
earlier. (She hands out her history
chart.)
|
The History of Theater[iii] 534 B.C.E. Thespis wins the
first public contest for tragic poets in 525–385 B.C.E. The Athenian
period introduces an era of tragic poets that includes Aeschylus (Agamemnon, 458 B.C.E.), Sophocles (Antigone, 441 B.C.E.; Oedipus Rex, 430 B.C.E.) and Euripides
(Medea, 431 B.C.E.). 350–250 B.C.E. The Hellenistic
period marks an era when comedy is preferred over tragedy. Old
Comedy—buffoonery and farce in which individuals are often attacked and the
foibles of a social class portrayed—evolves into New Comedy, a more polished
and refined humor that centers on the shortcomings of the middle class. Comic
drama changes the focus of theater from politics and philosophy to everyday
life. ca. 185 B.C.E. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.E., Plautus and Terence
create a Roman drama based on Greek originals. ca. 500–800 C.E. Theater is all
but extinct in both the western and eastern Roman Empires during the Dark
Ages because Christians oppose the entertainment. ca. 900 C.E. The church introduces
dramatic performances into Easter services, acting out the story of the
Resurrection. Ironically, the institution that discouraged theater is
responsible for its rebirth. ca. 1250 Tannhäuser was
one of the Minnesinger, German equivalent of the French troubadours. 1374 Kanami and Zeami
Motokiyo please the shogun with their theatrical performance, and his
patronage begins the tradition of c. 1400 The English mystery
cycles are performed by trade guilds, on carts pulled around from audience to
audience. 1495 Everyman, the best surviving example
of a morality play, is written. The morality play touches on large
contemporary issues with moral overtones and describes the lives of everyday
people facing temptation. 1489 A form of
dance, precursor to ballet, is performed for the first time. 1550 Commedia
dell'Arte flourishes in 1570 Count Giovanni
Bardi debuts the Elizabethan masque,
an aristocratic form of entertainment that features music, dance and
elaborate costuming. 1576 The Theatre, the
first commercial theater, opens in 1594 The Chamberlain's Men, the leading
Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical company of the day, is formed. William
Shakespeare is the chief playwright and Richard Burbage its most famous
actor. After 1603 the group is known as The
King's Men. The Admiral's Men is the group that performs the works of
Christopher Marlowe. 1597 Jacopo Peri's
musical fable, Dafne, often
considered the first opera, is performed at the 1598–1608 William
Shakespeare writes Much 1607 Claude
Monteverdi's Orfeo, regarded as the
first masterpiece in opera history, is performed and revolutionizes music by
establishing a tonal system and giving the recitative a more flexible
accompaniment. 1619 Teatro Farnese
in 1637 ca. 1650 1642–1660 Following the
civil war of 1642, the Puritans close or burn down all English theaters and
forbid acting. 1643 Molière
incorporates an acting troupe called Illustre
Theatre. Although initially unsuccessful with his troupe, Molière goes on
to become one of history's most famous and enduring playwrights. His work
includes Tartuffe (1664), The Misanthrope (1666) and The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670). 1660 Women start
appearing in French and English plays. Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle
are among the pioneers. 1661 Louis XIV
officially recognizes dance instruction by establishing the Académie Royale
de Danse. 1665 William Darby's Ye Bare and Ye Cubb, reportedly the
first English-language play presented in the colonies, is performed in ca. 1670 Pierre
Beauchamps codifies the five foot positions in ballet. 1681 Pierre
Beauchamps and Jean Baptiste write Le
Triomphe de I'Amour, which
features LaFontaine, the first woman to dance professionally in a ballet. 1685 Alessandro
Scarlatti founds the Neapolitan School of Opera, which establishes the da capo, or three-part aria. 1689 The young women
at Josias Priest's finishing school in 1730 Romeo and Juliet,
the first play by Shakespeare to be presented in 1733 La
Serva Padrona by Giovanni Pergolesi is performed in 1734 French ballerina
Marie Camargo stirs controversy when she raises dancing skirts above the
ankle for greater freedom of movement. 1735 Ballet arrives
in John Hippisley's
Flora, the first opera performed in
1751 The first
professional theater company in the colonies, the Virginia Company of Comedians, opens a temporary wooden playhouse
in 1762 Christoph
Willibald von Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice
premieres at the Hofburgtheater in 1766 The first
permanent American theater building, Southwark Theater, is erected in 1774 Goethe's play Götz
von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang (the “Storm and Stress Movement”), has its
premiere in 1775 Figaro makes his first appearance on stage in
Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville. 1778 1786 Mozart
collaborates with Lorenzo da Ponte on The
Marriage of Figaro, which premieres in 1816 Gas lighting is
used for the first time in an American theater at Thomas Drummond invents
the limelight, which is used in the same manner as the spotlight is used
today. 1828 Minstrel dancing
debuts with Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice appearing as Jim Crow in a
song-and-dance act. 1830–1850 The Romantic
period in ballet sees ballerinas making technical and artistic strides in the
art form. Until this period, men have dominated the balletic stage. 1843 The Theatre
Regulation Act of 1843 bans drinking in legitimate theaters. Many tavern
owners take advantage of this situation and renovate their establishments to
accommodate live performances. 1859 The French Opera House, the first
great opera house in 1865 Former circus
clown Tony Pastor opens the first variety theater in 1868 Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes
bring burlesque to the 1871
Giuseppe Verdi's Aïda
premieres in Cairo, Egypt.
The first collaboration of W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur
Sullivan, Thespis, is performed at 1876 The first
complete production of Wagner's Ring,
a titanic cycle of four musical dramas, opens the first Bayreuth Festival. 1879 Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, a revolutionary play
that centers on the repression of women, deeply offends conservatives and
thrills a newly awakened European conscience when it premieres at 1881 The first modern
cabaret, Le Chat Noir (“The Black
Cat”), opens in 1883 The Metropolitan
Opera House opens in 1890 Modern dance
emerges when choreographers and dancers begin to rebel against traditional
ballet. 1900 Floradora opens at Broadway's Casino
Theatre. It introduces the Floradora sextet,
a predecessor to the chorus line. 1901 Founder of the 1902 Claude Debussy
introduces Impressionism in music in Pelléas
and Mélisande at the Opéra Comique in 1904 The London
Symphony Orchestra is established. Anton Chekhov introduces modern realism
with the premiere of The Cherry Orchard
at the 1905 Isadora Duncan
establishes the first school of modern dance in 1907 Florenz Ziegfeld
introduces his Ziegfeld Follies,
the legendary musical extravaganzas. 1909 Serge Diaghilev
opens the Ballets Russes de Serge
Diaghilev, which begins the era of modern ballet and his 20-year reign as
ballet's leading figure. Moving away from full-length works characteristic of
Romantic ballet, he creates new, shorter ballets. Mikhail Fokine is
Diaghilev's choreographer and is considered the most influential
choreographer of the 20th century. 1911
Der Rosenkavalier, Richard Strauss's masterpiece, premieres in 1913 Darktown Follies opens in Harlem and
helps to make 1915 Ruth St. Denis and
her husband, Ted Shawn, establish the 1920 Eugene O'Neill's
first full-length play, Beyond the
Horizon, is produced on Broadway and wins a Pulitzer Prize, marking the
beginning of modern American drama. Rising popular interest in
African-American literature sparks the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. 1921 The Cleveland
Playhouse opens, becoming the country's first resident professional theater. 1922 Karel Capek's
play R.U.R. debuts, introducing the
word "robot." 1923 1926 Martha Graham,
the American pioneer of the modern-dance revolt, gives her first 1927 The Broadway
musical links with opera in Jerome Kern's revolutionary Show Boat. 1930 Jean Rosenthal,
one of the greatest lighting designers in theater history, pioneers the
concept of stage lighting. 1932 1933 Sally Rand's fan
dance is a hit at the Chicago World's Fair. 1935 George Gershwin
combines black folk idiom and Broadway musical techniques in Porgy and Bess. 1943 Rodgers &
Hammerstein's 1945 Benjamin
Britten's Peter Grimes premieres in
1946 George
Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein establish the New York City Ballet. It makes
its home at 1947 Tennessee
Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire
opens at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre, with Marlon Brando as 1950 Broadway classic
Guys and Dolls debuts at the 1951 Yul Brynner makes
his first appearance as the king of 1952 Jose Quintero's
revival of Tennessee Williams's Summer
and Smoke premieres at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre and is the
first major Off-Broadway success. Merce Cunningham forms his own dance company. 1954 Robert Joffrey
Ballet debuts. 1957 Leonard Bernstein's West
Side Story debuts on Broadway and brings violence to the stage. Eugene
O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into
Night is produced posthumously and wins both the Tony Award and Pulitzer
Prize. 1958 Alvin Ailey establishes the American Dance Theatre. 1962 The first dance
concert is held at 1966 The old
Metropolitan Opera House is abandoned as the company moves to 1968 The rock musical Hair
opens on Broadway. 1971 The 1974 Premier Russian
dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defects and joins the American Ballet Theatre. 1980 Mark Morris
establishes the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1982 Cats opens on Broadway and becomes
Broadway's longest-running play. 1983 Harvey
Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy wins
the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and Tony Award for best play,
marking the acceptance of gay theater. 1995 The Metropolitan Opera installs screens on audience seats
that display captions, to attract a wider audience. |
|
|
Ann: Okay. With
this information available to you, I can resume. There are different theories about
the beginning of theater. According to Aristotle, the dithyramb was the origin
of theatre …
Dean: Wait. You need
to tell us: what is a dithyramb?
Ann: The dithyramb
was an ancient Greek hymn sung to the god Dionysus. It was the music of their religion
in the 6th century B.C.E. in
As
you can see by my timeline, a poet by the name of Thespis started theater.
Thespis impersonated a character and interacted with a chorus. He invented the
“musical” – so to speak -- with chorus members, who were singer-dancers. There
had been a chorus before he came on the scene, so to say, but now the singers
engaged in dialogue with him.[iv]
Dean: Ah. (In good humor.) You must be a thespian.
Ann: Yes, I am. (Class laughs.)
Dean: Is that who
you really are?
Ann: (She speaks back sharply.) Well, that’s what we are here to find out, isn't it? Who am
I? Who are we?
Prof. Simon:
(brusquely, in her defense) Ann is a
poet and a dancer as well. (to the Dean) You
might want to pick one or two countries for her to discuss. Otherwise, as you
can see, she will never get through the story. Theater arts began in different
countries around the world in many different ways.
Dean: I see
Ann: (shifting through her notes) It began with the Noh theatre in 1270. It was first called Suragaku but later the name was changed
to the shorter form Noh. (reading) Between
1333 and 1444, Kiyotsugu Kan’ami and Zeami, a father and son team, wrote the
majority of the plays. They were the great innovators of Noh and their plays
are still performed today. In 1615, the
Noh stage was standardized, and Noh began a long tradition of
performances.
(returning to her notes) In
1603, the Kabuki Theater began in bordellos and bars. Women did the first performances and they
were, really… I have to say, erotic. (Class
laughs). Then in 1629, women were forbidden to perform in Kabuki theatres. Kabuki became exclusively male. In fact, women were
prohibited from the stage for the next four hundred years. That is pretty
ironic because it was women who created the Japanese theater.
Between 1675
and 1759, Kabuki Theater developed special characteristics. The plays usually
lasted about twelve hours. (She looks
up.) For me this is hard to believe, but apparently it’s true. In 1868, the
length of a play was reduced to 8 hours. There is a lot of literature on
Kabuki, I should add.[v]
Dean: Are Kabuki and
Noh the whole story of theater in
Ann: No. There
were also companies of actors who performed short comedies. Around the 14th
century, the emperor established a “court” education for the arts. There was a
mixture of pantomime and vocal acrobatics that lasted for hundreds of years.[vi]
Dean: This is all
very interesting. (to Professor Simon.) But
– History is not evolution. Evolution
has a timeline, but there is more going on than a simple documenting or
reciting of events. Let us think together now: How does theater manifest the
principles of evolution that we have discussed?
Prof. Simon:
You and I talked briefly about those principles. (riffling his notes) Let’s see, you talked about
simplicity-and-complexity, interior-and exterior, attraction-and-repulsion,
equality-and-hierarchy, separation-and-synthesis, linearity-and-cycles,
sacred-and-secular…My God, this is too much all at once. (He laughs.)
Dean: We don’t have
time to discuss how all of them apply to the theater. So let’s go back to Greek
theater and focus on what students can recognize there from our previous
discussions. Ann is familiar with those principles. (He and Professor Simon both look to Ann.)
Ann: I can accent
“principles” as I go along. I know them.
Let’s
see: I mentioned how playwrights “invented” plays some 200 years after Thespis
created a “social” dialogue with his chorus. We see the plots of tragedy and
comedy emerging with increasing “complexity”. The first three playwrights were
tragedians.
