New Perspectives

I think, that in our class, the name Ted Hughes has been mentioned several times. 

Though I am completely unfamiliar with his work, I have been meaning to read him; for when I fall in a state of boredom—and this happens frequently--I enjoy reading contemporary poetry.   Today, I suppose, I fell into a state of boredom.

 The work I want to discuss in this Blog however, is not necessarily contemporary, but is rather Hughes retelling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, titled: Twenty Four Tales From Ovid.  Before I engage in discussing this text, I would like to make this clear: I had not originally planned on stumbling across this poet today—but it happened.  Let me begin this blog then, by telling the tale of how my stumbling occurred. 

Today, I had originally wanted to write a blog on the after-wood of our translation of Ovid.  Unfortunately, I forgot my text at home, so I decided that I should search for it at the library.  I had no luck, but I did find Hughes text, Tales From Ovid.  So, as chance would have it—me digressing from my original intention—I decided to read the introduction of the book, and his rendering of a few of the tales we have discussed in class.

So, for this blog, I would like to give a brief overview of his introduction, and I will quote Hughes version of Ovid’s Closing lines:

Introduction: 

In his introduction, Hughes begins it by discussing his perspective on the unusual permeability of Ovid’s text, The Metamorphoses.  While there are of course many scholarly explanations of why people still read Ovid, (one could consult a vast array of literary theory) I thought that it was intriguing reading a poet’s perspective for a change. 

  Anyway, from what I can gather—and his perspective probably does have a hint of Bloomian theory—I would guess that Hughes subscribes to the notion that there are literary kinships which sustains certain texts.  For example, in his introduction, Hughes mentions a few of the authors that Ovid helped to inspire; the most important is of course Shakespeare, who “was said to live in him again”.   Anyway, According to Hughes, what really binds Shakespeare to Ovid is not merely Ovid’s tales per se, but is rather the “crucial connection…(that exists) in their common taste for a tortured subjectivity(,) and catastrophic extremes of passion that border on the grotesque”.  It is clear then, according to Hughes, that when discussing Ovid, it is not so much his myths that have persisted in the collective literary imagination, it is more his artistic rendering of certain Greco-roman myths that invoke powerful emotions.

 Hughes defends this position by stating that Ovid “takes up only those tales which catch his fancy, and engages with each one no further than it liberates his own creative zest.” The aim of his “creative zest” being an expression of “what passion feels like to one possessed by it…not just ordinary passion either, but human passion in extremis—passion where it combusts, or levitates, or mutates into an experience of the supernatural.” 

Adding a little bit of my own perspective to the subject matter, I believe that it is this fictional stream of sensational images rendered supernatural that tethers these poets together.  The reader of this blog might recall our instructor claiming that Shakespeare tried to outdo Ovid in the grotesque—Shakespeare’s Philomela in addition to getting her tongue cut out also has both hands severed. After reading this essay by Hughes, and contemplating this imagery, I now realize that Shakespeare was not trying to copy Ovid’s images, he was simply trying to capture the feeling Ovid invokes through his images by making them new. 

Ultimately, isn’t this the message of Ovid’s work—“all things change (even images)  yet no thing dies(the feeling of those images).  Or, as Hughes states “The act of metamorphosis, which at some point touches,  each of the tales, operates acts as the symbolic guarantee that passion become(s) mythic…(which) lifts the whole episode onto the supernatural or divine plane”.

  So, in a sense (and this is just my perspective), Ovid in the eyes of the western tradition has become sort of a deity that should be at the center of worship when reading The Metamorphosis.  The work is sacred, and he wants the spirit—more precisely the extreme passion of his work to be forever present in future works.  These Greco roman myths are of course powerful by themselves—yet when they are altered by a poet of such magnitude, they last forever.

And all this is of course why Ted Hughes writes his own version of Ovid’s tales.  And it is also why each translation changes, yet preserves the spirit of Ovid.

“Now have I brought a work to end which neither

      Jove’s fierce wrath,

Nor sword, nor fire, nor fretting age with all the force

     It hath

Are able to abolish quite.  Let come that fatal hour

Which (saving of this brittle flesh) hath over me no

    Power,

And at his pleasure make an end of my uncertain time.

Yet shall the better part of me assured be to climb

Aloft above the starry sky.  And all the world shall never be

Be able for to quench my name.  For look how far so ever

The Roman Empire by the right of conquest shall extend,

So far shall all folk read this work.  And time without

     All end

(If poets as by prophecy about the truth may aim)

My life shall everlasting be lengthened still by fame.’

