Abstractions of Beauty

         

            It was fairly warm for the season on Wednesday but I still wore a light scarf and my spring gloves and was not hot with them on.

            The Biology class before our English class showed a movie promoting a low carb diet with fat. It was said to sometimes eliminate diabetes. It sounded a lot like the Atkins diet.

            I asked Professor Weisman if she’d read Shopenhauer’s writing on the sublime. She said she had in a tone that conveyed, “Of course I have”. It wouldn’t have been a surprise even without her husband being a philosopher.

            The professor declared that spring is here but I mentioned that it’s supposed to snow a little bit on Friday.

            We began with the question that she’d told us to take home on Monday. In Byron’s Manfred a spirit appears as Astarte. Manfred tries to embrace her but she vanishes. “How might this scene be compared to Shelley’s "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty".

            I said:

           

In the first line of “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” Shelley refers to “The awful shadow of some unseen power” that is sometimes among us while in Act 1, Scene 1 line 175 of Manfred, Byron has his hero address powerful spirits that he cannot see. Both Shelley’s “power" and Byron’s spirits are sensed as beautiful abstractions of nature such as the music of water or the light of stars in lines 177-178 of Manfred, and as things like summer winds and moonbeams in lines 4-5 of "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty". Byron's Manfred is a characterized version of the poet and sage mentioned by Shelley in his line 26. Manfred is trying to conjure these spirits of beauty out of abstraction and into form with the same frail spells used by Shelley’s poet in line 29. Just as Byron's Astarte is made to briefly appear in line 188 of Manfred she is gone again like Shelley's visions of Love, Hope and Self-Esteem in line 37 of Hymn to Intellectual Beauty as just another ungraspable abstraction of beauty like a cloud. Byron’s Manfred is the fulfillment of the fantasy of Shelley’s boy that in his line 49 had sought to conjure ghosts but for Manfred in line 50 the poisonous names evoked unsuccessfully by Shelley's boy in line 53 are successful and the magic is real. But unlike Manfred, Shelley’s poet is more attuned to the present and less obsessed with the past and he has a healthier goal. Unlike Byron's Manfred, Shelley's poet is not trying to forget.

            Shelley insists on the use of anaphora such as “like”.

            Manfred is a more aggressive representation of the same ideas.

            In Keats’s “Eve of St Agnes” Madeline is devastated when she wakes up from her dream of Porphero to see him in the flesh.

            Manfred is a gothic hero. He is a fatal man.

            Suddenly an alarm started sounding in the building but it didn’t sound loud enough to be a fire alarm. It sounded more like a car alarm. Professor Weisman was wondering if we should leave and finally asked Gabriel to make the decision. He said, “It should be okay” and so we stayed. It stopped after a couple of minutes.

            Manfred is experiencing an imposition on his will.

            Manfred is saved from leaping from a mountain by a chamois hunter. The professor pronounced “chamois” as “shamee” and she said a chamois is a deer. She was wrong on both counts. The chamois is a type of goat-antelope and its name is pronounced “shamwah”. There is a cloth made from the hide of the chamois and sometimes from deer hide and the cloth, though spelled as “chamois” is pronounced “shamee”, though I doubt Byron, the Swiss or any francophone would say it that way.

            The chamois hunter is a rustic who lives in harmony with the natural world.

            Manfred’s answer comes the closest to an autobiographical recounting and the references to a forbidden love between two of the same blood, hinting at incest.

            The hunter says of Manfred’s ravings that he is “peopling vacancy” meaning he is populating emptiness or seeing things.

            This is not a case study of human beings. Manfred is literary fiction.

            Manfred declares himself to be a bird of prey and we can find a parallel in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”. Manfred transcends normative morals. But as we learn in “Ode to a Nightingale” transcendence would make the world too far away to appreciate.

            Manfred could be read as a critique of Romanticism. Manfred rejects the pastoral and Wordsworthian comfort.

            The Witch of the Alps is the spirit of Manfred’s imagination latent in the landscape. She has the power to grant Manfred forgetfulness. Astarte is the narcissistic extension of Manfred’s own being. His love was in the sublime.

            She said for the next class pay attention to Act 2, Scene 4; Act 3, Scene 4 and the conclusion.

            Gabriel wanted to show me the subject of his essay and said he wants to look at Shelley’s politics.

            After class I rode down to Woodsworth College to pick up my OSAP Part Time Students funding certificate. I was told to just take it to any post office and they will process it for me. I was confused by the whole idea since I’ve never had to do this before. They didn’t seem to know much about it there and advised me to ask at the Financial Aid office. So I went up to Admissions and the counsellor looked at the document and explained that I didn’t actually get the Noah Meltz grant but a different grant that OSAP found. She said I could take the document to any post office and said that there’s an outlet at the Shoppers Drug Mart at Queen and Bedford. So I rode there where the post office clerk told me that I have to take OSAP documents to designated post offices and she showed me a list, which I photographed.

            I was getting pretty frustrated by this time. I had an essay to write and didn’t want to dick around all day with a lot of other crap.

            I stopped at Loblaws where I bought three bags of sable grapes. Closer to home I stopped again at Freshco where I bought blueberries, blackberries, bananas, tomatoes and some raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing.

            It was already around 14:30 when I got home but I didn’t feel like I could relax and eat lunch until I’d gotten this funding certificate off my mind. I read the instructions more carefully and saw that there was a lot more to it than just handing it in to a post office. I had to fill out two forms and sign them; and since I also wanted direct deposit I had to call up my bank and get the numbers for my account. The instructions stressed that I needed copies of both sides of two pieces of appropriate identification and said I could find a list of appropriate identification at the government of Canada student loans website, but there was no list there. I tried other online sources but they led to the same listless link. Finally I called the National Student Loan office and got through right away. I found out that my social insurance card and my health card are the kind of identification they wanted. I also found out that there are no longer any designated post offices for this process and that it has to be done by mail. I finished the documents and had to use my own envelope. I addressed it and took it to the post office. The instructions said that I had to give a certain Canada Post return number to the post office clerk. That turned out to be a code that indicates that I didn’t have to pay the postage.

            Finally I could go home and have lunch. I had an avocado and a sliced tomato with dressing and then I took a siesta. I didn’t get up until after 18:30.

            I typed my lecture notes.

            I had two potatoes and the rest of my asparagus with gravy and watched an episode of The Rifleman.

            In this story a fat Cajun gangster named Tiffauges comes to North Fork from New Orleans via Texas. He stops at the McCain ranch and wants to buy Lucas’s ranch for the price that he paid minus 50% for wear and tear. Lucas tells him it’s not for sale. We learn that the McCain spread is 4100 acres. The next day in town Tiffauges has already deposited $85,000 in gold at the North Fork Bank. That’s the modern equivalent of $5 million. Tiffauge against asks McCain to sell his land to him but this time tells him that he is descended from Bluebeard. There was no Bluebeard but the fictional character might be based on Gilles de Rais, who lured children to his castle and murdered them. The castle was called Chateau Tiffauges. Tiffauges threatens to kill his son if he does not sign the property over to him. He says he will come to his home the next morning to complete the transaction. The next day Tiffauges and his men come two hours early. Lucas tells him again that the property is not for sale. He gives a speech explaining that he doesn’t think that his men want to serve such a cruel master. One of the men draws on Lucas but Lucas shoots him. Just as Tiffauges is pulling a pistol, his man Xavier shoots him. Then all of Tiffauges men, whooping, laughing and shooting their guns in the air ride away together.