You
could say that tragedy is an attempt to “resolve opposites.” Dramatists argue
that Greek tragedy should be seen as “interplay
of opposites” – what have been called the Dionysian
and Apollonian forces.
Aeschylus
is famous for his Oresteia. Here I
see greater “complexity” in plot formation. Yes, I would argue that human drama
developed more complexity during the peak period of development of Greek
tragedy. I think Sophocles developed even more complexity in Oedipus Rex…
Dean: Let me see if
I follow you: Greek playwrights put abstract ideas into their stories,
developing a greater “interiority” in the process.
Ann: Yes, I would
agree with that. (The Dean nods to
proceed.) A more complex interplay
began to develop between the roles that actors took. There was an increased
refinement and expansion of each character, more individuality, and a greater
emphasis on the dimensions of emotional life.
Dean: What about
sacred and secular?
Ann: (Thinking.) At first, these plays
developed a strong religious theme—Athena and Apollo played prominent roles in
the resolution of Aeschylus’s trilogy the Oresteia,
for example—but Euripides began to develop a “natural” (I would say, more
secular) theme in his work.
And
a new form of comedy was also developing. Aristophanes and Menander wrote in
“topical satire.” There were a lot of crude emotions in them – like…aaa…
farting and references to intercourse. (Ann
is trying to be polite. Students notice her embarrassment; some giggle.) That
didn’t survive as well as the tragedies.
Dean: Why? (He looks to Professor Simon.)
Prof. Simon:
The comedic topics were related to the specific aspects and details of their
day; those change over time. Tragedy
deals with more universal themes. Deep thoughts and emotions are timeless. And
yet (thinking again) the two styles
are universal. Comedy and tragedy have always existed in theater, nonetheless.
Both of these types of theater are timeless.
Dean: Emotions!
Timeless?
Prof. Simon: Emotions
are the essential subject matter of theater. Deep emotions are timeless, yes,
rage, grief, jealousy, humor, love. They are always with us – regardless of
culture.
Dean: You mean
timeless in terms of human history. Emotions are not in the stars. (Simon nods vigorously, “Yes, of course.”
But Prof. Kornberg is thinking, “Atoms are timeless. They are always with us.”)
Ann
said that four thousand years ago theater consisted mostly of festivals and
circus performances in which crude emotions were expressed. Does theater
history show how the crude evolves
into the refined over time?
(Professor
Simon does not realize that a discussion
of “evolving emotions” already began in their class on biology. The Dean is
struck with how theater history might tell him more about how emotions evolve,
and he wants students to get involved.)
How
do “rage” and “terror” in animals develop into human versions of “anger” and
“fear”? Theater might tell us something about this evolution.
Prof. Simon: (looking puzzled: to the Dean). Would you explain more of what you mean?
Dean: Humans share
the emotion of panic with animals, but in Homo sapiens the brain is evolving
more. When does a feeling of respect
first evolve? When does a sense of courtesy
appear? When does patience appear in
theater? The history of human emotions has never been written. What do students
think?[vii]
Tom: In biology, we
do not know for sure if we can use the word “emotion” to refer to what happens
at the animal level. I could see “patience” in the lion “waiting” for the kill.
Lions wait patiently to pounce on antelopes. But this is an instinct.
Kathleen:
I think that patience develops into “faith”
over time. Look at the story of Job in
the Old Testament. (Students look
puzzled.)
Tom: If animal terror evolves into fear in humans … I mean… if the emotion goes
beyond pure—frozen—panic, people develop more choices for action. Animal
panic is different from human fear in that it may mix with anxiety. There is
more freedom to act in a variety of ways when this condition manifests in
humans.
Ann: (She sees his point
and hopes to bring the discussion back to her subject.) And so the greater
number of emotions you can master in theater means the greater power you have
as an actor. Yeah. There is more choice -- for actors to portray the range of
human emotions. (She thinks): Panic,
terror, fright, dread, horror… mmmm …. shock, unease, anxiety…these are all
different human emotions. The actor must know them all.
And
there is more choice for writing plays when you know all the different
emotions. Do you understand what am I saying? (Everybody laughs; heads nod “Yes.” This matter of “increasing freedom”
has been a key principle of evolution in their sessions.)
Prof. Simon:
The history of theater may help to show how emotions evolve, but some student
would have to do special research on the matter. I don’t know how emotions came
to be sequenced. Atoms develop into molecules, yes? You have a timeline, don’t
you? (The Dean nods.)
Dean: Well, I think
the history of theater would also have data on the “history of emotions.” (looking back and forth, from Prof. Simon to
Ann) Tell us more about this history. Maybe we can pick up the subject
again.
Prof. Simon:
I will pick up where Ann left off. Let’s see: back in
Roman theater developed carnival-like
religious festivals. There were not many subtle emotions expressed in those
events, which included prizefighting, flute playing, dancing, and some acting.[viii]
After
the fall of the
Now
let’s see. There is not much evolution in theater during the Dark Ages. Formal
theater began again when religious plays started to be performed again with the
formation of guilds and the growth of towns, in
Dean: Theater died
in the Dark Ages, you say? Then, what about continuity?
Remember that principle we’ve been studying? Does Greek and Roman drama become
extinct before another species arises? How does this compare with our views on
the continuity of biological evolution? Tom, what do you think?
Tom: I could make
a guess based on biology. (The Dean nods
“Yes, please.” Pause.) The taxonomic structure of biological life goes from
the Kingdom (such as Animalia) to
Phylum to Class to Order to Family to Genus to Species and Subspecies.
So
we can make this analogy: theater is a species
of art while music and painting represent other species under the same genus.
So, art is the Genus and theater is the Species, while Greek and
So
let’s say… (Tom is thinking hard).
Let’s say that Greek drama is a subspecies of a class. It is like a butterfly
that exists under the class of Insecta.
And there are many subspecies of butterflies that die out but leave their genes
to other developing butterflies. So Greek theater died out as a unique species
but left its type of drama to the Romans, who took it up giving it a different
coloring. And then that species got wiped out, while another species began to
evolve.
Dean: Wow, Tom!
Good guess! And you’ve really fleshed it out for us. So say we are back in the
Dark Ages. Tom, try this one! Would we call this a period of regression for
theater? (Silence, then…)
Tom: Lightning
starts fires that destroy forests. There is nothing left but arid land -- until
another set of trees starts to grow up. It looks like the Dark Ages until a new
forest rebuilds.[x]
Prof. Simon:
Tom, you are nothing less than amazing! Yes. I think theater stayed alive in
the memory of the “genes” carried by new roving bands of jongleurs. These were wandering entertainers in northern
The
Catholic Church wanted to bring religion to the pagans. So the clergy began to
use types of “theater” -- for their own holidays -- to tell the Christian
story. They needed theater to create the dramas of Christmas and Easter… But
let Ann continue with this part of the history.
Ann: Thanks. In
the post-Roman Empire, theater became a part of Church activity. Priests took
turns playing Jesus, his disciples, and other Biblical figures like Herod. Soon
the religious dramas moved out of church sanctuaries and into the towns.
Passion plays remained in the new towns. During the Medieval era, these were
Christian plays based on the story of the suffering and death of Jesus. And
then came the rise of guilds and local governments, and finally the Protestant
Reformation. Now we begin to see a secularization of theater.
Dean:
Secularization. Ah! What do you mean?
Ann: It means that
the church does not control the theater. Instead, theater evolved along with
the institutions of society.
Dean: You mean:
institutions in society are differentiating.
Ann: Yes. Theater
differentiates along with institutions, such as government and the market, as
well as with religion. It took the free market to allow theaters to
differentiate and evolve. (She looks to
Professor Simon.)
Simon: In 1642, the
British Parliament closed the theaters. This occurred during the time of Oliver
Cromwell and the Commonwealth in
Anne: But during
the 1600s in
What
else can I say? Women began to appear on stage, instead of just young men and
boys taking female roles, which had been the case even in the plays performed
during Shakespeare’s time, and in
Dean: Questions? (He looks to the class.)
James: A couple of
times you mentioned a market society. How exactly did that affect theater?
Simon: Theaters had
been licensed and controlled by the state, but at the beginning of the 18th
Century, we see a broader concept of theater appealing to property owners and
merchants, and then eventually to the general public.
Dean: (to students.) Others? Do you have
questions about playwrights who might have led us to understand more about ‘who
we are?
Mary: William
Shakespeare. Theater and drama must have taken a big leap with him. I don’t
think anybody has ever equaled his power as a writer.
Simon: Shakespeare
opened new doors for theater. What had been
private performance for royalty went public on the stage at that time. He
portrayed the private emotional life of kings and queens, for example, and
shocked people with new language. He invented new ideas and feelings. (He
looks at the Dean puzzling at his own assertion, whether feelings can be
“invented,” and then looks to Ann.)
Ann: In
Shakespeare's time, theater the emphasis on stage scenery was lessened and the
plot’s complexity increased. Shakespeare didn’t need scenery. His characters
inform the audience of their whereabouts:
“we are in the Forest of Arden,” they state outright, or on the
battlements of a Danish castle, or on the seacoast of
Dean: Anything more
you can tell us about evolution in this context?
Simon: Drama was
evolving with new emotional complexity –a long way, yes, from those Roman
spectacles. Shakespeare openly expresses feelings that had been hidden,
subtler. Private feelings go public. (He
is looking to Ann.)
Could we say to the Dean that we see a tension between what
he calls “antinomies” – conscious and unconscious, private and public, reason
and feeling?
Ann: Yes. Theater labors through resolutions. Shakespeare
invented hundreds of words and phrases to create new ideas with feeling. I
think he was the greatest creator of feeling through his metaphors. (The Dean’s eyes flash.) I recall some
of his sayings. “The earth has music for those who listen.” “The love of heaven
makes one heavenly.” “There’s method in my madness”; “I wear my heart on my
sleeve”; and “fair play,” “a sorry sight.” Shakespeare was beyond
incredible!
Simon: The feelings
expressed through his characters ranged from some of the rawest to the most and
colloquial, eloquent, idealistic. He could lift an audience – in the midst of
watching a bloody war – from a feeling of sickness to a sense of grandeur. He
knew how to bring emotional opposites into a play.
Dean: He wrote more
on war than on peace.
Simon: Still, if you
read his plays carefully you will find him condemning war.
Dean: How?
Simon: Shakespeare’s villains subvert “the glory of war.” You will
see subversive intent in Henry V and
nearly every other one of Shakespeare’s works on war. These plays pretend to
depict the heroism of battle, but their subtext calls into question the
legitimacy of war. They critique the actions of “mighty men.” They “mangle
their glory.” Shakespeare exposes the immorality that thrives under the guise
of bravery and nationalism.
Dean: Interesting! (Pause. He is eager to keep the discussion on
principles.) Wait. Students, are there more questions from you about how
theater evolved on a continuum with society?
We
talked about how biologists see the eye of animals becoming more and more
complex over time. There was an accumulation of complexity through small
mutations – all preserved by natural selection.[xi]
Tom: (Jumps in.) The concept of a continuum in complexity applies to
everything in evolution. Look at the "evolution" of the computer, all
the way from the abacus to my laptop here. Each step along the way is an
improvement on the one before it: an abacus is definitely better than counting
fingers and toes, a Commodore 64 is way, way better than an abacus, and a
Pentium is better than a Commodore 64…
Dean: Yes, but
that’s technology. We talked about how technology is the clearest example of a
continuum. Remember? We saw the continuum of an increase in speed—from walking
to chariots to bicycles, automobiles, airplanes, jets and rockets. But theater
and drama has its own nature.
Simon: Hmmm. Well,
for one thing evolution in theater is connected with the evolution in
government, although the changes were more cyclical in the former. The
relationship between them went up and down, that is. The Beggar's Opera in 1728 met with great popular success, for
example, but the satire was too sharp for government officials. The government
retaliated as a result and imposed strict laws of censorship in 1737. In fact,
for the next 150 years, there was a decline in theater; only a few English
authors dared to bother with drama, and they were better known for other forms
of writing, mostly poetry. I have Robert Browning in mind and a few others in
Dean: It is interesting
to see how antinomies resolve: sacred-secular, private-public, reason-emotion.
Tell us more about changes from the sacred to the more secular modes of
theater.
Simon: (concerned about the Dean’s abstract use of
over-arching terms.) It is hard to define how these differences resolve
over time. As theater developed in the 19th century in Europe—let’s keep our
focus there for now it moved from being very religious-centered (by this I mean Christian) to being focused on
the human. But I am worried about too much theory in our discussion. (He decides to challenge the Dean on his
project, since Simon believes the Dean is overemphasizing principles.)
Look
at Faust in the 1800s. (pausing; to the
class) You must have heard something about
Faust, the play by Johann von
Goethe—today as you know you can Google the whole text!—(Quoting Faust, Simon mocks the “principles” that the Dean would apply
to all fields of knowledge.):
I've
studied now Philosophy
And
Jurisprudence, Medicine,
And
even, alas! Theology
All
through and through with ardor keen!