The Mythic Sopranos

“He'd been in prison. He was away when I was a little kid. They told me he was in Montana, being a cowboy.”

“What fucking kind of human being am I, if my own mother wants me dead?”

Tony Soprano

Since the Soprano’s aired on HBO in 1999, this mob/dysfunctional family themed television show has captivated millions of viewers, and has seemingly ushered in a literal renaissance of the visual arts.  For example: critics have called the show disturbingly realistic, dickenesque (for it is an extended serialized narrative), a profound examination of the field of psychology (the Tony Soprano, Dr Melfi segment of the story), and even Felliniesque (the dream sequences posses a mastery of the visual aesthetic).  While I am not going to expand on this last comment: the question of why this show is so captivating for its viewers, for this question merits its own investigation; I will, however, do a brief examination of certain mythological elements.  For when we think of things from a mythological perspective (even pop culture) it is easy to see that some myths remain, yet they are in fact camouflaged.  What I mean by this last statement is that it seems certain myths are stories we have already herd—stories about why, and what we are—yet we always like to hear them again.  Certain myths, I believe, will be always in the foreground of contemporary life. 

To give this blog weight, I consulted some research.  So, from time to time there will be a bit of paraphrasing. 

            Like the popular heroic figures’ Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter, I would like to present the character of Tony Soprano from the television show The Sopranos, as another sketch of the mythic hero—more precisely, an American mythic hero.

 The Question begs to be asked then, how has Tony Soprano become a mythological hero?  What makes his image appealing to a contemporary audience, and what is it about our society values that makes him—a self-proclaimed “crook from North Jersey”, who routinely beats and murders people, a man who is consistently un-faithful to his wife—appealing? 

Paraphrasing Jon McCarty, author of Bullets Over Hollywood, the author claims that the origin of the appeal for the American gangster narrative (a deeply mythological narrative) is partially rooted in the image of outlaw gangs, during the depression, robbing banks.  Keep in mind that “these banks” were foreclosing business during the time.  So, from an economic investigation of 20^th century episteme, this anti-hero is thus turned into a hero against the foreground of harsh times.  Still, this seems to be only one piece of the puzzle. 

To further his argument, later in his book, this author states that perhaps another underlying factor of why this anti-hero is still admirable today, is that as the institutions of our Post-Modern world become ever more restrictive, the gangster provides an imaginative vehicle in which the viewer can transport themselves into a reality of virtually unlimited power.  Again, to further this claim of why his show has received so much popularity, David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, had this to say:

“People want to think that they could be powerful enough and demand enough respect and fear that they could get whatever they want.  That’s a fantasy.  I walk into a restaurant; they’ll kick the guy out of the table he is sitting at so I can sit down…[Also], our lives have become so enmeshed with bureaucracy and nations and large things, that the tribal nature of human life is becoming erased. We are, at base, a tribal species.  And we like stories about tribal conflict, tribal loyalty, and along with that is…the notion that people who betray really pay.”

It is also my belief—concerning the subject matter of this quote—that not only are we attracted to the fantasy of having power, and traditions which are similar to Tony Soprano’s, we are also attracted to how this power reacts when coming into contact with the contemporary world.  This is why the viewers appeal for Tony Soprano, our hero, is so great.  Tony, who is just like us regular people, visits a shrink, shops at malls, is overweight, drives an SUV, and is even a good farther from time to time, yet he maintains this lifestyle through a slew of violence—a power that we wish we could have. 

Ok, now that I have covered some of the reasons for this character’s current popularity, I will now shift this discussion to what is in fact being camouflaged. 

You know it is too bad though.  I wish had more than a semester to dedicate to the study of myth—because: in deconstructing the qualities that are the essence of Tony Soprano, for this portion of the blog, I will be consulting Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces—yet I have never read the work.  So keep in mind that I am relying on Wiki. 

