Awe ... shucks!

Irving Babbitt, (the curmudgeonly foe of Romanticism, but such a fine writer) made a valuable distinction between "awe" and "wonder." The former, he noted, is an emotion born of the experience of a certain "unity" or "manifoldness" that "transcends" the individual, making ethical consideration moot, in the face of the Sublime (cf. his Rousseau and Romanticism, 1919). The latter, he said, is the emotion felt by the unreflective observer who simply gapes in astonishment at that which he does not understand. To make an idol of this emotion, to write poems expressing the ineffable glory of nature, without any attempt to conceptualize Her, is (according to Babbitt) the height of anti-humanistic irresponsibility. Now I am a partisan of Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode," and I've spent a large portion of my life elucidating the works of 'mystics' like Plotinus, the Pseudo-Dionysius, various Gnostics, the Cappadocian Fathers, and others ... Yet I am sensitive to the need for a humanism, especially in our present era of religious warfare, sanctimonious politics, hero-worship, and cookie-cutter "persons" ... Analysis, deep introspection, a glorying in the uniqueness of the self, is likely a recipe for loneliness, but not insanity. In our present age, the one who stands apart and erects a monument that sluttish time cannot besmear, is one for whom awe easily turns to disgust. The great Classical writers, so admired by Babbitt, were disgusted with the density of their age, yet enamored of the possibilities. This is the entire point of aesthetically responsible existence: to aim for that which should be, while hating vigorously that which is.

When Charon picked up his last passenger (cf. Lord Dunsany's vignette, he smiled and cried ... Smiled at the end of his labors, and cried at the loss if his raison d'etre: that is a superficial reading. The more involved reading suggests a love of change, an attachment to the unexpected, which is the recipe for sublimity. Awe-inspiring events suggest a realm heretofore unexplored, possibilities untapped ... The tired self is energized with a new reason for being, a new direction, even if it is shudder-producing, fearful in the extreme ... We crave these things. It is what makes us human. To sail off into the wide seas, expecting death but hoping for some grand alteration -- not only of one's own life but of all humanity -- that is the stuff of humanism, of awe

Speaking only of myself, as I embark on this vast sea of logoi (my newfound sobriety and new acquaintances and ... yes, new-old love) ... as I embark, I recite a line (modified to myself) from one of my favorite poems: And though I am not that strength which in old days riled up my Christian colleagues at philosophy conferences, / that which I am, I am: one equal temper of antagonistic analysis / Made weak by drink and intolerance, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Prep quotes

"Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?"

~ Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California"

"Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.

'I am the last,' he said.

No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep."

~ Lord Dunsany, "Charon"

Two Poems

Contra Marilynn: An Exorcism

I don't feel like forty

It cannot be

In me you may behold that time of year when the icy claws strike back, and rend the shroud that has been placed by unloving hands over my still palpating flesh.

The other day I said something to someone that made little sense, as usual

The other day I revealed something of myself that made no sense (to me)

This day I woke up, reveling in the absurd notion that I can embrace life in the iconic form of my ideal: flesh encapsulating Beauty.

I feel like a child, needy and silly and full of shit.

I feel like a young man, horny as hell.

I feel like an ecclesiastic, prepping souls for hell.

I DO NOT feel like forty.

If you say so, darling ... if you care to speak ... I'll shatter your tongue with forced fingers rude ...

Yes, logos does not contain an omega: I mispronounced it. But you ... you made an end worthy of a fiend. And I begin again, with an angel.

To One Who Comes After, and Ever Before

Certain songs make us feel like there should be no other songs, as though all other attempts are empty, annoying, and unfruitful. Springsteen's "Thunder Road" obliterates all other songs, at least while it is playing.

There is a woman who makes me feel like there is no other. Her name is not Lisa, nor Debbie, nor Barbara ... nor, even, Marilynn (the sacred one) ... Her name is that of a month, the cruelest, and I love her. No trope to be deciphered. A time and a place.

A romance of crippled souls? No. A new morning, unlike any other. She is a Grace, a Muse, and a problematical little entity that prospers as she inspires. I love her.

A silly man am I. She provides an antidote. But there is a little spot in Kennedy Park, a spot beneath a tree, a spot where I gave it all up ... a spot where I envisaged some grand work ... I asked her for an opinion, and like a piercing truth she stood ... Too pretty for words. I don't like beauty, but I love pretty. I love the work of an hour, when the gods laughed at our little gambit.

Section of a Work in Progress

The Literature of Atmosphere

Edward Moore, PhD

©2013

Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation.