Here
now I stand, poor fool, and see
I'm
just as wise as formerly.
.Faust is about a man who shows that intellectuals attempt to
master all knowledge. He is in a struggle to know everything he can about the
whole universe. (Some students see the
dig.) The story of Faust is about religion and humanity. Could it be an analogue for what you
attempting in this very class?
Dean: Yeah. But
Faust is a character out of German Romanticism. We do not belong to his
category. We stand between the real and the ideal and are looking for
resolutions. We are not simply “romantic.” (The
Dean knows that Simon is challenging
his project. He is familiar with
Goethe’s story in which the Devil enters as the tempter of the academic mind
– and about what happens to any “mad
genius” who would attempt to act, unfettered by rules.)
Simon: Romanticism
dominated much of the theater during the first half of the nineteenth century
in
Dean: ((The Dean feels the sting but keeps calm.) Let’s strive to stay truthful and seek a sincere path. I
have argued that Romanticism cannot win out over Realism. Nor can Spiritualism
win over Materialism. (smiling at Professor Simon) I get your
point. Now, let’s continue with the history of theater. Tell us about
Romanticism.
Simon: The French
playwright René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt paved the way for French Romanticism.
However, Victor Hugo's Hernani (1830)
is considered the first French Romantic drama.
Dean: I think
European theater expressed all the philosophies of art.
Simon: Well, yes.
You can see contrasting themes between Romanticism and Naturalism, Idealism and
Realism. They evolved out of one another, if you will.
Theater strove
for realism after the Renaissance. But when realism reached its pinnacle in the
late 19th century, an anti-realistic reaction erupted against that perspective
as though it were an enemy. An avant-garde appears. Artists felt that a greater
truth could be found on the dark side of a..uumm…let’s say in the unconscious
where the deeper emotions exist.[xii]
Dean: Simplicity and
complexity. Is there a constant increase of complexity? What do you think Ann?
Ann: (Surprised at his sudden shift.) Aaaa…Yes,
well. Music and theater are becoming more complex simultaneously, I would
say…mmm (glancing down at her notes). But
there may be a limit to the increasing of their complexity.
Richard
Wagner’s operas show a more complicated (she
reads) “contrapuntal texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and an
elaborate use of leitmotifs. He pioneered advances in musical language, like
great color and shifting tonal centers.” For sure, Wagner transformed the arts
by mixing them together. He called this combination "total artwork."
Dean: Would you
call this a synthesis? (Ann is not
prepared to answer his question in detail and looks to her professor.)
Simon: Wagner was
synthesizing all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts. So the answer
to your question is, Yes. You should see his four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. He was a
playwright-artist-architect-and-composer all together. He wanted to create a
perfect world. He wanted the audience to have a total communal experience of
the arts.[xiii]
Benedict: And
so symbolism in theater becomes more complex. Right? The arts are becoming
richer and deeper in meaning. But what about the principle of “simplicity”?
Let’s go back to the history once more with this aspect in mind.
Simon: Well. (He does not want to oversimplify.) French
Symbolism continued the Romantic tradition, but it was also a reaction to
Impressionism. It developed the darker sides of Romanticism as it moved finally
into more abstraction. The texts were laden with suggestive images; they were
not easily interpreted. The general mood
of plays became slow and dream-like.
Dean: Do we see a
cycle here? Is there a “back-and-forth” between principles?
Simon: Well. (Again he feels internal conflict against
the Dean’s generalizations about history.) Playwrights wanted to evoke an
unconscious response rather than just a conscious one. They began to dismiss
“reason” -- right to the point of absurdity.[xiv]
Dean: Absurdity!
This is now a new conflict -- Reason versus
Absurdity.
Simon: Well. (“Maybe
the Dean is pushing “reason” into absurdity with his quest,” he thinks.) You
could look at it that way. A popular genre of the 20th century was called Absurdism. (He sees puzzled faces among the students.)
Absurdist
dramatists depicted people who were “lost” in the world. All human actions were
viewed as senseless, meaningless, useless. They emphasized our separation from life’s meaning;
eliminated cause-and-effect relationships among incidents; and they reduced
language to a game without any power for communication. They viewed the world
as alienating and incomprehensible, made the places they depicted nonspecific.
Absurdism
reached its peak in the 1950s, after World War II that is, but it kept
influencing drama right through the 1970s. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is considered a
quintessential Absurdist play.[xv]
Dean: So we see
parallel attitudes toward the world in theater and literature -- Realism and Idealism, Romanticism and
Naturalism. Theater “acts out” the emotions behind these philosophies, so
that we are made to feel them.
Simon: Yes. Theater
expresses the feelings behind all this “reasoning.” The drama in Realism
developed especially after World War I. It had its own variations. Look at the
plays of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. These plays use memory scenes,
dream sequences, symbolic characters, projections, and the like.
Then
look at Eugene O'Neill's later works, such as Long Day's Journey into Night from 1956. The poetic dialogue
softened the hard edge of realism. Scenery was more suggestive than realistic…
Dean: What about theater in other countries at this
time?
Simon: European
drama was not influenced by psychological realism. It was concerned more with
ideas. You should see the work of the Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello, and
the French playwrights Jean Anouilh and Jean Giraudoux, and the Belgian
playwright Michel de Ghelderode.[xvi]
Dean: And sooo… Did
modern theater follow an entirely different track in
Simon: Oh heavens. (Again he notices the Dean’s desire to know
everything.) There are too many
countries with different histories to talk about within the time limit of this
class. We cannot cover them all.
Dean: You’re right.
(The Dean goes back to his key question.)
Ann, once again, do you think that theater gives us a richer understanding
ourselves? Does theater help us answer the question “Who are we”?
Ann: Yes. (forthrightly) Some people say that
plays are just entertainment. But I would say theater helps us learn about
ourselves. A play asks the audience, “With which character do you most
identify?” (Pause) Anyway, that’s
what I think.
Dean: Interesting.
So, could theater help us evolve? What is the purpose of theater? (The Dean
cannot avoid the question of whether evolution has a “purpose,” even though he
knows this view is contrary to the outlook of science. Professor Kornberg is
sitting in the class, listening, and waiting for an appropriate time to speak.)
Simon: Emotions are
called up in us when we watch a play, such as a tragedy. In his Poetics Aristotle speaks about catharsis
as a "purging" of emotions. That’s a purpose. It is therapeutic if you will. Theater is an
“education” for our emotions.
The
philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer said that spectators develop “self-knowledge” in
watching a play. He also said that people “grow” when watching a drama. They
see their limitations in the face of “power and fate.” Theater can give them a
sense of humility and insight into their illusions.
Look
at Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. It
was banned in
Dean: Aristotle’s
“purging” has to do—I think—with the idea of removing human imperfections.
Could life be evolving in this way?
Simon: What do you
mean? (Kornberg is also curious.)
Dean: Are we getting
better and better? I mean, are we moving toward perfection? (Kornberg recoils: this is a version of the Dean’s “idealism.”)
Look at the
evolution of the eye. Could we be developing a higher level of seeing colors,
and of hearing sounds? The senses are all differentiated in the evolution of
the animal body. In evolution we have seen our physical senses evolve as the
different modes of perceiving, and knowing: seeing (eyes), hearing (ears),
touching (skin), tasting (tongue). Could human senses come back together at a
higher level in the next thousand years? Remember our talk about synaesthesia?[xviii]
Simon: I’m not following you.
Dean: Look at the evolution of the eye. It kept getting better
and better, I mean, more refined. The capacity to perceive colors evolved
slowly in the eyes of animals. At one time “we” had no rods and cones. “We”
could not see colors. (By saying “we,”
the Dean is identifying with frogs and lizards, without consciously realizing
it.) Now think of colors – red, blue, green, yellow – all that we can see.
They are like emotions in our mind. Red stands for anger, we can say, since
that is one of its symbolic senses. But “white” contains all the colors put
together.
Simon: So?
Dean: If the
combination of all colors were "white," then the essence of all
emotions could be some pure—or high—feeling. That’s logical. White would
include all other colors. Some transcendent feeling …like Agape, the Greek work for a selfless kind of love, some people
would say the highest kind…could include all feeling.
Simon: What would
scientists say about your idea? (Kornberg
says nothing.)
Dean: (looking at Kornberg for insight, or maybe a
fight.) Am I right? In chemistry, the origin and essence of all things is
light, whiteness again. The nature of light can be defined through its
different vibrations. Everything – and everyone -- in the universe is composed
of vibrations. For you as a chemist, that’s the essence of our nature. That’s
who we are. We are a set of vibrations of light. (Kornberg remains silent, waiting for a better opportunity. ”We are divine, each and every one of us,”
Kathleen in thinking, but also says nothing.))
Simon: Vibrations.
Well, you are beyond me.
Dean: Mystics claim
that they see a pure light – a “white” too bright for their eyes. Could that
white light contain all the emotions known to humankind? (Kornberg thinks the Dean is too far out. He is feeling incensed until
he notices a glint of humor in the Dean’s eye. Could he be teasing? Or, is he
playing with ideas to stimulate the students’ imaginations?)
Prof. Benedict:
Could the life and spirit of sages like the Buddha be made of “pure lightness
of being”? (The Dean now wonders whether
she is serious or not.)
Dean: Good,
Professor Benedict. And would you kindly tell us more about what you mean?
Benedict:
(returning to the subject of theater)
I saw a theater production last night by Evan Brenner. It is a monologue drawn
directly from the Pali Canon, that
is, the Theravada Buddhist scriptures. It tells the life story of Siddhartha
Gautama. You should see it.
Dean: I would like
to see it. (Smiles.) Now tell us
about colors in that Buddhist tradition.
Benedict: Colors are
an important part of Tibetan Buddhism. For example, there is the Buddhist idea
of the "rainbow body." This is the penultimate “transitional state”
of meditation in which matter is transformed into pure light. It is said to be
the highest state attainable in the realm of samsara, the realm of suffering where we all live in our typical
human condition, before the "clear light" of Nirvana. The spectrum
itself contains all possible manifestations of light. The rainbow body points
to the awakening of the inner self. You awaken to the most “complete reservoir
of knowledge” that it is possible to access on earth -- before stepping over
the threshold into Nirvana.[xix]
Simon: Interesting.
That reminds me. I saw a play about the Buddha called Siddhartha. It was an
adaptation of Herman Hesse’s classic novel about the Buddha. I should also
add—and Dean, take note if you would—that theater in this case is drama but
also non-drama; I mean, this notion of “pureness” where there is no emotion.
Dean: No emotion:
explain to us more of what that means.
Simon: Well. I saw
an opera at the Metropolitan Opera in
Dean: Class, are
you with us? (He notices that professors
are talking among themselves. but student heads nod “Yes,” somewhat tentatively.)
Simon: The opera Satyagraha was by Philip Glass. There were no dramatic emotions, I
mean, no fierce jealousy or flaming resentment. There was no adultery,
betrayal, revenge, and murder, no gripping drama.
Dean: But I have
read that “drama” is what theater is all about. What do you mean?
Simon: Drama was not
the focus, well, at least, not the essence of this opera. The leading edge was
a feeling of pureness, purity. (The Dean
questions softly “What?”)
Aristotle
says that a plot is a knot. It is tied out of the multiple strands of competing
wills and desires. The ugly knot will in due course come undone. It happens in
a climactic moment of “loosening tension” or "dénouement."
Dean: So what
happened in the opera Satyagraha?
Simon: Not much.
Dean: (The sides of the Dean’s mouth simulate sympathy.) You need to have personal ambitions to fuel a plot. Remember
Antigone with her allegiances and all that righteousness? And Carmen, with her
seductiveness! So, tell us what you mean. No drama?
Simon: It seems cruel
to ask male choristers in an opera to sing monotone repetitions of “ha, ha, ha,
ha” for nearly 10 minutes. Philip Glass requires that, and I was bored. But I
tell you: my feelings changed. I felt an amazing shift in mood.
The
chorus was singing with conviction, and I began to cross a threshold as the
music touched me. I started to see a world where change happens so slowly --
and carefully -- that each different harmony -- and added rhythm -- seemed
monumental.
Dean: And so for
you… it became what?
Simon: I cannot say
exactly. It was not Medea's infanticide. It was not Peter Grimes's anguish.
This was not Western drama. (Everyone
leans forward in their seats.) I dunno. His subject was human goodness at
the highest pitch. It was pure… light.[xx]
Dean: (remembering Gandhi)
Gandhi’s strategy was to keep
repeating small acts based on respect, nothing violent. His goal was human
service. And…he believed in simplicity. (Pause.)
He was a highly evolved human.
Mary: (catching on) Gandhi was both complex
and simple at the same time!
