Lilith

            On Wednesday morning I tried to find a translation for “chasse-filou" in order to figure out how it could be even a nonsense appliance in my translation so far of  "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain. It translated directly "hunting-rogue”, so I'll have to give it some thought.

            I finished working out the chords for “La baigneuse d Brighton”.

            I hadn’t done any of the reading for my "Aesthetic and Decadence Movements" seminar and so I sat down and read for two hours until it was done. The first reading, entitled “The Fleshly School of Poetry” was a biting critique written by Robert Buchanon in the late 19^th Century in response to the fifth edition of D.G. Rossetti’s Poems. In the article Buchanon attacks not only Rossetti but the whole Pre-Raphaelite art movement. He says the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are minor contributors to the world of art suddenly being given the attention of important figures. He compares them to supporting characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet stepping forward in the middle of the play and drowning out Hamlet’s lines with theirs. Buchanon’s is reacting against the Pre-Raphaelite idea that the body is more important than the soul. His responses to the eroticism of Rossetti’s poetry makes one think that Buchanon is such a prude that he would divorce his wife for farting.

            The other readings were more in praise of the Pre-Raphaelites and the final piece was Rossetti’s 78^th sonnet, “Body’s Beauty”.

            When I was finished I had time to shower without shaving, eat an apple and some crème brulée and then leave.

            There was another class in room 57 when I got there and so I waited in the hall. The first other student to arrive was the 50ish woman. She asked what I’d thought of the readings. I told her they were a little dry but thy put the subject in perspective.

            It was a little after 14:00 when the other class left. There was a staff member at UC there to set up the projector for Professor Li.

            She told us that our reading questions for next week are posted online.

            She showed us some more slides of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The first was “Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown, showing emigrants on a boat staring forlornly back at England as they leave for the new world. Immigration in those days was permanent and there was rarely any chance to return even for a visit. That made leaving a sad experience.

            Thomas Carlyle invented a secular religion.

            The first stage of Pre-Raphaelitism was naturalistic and symbolic.

            The second stage explored Victorian femininity.

            She showed another Pre-Raphaelite painting called “The Awakening of Consciousness” by William Holman Hunt.

            “Mariana” by Sir John Everett Millais. 

            “Lady of Shallot” by William Holman Hunt depicting woman protesting.

            The colours are more intense than those of Raphael. The reds are not brownish red.

            The Pre-Raphaelites wanted to take up from where the Gothic artists left off.

            She showed several depictions of the lady of Shallot. The one with the pained expression, locked in a spell and on her way to die by John William Waterhouse.

            She showed us some wallpaper by Morris. Some of it is still produced. The politics of handwork of the tapestries were socialist in a way.

            The rules of Raphaelesque art would be too restrictive today.

            The Birmingham Museum has the largest Pre-Raphaelite collection.

            Pre-Raphaelite art was self-conscious and a revolt against academicism.

            We looked at Walter Pater’s review of Morris’s “Defence of Guenevere”. Pater’s criticism is a kind of creative writing in itself.

            Medieval art was paradoxical.  It was Christian but also breaking out of Christian restraints.

            The Pre-Raphaelites were essential for Victorian aestheticism. They were closer to tangible real life without illusion. The affirmed the senses passionately by evoking a raw version of the Medieval. Hellenism versus heroism.

            We looked at Robert Buchanon’s “The Fleshly School of Poetry”. He claims that his critique is literary and yet it seems obviously moralistic even in the title. “Fleshly” evokes sweat, bad smells and lust.

            He uses words like “affectation” and “pretensions”. A critic has said that Toronto is pretentious in that it is really a village that tries to be a city.

            Buchanon is setting up values. He says Rossetti’s poems are unwholesome which implies not only that they are unhealthy but that they will make those that read them sickly as well. His argument is ad hominem.

            He implies the poems are common.
            He refers to the “so called” Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, meaning that it is really something not worth having a title.

            He calls the poetry “exquisite” but the word can also be negative in the sense of being ornate like Baroque art. An “exquisite” was another word for a dandy.

            Buchanon switches to “we” sometimes to give force to his opinion.

            He uses backhanded praise in saying that Rossetti has the right skills but the wrong judgement. In the end he uses false self-deprecation by saying that he might be wrong.

            We took a short break. I asked the professor if the otherly named editions of Pater’s “Studies in the History of the Renaissance” are the same but she said that some of the text is different.

            We looked at Rossetti’s 78^th sonnet, “Body’s Beauty”. He had his manuscripts buried with his wife but then changed his mind and had to have her dug up again so he could get his writing back.

            “Body’s Beauty” is part of a larger sonnet sequence. She asked for a volunteer and so I read it. She thanked me for including the title in my reading because so many students leave the titles out:

Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told

     (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)

that, ere the snakes, her sweet tongue could deceive,

and her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the Earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where

Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scant

And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! As that youth’s eyes burned at thine, so went

Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent

And round his heart one strangling golden hair

            “Body” is Lilith. He links body with beauty.

            Is this a Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet? It’s Petrarchan because it has an octave and a sestet with no couplet at the end.

            Lilith’s hair is enchanted.

            She weaves a bright web, which makes one associate her with a spider, but it should be noted that in Victorian times a web could be fabric. I pointed out that the original English word for woman was wyfman, which meant, “person who weaves”.

