Trusting "Contraries"

Notes on the Poetry of Robert Frost

So must pure lovers’ souls descend

To affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so

Weak men on love revealed may look;

Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,

But yet the body is his book.

-  John Donne,  from "The Ecstasy"

Robert Frost's short poem "West-Running Brook" is a little drama about some very big ideas.  He began writing the poem in 1920 and decided to make it the the titular piece for a collection of poems he began compiling in the winter of 1927 and saw published the following year.  

One notices that, of the couple in the poem, we have only a name for the man.  His wife is either "my love" or "my dear".  
Neither referents are all that bad, but they are indefinite, and when the couple are joined with the brook (two become three) it is the wife that goes unnamed even as she is the one who names the brook.  It begins with a question, "Fred, where is north?", that folds into a discussion of the brook that runs west contrary to expectation and to "all the other country brooks" which flow east.  He then announces one theme of the poem, contraries, as according to him "It must be the brook / Can trust itself to go by contraries" which he immediately compares to their relationship.  This leads him to the conclusion that they are a "we", a couple who "must be something, but then adds the brook, saying:

"We'll both be married to the brook.  We'll build 
Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be 
Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it."


Thus the brook becomes the third to their two and is suddenly anthropomorphized with a wave that lets them know it hears".   The lovely image of "our arm thrown over it" suggests a joining of the two together and with the brook as a third, perhaps a family.  This also can be inferred from the wife's response below.  The contraries of the poem are not violent, rather they are like some waves whose motions against the grain are like a resistance to going with the "drift of things".  However when Fred suggests the river "wasn't waved to us" his wife disagrees:
"It wasn't, yet it was.  If not to you / It was to me--in an annunciation."


Fred's response suggests that it is her fantasy and about such a brook "I have no more to say."  But with her contrary encouragement the big ideas soon appear as Fred responds with a rhapsody on the primitive "water we were from" with Darwinian connotations leading us from "long before we were any creature."  The metaphor of the stream of life also appears with hints of Lucretius including  "a swerving" that suggests indeterminacy in the direction of the stream of life.  In its flow we see,
"A universal cataract of death / That spends to nothingness".  It is a throwing back (another sort of contrary) that demonstrates to us our source, the "nature we are from."  His lengthy commentary on the source of life and the nature of its flow with currents "against the stream" seems an excess of eloquence.  All this may be most unsettling to his wife, but her comment is a more simple recognition of where they are that concludes with "Today will be the day of what we both said."  

I like the recognition that while she seems to say in effect we will agree to disagree, she is still referring to "we".  They are a couple whose love, like that of Donne's (see the epigraph above) and many others can withstand such disagreements.  But we should note that this poem demonstrates many of Frost's preoccupations with its eloquent use of the stream metaphor and his ability to merge the dramatic with the lyrical form.  The poem, at least if you side with Fred, seems to suggest that as humans we are ultimately redeemed by our natural resistance in the face of extinction.  But, as is usually the case with Frost, the meaning is not explicit, the difference between husband and wife is not resolved.  It is left on the table.  Yet, the poem ends with them still a "we".


West-Running Brook

'Fred, where is north?'

'North? North is there, my love.
The brook runs west.'

'West-running Brook then call it.'
(West-Running Brook men call it to this day.)
'What does it think it's doing running west
When all the other country brooks flow east
To reach the ocean? It must be the brook
Can trust itself to go by contraries
The way I can with you -- and you with me --
Because we're -- we're -- I don't know what we are.
What are we?'

'Young or new?'

'We must be something.
We've said we two. Let's change that to we three.
As you and I are married to each other,
We'll both be married to the brook. We'll build
Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be
Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it.
Look, look, it's waving to us with a wave
To let us know it hears me.'

' 'Why, my dear,
That wave's been standing off this jut of shore --'
(The black stream, catching a sunken rock,
Flung backward on itself in one white wave,
And the white water rode the black forever,
Not gaining but not losing, like a bird
White feathers from the struggle of whose breast
Flecked the dark stream and flecked the darker pool
Below the point, and were at last driven wrinkled
In a white scarf against the far shore alders.)
'That wave's been standing off this jut of shore
Ever since rivers, I was going to say,'
Were made in heaven. It wasn't waved to us.'

'It wasn't, yet it was. If not to you
It was to me -- in an annunciation.'