Simon: The opera is
simple. But the structure of Satyagraha is
carefully organized… deeply meaningful. (The
Dean, whispering loudly, “Why?”) The characters are uttering passages from
the Bhaghavad Gita. The Gita text deepens that feeling of
simplicity.
Dean: (The whole class is now catching up with Mary’s realization
of the Dean’s argument in this context: that simplicity goes with greater
complexity in the evolution of theater and opera, too.) So Glass wants to reproduce the spirit of Gandhi.
Simon: Right. That
opera, I tell you, was poetry. It hovered between abstraction and the real. It
had the quality of old religious rituals. For me, it evoked a different
understanding of Satyagraha. It was
all fresh and new.
Dean: Can you give
the class some sample of the scenes -- in this drama with no drama? That would
help us understand.
Simon: Well… there
was the Indian Opinion scene. Here we see Gandhi in
He
became outraged at racial injustice. You see him wearing the proper, dowdy
black-and-white clothes of the Victorian lawyer, the frock coat and the
well-shined shoes.
As
the opera progresses, it happens almost imperceptibly, but he sheds more and
more of his clothes. By the end he's the Gandhi you recognize from images of
him: the slender, bird-legged figure in the white loincloth.
Dean: So a simple
change of clothes …
Simon: These acts of
shedding outer garments had an extraordinary power in this staging. It is like
people shedding their ego. At the end of the battle scene in Act I, you know
that Gandhi has the support of the chorus. Suddenly they take off their shoes
and line them up, dozens of them, downstage.
Dean: So the chorus
is “evolving” with Gandhi.
Simon: It helps
observers understand his need to drop violence in favor of a new kind of
conflict. This same gesture is amplified in a scene on taking the "Vow"
at the end of that act. The supporters of Gandhi – during his resolution to
fight the British racial law -- start removing their outer garments. They hang
them on hangers that have been lowered from the ceiling. The dozens of frock
coats and ladies' coats and shawls and veils suddenly float toward the ceiling.
It transforms into a moment of deep feeling.
Dean: Gandhi was a
Hindu, but I think he transcended religion: he represented humanity. (The Dean, an agnostic, is wary of religion.)
Simon: On stage you
feel the beauty of selflessness and service. You see this change in feeling
going into exaltation and joy. It goes with the abandonment of the
"I" for the "we." They say with the Bhagavad Gita: "Let people feel hatred for no being.” The
scene is spare, but it has these elevated feelings.
Dean: A simple
shedding of clothes! The ordinary becoming extraordinary.
Simon: That’s what
struck me. The “ordinary” change becomes the exalted symbol. There is something
of the hieratic about them. It’s a mystery play.
Dean: A mystery
play?
Simon: Gandhi sings:
"The Lord said, I have passed
through many a birth and many have you. I know them all but you do not."
These sacral lines are sung to a single musical figure—a beautiful ascending
scale, of eight notes, in the Phrygian mode, repeated thirty times and yet
never quite the same in each repetition.
Professor Britten:
(He breaks into the conversation.) So
the musical repetition is gripping!
Simon: Yes. Each
repetition is always a little different. It’s a paradox. (Each participant in the class is simultaneously thinking something
different about Prof. Simon’s report regarding Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha.
Surprised at Simon’s knowledge of music, Professor Britten is focusing
on his mention of the “Phrygian mode.” The Dean, on the other hand, is thinking
about “DNA” and the principle of repetition in evolution. Professor Benedict is
pondering Gandhi’s reference to reincarnation in “many births.”)
Simon: Yes…the play
has a transcendent quality. It makes you feel as if something new has been
achieved. (He looks to the class.)
This play should raise some questions about “who you are.” (No one says a word, and Professor Britten fills in the hush.)
Professor Britten: I
thought of that when I was listening last night to Kodaly’s Duo for Cello and Violin. May I speak
about it?
Dean: Yes, of
course.
Britten: Zoltan Kodaly
wrote this Duo in 1914. It’s a
transformation of folksong experience in
In
the second movement, the violin goes center stage, wailing in the Magyar styles,
with cello accompaniment. That sound was foreign and dissonant to me, but then
I connected again with those Hungarians: a scream, a shout, and agony. Kodaly
was sharing his life experience, translating into music those gut feelings of
people he knew in
Dean: Yes. I heard
the Duo long ago. Kodaly retained the
folk tradition and yet transformed the music into something greater. (He is connecting in his mind this
particular “transformation” and “transcendence” with those in the history of
the universe.)
Britten: In this
piece, I could hear the scream for freedom. It reminded me of what you said
about the Glass opera. Not everyone can “hear” what I heard, however. I mean,
not everyone would understand it the way I did. (The Dean nods agreement.)
In
the case of Kodaly’s Duo, I would say
that the musicians and the audience were not where I was when I was listening
to it last night. They were fascinated with his ability to combine dissonance
and harmony, just marveling at the sound and appreciating his skill as a
composer.
Dean: Kodaly’s
music was new. New music can sound like noise to many people.[xxii]
Britten: Yes. Great
composers thought Beethoven was noise at first. Franz Schubert was Beethoven’s
contemporary, and he did not like it – at first.
Dean: Why?
Britten: Schubert grew
up listening to the harmonies of Mozart. When he heard Beethoven, he wrote in
his journal that this “new composer confounds the tragic and the comic, the
sacred and the profane, the pleasant and the unpleasant, heroic strains and
mere howling.” He said Beethoven brings feelings “not of love but of madness.”
He incites people to “scornful laughter instead of lifting our thoughts to
God.” He hated what Beethoven was doing. Only during later years did Schubert
appreciate Beethoven’s power. [xxiii]
Dean: He could not
comprehend how music in his day was becoming more complex and beautiful.
Britten: There
was not exactly a progression into Beethoven. Each preceding composer can be
appreciated for his own sake. Mozart was a genius in his own way.
Dean: (The Dean looks at his watch and realizes
that the time will run out before Professor Burns has had a chance to speak.) Professor
Burns (looking his way), how do our
thoughts on theater translate into the history of poetry? Evolution. How does
nature work? Give us your history of
poetry.
Wait.
Everybody stand up for a minute. Stretch your arms and legs. (He goes to the blackboard and writes:)
The History of Poetry (as
Evolution)
Professor Burns:
Okay. Thanks. Well.
Poetry began
in ancient times with oration.
Storytellers would recite their histories, explain religious beliefs and
recount the dramatic stories of their lives together. The stories were passed
along from one generation to the next through epic poems. They gradually
developed rhyming patterns and a lyric quality. I think this made stories
easier to memorize and more enjoyable to hear. (He sees the Dean glancing at his watch.)
Since our time
is so short, unfortunately I will have to give you the condensed version of
this history. Two sentences will have to suffice. Ancient oration went into
metered verse, and then beginning in the 19th century into free
verse, and now -- to hypertext. Poetry
is based on the evolution of language in society. (The Dean senses the frustration in Prof. Burns’s clipped
presentation.)
Harry: Hypertext?
Burns: It is a new
genre that uses the computer and screen as medium. These literary works rely on
the qualities of a digital environment, and different effects such as sound and
movement.[xxiv]
Harry: You mean:
Poetry evolves with new technology!
Burns: (Smiles.) More than that! Oral poetry is
now sometimes performed as “Slam poetry.”
Dean: What is that?
Burns: “Slam poetry”
originated in
Dean: Wait! Go
back. We need more details in this history. How did poetry start?
Burns: Well,
consider the Iliad in Ancient Greek
times and Beowulf in Middle English. At first, the stories were oral. People made no distinction between what we would call “myth”
and “history.”…Hmmm…this was “history with fabulous elements,” “myth” with some correspondence to fact.
Dean: How did these
tales evolve?
Burns: They evolved
from one another – the way, as you might say, that molecules evolved from
atoms. Virgil composed the Aeneid by
following closely the epics attributed by many to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. He hoped that
his would be the Roman version of these two Greek epics, joined together
perhaps. He combined (yes, synthesized) old myths and Homeric legend. The
poetic details were his inventions.
The foundation is the hexameter, the same in both languages, and the body also
has its rhythm. [xxv]
Dean: (He likes the allusion to “synthesis” and
“inventions.”) What can be said about the appearance of a poem like Beowulf? It must be dated as far back as
maybe the 7th century C.E.?
Burns: Poetry is
based on meter. You can identify the
alliteration and meter of the first 16 lines of Beowulf. It is a
narrative full of analogical episodes with lyrical moments, grim comedy and
even grimmer tragedy. Some of its creatures—they
can hardly be called characters—are less-than-human. [xxvi]
Harry: You say that
the foundation of poetry is the meter. What do you mean?
Burns:
Meter is a pattern of sound; it’s the rhythm of a poem. (Looks to the larger class.) In poetry, a “foot” is composed of
syllabic sounds. In English, meter is broken into feet by stressed and
unstressed syllables. In Latin and Greek, the length of the syllables is used to define a foot.
Dean: Hmm. And
rhyme?
Burns: Dean, you
will like this: Rhyme is the “repetition” of sounds. Sounds can take different
forms. I spoke of alliteration in
Beowulf: alliteration is the repetition of consonants. Assonance is the
repetition of vowels. Rhyme schemes can use both assonance and alliteration.
This is perfect rhyme.
Dean: Do other
students have questions? (There is a
moment of silence; finally Derek speaks.)
Derek: What is
poetry? I’m not clear.
Burns: Me either.
I’m not sure! (Class laughs.) Well. Regular writing is the organization of
words in a purposeful way. But poetry is even more purposeful, with more
intention. There is more thought behind the choices a writer makes with words.
Derek: More choice?
More purpose?
Burns: When poets
write, they make special choices about the use of their words and meter. They
want to create an emotion, or express an idea better. They may want to transmit
a sense of beauty, or … just entertain people. There is great deal of intent
and purpose in the arrangement of poetic words.
Dean: More purpose
in writing poetry! Interesting. What do students think? Purpose? And what does
this have to do with Evolution?
Katherine: (after looking around for others to speak) For scientists, there is no purpose to evolution. There is
no purpose in the evolution of stars. There is no purpose to the earth. (There is a tone of clipped anger in her response.)
There is no purpose in a robin being born.
(She is so acerbic that she surprises everybody. Students think: it’s not her
nature to speak in this way. Some students believe she is becoming more
assertive, but others think she feels guilty: there is no purpose in having her
baby. Kornberg twists in his seat as he hears her sarcasm.)
Kornberg: Thank
God we have science!
Dean: Yes! Thank
God we have science … and poetry! (He looks to Professor Burns.) I have
been proposing that evolution is based on “opposition, tension, and
resolution.” This would include the tensions between purpose and chance,
structure and change, and more. The resolution tells us something about the
nature of evolution.
Burns: But I don’t
understand “oppositions.” We do talk about the contradictions in lyric poetry.
“A poem is made of contradictions,” the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski has
written, “but it can’t cover them.” Maybe that is connected to what you mean.
Dean: Yes, I’d say
they are connected. I see oppositions—contradictions, antinomies: there is more
than one term for them—as active throughout evolution. For example, structure
and change: how does that contradiction
work in poetry? They are virtual opposites, and yet they each need each another
to exist. (Burns nods in agreement.)
Every poem is different—that’s change. But a poem must have some structure.
Burns: Well, poetry
has structure all right. Hmmm. Look at iambic pentameter. (The Dean nods for him to proceed.) It contains five feet per line.
The predominant foot is the "iamb.” This structure was first used in
ancient
In ancient Greek and
Latin, this form was based on the alternating length of syllables—first a
short, then a long, with some variations.
Iambic pentameter, based on stressed and unstressed syllables rather
than on their length, comes natural
to English. It was used frequently by many of the most famous poets, including
Shakespeare and Keats. In its unrhymed form, it is called blank verse. Shakespeare employs blank verse in his plays for the
most part.
Then there is
“dactylic hexameter.” It has six feet per line. The dominant kind of foot is
the dactyl, a long followed by two
short syllables. Dactylic hexameter was also the meter of Greek epic poetry.
The earliest examples are the works of Homer and Hesiod.
Derek: But what do
you say about “free verse”? Doesn’t that mean verse without structure. When did that evolve?
Burns: Free verse
evolved in late 19th-century
And then
literary critics applied the term to the King James translation of the Song of Solomon and the Psalms. And there are some of the poems
of Matthew Arnold (“
Dean: So where is
the structure? “Freedom” always goes with “structure.” They are opposite and
complementary.
Burns: A poet -- in
the spirit of freedom – may create a structure “on purpose” -- rather than the
other way around –fitting words into a rhyming structure say. And 20th century American poet Marianne Moore
wrote in stanzaic structures of syllabic verse—based entirely on a count of
syllabics—which some people confused with free verse.
Dean: So even free
verse has a purpose. Poets can create their own structures in which to create?