            The long vowels like “i” in the sestet slow our reading down. The consonants also have a slowing effect.

            “Lo” has a lamenting sound and it is followed here by a lamentation.

            The sestet is more sensual than the octave.

            After class I rode to University and Dundas to the bank machine. I’d found earlier that my grant refund had come through and so I wanted to get some cash. I went to Yonge Street and then north of Wellesley to ABC, but they didn’t have the Pater book. I headed back down to College and then across to the U of T Bookstore. I got the last copy of Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance. I was surprised at how small it is, since I’d expected it to be our textbook. It turns out it’s less than 140 pages long and only cost $12.55.

            I looked for our indigenous studies textbook. The one they had was for our course but it seems from a previous year and not Belanger’s Ways of Knowing. Professor White still hasn’t posted next week’s readings online. This seems to be a shoddily run course.

            After I got home I went back out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. The cashier was playing “Lazy Sunday Afternoon” by The Small Faces. The singer really shows where John Lydon’s influence came from.

            I had a very late lunch of a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich.

            I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story about Kingfish putting Andy up for adoption. A woman walks into their office asking directions to the orphanage. She starts to chat with Kingfish and tells him that she’d never had a son but if she had he would have been around 40 now. Kingfish convinces her to adopt Andy because he’s already 40 and she won’t have to wait. She agrees and Kingfish manages to talk Andy into it because the woman seems to be rich. But once the papers are drawn up and signed she puts Andy to work. When a man comes to the door from the mortgage company Andy concludes that the old lady is broke and he leaves her. Later however he finds out that she’s adopted another adult son and given him a large sum of money because she owns the mortgage company and is rich after all.

            I tried to work on my journal but I was too tired. I thought I’d lie down for a while but I slept for two hours and got up at 21:00. I had to make dinner right away. I had an egg, with a spinach pastry and a beer and watched Wagon Train.

            This story was about a spooky young man named Ruttledge Munroe. Flint encounters him while scouting. He hears someone singing outside his campsite. When he goes to investigate he finds Munroe standing there pointing a sawed off shotgun. Munroe opens the gun to show that it is empty and then laughs. Flint brings Munroe to the wagon train. The Major says he can bed down with two other strangers that had arrived recently. As they bed down for the night Munroe begins singing a song: “Run away, run away, runaway hide / Your troubles will tag along right by your side / No matter how far nor how fast you may run / you’ll find that your troubles have only begun / Run away, run away in a disguise / Your whole appearance you try to revise / but even if you take on a new name / the fear in your eyes is always the same / Run away, runaway, what have you done / to cause you to be so afraid of someone? / What is your shame, or your guilt or your sin / that’s caused you to be in the fix that you’re in? / Run away, run away, no use to run / No place to hide your past under the sun / Someone will chase you until you’re outrun / and you’ll meet your end with the sound of a gun.” It turns out that the two men are outlaws that betrayed their gang and stole some money meant for the whole gang. They are convinced the leader has sent Munroe to kill them. They decide to wait until Munroe is asleep and to steal the wagon train money from the Major before escaping. But Munroe only pretends to be asleep. He warns the Major and they both catch the thieves in the act. The Major shoots one of them but the other one is about to shoot the Major when Munroe kills him. Having saved the Major’s life Munroe is now in good standing. The other passengers are awakened by the gunshots and come out to see what’s going on. Munroe notices one attractive but frightened young woman. The next day he tries to talk to her and she avoids him. She tells the Major that night that she is running from her husband who wants to kill her and her baby. She tells the Major that she thinks that Munroe has been hired by her husband to kill her but the Major suggests that it’s more likely that Munroe is courting her. That night outside of Ruth’s wagon Munroe sings, “Run away, run away, what have you done / to cause you to be so afraid of someone?” and then the same lyrics he sang before. Then Munroe steps into Ruth’s wagon. She says she knows Ralph sent him. He tells her he won’t hurt her as long as she agrees to be his girl. The next day Munroe tells Ruth not to try to signal the Major in any way. The next night she has to make dinner for Munroe. She goes into her wagon and tries to signal a guard from the side of her wagon to go get Major Adams. But Munroe shoots the guard and says it was in self-defence. But the Major doesn’t think it rings true. Munroe tells him to sit down and he’ll tell him why he came to the wagon train. Munroe says that when he senses that someone is on the run he works on them and makes them believe he’s the one after them. He did the same thing with Ruth but this time it was because he liked her. He says you don’t even have to lie to convince someone you know all about them. They just have to be scared enough. But the real reason that Munroe has come to the wagon train is to kill Major Adams. Munroe had served under the Major in the war. He had been court-martialled for slaughtering eight confederate prisoners and sentenced to five years in prison. He’s sent a letter of appeal to the Major but he hadn’t responded and that’s why he wants to kill him now. The Major hadn’t responded to the appeal because he thought the sentence had been too lenient. They have a show down. Munroe draws quicker and there is a shot. Munroe falls dead because Ruth has killed him with a rifle.

            Munroe was played in a great performance by John Drew Barrymore, who struggled with addiction and extreme behaviour to the detriment of his career and finally became a hermit in the wilderness. He was the father of Drew Barrymore. He had been signed to appear on an episode of Star Trek but didn’t show up and so he received a Screen Actor’s Guild suspension.