'Oh, if you take it off to lady-land,
As't were the country of the Amazons
We men must see you to the confines of
And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter,-
It is your brook! I have no more to say.'

'Yes, you have, too. Go on. You thought of something.'

'Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
In that white wave runs counter to itself.
It is from that in water we were from
Long, long before we were from any creature.
Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
The stream of everything that runs away.
Some say existence like a Pirouot
And Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
It seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the abyss' void with emptiness.
It flows beside us in this water brook,
But it flows over us. It flows between us
To separate us for a panic moment.
It flows between us, over us, and with us.
And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-
And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
The universal cataract of death
That spends to nothingness -- and unresisted,
Save by some strange resistance in itself,
Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,
As if regret were in it and were sacred.
It has this throwing backward on itself
So that the fall of most of it is always
Raising a little, sending up a little.
Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
The brook runs down in sending up our life.
The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
And there is something sending up the sun.
It is this backward motion toward the source,
Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute of the current to the source.
It is from this in nature we are from. It is most us.'

'To-day will be the day....You said so.'

'No, to-day will be the day
You said the brook was called West-running Brook.'

'To-day will be the day of what we both said.'


West-Running Brook by Robert Frost. Holt & Co., 1928.

Literary Feminism

A Room of One's Own 

by Virginia Woolf

"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others." - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)



I read this extended essay some years ago both for a class at the University of Chicago and for a weekend spent discussing some of the works of Virginia Woolf that also included To the Lighthouse and Three Guineas.
A Room of One's Own was written to be delivered as two talks delivered to female college students. This coincided with the trial of Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, at which Woolf testified in the novel's defense. This context, the female college setting, and Woolf's personable style are captured in the famous passage of A Room of One's Own in which she imagines discovering a new kind of writing, by a future novelist named Mary Carmichael.
"And, determined to do my duty by her as reader if she would do her duty by me as writer, I turned the page and read…. I am sorry to break off so abruptly. Are there no men present? Do you promise me that behind that red curtain over there the figure of Sir Charles Biron [the hostile judge at the Well of Loneliness trial] is not concealed? We are all women you assure me? Then I may tell you that the very next words I read were these — “Chloe liked Olivia….” Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women." 
In the end, Woolf decides that if Mary Carmichael has "a room of her own and five hundred a year," she will eventually be a real writer. " Woolf's main argument is that there have been few great women in history because material circumstances limited women's lives and achievements. Because women were not educated and were not allowed to control wealth, they necessarily led lives that were less publicly significant than those of men. While the argument has gained more adherents since this book was written the book retains its popularity and has become a classic along with much of Woolf's oeuvre. It is a short work that raises interesting questions and is written with impeccable style. 



View all my reviews

Notes on a Darwin Weekend

Further Exploration

There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. . . Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.

- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

The weekend study retreat on Charles Darwin that I just attended included two additional lectures; one on Saturday afternoon by Michaelangelo Allocca, Basic Program Instructor, with the tongue-in-cheek- title, "More Fun than a Barrel of Monkey Trials: Darwin's Complex Relationship with Religion", and one on Sunday morning by George Anastaplo, Basic Program Instructor, "On the Suggestive Origins of Darwin and Lincoln". Professor Anastaplo opened with an epigraph from the movie, King Kong, "It was beauty that killed the beast," and went on to once again demonstrate the fecundity of his ideas, centering his comments mainly on the similarities between the thought of Lincoln and Darwin who share more than simply the same birth date. These similarities included both their approaches to anti-slavery and their relationship with technology. In spite of similarities they were not successful in assessing each other's work.
Michael's presentation was informative in highlighting the complexity of Darwin's relationship with religion from the his early training as a vicar to his specific references to it in his works and letters. Perhaps most interesting, Michael noted the Catholic Church's muted criticism of Darwin in contrast with that of the Anglican church in his day. Continuing to the present the strongest critics of Darwinian evolution have generally been more fundamental Protestants. In addition Michael contrasted Darwin's views on religion with those of Alfred Russell Wallace who, while almost simultaneously developing a similar theory of evolution, held much more eccentric views of religion and the supernatural.

The highlight of the weekend was a multi-media presentation with song on Saturday Evening by Richard Milner, Anthropologist and Historian of Science Extraordinaire. His musical presentation of the life and thought of Darwin was spectacular. A taste of it can be found at his own web site, Darwin Live.