~ H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature"

The English word ‘atmosphere’ derives from an ancient Greek word (ATMOS) meaning “vapor” and the Latin sphaera, sphere; literally, the word means the vapor surrounding our sphere, or globe, i.e., earth. When used in relation to a work of art, specifically literature, the term denotes an inescapable emotional or aesthetic force or style that permeates the work, giving it the necessary “staying power” that separates true art from mere production or entertainment. In our time, when post-modern influences have caused us to view any and every work of art as merely a production of a given moment, a set of signifiers whose meaning is culturally determined and therefore – ephemeral; in such a time it is important, I think, to find some element in works of art that can be owned by the person, subjected to his or her own unique stance in and toward the world, and rendered meaningful, in a manner irrespective of inter-personal communication and the ethical demands of such. In short, if I determine a particular work to be a masterpiece because I enjoy dwelling in its atmosphere, I have come as close as possible to a pre- or even (perhaps) non-linguistic appreciation of said artwork. Understanding fully that thought without language is impossible, I feel it is possible to approach closely to source of thought, in a non-linguistic fashion, by focusing on the atmosphere of certain works. This focus will, of course, lead to the necessary conceptualization that makes all experience meaningful and iterable. But as a touchstone for aesthetic value, atmosphere can serve as a solid ground upon which to establish a humanistic – as opposed to a cultural or ideological – theory of art. By “humanistic” I mean the natural set of responses that arise from a pre-reflective attitude toward the structured examples of life that we call art. I realize I am begging many questions here: nature as something stable and uniformly accessible; structure as strictly the result of a human (reflective, conscious) act; and art as an effort to save oneself from the miasma of meaninglessness that is destructive to all cultures (especially our present one, so-called). I beg some questions for the sake of this thesis: The desire to persist in being is born of the response to an atmosphere that calls the creative powers of the person forth, into a realm of possibilities.

When I was a young reader – I mean very young, single digits – I responded to poems and stories based upon their atmospheric impact. For example, Beowulf struck me as a “blue and white” work, a work of winter – a clear and enjoyable winter. The violence and sorrow of that poem were ameliorated by the atmosphere surrounding Heorot, the rough courtesy of the coastguard who first encountered Beowulf, the bright feast scenes in the mead-hall, etc. … As a child, these were the elements of the poem on which I focused, and these elements fueled my fantasy-life, which eventually led me to the professional study of literature, philosophy, and other conceptual artifacts of Western culture. Indeed, only later, after immersion in academia, did I find it necessary to interpret the poem on a variety of “culturally responsible” levels – all of which took me away from the initial impact of that masterpiece. I am not saying that a superficial reading of a great work of art is preferable to a profound study of such, a study informed by all the currents of contemporary philosophy, psychology, and critical theory; no, I am merely questioning whether theories of art dependent upon elaborate conceptual schemas are really preferable to the immediate accessibility given to us by the closest thing we can get to a pre-linguistic response to a linguistic construct: atmosphere.

The poems of Keats I found to be “brown” works, encrusted with the dinginess of early nineteenth-century atmosphere: coal and engines and ugly industrial towns. This, despite the fact that Keats inhabited an atmosphere far removed from the labors of the working-class. Nevertheless, my inherited notions of his era forced a sort of irony into my appreciation of his poetry. I recognized a master, albeit one who had lived in a rather aesthetically unpleasing period. Granted, a production like Lamia required the rather morbid cast of mind of a disillusioned industrial-era aesthete. I love the work, it moves me … but it cannot compare to the manor-house gentility of the Gawain-poet, whose purposeful archaism in an already archaic age moves me beyond words. The sight of the words on the page, the survival of runic letters like Þ and Ʒ lend an extra air of antiquity to poems that are products of a mindset far removed from my own. Identification is a wonderful feeling: when one can relate to a writer and feel the inspiration that caused him to put pen to paper. But the disorientation produced by an alien theme, a strange mind, an unfamiliar atmosphere – that is what cultivates the mind, and engenders a liberalism, a tolerance, that is necessary for the continuation of the human project, the “conversation of Western civilization” (as Rorty put it).

Reverie III.

"A Poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude ..."

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Floating on the surface of the wine-dark sea, Odysseus defied a god. Submerged, I defy ... A boatload of reading has left me with words and more words, time to spend ruminating, re-crafting others' moments.

