Cambria's Redemption

As English majors and literature enthusiasts, we all like to "over-think" things; we thrive on the existence of multiple, varied "deeper meanings" and, in some cases, invent meanings to add supposed value to trivial works. 

This technique can lead to a full comprehension and and deep appreciation for most written pieces.   Sometimes analyzing something to death, though, can squelch the joy and pleasure out of it.

I believe that, while the deep analytic understanding of the underlying "information" in Shakespeare and his peers' works is meaningful to some, and very much important to the overall value of such writings, it is not ALL there is to them. At some point, beauty has to be appreciated for its plain, simple, face-value. Artistic excellence can, in fact, reside in the lyrical rhythms as much as in the "deeper meanings". 

William Shakespeare created art. Fredrick Turner creates art. I decided, for my final project, to attempt to do the same. So here goes nothin...

 Cambria’s Redemption

Waiting

He waited, albeit nervously, with quiet, gentle resolute

The lady ‘cross the room in shrouded silk and velvet garb

A crowd expanses ‘tween them, room hushed all eyes awaiting

For the silver lady’s speaking, though cold steel lips remain

The velum veil that masks her face caresses softly midnight curls

A mystery a dream that though awake she’s surely living

Eccentric many call her yet the seats are nightly fully filled

Familiar faces some, and others strangers, wanderers weary

Weeks and miles traveled every coin to each soul’s name

Is left with dark-skinned doormen ‘fore the stage can ev’n be seen 

No crystal ball but incense fragrant drifts in windowless draft

A musty slightly chilling feel creeps through stale and fetid air

  

The man’s is one of many tales, wrought with pain and memory

A tear descends to meet the spot where fades his fastened tie

Though blink is nonexistent lest his dark rimmed eyes to miss

The year he saved to catch this moment ‘feard the lone last chance

Seated near the back his hand is raised when lady long-last speaks

Upraised it stays though called he’s not, exchanging left and later right

The hour grows late and heavy a heart grips the weary silent man

Age’d far beyond his years, time lies only beneath his eyes

In the lines and in the sadness clear in lonely hollowed cheeks

They file out, the rich, the boring, haughty in their bleak existence

There for entertainment many, few for miracles  

Their suits and muffs and monocles would set the tone for opera

Gentlemen with ivory pipes and ladies bejeweled clutches

Stitched in silver; a play it is, a stage for false performance,

A game believed by lady and few a whispering tormented soul

Yet the man is lost and loosing and has reached his last resort

The others file out now and lady to shadow vanishes

White knuckles and a furrowed brow he lingers for the last to leave

Then makes his way to stageside where he hums soft an eerie tune    

   

Waking

The melancholy minor tones of mystery and dreaming

A drop or two now roam his cheek, she hears him call behind the stage

Forth she comes with uns’prised eyes all-knowing now in simple garb

A hand extends in feeling, sympathy supposed yet in the dark

Appears her wise beyond her years he marvels at her tresses silken

Colorless her lips, her hands, no veil now hides her piercing eyes  

Beside him on the oaken floor she crosses legs and runs her thumb

Beladen with three silver bands across his lip where rests the tear

Her eyes reflect the pain and longing churning in his consciousness

Silence with his unforgiving chokehold now is welcome here

The tension taut betwixt the man and lady penetrates the still

“I lost her” now he hoarsely murmurs, albeit expressionlessly

“I know” replies her silken tone, a seductive drug to hungry ears

“Tell me about her” a low command; she nears him now though motionlessly

Strong and heady opium engulfs the man now all-alert

No further sound he utters and alas, no discourse now is needed

Though a decade and a lifetime separates two minds now melded

When their lips and bodies meet the fierceness cultivates releases

He drinks her in as piquant wine, erotica eludes them though

At least the human mortal form which based in carnal pleasure lacks

Walking             

Smoke swirls in the pipe she held, visible through opaque glass

And passed to him with swimming head he once again does draw

Then clutch his wrists as eyes hers close, moving still beneath their lids

A droning tune she chants in tone and verse unknown to those still living

And through the haze that clouds the mind of roused and anxious gentleman

He hears a voice as in a dream, yet eyes now op’ning catch a glimpse

Hazy first but clearer coming walks a girl’s translucent figure

“You are not my bride” says he to waist-length silver curls and weathered skin

“You are not the love I too soon lost, the aim my presence here”

She cannot speak, cannot explain, though in his throat the words now catch

A sharp inhale when in her eyes familiarity faintly flickers

“But how…” he stammers, lost for words, “you…my wife…yet she is gone”

And gone so soon yet age’d now so far beyond her timely years

His mother does appear as this, a matriarch, long-standing queen

A robber once of many a’ heart yet now an earthly solemn seer

Still, the girl he called his wife was younger when just a year ago

The thief called death of plagued disease did filch her and his unborn child

Beyond a doubt though now before him stands the girl he wed in spring

With weathered skin and silver hair in smiling eyes the gleam of life still lingers