            In Campbell’s work, according to wiki, he explores the theory of Monomyth, also referred to as The Hero’s Journey, which is apparently “a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world”.  There are 17 stages Campbell discusses—not all myths contain 17—and I shall do my best to discuss Tony in the context of most of them.  1. The Call to Adventure: in the first episode, Tony ventures away from the mundane rituals of his everyday life as a mobster and family man to deal with an Anxiety disorder.  For some hero’s, this adventure is to an unknown land.  For Tony it is in the deep wells of his consciousness, and memory.  2: Refusal to Call: in therapy, Tony constantly adverts discussing the truth behind how obtains his finances with his psychiatrist out of the fear that she will talk to law enforcement.  3: Supernatural Aid: once Tony has decided that therapy can be somewhat of a cathartic experience, and that he can trust Dr. Melfi, he decides that he can begin relying on his psychiatrist as an aid, or even a possible sexual partner.  4: The crossing of The First Threshold: the first trip, in this show, into the complete unknown happens when Tony discusses an early memory, and how it might have caused his current panic disorder.  5: Belly of the Whale: when Jackie Aprile, the former boss of the Soprano family dies, a rivalry between Junior Soprano (Tony’s uncle) and Tony erupts.  They are both contenders for the head seat, and tension between the ranks develops.  Tony, still somewhat unwilling to be the boss gives it to Junior.  After several undermining business transactions, Junior losses his prestige and puts a hit out on Tony.  After surviving the hit Tony assumes the position of Street boss and gradually takes over as the head of the Soprano family.   6: The Road of Trials: falls under the above mentioned.  The Meeting With The Goddess: The most important relationship he has in the show is with his wife—throughout the infidelities they always remain together, except for a very brief period.  7: Woman as Temptress:  In Tony’s journey, it is not only women that tempt him, but it is also the quest for more power, and material accumulation. 8: Attonement With The Father: in the first few seasons, the atonement in the narrative exists between Tony and his mother.  Not only did she bring Tony into the world, but she also ordered a hit on him via his Uncle Junior.  (Refer to the quote at the beginning of the blog.)  Tony, because he is in therapy, realizes that she has always been a Narcissist and attempts to kill her in her nursing home, gives up during the attempt, and eventually lets his mother go home with his sister Janice.  After surviving the attempted assassination—mentioned earlier—he gains full power of the crime family, and worries little about his “crazy old bat of a mother”.  9: Apotheosis:  I can’t fully define this stage in the context of The Sopranos.  The dead do frequently return in Tony’s subconscious though.  10: The Ultimate Boon: I think, when watching the Soprano’s, we have to take into account the failed epiphanies that occur during the last season: Particularly Tony’s failed new age spiritualism.  At the beginning of the last season, Tony is in a coma where enters a Feliniesque dreamscape.  Upon awakening he discovers this message above his hospital bed: “Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me away.”  After reading this Ojibwa all his goals and ambitions are centered around this tidbit of wisdom, yet as he returns to his life, this epiphany falls into the void of realized potential, and never manifests.  The Soprano’s writers seem to be very self-aware of this stage.  11: Refusal to Return: the above comments fulfill this stage.  12:The Magic Flight stage is not really present.  13: Rescue from Without: in the 6^th season of the Soprano’s, on awaking from his coma, tony befriends a physicist who is in the same hospital ward as him, who comments, during a boxing match, that the two boxers on the screen are not separate entities—there is only an allusion that they are.  Tony takes this to heart, giving the viewer the impression that Tony, during this last season might actually reform his ways.  14: The Crossing Of the return threshold: Shortly after Tony returns to being a gangster, after his coma, his Boon is tested in various ways.  For example: he learns that one of his Cappos (one of his top guys) is gay.  Because of his new spiritual insight, he does not want to make the traditional tribal decision of having his “top earner wacked”.  The gay character, unfortunately, after returning from exile, is beat to death by the New York syndicate.  15: Master of Two world: this is the stage that absolutely makes The Soprano’s genius.  The viewer, who has grown accustom to seeing Tony as striking a balance between crime and morality, suddenly witnesses the vile Tony Soprano.  He murders his nephew, starts cheating on his wife again, terrorizes his son, and even starts gambling compsuvely.  Our hero, transforms into the hero we first started watching—yet now we want the scumbag dead.  16: In the last episode of The Soprano’s, Tony’s popularity has sunk so low that we do not mind what his outcome is—as long he is dead or in prison.  Neither happens though.  His RICCO trials are not for several months, the war with New York is over, and the film real stops right before the audience has a chance to see him shot to death in the last scene of the show.  The audience is only left with a blank moment before the credits role.  Does our hero wind up dead, or alive? 

Dear Holden

I thought the readers of my blog would enjoy a creative piece:

“All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.”

Ernest Hemingway

Dear Holden

 I guess I am just going through a phase, you know: it is the sort of thing my parents, or anyone here for that matter, just doesn’t understand.  Well, my dad says he understands—he tells me that he was just like me when he was my age.  But I don’t know; I don’t like thinking of him as ever being the same as me. 