Burns: The poet’s
“purpose” gives the verse its structure. A poet might want to create a new mood
or a different experience for the reader. The purpose creates the structure. Derek: (looking puzzled) Could you give us an example?
Burns: Walt Whitman,
for example, uses the technique of sound and the flow of natural speech. Listen to the rain on the window. The poet would want you
experience it.
Dean: How?
Burns: Well, listen to Whitman. He asks the rain, “Who are you?”
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling
shower,
Which,
strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I
am the Poém of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal
I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward
to heaven, whence, vaguely formed, altogether changed, and yet the same,
I
descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And
all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn,
And
forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure
and beautify it… [xxvii]
I’ll stop
here, but you get the idea, I think.
Dean: Yes. Now, how
do we connect that kind of free-verse poetry with evolution?
Burns: (Frustrated with the Dean.) An ape would “feel” the rain but would not be able to
“interpret” it. There was no human language at that time. A shaman would
interpret the rain and pray to it as a god. At that time there was no
hypotaxis, which we find in poetry, no pleonasm, no anacoluthon, no eponym…. (He is being sardonic with the Dean who,
realizing it, throws up his hands in shame, smiling in self-defense.) Yes.
We have come a long way.
In
poetry, as I said, there can be a repetition of sound in rhyme, alliteration,
assonance, and so on, in order to produce a mood; and images to emphasize and
illustrate concepts (T.S. Eliot spoke of objective
correlatives in poetry), but I tell you (to
the Dean) any depth explanation would take more time than we have in this
class period. (Pause.) Students! Take
my course, an Introduction to Poetry!
(Smiles at the “marketing” of his own
class.)
Dean: Back to
evolution. When did rhyme begin?
Burns: Rhyme entered
But
poets invent their own "rules." In this day and age, rhyme is not a
big deal in poetry. Poets know how sound is connected to the senses and to
pleasure -- and can have aesthetic purposes. (The Dean points to a place on the blackboard that says “as evolution”;
he wants more connection to the primary subject of their course.) So tell
me: What are some of your other principles of evolution?
Dean:
“Differentiation.” This is another key principle of evolution. How did poetry
become differentiated from prose?
Burns: (seeing this buried in history) My God!
Longer and longer…
Dean: Well, you can
be specific. How did the sonnet differentiate
as a structure, for example?
Burns: By the
thirteenth century, the sonnet had evolved as a poem of fourteen lines with a
set rhyme scheme. But the sonnet keeps evolving. Today there are many different
sonnet forms.[xxviii]
Dean: What about
other types of poetry?
Burns: Poems
differentiated everywhere around the world. Jintishi
is a form of Chinese poetry based on a series of tonal patterns. Chinese is
a tonal language, and Jintishi uses four tones of the classical form of the
language in each of four couplets: the level, rising, falling and entering
tones. It has eight lines, that is, with parallelism between the lines in the
second and third couplets. One of its masters was Du Fu who lived in the 8th
century during the Tang Dynasty. And there are also variations evolving from
this Jintishi form.
Dean: I’ve never
heard of it. What others?
Burns: The sestina has six stanzas, each comprising
six unrhymed lines. The words at the end of each of the lines of the first
stanza reappear in a rolling pattern in the other stanzas. The poem then ends
with a three-line stanza—called a Coda—in
which the words again appear, two to each line.
The
Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem
made up of five triplets with a closing quatrain. It has two single-line
refrains, used in the first and third lines of the first stanza, and then
alternately at the close of each subsequent stanza until the final quatrain,
which concludes with the two refrains. The lines of the poem alternate in an a-b-a-b rhyme scheme.
Dean: When did the Villanelle begin?
Burns: The form of
the poem in the English language has been in use since the late nineteenth
century; English poets borrowed it from one particular French Renaissance
version of this poetic form. Many poets writing in different forms have used
it, such as W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, and Dylan Thomas.[xxix]
Dean: Interesting.
Keep going on the evolution of poetry.
Burns: The pantoum is similar to a villanelle. It’s composed of a series of
quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first
and third lines of the next. (The Dean
nods.)
The ode has three parts: a strophe, an
antistrophe, and an epode. Odes can be sung by two choruses with the first
reciting the strophe, the second the antistrophe, and both together the epode.
The ode should fit with your principles that started with the Big Bang.
Dean: Sociality. We
said: Evolution is social -- from the beginning of time.
Burns: Well, if
that’s how you see it, I think I can make a connection between sociality and
the ode, which is a dialogue with a very complex structure. It is generally of
considerable length, has an elevated theme, and is told in a lofty, dignified
manner.
Dean: Where did it
begin?
Burns: It began in
ancient
Dean: It’s
dialectic, in action!
Simon: (Interrupts.)
This poetry is also the beginning of ancient Greek theater. Greek drama began
as a dialogue between and among two or three singer-actors, a chorus of twelve
to fifteen singing dancers, a musician playing a double reed pipe, and others,
such as "spear-carriers." I should say: theater and poetry were
evolving together in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides…
Dean: How?
Simon: First, you
have a
dialogue preceding the entry of the chorus that presents the topic of the tragedy.
The entry chant of the chorus would be in an anapestic marching rhythm—two
short syllables followed by one long, with four of these anapestic feet, as
they are called, per line. The chorus remains on stage throughout the rest of
the play. Members wear masks; their dancing is expressive, with the movement of
hands, arms and the body in general.[xxx]
Dean: Thanks for
the connection. (smiles, turning back to
Professor Burns) Another principle of evolution is the metaphor. What about
that?
Burns: Metaphor! …In
poetry? No way! (Class laughs.)
Just joking,
of course. Aristotle wrote in the Poetics:
"the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." But some
poets today push rhetorical devices to their limits, making use of catachresis. (Students look puzzled.) Catachresis means mixing metaphors. The
juxtaposition of unexpected images is a strong element in surrealist poetry and
haiku, for example. I say today, but Shakespeare, a consummate master of
metaphor, is also known for his not infrequent use of catachresis.
Dean: “Synthesis”
–that’s another evolution-principle. How would the rhetorical devices combine?
We spoke of Wagner putting all the arts together to create a newly integrated
art form.
Burns: The poet has
at her or his disposal, to put it somewhat crassly, more than a hundred devices
-- metaphor, irony, repetition, metonymy, synecdoche, and so on… Do the math on
the possible combinations and permutations; they would be endless. (Britten is reminded of the endless possible
combinations in music of notes, pitches, keys, tones, instruments, inversions,
and so on.
A poet uses
the structure of the past for a purpose. A “repetition” in poetry can add a
somber tone to a poem, as it can be combined and laced with “irony.” (Puzzled faces again.) For example, in
Anthony's famous eulogy to Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Anthony's repetition of the words, "for Brutus
is an honorable man," moves from a sincere tone to one that exudes irony.
Dean: Ah! Great.
Now students! The faculty has been doing
all the talking. I want you to be more
involved. Do you have questions? Anyone? (Silence).
Well. How do these principles of evolution
apply here? Class, someone pick out one of those principles of evolution and
show how poetry expresses it.
Anne: (There is some embarrassment in the silence,
but poetry is what brought Ann and Jerry together, and now she interjects...) “Transcendence!”
That’s the principle of poetry. I think poetry lifts us up. It helps us rise
above our differences. That’s also what evolution is about.
Dean: Tell us more.
Can you illustrate this with a poem?
Anne: Here is a
poem from Rumi, the Islamic Sufi poet. I memorized it. (She coughs.)
Love comes sailing through and I
scream.
Love
sits beside me like a private supply of itself.
Love
puts away the instruments and takes off the silk robes.
Our
nakedness together changes me completely.
Dean: (Ann’s recitation of the poem out loud
changes the mood of the class.) What does the poem say to you?
Ann: There is some
immediacy in it for me…some majesty in these lines. And passion. It begins with
a sudden surge: “Love comes sailing
through…” Love goes beyond thought… Rumi speaks of love as power. It enters
like a scream. (She looks at Jerry.)
Jerry: Passion,
yeah. (Their heads nod together.)
Rumi is talking about the shock of love in creation. He blows me away. I
agree. And I’m not someone to support Muslim poetry!
Dean: What does the
poem say to you?
Jerry: I read that
Rumi wants to destroy our egos. “Love tears off all the masks,” he says, …and
it makes us as One. (The Dean is
impressed.)
Ann: And then Rumi
says: “Love sits beside me like a private
supply of itself.” He is saying: Love is never-ending. It’s within all
us—all of us, always. When we experience this love we’re given a new
opportunity. (She pauses. The Dean
encourages her: “What?”)
I see a mirror of the
Beloved in all of us. (The Dean is taken
aback.) That’s Rumi! (A quiet laugh
goes through the class.) Rumi’s love on earth reminded him of a great Love
beyond human love. (Pause.)
Third line: “Love … takes off the silk robes…”
Dean: (Interrupts)
Ann: (Filled up with the spirit of the poem, and
maybe a little theater at the same time.) This Love is somethin’ else. It
is revealing; it’s stripping; it makes you naked. (Everyone remembers the talk about Phillip Glass’s opera, stripping in
that, and another embarrassed laugh edges through the class.)
Jerry: It is like
Gandhi – dropping his clothes. Rumi is writing about his Beloved…
Dean: Is this
Beloved the Sufi name for God? (The Dean
remains suspicious of religious talk. He wants the conversation to remain
objective.)
Ann: Well, it’s
Passion. It’s what Sufis feel to be a Presence. It’s in their whole body. Sufis
dance the feeling – some whirl around
in a trance.
Jerry: Yeah. Whirling
Dervishes.
So you can’t have
just one name for God. According to the Kabbalah, there are 72 names for God. And
that just gets you started. (The Dean
looks surprised at the word Kabbalah.) These names are combinations of
Hebrew letters from Chapter 14 of the book of Exodus. For those who study the
Kabbalah, these letters produce a spiritual vibration.
Dean: And God is
the same as Allah is in Islam?
Ann: Well. In the Muslim
faith there are 99 names for God, for Allah. For example, there is the name Al-Wadud, or "the Loving One,"
which refers to God as being "full of loving kindness." Sufis believe
that love is a projection of the essence of God onto the universe. (The Dean believes the reverse: God is a
projection of the human mind onto the universe.) God wants to recognize
beauty, as if one looks at a mirror to see oneself. God "looks" at
“itself” in the nature of things. It’s hard to make sense of this in everyday
language. Since everything is a reflection of God, we meditate to see the
beauty inside all that appears ugly. Sufis believe that through love, people
can get back to the Beloved’s purity and grace. The Kabbalah has this same
outlook.[xxxi]
Dean: Oh, that
sounds mystical.
Jerry: Kabbalistic
masters have been around for thousands of years.
Dean: (Confessing.) I’ve got a problem. What
is the Kabbalah?
Jerry: It’s a discipline in Judaism. It’s a school of thought. It helps to
explain the relationship between the Creator and us.
Dean: Hmm. The
Infinite within the finite.
Jerry: (Jerry is not sure whether the Dean really
gets the idea.) The Kabbalah helps us understand the nature of the
universe… and the purpose of human existence.[xxxii]
Dean: Ooo. That’s
heavy…too much… beyond me. (He is
reacting to the religious outlook. He does not reflect at this moment on how he
has stirred up the pot to move the argument in this direction. In the arts, his
“class project” on evolution presents the subject in a new way.)
Anne: (to the Dean) You said that intuition is
one source of knowledge. Remember? Poetry is based on intuition and insight.
Now we are saying that poetry is a source of knowledge. (The Dean never ceases to be amazed at what students remember.)
Poets have known about evolution for a long time – for centuries before
Dean: Tell me more.
Anne: Listen to
this poem by Rumi from the 13th Century. (It
is as though she had prepared for this. She reaches into her pocket and pulls
out slip of paper to read:)
I
died from minerality and became vegetable;
And
from vegetativeness I died and became animal.
I
died from animality and became man.
Then
why fear disappearance through death?
Next
time I shall die
Bringing
forth wings and feathers like angels;
After
that, soaring higher than angels –
What
you cannot imagine,
I
shall be that.[xxxiii]
Dean: (Silence. Anne says nothing more.) Oh.
That poem is hard to believe. A poet – in the 13th century -- how could he know
about evolution from the beginning of time, something only discovered fairly
recently?
Ann: I was
surprised. I started reading Rumi, and there it was. I think he is the greatest
poet who ever lived. (Fixed in
appreciation of Ann, the Dean raises his eyebrows at her maximizing statement.
Then he turns to Jerry:)
Dean: Jerry, you
and Ann have been studying poetry together. Right? (Jerry nods.) How do you
see poetry as connected with the principles of evolution?
Jerry: I’ve looked at
a cycle of poems
from ancient
Dean: Well, how does that poem go?