And as he stares her beauty grows, surpassing ev’n that flawless day

When eternity was promised, forever never thought t’would be cut short

His lover’s age remains unchanged yet changed are his perceptions

Established in this woman now, beauty in a way uniquely he can understand

But as he reaches toward her, the sanctified image away does start to fade

Precipitously frantic he becomes and reaches in desperation

What’s left lingering as she walks away, a shadow now, then gone her frame

“Don’t leave” he calls, first loud then whispered, to knees he sinks disheartened 

“I love you” but the earnest words now fall in empty mortal air 

A daydream was it, fantasy of what he most desires, a single instant glimpse of paradise

Though far from how the meet had gone when in his waking hour or dream

This shooting blast of heav’nly light does overtake his musing mind

Yet as said light burns out so soon so does his smile as angel leaves

Now left alone with cryptic seer a hollowness engulfs his heart, his mind

She doesn’t move, just watches him, pure empathy not jealous

Coming down from heady high together both are motionless

He rises then to take his leave though back she knows he soon will come

And at the door he turns to better hear the lass from where she sits

“You’re best to come in timely form” the deep and cagey voice proclaims     

“For aged as does appear your bride quite limited tis time that’s left”

A single solemn nod and turning gone is he from furtive hall

No charming disillusion lives, no needed explanation for heart’s fate

He walks along the riverside, hands in pockets, eyes cast down

Then stopping now to stare unseeing at floating murk, the foul debris

A purgatory or the like she now was in as he had thus presumed

Inherently he felt her—he had since fated day—as one still undeparted in entirety          

Heart his clenches though as dawns the realizing she soon will go

Beyond the present in-between to places distantly unknown

For in one year by mortal scale a half-century has aged the girl

Yet girl no longer fits her though for age’d don’t approve such terms

He must go back! soon! tomorrow! before his brides expire completes

Lucidity returns, though briefly, to wake him from his lingering trance     

First time in months he’d had a purpose, leaving drifting for direction

But to see the seer again would mean the loss of fortune great

A privileged affluence that quickly lessens day by dreary, passing day

Pressed from his mind are menial matters though for on this glorious eve

Cambria, his love, his life, had shown her flawless face again.    

©Annika Stampfel 2013

Final Project

After a lot of reading up on the topic of Hieros Gamos, a subject that I did and still do find extremely fascinating, I have come to the conclusion that, while I could write a three or four page paper about it rather well, I do not have enough experience, knowledge, or patients to drag holy marriage out into 10+ pages. The last six or seven, I am confident, would be repetitive and rambling. I have therefore decided to switch my final project to an even more fascinating and hopefully rewarding endeavor - composing my own epic.

-AS

Frederick Turner

Having the opportunity to see Frederick Turner both Thursday night, and Friday in class, was an experience that I am sure touched many of us. After reading some of his works, I was prepared for a so-smart-it's-dull presentation, but instead the vibrant poetry reading and engaging class discussion were understandable, gripping, thought-provoking, and over all, fantastic.

Starting out his presentation by talking about the "travels" we all experience in life, Turner described the ever-changing "now" and the remoteness of previous life that exists after moving experiences. This was the setting for the first work he read to us, a section of The Undiscovered Country. "Space and Time" he reads "clocks don't matter anymore". and, on another corresponding level, "nothing in life was dearer than to leave it". Here he reflects about someone in turn reflection about an encounter with an Italian Woman whom he wonders about in a sort of ghostly magical way. We never, at least in this section of the epic, find out if the narrator is a ghost or spirit, or a crazy man suffering from amnesia, or a being speaking from the afterlife...or all three?? The narrator appears to be somewhat of a Hamletian character, expressing sort of a philosophical musing that is both brilliant and insane.

The second work he read, about the Galapagos islands,was easier to grasp, not quite as entertaining to me, but still beautifully written. The message here was a need to "love the planet through and through before I leave"

Other beautiful and moving Turner presentation quotes/ideas:
         we are "given being by eradication"                 
        "death is but a pruning"
         genius of action, and genius of reaction
         epic - the world is significantly different at the end of the tale

Having Frederick Turner visit our class on the day after his poetry reading was also a great experience that was improved by knowing a little bit about this man from the reading the night before. His graphs about blazing a trail from the known, speak-able past to the "nothing" is the chaotic travel that I believe many if not all people experience to some degree as they grow up. One interesting distinction about "nothing" that I had never before considered is the two basic types - the nothing that rips apart, splits kingdoms, splits crowns, etc. and the profoundly creative nothing, the accepted nothing that makes "something" more fantastic. Although I have already began my project on a different topic, I am going to incorporate the idea of nothing into my piece about Hieros Gamos. Because I am now very much intrigued.