I know, you probably think this whole depression thing, which I am sure is coming across, is just another lame excuse from a spoilt kid who got kicked out of boarding school, and is just looking for a bit of sympathy.  You are also probably thinking: get over it rich boy, shit happens, everyone has family issues.  Believe me, I wish I didn’t have issues with them—you know, my family: they really are the nicest people in the world.  Still, my psychiatrist at this prep school tells me the whole separation at an early age thing could have driven me to seek substances—you know, as a sort of coping thing.

 I am not really a drug addict or that bad of a kid though, especially compared to the other kids at this school.  Like there is this Russian kid, well he lives in Greenwich Connecticut now (his dad stole millions from the soviet-union in the 80’s) that really has a wicked coke addiction—and come Monday morning after every weekend, he brags about all the strippers he paid to fuck in the city.  I mean, come on, how could I be that bad?  I have only done coke like three times: two of the times were here in fact, with that kid Vladimir. 

If you really want to know what I was like at my old prep school, I am just going to say that everyone knew me as more of the chill stoner type.  When I went to school there, I didn’t think getting high was really that abusive at all.  You know, it was more that I got high for inspiration.  Sorry, I forgot to mention that I am a really good photographer, and that I am kind of the artistic type.  Not in that faggy sort of theatre kid way, but in that cool hip way. You know, like real artists.  That’s really why I smoked pot and dropped acid from time to time.  I used drugs to expand my consciousness a little bit—you know, to see things differently.   

Well anyway, I guess that new headmaster that kicked me out of my old school, really couldn’t understand that.  I think that’s why people told me—to try to make me feel better at least—that he sort t of made an example of me.  You know, to show people early on that the school was changing, and he didn’t have any tolerance for my sort of thing.

 Let me give you a bit of a background first, so what I just said makes more sense.  My school, before this guy, use to be kind of a hippie school—like, we didn’t have a dress code or anything gay like that.  Everyone just wore their own style: you know, even the meat-head athletes weren’t really that boring.  I guess you could say that it really wasn’t like this place at all—fucking shirt and tie every day, and a dude that walks around campus, and takes notes on where you are at all times.  And really, at least there were girls at my old school.  Come to think of it, you know, until now, I never knew how much of a difference they make.  Like for example: right now, I am thinking about last year and this one that really broke my heart.  She was just the prettiest girl you could imagine.  You know, her look was really original, and she didn’t wear all those lame preppy clothes the other girls do.        

Anyway, sorry about my rambling: I know you are probably sick of hearing me yap away about my feelings and stuff, so let me tell you about how I got here.  

Well, let’s see, the day I got kicked out, was one of those really beautiful early fall days in New Hampshire.  It was still hot, and you could still go swimming in the lakes, and the leaves were just on the edge of turning.  It was the second Saturday after school had started, and since I had arrived at school a week before, I had been partying for like a week straight in my dorm with my best friends.  Well anyway, I guess I should first tell you how I got the booze for the partying, because that was what really what got me kicked out: how we got the booze, not the booze itself.  Anyway, me and my roommate that year had decided that since I was coming from oversees, I would purchase several bottles of booze at duty free, and he would get a fake ID when he was visiting his brother in New York.  O, I forgot to tell you: my parents live oversees.  They’re diplomats, and that is why I was oversees.  It’s funny, I don’t know why I always forget to mention that to people.  

Anyway, the day I was just talking about was real nice, and after classes—yes, we did have class on Saturday—we decided to go for a little hike in the woods so I could take photos for my AP photo class, and so we could get high and fuck around.  Anyway, after we were in the woods for a few hours, we came back to school and started drinking.  Sorry, this is kind of hard for me: the last thing I remember about that day was being in the back of a car surrounded by blue light, and then getting pulled out by a cop.  The rest of that day, and the couple after that, seem like a blur to me now.

Reinventing the Gods: The marriage of Cadmus and Harmony.

Sorry that i am posting this so late...it's just that this is an excellent resource for the text--i thought it needed to be shared:
http://www.escapeintolife.com/essays/reinventing-the-gods-the-marriage-of-cadmus-and-harmony/

Ouch!

Ouch!

This is of course a rather touchy subject—castration!  Yet,—and I know that I am just scratching the surface of any sort of relevant discussion—this theme of castration seems to be prevalent enough in literature, myth, and religion to warrant a blog.  So, with that said, let me start this blog by completing my last one—for it tailed off right where this blog starts.