Jerry: It’s three thousand years old. I did not memorize the whole
thing, but this is how it starts:
God
is a master craftsman;
yet
none can draw the lines of his Person…[xxxv]
Dean: What does it
say to you?
Jerry: God has no
image but is the craftsman of all
images. Egyptians knew this: The face of the universe “transcends” their
experience. “It”—whatever word you come up with— crafted everything beyond the
image of a Person.
Dean: So Egyptians
were projecting their experience onto the universe, using crafts. The best they
could do was to imagine a “master craftsman.” Freud would understand that: it
is human self-projection. (The Dean is in
the position of authority figure, but not everyone in the class agrees with
him.) Now let me ask you: If God were Unity within all this Plurality, how
would you see that?
Jerry: I would see
it as a concept, not as an experience. You said – at the beginning -- that we
must experience the truth in Unity.
Knowing must be an experience.
Dean: Hmm. What
would that experience be?
Jerry: I dunno. It
must include everything that has happened in the universe. Maybe it is white
light. Ann has said to me: “It is a great passion with a purpose.” (The Dean is quiet, thinking.)
Dean: (He hesitates at first, … then asks boldly:) What do a Muslim and a Jew have in common?
Jerry: Compassion.
They have respect for the mystery of life. Rabbi Abraham Maimonides advocated,
“sublime piety.” It was to be based on a discipline of mystical communion. He
recommended that Jews adopt some Sufi practices of contemplation and
mantra-like repetitions of the divine names – without losing their tradition. (Again the Dean is impressed.)[xxxvi]
Dean: Ann, we’re
running out of time. Jerry is giving back to me my own perspective, and it
shocks me: “We must experience this great unity.” (The Dean has trouble feeling the idea so continues:)
Now
theater must have unity. Right? (Ann
shrugs. To her it seems like the Dean is changing the subject.) The
characters in a stage play are all different. But the whole play must have some
degree of unity, some coherence. Right? (Ann
nods her agreement.) As we talk with scientists, we see the same need for
unity, all the way through evolution.
We
can see the principles of separation, distinction, individuality, opposition
and synthesis, and unity, all the way. Is this also the case in a play, a
drama?
Ann: Yes, sir. A play must
give each of its actors some separate individuality, some distinction, and
opposition between and among actors. … (pausing
to remember) Different characters have different goals and intentions that
produce conflicts, so their purposes are antithetical at times; but out those
antitheses comes synthesis, yes, and unity… Making use of all these dynamics,
the story should come together -- with meaning.
Dean: But what about the “Theatre of the Absurd”? Doesn’t that
genre refer to plays that have no meaning?
Ann: Yes. But we said the aim was to make a comment on the human
condition. You have to feel
loneliness. I have read plays like Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot and… Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. They all have a special impact, a feeling with meaning…
Dean: Well, “meaning.” what does that mean? We need help here.
Kornberg: (bolting up at last)
Where is the meaning? ALL THEATER IS
ABSURD. (He spouts this out, forcefully,
loudly, smiling in an evil superior way. The Dean thinks he almost looks like a
predator.) Evolution has no purpose either.
(emphatically) What could the purpose
be? What is the meaning? Even history is meaningless, without any theory that
is verifiable. This whole effort is absurd. (The
Dean can’t tell how he serious he is because of Kornberg’s crooked smile.)
Simon: (stepping in to
defend the Dean’s project) Plays are a mirror of life. Absurdism was about
powerlessness of individuals, about the stupidity of civilization. (He looks at Kornberg as though he were part
of the absurdity of the universe.) You have to feel that stupidity and absurdity to understand other people, to
develop compassion. We experience absurdity all the time, including on this
campus. (He is smiling at Kornberg, who
is not sure where Simon is coming from emotionally. Simon stays cool, but from
his perspective, he wonders whether Kornberg could be an academic
psychopath.)
Dean: Okay. Whew! I think I get it. Art is the expression of
everyday life – including all of its absurdity. But I still think drama is
constructed through oppositions, as is the universe.
Simon: In principle, yes. But there is more to this world than
principles, as intellectually stated. We have to experience the drama. Theater means being alive. Being alive is not
just “a principle.”
Dean: There is always some opposition and tension among actors in
a play, right? (Simon nods “Yes,”
figuring the Dean has not “gotten it” at all that he’s still in the dark.)
Now think of these characters as parallel to atoms or molecules. They are in
tension; they attract and repel. Right?
Simon: Right again. But drama is so much more than a principle. In
drama, you “feel” the tension.
Dean: H’rumph. The story must “hold together” in the mind. And
the same is true with physical evolution. The actors are like particles, the
scenes are like atoms, the acts like cells, and the whole play is like an
organism. All parts in the story must hold together. (He is speaking half triumphantly, half in humor, but Kornberg scowls
at hearing the idea.)
Ann: Right..a…I’m not sure I get the parallel. (She is thinking about the allusion.)
Dean: Seriously. When these particles -- like the actors in your
story – transform and develop over time through scenes in the “drama,” so to
speak, they add to its richness and complexity.
Ann: Yes. But it must be a good
story.
Kornberg: Ah! And are you sure that evolution is a good story? A good story must be artfully done. How do you
know this is a good story?
Dean: Mmmm…I think that history must be truthful. That’s good.
And those constellations… What I see in them certainly looks like a work of
art! As a matter of fact, the earth and all that is in it to me looks like a
work of art. That’s my thought. (He is
really looking for a synthesis of Truth, Art, and Goodness, but he says nothing
about them.) And this perspective doesn’t elevate above science as a
discipline. What do you think? (Smiles
again.)
Kornberg: You are projecting art and drama onto this idea of
evolution, as though it existed in the stars. The truth is based on science, hard facts (a frown distorting his handsome features).
Dean: Let me turn that around. Are scientists projecting the
human story onto their science? Are they anthropomorphic?
Kornberg: No. (Kornberg has
heard this argument before from Professor Benedict. Now he sits up, troubled,
looking at her.)
Benedict: We have talked about this more than once, both inside the
class discussion and outside it. Your concepts in chemistry -- attraction and repulsion, symmetry and asymmetry -- they came from somewhere.
They did not come from the STORK. (raising the level of their personal debate) Where
did you get those concepts? What was their origin? (Kornberg smirks and snaps forward in his seat.) These words
originated with human language -- long before the science of chemistry ever
appeared. (Benedict and Kornberg stare at
each other in a tense moment, where each has emotions that could be better
expressed in an alley, not in this class. There is a hiatus.)
Ann: (Changing the
subject.) Well, more than one
of the big questions has not been answered: for example, is the universe a work
of art?
Dean: That’s the case all right; this question hasn’t been
answered. But I say it depends on the eye of the beholder. In theater, the
artfulness of the play must be judged after the play is over. Our story of the
universe is not over. We have not arrived at the last act.
Ann: But we keep creating new stories and characters. This story
looks like it is not all scripted for us. We are participating in this story of
creation.
Dean: Yes. There is a lot of improvisation. Every scene in this
play has improvisation.
Kornberg: Ah! Well, maybe we can
agree in concluding that “chance” exists in evolution and in the universe.
Dean: Yes, biologists talk about it. Composers talk about it.
Artists talk about it. All things are unique in some way. Right, Jane? Can
portrait artists copy someone else’s painting with absolute precision?
Jane: Portrait artists cannot move their brush precisely the same
way with each new stroke.
Benedict: Everything changes from minute to minute. (She is thinking of the Buddha who said:
“Everything changes; nothing remains without change.”)
Kornberg: But atoms do not change. They are eternal. (Heads turn to look at Kornberg and then at each
other, surprised.) The atomic structure will not go away. That structure is
here forever. (Pause, facing the class.)
Every single human being could die from a nuclear war, and
those atoms will still remain in the universe.
Dean: I never thought of atoms as eternal.
Benedict: Can we say that atoms are the firmament of the universe? (She is bantering, but the Dean takes her
idea seriously.)
Dean: Interesting. The “firmament” has a double meaning. It
refers to heaven and earth at the same time. (Jerry is thinking of its meaning in Hebrew in the Torah, the first
five books of the Hebrew Bible.)[xxxvii]
Katherine:
In the King James Bible, God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the water.” It’s definitely there.[xxxviii]
Dean: (He has had enough talk of “religion” and wants to change
the topic, so… back to poetry.) And so it all remains a mystery.
Professor Burns, what about these dynamics in nature? How do they work in
poetry? What about timing?
Burns: Certainly,
poetry is based on timing. It is in the pace of words. Einstein said: The
“time” is in how fast you go. Hmmm.
Listen
to this: “As the trees danced around me, I saw leaves fall like helpless
soldiers.” (He speaks the words with the
intonation of everyday speech.) It sounds like any other prose line about
the joys of the fall season. (He goes to
the blackboard to write and says slowly:) Here's the same line again,
arranged a little differently.
As
the trees
danced
around
me,
I
saw leaves fall
like
helpless
soldiers.
Now you should have a
different sense of what it says, as the lines are in tension and unfold slowly.
This helps the reader “feel” what is said at a subliminal level. The poet
controls the speed of reading. The emphasis is on the most evocative words.
Dean: Interesting.
It is the pace at which we evolve. (He
had felt like a “fallen soldier” a minute ago, when the criticism was directed
at him.) We are moving slowly or
rapidly through different stages. And we keep finding a new identity, new
answers to “who we are.” (Derek is
thinking of a previous class in which they spoke of stages of maturation— from
childhood, through adolescence to adulthood, each with a new identity.
Professor Benedict is thinking of stages of personal identity through
reincarnation.) Professor Simon, how does this apply to theater?
Simon: It takes time
to see all the sides of a person’s identity. If theater is really good, you
come to identify with the good guys and the
bad. The audience sees “life” even among the worst of humanity. If the play is
good, the audience is resonating with all
of the actors.
Dean: Professor
Burns, what do you think? Theater is not poetry. The actors can be seen. Their
feelings and actions are observable. Nor is a poem, a play. In poetry, you are
not watching anybody, or identifying with anybody. You cannot see and know how
other people feel in a poem. Am I right?
Burns: Poetry is
known by what you have experienced, and it builds from there. Sometimes agony
must become visible before you can understand it. Listen to this poem by Emily
Dickenson. I love Dickenson because she is so honest.
I like a look
of Agony,
Because I know
it's true --
Men do not
sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate,
a Throe --
The Eyes glaze
once -- and that is Death --
Impossible to
feign
The Beads upon
the Forehead
By
homely Anguish strung.
You can fake a look
of happiness but
Dean: It took me a
long time to understand poetry. I could not understand it in grade school, not
at all. Students, what do you think? When did you come to appreciate poetry?
Ann: (speaking up, feeling audacious) Rumi says: “Until the juice ferments awhile in the cask, it
isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright, you must do a little work.” (Smiles.)
Dean: Goodness! You
and Jerry must really be at work. You are doing
more than… your homework. (Everybody
laughs at the implication that something is awry in this seemingly ideal
relationship.)
Ann: Jerry and I
have been studying poetry, but we are not romanticizing. (Class chuckles.) We memorize poetry
and perform in slam sessions.
Burns: Ah! Muslim
poetry in slam sessions!
Dean: Perform! Can
you recite a Rumi poem that is relevant to our subject?
Ann: (pert,
though a little shyly) I remember one poem. I hope I remember it, at least. (She clears her throat.)
God has given us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we
leave the two worlds.
God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the
taster from self-consciousness.
God has made sleep so that it erases every thought. (She
halts, trying to recall the next lines.)
There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds.
Don't think all ecstasies are the same!
Jesus was lost in his love for God. His donkey was drunk with barley.
Drink from the presence of saints, not from those other
jars.
Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.
Be a connoisseur, and taste with caution.
Any wine will get you high.
Judge like a king, and choose the purest.[xxxix]
(Kathleen’s eyes are glowing.)
Dean: Wow! Ann! Professor Burns, take note of this young lady. (Professor Burns smiles and nods
vigorously.) This poem is mystical.
Aldous
Huxley said that for great mystics to become the “purest,” they had to fast and
mortify the flesh. They restricted sensory data, repeated sounds and syllables,
spun around rapidly -- and used all kinds of ways to change their “body
chemistry.” And finally, as a result they reached transcendent states of
consciousness. (Professor Benedict
remembers that the Buddha engaged in self-mortification early in his life, but
later repudiated the practice. Thereafter, he taught his disciples what he
called the Middle Path to attain Enlightenment: between self-indulgence and
self-denial. Kathleen remembers how Jesus spent months fasting in the desert,
spoke of joy, and died suffering. But it is Kornberg who picks up the
implications of this idea.)
Professor Kornberg:
Well. Body chemistry is involved in all of consciousness. The whole body is
chemistry. All emotions have their chemistry. (Looking at Benedict.) Emotion
has its physical foundation.
Benedict:
How do you know? (She sounds sincere.)