I like to defy and argue, in the light of morning. But in the bleu du ciel (Bataille), or "the weight of primary noon" (Stevens), I find myself at a loss. When the sun is high in the sky, and my shadow (my second self, that seals up my discourse in a vault) beneath my aching feet -- then I swallow pride and listen ... to the voice of assholes.

Some people never shut up. They spit saliva laced with the semblance of words, and they deserve to have their tongue split, like some fellow from a lesser caste reciting the Mahabharata. These are the people who often get the most attention. Those with wisdom ... those for whom love is an option ... They are the ones who often retreat, when they should be spilling their bright illimitable souls to ... ME.

I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen now. A certain woman that I loved, long ago, couldn't stand him. But I find myself taken back (via "Thunder Road") to a moment at the top of a water tower in Sayrevile, NJ, when my little lady and I tossed beer bottles into a cemetery, laughed and fucked and had a blast. I loved her not, and she was immersed in some sordid family saga. But the wind rolled back her hair, and I was luxurious in my response. How much has changed! Chasing the Promised Land. It's been found, luxuriated in, and lost. So much the better.

Perhaps I'll put on some Beatles, and recall the lady who gave me a sense of forlorn love. A diner in Edison, NJ ... some quotes from Burgess (The Long Day Wanes) and a little footsie under the table ... Prophets crowd around in moments of joy -- with his finger ever at his lips, bidding us: Go fuck yourself -- AND SO: I have a memory of a motel at noon (yes, midi), where, with the aid of some scotch, I made a move ...

Hegel comes in somewhere. "The life of the spirit is not the life that shrinks from adversity, but in utter dissolution, finds itself" (Phenomenology of Spirit). Yes, I got his message. It took about a year, and some time at NYU, to get the sense that words are here for us to manipulate. I understand Hegel, Derrida, Heidegger, Plotinus, as well as the next guy ... Because I am able to work the words, motherfucker. Always the words.

Wifey-knifey came in (Where are you, Thomas Ligotti?) and extracted some pineal organ, rendering me a Christian ... Holy shit. I learned much in those years: the trinity is a trope for personhood; Christ is a lost soul who lived his poetry, knowing that writing is a dead man's task; the world is an arena in which most die and few laugh; and that I am a spectre of my childhood, haunting my own dreams. Thanks, God.

Some time elapsed. Amy, with the tiny feet and hair that forever effaced her pretty face. I know I was distracted, but Porphyry attracted me more than your luscious cunt. Funny how age gives us to think ...

And then: Marilynn. Silence decrees that the aged satyr speaks not. About her. A dirty word.

April. April. April ... Thrice in honor of the sacred number ... the triad, the tripod. But you need no invitation. Your name resonates and my love for you is timeless. In true Edward fashion, I shall give you a quote, as I fail in my own words, when you are around ... my light, my love, my little spark of eternal desire ...

"Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security"

(Wordsworth, "Ode to Duty")

Another Fragment

"I admit that the sense of the beautiful, when it is developed by culture, suffices of itself even to make us, in a certain sense, independent of nature as far as it is a force. A mind that has ennobled itself sufficiently to be more sensible of the form than of the matter of things, contains in itself a plenitude of existence that nothing could make it lose, especially as it does not trouble itself about the possession of the things in question, and finds a very liberal pleasure in the mere contemplation of the phenomenon."

~ Friedrich Schiller, "On the Sublime"

Never have I experienced nature as something distinct from the contents of my mind at any given moment. Whenever I have been conscious of observing natural phenomena, it has always been for the sake of a mood, the desire to actualize my mood (so to speak) by way of symbols derived from supposedly external nature. Never have I sought to "posses" natural beauty, for it has always been my state of mind, at any given moment, that has rendered nature beautiful to me -- or not.

The desire to "possess" beauty is a desire born already of a malfunctioning personhood: the one who has a void to fill, as it were, and seeks to fill it by taking hold of something possessing an existence independent of himself is already caught up in the throes of an existence that has ceased to be self-referential, and therefore, meaningful. It is important to note that the terms person and individual are interchangeable, synonymous (notwithstanding attempts, mostly by theologians of personhood, to differentiate the two); the individual is one who is incapable of being parceled out to various contexts, for the sake of an end or purpose only tangentially related, at best, to his own desires. The person is the foundation of his own existence: that which, when tampered with, causes the entire meaning-producing edifice to crumble.

The demise of the truly ethical is traceable to a demise of genuine respect for personhood. Not -- I insist -- a respect that flatters as it subtly demands more of the person that is possible to give, without rendering the person a means to an end (however desirable for the stunted or weak among us). Nietzschean "supermen" or Randian heroes are not devoid of ethical insight or capacity. A highly developed conscience begins at the level of the "I" -- the ego, the willing power that draws breath even when exhaustion seems like such a welcome escape from the demand of personal cultivation.