In the blog that I wrote prior to this one, I searched for Freudian psychosexual themes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  What I failed to do, however, was find a story in Ovid that mirrored Freud’s phallic phase:

“4-7 years of age. Finally, you entered the phallic phase, when the penis (or the clitoris, which, according to Freud, stands for the penis in the young girl) become your primary object-cathexis. In this stage, the child becomes fascinated with urination, which is experienced as pleasurable, both in its expulsion and retention. The trauma connected with this phase is that of castration, which makes this phase especially important for the resolution of the Oedipus complex. Over this time, you began to deal with your separation anxieties (and your all-encompassing egoism) by finding symbolic ways of representing and thus controlling the separation from (not to mention your desire for) your mother. You also learned to defer bodily gratification when necessary. In other words, your ego became trained to follow the reality-principle and to control the pleasure-principle, although this ability would not be fully attained until you passed through the latency period. In resolving the Oedipus complex, you also began to identify either with your mother or your father, thus determining the future path of your sexual orientation. That identification took the form of an "ego-ideal," which then aided the formation of your "super-ego": an internalization of the parental function (which Freud usually associated with the father) that eventually manifested itself in your conscience (and sense of guilt).”

Ok, now that this information is textually fresh in my mind, and the mind of the reader, let’s discuss its relationship to Ovid. 

Perhaps one of the most vivid images in the whole text, is that of Adonis getting gored by a boar in the groin:  “The youth, in fear of his own life, runs hard,/ but he is caught: the boar sinks his long tusks/ into Adonis’ groin; he fells him—and/ the boy lies prone along the yellow sands.” 

Ok, now that this information is textually fresh in my mind, and the mind of the reader, let’s discuss its relationship to Ovid. 

Perhaps one of the most vivid images in the whole text, is that of Adonis getting gored by a boar in the groin:  “The youth, in fear of his own life, runs hard,/ but he is caught: the boar sinks his long tusks/ into Adonis’ groin; he fells him—and/ the boy lies prone along the yellow sands.” 

Let’s analyze this story in the context of Freud so we can come to a short conclusion about how this story resolves the Oedipus complex. 

First, let’s think of the circumstance of Adonis’s birth: he is born of a mother who had a discreet sexual relationship with her father.  When her father finds this out (Myrrha’s identity is unveiled by light) she is exiled from the kingdom, and turns into a tree.  After this tree begets Adonis, Venus accidently brushes up against cupid, her son’s arrow, and falls in love with Adonis.

  This theme of family intimacy is of course obvious, but what is really interesting in a Freudian reading of the origin of Adonis, is that this story, Myrrha and Cinyras, seems to anticipate the fatal outcome of Adonis.  And here is why: since Myrrha and Cinyras is the cornerstone of the Oedipal Complex which exists in Adonis, droning the oral phase,--and let’s certainly keep in mind that this is a story within a story, Mise en abyme--it makes sense that castration is an appropriate narrative motif that ends Adonis.  While there are certainly complications with this argument, for there are two Oedipus complexes at foot in this discussion: Adonis’s, and Myrrha’s, not to mention that the full development of the Oedipus complex can only exist for men, not women—this method of textual dissection, while complicated, is still relevant.   For example, Freud, in the brief article I read on Wikipedia, feels women experience a penis envy during the phallic stage, and develop sexual feelings for their father, yet prior to this stage, all individuals have a draw toward their mothers.  So yes, all individuals experience an oedipal complex in the oral phase, but some women’s sexual feelings manifest into a drive for their fathers—for example, Myrrha’s.

  Ok, so now that this is partially cleared up, let’s return to why this is an appropriate outcome for Adonis.  To clarify my opinion, I think Ovid is well aware that these stories are not to be taken literally, but figuratively.  One could even argue, allegorically—refer to Eliade, chapter 9, in Myth and Reality.  Because this story is not supposed be taken literally let’s refer to its characters as metaphors for states of consciousness, or to keep with the theme of this blog: memories that exist in everyone’s consciousness of psycho-sexual development.  Since this seems to be the case, and let’s keep in mind that this is a story being sung by Orpheus, written by Ovid, the narrative is infinitely complex, one could argue that since it is a story, and all stories end, and all family lineages end, this complex string symbols also needs come to an end with some resolution.  So here is what I believe to be happening, by castrating Adonis, and letting him die, the poets not only reflect this theory of psychological separation, they also correct the societal immoral.  This myth of castration is not only powerful for its grotesque imagery; it also plays with the structure of our consciousness, and reminds us: control your pleasure principle (refer to Phalic phase), or else your figurative castration will be much more painful.