**Interesting note: This girl found a sonnet she actually likes!!! Haha thank you Frederick Turner and The Lady's Impatience for doing your part in curing my hatred of "prison poems". The key: humor :)
       
-AS

what DO we "need"...?

"What do we need" is a question that most people ponder on a variety of levels, but few actually live by what they say they believe. Typically we divide what we "need" into a few basic categories. There are needs for surviving: water, oxygen, protection from extreme weather. Needs we have socially: the "right" car or job or outfit. And needs we have emotionally: security, love, etc. which are perhaps the most basic and necessary "needs". 

At the risk of sounding extremely sappy and twelve, I have to admit that after a full day of pondering this question I have come to the conclusion that I believe (at least at this point in my life and with a not-so-impressive maturity level...) that all we need is love. Love is the one thing that ALL people (no matter their social standing, income level, cultural background, age, etc.) strive for. Be it from one's family, friends, romantic interest, or God, everyone wants to feel needed and cherished; being truly happy and content relies on one satisfying this craving. With love, the poor feel rich, the rich feel equal, the powerful are humbled, the insignificant gain meaning. To survive, yes we need basic bodily substances, but surviving is not truly living. Material possessions, also, to not allow us to live. Love, though, makes true living possible. It is therefore the one thing that we truly need.

*end rant*  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLGWyfGk_LU

Final Project

First, I would like to note that I do not, in fact, dislike tragedy. On the contrary, I very much enjoy reading it, perhaps more than any other genre. In my last post, I merely meant that personally I do not believe life itself to be tragic. Yes, it contains tragedies, but those are what steers life away from monotony and toward "worthwhile". Tragedy, also, is a matter of personal circumstance - we can only, I believe, experience tragedy to the extent of which we allow ourselves to experience it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hieros Gamos, the topic that I have chosen for my final project, is something that fascinates me more and more as i continue to familiarize myself with the works of William Shakespeare. Back in January, I was already considering pursuing my analysis of holy marriage further (see older blogs) and, as we pass the midpoint of this course, I am even more convinced that this is the topic I wish to write about. 

The focus of this piece will be The Tempest, namely the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda, but I will also reference A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet. Hughes and Turner, as well as The Bottom Translation will serve as my outside sources. 

I plan on discussing not only holy marriage, but also love in general, infatuation, passion, and looking with the eyes v.s. the mind v.s. the heart. I will also show how the Shakespearean angle of these concepts is timeless, and how it relates to our current American culture.  

Signs and Symbols

"This, and much more, she accepted - for after all, living did mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case - mere possibilities of improvement." Honestly I was not even planning on reading the Signs and Symbols piece by Vladimir Nabokov - at least not during spring break. But I ended up having a little down-time at work this evening and was able to pull the pdf up on my phone...and wow. Without being overly wordy, excessively descriptive, or sickeningly emotional, this short, inconclusive piece is intriguing and beautifully written. It embodies lovely rhetoric with suspense and raw human emotion, all in less than four pages. 

Contemplating this piece, and more so simply the idea of life itself being a tragedy, I would have to say that I disagree with this summarization - life is not tragic...it has no ability to absorb such personification. Life simply is. And at a risk of sounding cliche, it is what we as individuals make it. This concept is especially hard for our current culture to grasp - because many people today are raised in a world where they feel a strong sense of entitlement, they focus solely on their own public image in society—when the emphasis of existence orbited survival, many of these feelings of worthlessness and confusion weren't as prevalent. Now, though, society has reached a mile-marker where people have excess time and excess intelligence for the lives many of us choose to live. We make situations tragic. There is no "good" situations, or "bad" situations - they are merely what we interpret them to be.

In Nabokov's story, the parents' entire outlook is changed once they make a decision to better their situation, and that of their son. Even before the situation is changed, the tragic element is taken out of it once a conscious choice is made. To complain that "life" is a tragedy is, I feel, is merely an attempt to escape one's own credibility.The reason, then, that many people are so miserable, is because we allow ourselves to strut and fret and then blame it on the "institution" of existence.

-AS     

My Sonnet

To give a heart yet loose one’s very self

A death; surrender to what cannot be

Alone until that light of promise brings

A troubled soul and body pulled to me

His rich low voice sent tremors to my core

A miracle again to feel at all

Calm now interrupts internal war

A spring to counter never ending fall

Familiar lips can mask a stranger’s eyes

A temporary cure of shattered hearts

In days gone by a heart that solely cries

This time though a fine and abstract art

A warmth replaces empty dreams forlorn

A hope the nightstand fee left in the morn’  

As I've said before, I don't much care for the sonnet format. I still don't really care for it. But after experimenting with it, I have decided that it is a good tool, if nothing else, to assist poetry writers with allowing their writing to flow within a frame; to embody an entire meaning in fourteen lines. I strove to let the format simply be. So this is my result. While it doesn't exactly follow the prompt, I tried to keep it along the lines of butterfly-love...albeit a slightly unconventional kind. Enjoy.