Interweavings Five

# Interweavings Five ### <center>Left-over threads from last week:</center> * Loreno's [song](https://hackmd.io/OkjhVY1NTHiGyW2pwa-dtg?view#Loreno-Shares-a-Song). * Robin shares a [podcast](https://hackmd.io/OkjhVY1NTHiGyW2pwa-dtg?view#Robin-Shares-a-Podcast). --- ### Robin Shares (Some of) His Songs [Cried Out](https://www.facebook.com/neale.eckstein/videos/1142017706205081/?__tn__=%2CO-R) [Links to Facebook Post] --- ### David Introduces Mahler's 2nd Symphony {%youtube z2KcsjA_PEQ %} and the observation that: > In music, a lot of poetry is transformed and appropriated, such as choral work in symphonies --- ### Loreno Shares Some Findings on "Theory of the Lyric" History of the Lyric - Comments 1. Sappho’s Song 6th stanza, second-last: *For one who flees will soon pursue One who rejects gifts will soon be making offers, And one who does not love will soon be loving, Even against her will.* Use of oppositions in verse has inspired many songs, including my own. The example that instantly speaks to me are Dylan’s songs. In particular The Times They Are A-Changing: *For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'* (…) *The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is rapidly fadin' And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'* Back to Sappho: This is a complex poem, for several reasons. * 1. Sappho addresses Aphrodite and in turn Aphrodite addresses Sappho * 2. The subject come in various forms: past, present and petitioner * 3. Deals with prayer to Aphrodite: * a. About prayers in the past * b. About new prayers Aphrodite is aware of previous prayers and is amused to see she has been called again. A has been called in the past several times and responds by saying: “Again? Okay, you have been pursuing her and she has been fleeing from you. Soon she shall pursue.” Change of subjects in mid-5th stanza: it starts by S addressing A, then shifts to A addressing S (Sappho: I → You / A: you → I). shifts again in last stanza. This is an ingenious poem, because it uses dialogue without explicitly mentioning who is speaking. Direct discourse instead of reported speech/passive tenses. This thus creates the impression of A being in the present. Compare with Bob Dylan’s Isis, e.g.: reported speech / passive tenses → subjects are clearly identified *She was there in the meadow where the creek used to rise Blinded by sleep and in need of a bed I came in from the East with the sun in my eyes I cursed her one time then I rode on ahead She said, where ya been? I said, no place special She said, you look different, I said, well, I guess She said, you been gone, I said, that's only natural She said, you gonna stay? I said, yeah, I might do* **What are the lessons to be learned from this poem?** 1. Attention to the tribulations of love 2. It gives poetic invocation to love, which gives a face and voice to the force of love and accomplishes what it seeks, while persuading the listening towards a more complex attitude of love, without necessarily being introspective * a. Love is successful, thus do not give up on it and remain confident (because A showed up and granted wishes) * b. But there is also a double perspective * i. Each new encounter with love is different: joy or suffering * ii. But there is also a pattern: A makes this clear “Whom am I to persuade once again this time?”, that A notices * iii. And there is a repetition in a pattern: the one who flees will become a pursuer once she is older * c. It gives a concrete example and summary of how the natural laws work THUS, it has both mystic/godly characters and is at the same time very human and earth bound S: represents the human perception of love A: represents the godly wisdom and insight into the law of the world/ law of nature. An interesting lesson learned from the book, p. 37: “a distinctive feature of lyric seems to be this attempt to create the impression of something happening now, in the present time of discourse.” Even though songs were written in the past, mostly talk about an event that has happened in the past, we still sense that the event is taking place now. This is clearly visible in Sappho’s song. **2. Lyric Address** Triangulated address in lyric: by addressing something or someone else, or even himself, the lyrical poet grabs the attention of the listener as he is conveying that message to the listener, or simply put, as he would be addressing the listener directly. This is the root-form of presentation for lyric. Thus, there is addressor, addressee and audience. Example: Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan *Once upon a time you dressed so fine Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall' You thought they were all kidding you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hanging out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging your next meal* *How does it feel, how does it feel? To be without a home Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone* **Addresses to listeners/readers** This might seem to be the default mode, but it is actually rare. Why is that? My own explanation: it takes away the mysticism about the whole creation of art. However, the triangulated address was actually common and essential in Greek lyric, because the used a triangle of speaker, discourse and the audience. It has led people to believe that, because the poems/songs were performed and even written for an audience, that it addressed them directly. But this is not true. Johnson suggests that: “the person addressed is a metaphor for readers of the poem and becomes a symbolic mediator, a conductor between the poet and each of his readers and listeners.” This is indirection. Thus, even though poems were often addressed to a person, directly addressing the audience is rare. In the modern lyric, there is a disintegration of addressing the listener, and thus also a disintegration of emotional content. **Addressing other people** Most common structure in Greek and Latin lyric. The primary example is that of love poems. They can directly be addressed to a person and indirectly address the audience as well, because people can identify and relate to it. The love poems that are central to the Western lyric canon are not mere communication between lovers. Rather, they are compositions of poets for an audience other than that particular lover. Thus, address is a rhetorical strategy for triangulated address. So, we see that address is double: to the lover and the audience. But the address to the beloved is often invented or even explicitly out of reach. This is a great instrument to reach the audience without directly involving it. Allen Grossman: “in most primitive terms, the presence of a poem involves a complete triadic state of affairs, (…) the self, (…), the beloved of the self (…) and the third – being the audience, the ratifier, the witness, and the inheritor of the drama of loving relationship to which the poem gives access.” → the beloved thus serves as a poetic function, an instrument, for the benefit of the inheritors. **What does it accomplish?** o Creates an event in the present (the moment of address) → allows for a more vivid expression of feeling, active questioning, engagement; o Enhances the possibility to enact the most complex, surprising or even perverse movements of desire; o Evokes interpersonal relation and possibilities of enactment, that are or can be quite magical. Thus, the overall lesson in triangulated address is the following: it is a strategy of positing an addressee in a way of securing particular effects, producing distinctive impressions of voice through unusual utterance, while in fact writing for the reader/listener. **Apostrophe: addressing something other than a person/active listener** There are unlimited possibilities in addressing. It does not have to be confined to a person. It can be both direct and indirect. It usually tells the addressee something that it already knows or is supposed to know. **What is its function?** 1. Can serve as intensifiers and images of invested passion. It reflects a more intense feeling. 2. But more rightly so, it is ritual invocation of elements of the universe that it is after. The aim is to attempt to evoke the possibility of magical transformation. “It is a device which the poetic subject uses to establish with the object a relationship that helps to constitute the subject itself as poetic.” **But furthermore, a range of effects are possible:** 1. Providing a medium for speech acts such as praise, innovation, celebration and complaint; 2. Introducing a messenger in the story; 3. Establish relations between self and other / to either (i) parcel out the self to fill the world, or (ii) to internalize what might have been thought external → concretization of poetic reflection 4. Helps fostering the feeling and idea that the event is taking place in the present. Ultimately, this is the key characteristic of lyric: the repeated performance of an event in the “now”, the lyric present; See link with fiction: “fiction is about what happens next. Lyric is about what happens now.” → in contrast to fiction, nothing necessarily needs to happen, because the lyric in itself is the happening. 5. Evocation of poetic power; Because it “treats the subject’s relation to the world as a specular relationship, a relationship between subjects, and it has a highly optative character, expressing wishes, requests, demands that whatever is addressed do something for you or refrain from doing what is usually does.” 6. Mockery Sometimes apostrophes also answer back.