Kornberg:
I can point to recent studies on “brain-imaging research” in Science magazine-- that’s a top journal
in my profession. Anyone can read it. But you need scientific training. (The Dean nods for Kornberg to proceed and
with his finger points him toward the class, not Professor Benedict.)
Brain
images show that the amygdala—that’s a neural region in the brain that
processes strong negative emotions like fear—fires up in response to big
decisions. One brain region is even connected to positive emotions like
“empathy.” That empathic region of the brain activates when people face
choices. Different parts of the brain “duke it out” when a person is in the
process of making a big decision
Benedict:
But what does that tell you exactly? You cannot really understand what is going
on inside the mind of a person -- with all your images and measurements. (The class is enjoying watching these
professors “duke it out.”)
Kornberg:
Swiss scientists can detect a person's emotion behind an expressive word. And
the brain keeps processing sounds
from the world around it. (Benedict is
upset because Kornberg does not seem to get her point.) Scientists at
Benedict:
(now quite tense—very upset but without
revealing it. She speaks calmly.) You
may measure degrees of emotional “intensity,” but such measurements have no
meaning. The “meaning” is beyond “chemistry.” (They are staring at each other, but Kornberg now turns back to the
class.)
Kornberg:
Antonio Damasio is head of the
neurology department at the
Burns: (taking offense now, he interrupts.) Art
– that is, drama, music, poetry -- are extremely complex fields. They are as
complex as chemistry, I’ll venture to say. I doubt that the sciences could
explain what is evolving where they are concerned. (The Dean wants to change the subject, but he feels he should not stop
the argument between experts. He senses the heightened interest among students
aroused by this little drama.)
Kornberg: The
average brain consists of one hundred billion neurons. Each neuron is connected
to other neurons: typically about one
thousand neurons are connected to ten thousand others. The number of
combinations possible for different thoughts (or brain states) in each of us
can exceed the number of known particles in the entire known universe.[xlii]
Dean: That’s
incredible! It suggests that -- THE BRAIN COULD BE EVOLVING TO REPRESENT THE
UNIVERSE. (The Dean has bolted out these
words and did not think about what he was going to say before he spoke. He is
shocked now thinking back on the idea he has just enunciated. He had read
somewhere that galaxies are elliptical, which he thinks is like the brain. He looks out the window.)[xliii]
Kornberg:
Well. (Coolly.) I haven’t heard that idea stated anywhere before.
A baby's brain
begins in the womb. Four weeks into gestation, the first neurons are already
forming at a rate of 250,000 every minute. It’s like the Big Bang. Billions of
neurons will forge links with billions of other neurons and eventually there
will be trillions and trillions of connections between cells. Every link
between neurons is organized based on its history. At this point nothing is
random; nothing is arbitrary.[xliv]
(The sudden expression side-by-side of the two notions from
the Dean and Kornberg stuns everyone. The Deans asks the entire class to pause
and think. No one speaks, but Professor Britten is miffed that science should
be set up as the basis for answering the profound questions of life.)
Britten: (Not to be dismissed lightly.) There is
a beautiful passage in a book called "Home of the Gentry" by Ivan
Turgenev. The protagonist of the novel listens to a piece of music being played
on the piano that touches him to the very depths of his soul. (He reaches in his pocket.) I carry this
passage around with me for strength in quiet moments. Let me quote this part of
it, which describes the mystical power that music wields over the human brain.
The sweet, passionate melody captivated his heart from the
first note; it was full of radiance, full of the tender throbbing of
inspiration and happiness and beauty, continually growing and melting away; it
rumored of everything on earth that is dear and secret and sacred to mankind;
it breathed of immortal sadness and it departed from the earth to die in the
heavens.
(There is another quiet moment as the Dean is asking
himself: Is the brain recapitulating the universe’s story? Is it repeating
stages in the life of the universe? Does this occur something like the way
in which an embryo might repeat the evolutionary stages of animal life in the
womb?)
Kornberg: (Unmoved)
Professor Britten, you should read This
Is Your Brain on Music! It’s a layman’s guide to the neuroscience of music.
It tells how babies begin life with synaesthesia; they hear sounds as smells
and tastes as colors. According to this account, by the age of five we are all
musical experts, so I must conclude that music is wired into the brain. (Pause.)
Britten: (Sardonic.) So the physical brain is the primary key to music!
Kornberg: These
studies even show that watching a musician perform affects brain chemistry
differently from listening to a recording. Researchers
find encephalization vital in this
process. (He sees the Dean pointing to
his head with one hand while also pointing to the class with the other,
suggesting that nobody could understand the meaning of this word.) Encephalization:
that’s the process by which “brain mass” increases dramatically in relation to
total body mass.
We see that an
increase in the complexity and the number of synapses was crucial for the
emergence of cognition in the development from apes to Homo sapiens. (He looks to the Dean.) This supports
your perspective. (The Dean is
listening.) I am talking about the evolution of the synapse. The synapse is
like the evolution of the eye. It is still evolving.
Dean: I don’t get
it.
Kornberg:
It’s been a constant process of “differentiation and synthesis.” A simple
prototypical “synapse” first emerged in a single-celled eukaryote. Then it
underwent expansion and diversification … repeatedly. It developed further into
the components of the brain—we know today—as multicellular organisms branched
out from single-celled organisms, and again as vertebrates branched out from
the invertebrates. These synapses have not stopped evolving.
And so, all
evolution -- including consciousness -- comes back to the “brain itself”
evolving. (Kornberg is looking at
Professor Benedict, directing his argument more to her than to the class. The
Dean shakes his head at him, as if to say: “Please stop arguing.”) [xlv]
Dean: Hold right
here! It looks like we need more research on this topic. And we’ve gotten very
far afield from our topic. So, let’s return to the evolution of poetry.
Kornberg:
(getting in his final word, for now.)
Well, Dean, you’re the one who should know. I am “thinking through” your
perspective, as you’ve repeatedly asked us to do. Neurons and “new sections” of
the brain could be evolving with consciousness and new emotions. The brain’s
cells could be becoming more complex with the advent of new feelings. People
have new feelings everyday, and they could be adding to the brain’s complexity.
(He is addressing Prof. Benedict directly
again; she smiles.) Yes. (He nods
once to her, emphatically.)
I
think that the brain could be evolving with the evolution of human experience.
And our experience could be causing it. (Professors
Simon, Benedict, and the Dean are all surprised to hear this from Kornberg, as
he concludes:) But so will our technology evolve to measure every change in
consciousness. Our instruments will …someday…study what you call “Agape.” (Benedict gapes, frowning. The veins on her
neck show, as though she is thinking about what to say. Damn: Kornberg is a
narrow-minded lunatic, with a superiority complex on top of it. So why does she
feel so much affection for him?)
Dean: Class. I
think it is past time to get back to poetry, since we only have a few remaining
minutes to wrap up. Poetry is about feelings as they are: I mean, as we actually feel them…. Professor Burns,
help us out. Can you tell us—or illustrate for us—how poetry fits together with
theater?
Burns: Well. Ann
took a class in poetry with me; she’s a double major. We agreed that she would
make some final remarks that connect poetry with theater.
Ann: (looking at Jerry) I
have been studying poetry among the Sufis, as you now know. (The Dean nods, encouragingly) I have read the work of Dr. Martin Lings on this point. He’s a scholar who argues
that Shakespeare’s plays “mirror” the poetry of Sufis.
The
figure of Prospero in The Tempest,
and the Duke of Vienna in Measure for
Measure are Shakespeare's alter egos, in his view. And Dr. Lings thinks
that Rumi matches the poetic power of Shakespeare.[xlvi]
Dean: Interesting.
Does Dr. Lings also refer to chemistry and neuroscience? (The Dean is being ironic. So he is surprised when she supports
Kornberg.)
Ann: Well. Professor Kornberg is correct, I think.
The appearance of new feelings in our experience should affect the brain. And
those feelings could produce new pathways.
Dean: What? The
“environment” affects changes in the body? Remember our discussion on biology?
That’s what Lamarck argued, and he’s been proven wrong: it’s the genes that cause
evolution! (Still, he flashes a mile-wide
smile at Kornberg.)
Ann: Yes. But this
is like Gaia. Chemicals created biota – the biological life on earth.
And now the biota regulates the chemicals. . Do you remember James Lovelock? I
wrote my essay on him! (The Dean’s hand
goes to his mouth as though in surprise; Ann looks to the class.) Professor
Wilson talked about it. And Tom backed him up.
Dean: Tom? Help us
recall that incident!
Tom: Yes. Gaia. James Lovelock said that life on Earth provides a cybernetic
feedback system affecting its chemistry. The chemistry operates automatically
through the biota. (Pause.) (He looks around the class and sees
questionable looks from Simon and Britten, and goes on to explain:) The
term “biota” stands for all the life forms that have appeared with the
evolution of the earth. They transcend the chemistry with their own governing
systems.
Here’s
the point. Lovelock argues that “life forms” control the Earth’s chemistry.
It’s cause-and-effect: “Life” causes the changes in earth chemistry.
Now,
Ann is saying that new forms of consciousness, evolving at higher vibrations
should, logically, control the brain’s chemistry. Well…
Dean: Yes! The Earth’s biosphere became a new self-organizing
system. It helped sustain life on earth. Right. “Life” regulates the earth’s
“chemicals.” Ooo! Fascinating! (Looking
to Professor Benedict.) Ann is also
supporting your idea. You argue for transcendence while keeping a connection
with the past.
Consciousness
has transcended the chemistry of the brain. And now new feelings act back onto
the activity of neurons and synapses. (Benedict
looks pleased.)
Benedict:
Remember when I spoke about the Yogis in
Dean: Yes.
Consciousness could act backward, so to say, on its ancestors in the nervous
system. So, Professor Burns, I’m mindful of your presence: Is poetry connected
to body chemistry?
Burns: Oh! This
chemistry stuff is all new to me… but there could be a connection. The poet Jane Hirshfield says that poetry swings between the
“language” of the conscious and the unconscious. You could argue that the
unconscious is closer to the nervous system than the conscious mind.[xlvii]
Benedict:
You mean the brain and the body would be speaking to us, poetically, through
the unconscious and its connection to the brain?
Burns: Why not! In his book Leaping
Poetry, Robert Bly says poetry “can be described as a leap from the
conscious to the unconscious and back again.”
Ann: In my essay I
proposed: “Great poets and playwrights search to find what is universal.”
Burns: Ah, yes,
right on, Ann! Do you remember the discussion in my class? Kabir was a poet in
Between
the conscious and the unconscious, the
mind
has put up a swing:
all
earth creatures, even the supernovas, sway
between
these two trees,
and
it never winds down.
Angels,
animals, humans, insects by the million, also
the
wheeling sun and moon;
ages
go by, and it goes on.
Everything
is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire,
and
the secret one slowly growing a body.
Kabir
saw that for fifteen seconds, and it made him a
servant
for life.[xlviii]
Benedict: (Pause). Well. That
poem requires thought. I would need to study it…It’s, um, a little “far out.”
Let me think about it.
Dean: (To Professor Burns). Could you send a
copy of that poem to me? I will email it to the class. Stewart Perry is not
with us today. He may send us a list
of studies, though, so I’ll forward those the class as well. [xlix]
It’s
time to stop! We could go on forever.
Kornberg: (to the Dean)
Wait, I must tell you. We are not
too far apart. The physical brain may indeed keep evolving with experience and
consciousness. Scientists have shown how the brain continues to evolve long
after infancy.
The development of the brain is determined by
the demands put upon it by us and by the environment. Just look at the facts.
Everything is not merely pre-programmed genetics. A new brain seems to be
evolving along with consciousness.
Benedict: (jumping in at this) The
material and the non-material could be different sides of the same coin.
Dean: Hmmm. That
would include the inward (subjective) and outward (objective) sides of the
brain. But what is the real coin made of?
Burns: Passion.
Simon: Ah! It’s not
Principles; it’s Passion!
Dean: Oh, that’s
exciting. (He is moved at the thought…
then suddenly lifting his head.) But we must
stop this class.
Burns: Dean, that’s
your biggest contradiction. It’s life and death. It is Passion and Principles. (He says this in such a strong voice that
the Dean’s face turns red. Some feeling shakes him. What is this topic all about? Could the driving
power -- behind this long story -- be passion? He brushes the thought aside.)
Dean: Thanks for
coming to class, everyone. See you next time.
The Dean walks home alone. He is not at the peak of health,
but these seminars have strengthened and brightened his life. They lead him
into “deeper waters,” so to speak. A different feeling is with him now. He
looks up at the leaves of a maple tree. Their edges are shimmering with the
sun. He thinks of Walt Whitman. Then he thinks: Music, drama, and poetry—all of
them had to be hidden in that Big Bang, out of
sight, buried, waiting to be realized. So all this “thought” around Principles
(with a capital P) may not be the whole story. Could there be something more
going on – and right from the beginning?