"It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak."

(J. S. Mill, On Liberty, ch. 3).

A strong conscience develops "naturally," i.e., without demand from others. I was about to write "guidance" ... for even guidance (especially when it comes from those in power) is a subtle, insidious demand. No one, in good faith, can be a conscientious person if he or she is constrained by expectations to be so. This, of course, is a regurgitation of Ayn Rand, and other thinkers who have celebrated the glory of the person throughout history. I shall go further, however, and insist that a cultivation of personal "atmosphere" -- i.e., a maintenance of certain styles of thought, of aesthetic appreciation, of self-presentation -- is necessary if one wishes to rise above the ever-ascendant mediocrity (as Mill recognized) that plagues our society.

The style of contemplation that can immediately inject the contemplator into the atmosphere of the thing contemplated is the healthiest kind. Last night I witnessed a performance of Janacek's Sonata for Violin and Piano. Only by returning to an earlier period of my life -- a wainscoted room in which I labored over similar pieces, trying to sharpen my virtuosic blade, intent on conquering such a glorious instrument -- was I able to inject my own person into that performance, and experience Janacek's fine work not as one desirous of possessing his power, but only of one who has found his niche, and is perfectly content to allow other "world-historical beings" (to borrow Hegel's phrase) to be.

It was not, as the believers in Fate or Divinity might say, meant for me to be a concert violinist. No: I was simply meant to contemplate the phenomenon.

Reverie II.

"My life's a shadowless horse

If I can't get across

To you"

~ Marc Bolan (T. Rex)

Not too long ago, I was told by a certain Lady that I need to get off of my Dark Horse, by which she meant: resist the temptation to rebellion for rebellion's sake. Nowadays, horseless, I am ignored by the larger mass of humanity, it seems. So I think ...

As I sit here, in my little room, with Eliot, Whitman, Poe, Machen, LeFanu, the Bhagavad-Gita, some Old and Middle English lyrics, etc., by my side, -- as I sit here, I think of certain writers, creatures of an atmosphere opposed to the development of ethical existence (perhaps) but certainly amenable to -- and nurturing of -- silent meditation upon one's loves, and expression (in the form of linguistic constructs) of one's ego eimi ho On (cf. Exodus 3:14, Septuagint).

As I sit here ... and recall: Machen lived in a tiny garret, subsisting (quite like myself) on green tea, tobacco, and scraps of food snatched opportunely whenever hunger became a nuisance. And he wrote (as I do) under compulsion of boredom. Only difference: he had no laptop, no cellphone, no instant communication with/to so-called people ... He was alone. As I should be. But I write to others, seek acceptance, hope for love. Yes, I said it. Loneliness sucks. There's my 21st century provenance smacking its lips. Oh well ...

What would I do, I ask myself, if I were living in some attic in, say, Providence RI (Lovecraft land) with no phone, no computer, no persons? I'd probably go insane. So much for 21st century English letters. Belles lettres. I wish. To write something as propositional as Eliot's Waste Land , as circumlocutory as Whitman's Song, as claustrophobic as Poe's Amontillado tale, as cloying as Machen's Pan, as rending as LeFanu's Carmilla, as deeply gulf-defying as the Bhagavad-Gita, as brown and green and new and old and crisp as a morning with Mom yelling and the woods calling as the Anglo-Saxon and "Alliterative Revival" masterpieces ...

As all that.

What would it take? Some time spent in a dusty room, masturbating into sheets, drinking cold tea, eating salmon out of a can, reading the same lines over and over and over and over ... waiting for a theophany on the wall?

Perhaps just what life serves up. A shitload of disappointment. A plate of angst and emotion and sad eyes thinking of relief, of horrid testimony to some ancient era living only in foggy memory with a bit of eloquent phrases tucked on the side, with a friend who knows, a lady who blows, a tramp with a tattoo, a promise of life-after-death, some type of monster living on unknown and unknowable STUFF, regret teeming like wasps, slug-like growths on my paper, destroying the old days, laying waste to all that was ...

Overly dramatic

A whimper not a bang

The white flesh palpates, the small foot disappears for a moment, and I reach for the solace of her body. She was a succubus of the highest order, Huysmans would've loved her. I didn't, and I paid.

Alone again.

Et je ne trouve pas ma maison