He knows that he must not anthropomorphize. Nor must he
project the human drama onto physical evolution. But maybe the task is not just
to explain or describe or analyze. Maybe the task
is also to express and demonstrate. Maybe a passion could have been hidden and
yet has existed from the beginning. Maybe this Passion (with a capital P) has
to be expressed. Maybe it has to be demonstrated -- in order to be known and
understood: that’s art. “Keep in mind: anything is possible.”
Passion is something he could not have imagined at the
beginning of the academic year. Has all his training at the university led him
to stress mind and reason and principles as opposed
to… what? Did that academic training cause him to ignore something? He begins
to wander as he wonders: Will the next class give him the answer? Will he learn
more about himself? He enters the door of his home mumbling: “Who am I?”
[i] For more, see Ralph
Yarrow, Indian theatre: theatre of
origin, theatre of freedom, Routledge, 2001. Ananda Lal, The
[ii] For more, see Shih Chung-wen, The Golden Age of Chinese Drama (Princeton University Press, 1976).
[iii] This chart combines
historical details from Infoplease at www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0153763.html with other sources.
[iv] Philip Wentworth Buckham, "Theatre of the
Greeks," 1827.
Theodor, H. Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the
Ancient Near East (NY: Henry Schuman, 1950).
[v] Loren Edelson, “Beautiful Boys / Outlaw Bodies:
Devising Kabuki Female Likeness,” Theatre
Journal - Volume 59, Number 1, March 2007, pp. 141-142
[vi] Oscar G. Brockett (editor). Plays for the Theatre: A Drama Anthology (Harcourt School; 5th edition, 1987), 293-310 and 293-310.
[vii] Here are some
research sources on emotions.
D. M. Buss, The Dangerous
Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex. (
[viii] The first Roman performance occurred around 364 B.C.E. The
Romans borrowed Greek and Etruscan methods in their own theater, modifying
them. But comedy became more popular in
[ix] Between the years 1200 to 1350 C.E., vernacular plays took
over the number one position, previously held by liturgical plays. Many plays
were performed outdoors during the spring and summer months. Cycle plays also
became popular. The cycle plays were composed of short plays or episodes and
could be religious or not. They could take from a few hours to 25 or more days
to perform. Cycle plays varied, but usually they all dealt with religious
figures, biblical writings of the church, and sermons of the church. The plays
presented very little in the way of chronology, and most of their authors were
anonymous. Around the end of the 14th century the church was controlling fewer
and fewer of the productions of plays, but it always kept an eye on the content
of plays and their presentation. Sometimes towns put on shows, but often
individuals would arrange a production. The church always reserved the right to
approve or disapprove of a script before it might be produced. Alice B. Fort
& Herbert S. Kates. Minute History of
the Drama,
[x] Stephen J. Pyne, Fire:
A Brief History. (
[xi] Charles
Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th
ed., 1872, ch. VI, "Organs of
Extreme Perfection and Complication." Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1986), 85-86.
[xii] The issue is complex. There are realistic operas like
Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier,
created in the last decade of the 19th century in Italy, but it is their plots
rather than their music that participate in the movement toward realism. Since
"pure" untexted music is not usually representational (with the
controversial exception of "program" music), it cannot be said to be
more or less realistic. See Carol
Dahlaus, Realism in nineteenth-century
music, translated by Mary Whittall (Published by Cambridge UP Archive,
1985).
[xiii] He sought to depict the "soul state," or inner
being, of characters rather than their superficial, realistic aspects.
Furthermore, Wagner was unhappy with the lack of unity among the individual
arts that constituted the drama. He proposed the Gesamtkunstwerk, the "total art work," in which all
dramatic elements are unified, preferably under the control of a single
artistic creator. Wagner was also reforming theatre architecture with his
Festival Theatre at
[xiv] The Symbolist plays in the 1890s and the early 20th century
by Maurice Maeterlinck of
[xv] The American playwright Edward Albee's early dramas were
classified as absurd because of all the irrational elements defining his
characters. Harold Pinter was also among the Absurdists. His plays (like The Homecoming in 1964) were dark and
strange.
[xvi] In
[xvii] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. Revised translation,
Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1995), 132. Lord Chamberlain originally banned A Doll’s House in
[xviii] Richard E. Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes (MIT Press,
2003). V. S. Ramachandran, David Brang, “Tactile-emotion
synesthesia,” Neurocase, Volume
14, No. 5, September 2008,
390-399. Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group.
[xix] Miranda Shaw, Buddhist Goddesses of
[xx] This discussion is
drawn from Daniel Mendelsohn, “The Truth Force at the Met.”
[xxi] Bela Bartok said, "If I were to name the
composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit, I
would answer, Kodaly. His work proves his faith in the Hungarian spirit. The
obvious explanation is that all Kodaly’s composing activity is rooted only in
Hungarian soil, but the deep inner reason is that his unshakable faith and
trust [is] in the constructive power and future of his people." Kodaly had a predilection for melancholy and uncertainty,
but Bartok said, Kodaly never sought
“Dionysian intoxication – he strives for inner contemplation...His music is not
of the kind described nowadays as modern. It has nothing to do with the new
atonal, bitonal and polytonal music – everything in it is based on the
principle of tonal balance. His idiom is nevertheless new; he says things that
have never been uttered before and demonstrates thereby that the tonal
principle has not lost its raison d’etre as yet." These quotes are
from notes of the Sierra Chamber Society.
[xxii] See Jacques
Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of
Music (University of Minnesota, 1985.)
[xxiii] David Ferris AHCM. Quoted in a program note of the Ashmont
Hill Chamber Music.
[xxiv] ”Digital poetry" can consist of words that are not just
organized into lines and stanzas, but it may also have sounds, visual images,
and special effects. Each word or line may be linked to another page that
expands on the idea of the text. The text can move as if it is hinged on a
wheel while piano music plays in the background. The text is determined
interactively when a reader clicks the "stop" button on his or her
browser. Flashing words then stop to create a line.
[xxv] The Aeneid was crafted to glorify the rulers
of the Imperial age, mainly Augustus, for having brought peace to the empire
after so many years of war. Virgil spent the last decade of his life working on
it, but died with it incomplete. When Augustus found the mostly complete
manuscript, he had two other scholars prepare it for publication because he
liked it so much.
[xxvi] Michael Alexander,
Beowulf (Penguin Classics; Rev.
ed.
[xxvii] "The Voice
of the Rain,” Outing. (August
1885): 570. Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy," annex to
Leaves of Grass (1888).
[xxviii] By the 1200s,
the sonnet form (from the Italian sonneto,
"little song") had been defined by Italian poets.
[xxix] For example, Dylan
Thomas's Collected Poems, (
[xxx] M. C. Howatson
(Ed.),
[xxxi] From the Sufi point of view, the
esoteric teachings of Sufism were transmitted from the Prophet Muhammad to
those who had the capacity to “acquire the direct experiential awareness of
God.” Some believe that it began before Muhammad, and that it was passed on
from teacher to student through the centuries. Important contributions in
writing are attributed to Uwais al-Qarni, Harrm bin Hian, Hasan Basri and Sayid
ibn al-Mussib, who are regarded as the first Sufis. Harith al-Muhasibi was the
first one to write about moral psychology. Rabia Basri was a Sufi known for her
love and passion, expressed through her poetry.
Different devotional styles and traditions developed over time,
reflecting the perspectives of different masters and the accumulated wisdom of
the orders. Most believers were concerned with the understanding of subtle
knowledge (gnosis), an education of
the heart to purify it of baser instincts. Indries Shah, The Sufis (NY: Anchor 1971); Alan Godlas, Sufism's Many Paths (City:
[xxxii] Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1988).
[xxxiii] William
Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The
Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983). The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, edited
from the oldest manuscripts available, with critical notes, translation and
commentary by Reynold Nicholson, in 8 volumes,
[xxxiv] In ancient
times, names had power. If you knew the real name of an entity, you had power
over it. Sometimes an entity would have two names, one public and one secret.
It is quite possible that in the very early stages, Yahweh was God's secret
name and was used to influence or even control Him. Later use of the Shem Hameforash in the Kabbalistic
tradition points to this direction
[xxxv] The whole poem, on papyrus dated 1238 B.C.E. in the reign of Pharoah Ramesses
II, is as follows:
God
is a master craftsman;
yet none can draw the lines of his Person.
Fair
features first came into being
in the hushed dark where he mused alone;
He
forged his own figure there,
hammered his likeness out of himself—
All
powerful one (yet kindly),
whose heart would lie open to men.
He
mingled his heavenly god-seed
with the inmost depths of his mystery.
Planting
his image there
in the unknown depths of his mystery.
He
cared, and the sacred form
took shape and contour, splendid at birth!
God,
skilled in the intricate ways of the craftsman,
first fashioned Himself to perfection.
This hymn was
translated by John Foster in the Norton
Anthology of World Literature (2002). Also see John L. Foster, Echoes of
Egyptian Voices: An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Poetry (Oklahoma Series in Classics, [[okay?—ed]]1992).
[xxxvi] Paul Fenton,
"Judaism and Sufism." In Routledge
History of World Philosophies, ed. S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman, 755-68.
[xxxvii] The English
translation of "firmament" comes from the Hebrew raqiya. The word is derived
from the word raqa, which meant
"to spread out" by stamping, stretching, beating, like making a metal
bowl by hammering the metal flat. In the Bible, Elihu asks Job, “Can you beat
out [raqa] the vault of the skies? ”
Job 37:18. In the Vulgate version of the Bible, it means “strengthening” or
“support.”
[xxxviii] The book of Genesis
goes on to mention lights being placed in the firmament (Genesis 1:14-17). The
heavens are "rolled back like a scroll" in Revelation 6:14: however,
as stars are apparently still being knocked off the Firmament in subsequent
verses, it's unclear which layer is being removed at this point.
[xxxix] Mevlani Rumi, The Essential
Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks &
John Moyne), 7 - The Many Wines.
[xl] Dan Vergano, “Study:
Emotion rules the brain’s decisions,” USA
Today, 8/6/2006. Also see: Randy
Dotinga, “Brain Scans Show How Humans 'Hear' Emotion,” HealthDay Reporter, May 14, year? (HealthDay News)
[xli] Antonio Damasio, Descartes'
Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (Harper Perennial, 1995).
[xlii] Daniel Levitin
“In Search of the Musical Mind,” Cerebrum,
Vol. 2, No. 4. pp. 83-86.
[xliii] J. Binney,
& M. Merrifield, Galactic Astronomy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998)
[xliv] Neurologist
Carla Shatz says, "There's a great mystery left. Our memories and our
hopes and our aspirations and who we love -- all of that is in there encoded in
the circuits. But we only have the barest beginnings of an understanding about
how the brain really works."
www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode1/index.html
[xlv] His argument
is supported by a study published in Nature
Neuroscience which shows that sea sponges have proto-synapses without a
nervous system.
[xlvi] Martin Lings
says that in King Lear, the journey
of Edgar is like the Sufi's search for truth. And King Lear's words echo Sufi
ideas when he tells his faithful daughter: “Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
the gods themselves throw incense.” The famous line of Prospero, “We are such
stuff as dreams are made on,” fits is entirely with Sufi thought, Lings
claims. Lings says that the Bard is
“quite at home” with “Gods” in the plural.
See Venessa Thorpe, “Islam week at
the Globe Theatre,” linking Shakespeare with this Muslim sect. The Observer, Sunday October 24, 2004.
[xlvii] Jane Hirsfield’s
books of poetry include After
(HarperCollins, 2006); Given Sugar, Given
Salt (2001); The Lives of the Heart
(1997), The October Palace (1994), Of Gravity & Angels (1988), and Alaya (1982); and Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1997) where this statement
about the conscious/unconscious is made.
[xlviii] Stephen Mitchell, The
Enlightened Heart (Audio
Literature, 1999), English
version by Robert Bly. The original language is Hindi.
[xlix] Researchers
show that brain development continues well after infancy, and that both before
and after birth, brain development is determined by the functional demands on
the brain, rather than purely by preprogrammed genetic factors. Kornberg sends
the Dean the following bibliography by email: Ahern, G. L., and G. E. Schwartz
(1985). "Differential lateralization for positive and negative emotion in
the human brain: EEG spectral analysis". Neuropsychologia, 23: 745-755. Ahn, Woo-Kyoung, and Doublas
Medin.(1992). "A two-stage model of category construction," Cognitive Science, 16: 81-121. Annis,
David, and Linda Annis (1979). "Does philosophy improve critical
thinking?" Teaching Philosophy,
3: 2. Armstrong, D. M. (1981). Belief,
Truth and Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Ausubel, David
(1963). The Psychology of Meaningful
Verbal Learning (New York: Grune and Stratton).
Baars, Bernard
(1988). A Cognitive Theory of
Consciousness (New York: Cambridge University Press).
Becker, Angela, a