Notes on a Darwin Weekend

An Exploration of Evolutionary Ideas

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this plane has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

I just returned from a weekend immersed in the works and ideas of Charles Darwin who was born two hundred years ago, on February 12, 1809 (the same day as Abraham Lincoln). A group sponsored by the University of Chicago Basic Program of Liberal Education held a weekend study retreat, Charles Darwin: A Continuing Challenge.

On Friday night the weekend commenced with a lecture, "Does Darwin Support or Subvert Morality?", by Larry Arnhart, Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. The lecture and subsequent discussion considered the historical science in Darwin's writings and the difficulties he anticipated. It moved quickly into the consideration of morality where it was noted that Darwin was not neutral; for example, he advocated the abolition of slavery, even criticizing Lincoln who he felt went neither far enough nor fast enough. Darwin's critics claim that his view that people are just "animals" subverts morality; encourages atheism, advocates a materialism that leads to denial of free will, and ultimately leads to the sort of Social Darwinism that results in eugenics and racism. In defending Darwin Prof. Arnhart pointed out that in The Descent of Man Darwin claimed that man has a "natural moral sense" that develops from four stages of his evolutionary development: social instinct, intellectual faculties, language and habit. This "moral sense" is seen as a "highly complex sentiment" that leads to kindness, reciprocity, and mutuality. In conclusion Prof. Arnhart pointed out that sympathy for other humans is the "noblest part of our nature" (The Descent of Man).

Our Friday evening concluded with further discussion about these ideas and others over wine and conviviality. Darwin looked to be a topic that could support an invigorating exploration of ideas.

On Saturday morning, John (Jack) Melsheimer, Instructor in the Basic Program, presented "What Does 'Species' Mean in the Origin of Species?". Darwin said, "No one definition (of species) has satisfied all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species."(p. 65). Generally Darwin uses species as a heuristic recognizing that species is "arbitrarily-given" and used for "convenience sake." Jack presented this and Darwin's discussion of morphology, taxonomy, descent with modification and other issues present in the Origin. It is here that Darwin summarizes his evidence, gathered over many years, for evolution of species such as the existence of rudimentary organs. Darwin uses his final chapter to recapitulate both the objections to his theory (he anticipates all the significant objections even though he does not have the evidence to rebut all of them) and the "general and special circumstances" in its favor. While presenting a picture of Darwin as a naturalist, and enthusiast for Aristotle and a genius capable of identifying and presenting fundamental scientific principles. We left the morning talk discussing the nature of species and pondering: are they real or theoretical constructs?



The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Modern Library, New York. 1993 (1859)
The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin. Prometheus Books, New York. 1998 (1874)

Poetic Prose

Dubliners

Rereading Dubliners was a real joy, particularly due to Joyce's command of language. The variety within the collection is due to Joyce's Irish experiences, which constitute an essential element of his writings. This early volume of short stories is a penetrating analysis of the stagnation and paralysis of Dublin society. The stories were written at the time when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences.

Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by children as protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. They often focus on his idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character has a special moment of self-understanding or illumination.

Joyce's writing in Dubliners is neutral; he rarely uses hyperbole or emotive language, relying on simplistic language and close detail to create a realistic setting. This ties the reader's understanding of people to their environments. He does not tell the reader what to think, rather they are left to come to their own conclusions (in stark contrast to the moral judgements displayed by earlier writers such as Charles Dickens). The stories frequently demonstrate a lack of traditional dramatic resolution. It has been argued by some critics that Joyce often allows his narrative voice to gravitate towards the voice of a textual character.
For example, the opening line of 'The Dead' reads "Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet." She is not, in this instance, "literally" run off her feet, and neither would Joyce have thought so; rather, the narrative lends itself to a mis-use of language typical of the character being described.

Joyce often uses descriptions from the characters' point of view, although he very rarely writes in the first person. This can be seen in 'Eveline', when Joyce writes, "Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne". Here, Joyce employs an empirical perspective in his description of characters and events; an understanding of characters' personalities is often gained through an analysis of their possessions. The first paragraph of 'A Painful Case' is an example of this style, as well as Joyce's use of global to local description of the character's possessions. Joyce also employs parodies of other writing styles; part of 'A Painful Case' is written as a newspaper story, and part of 'Grace' is written as a sermon. This stylistic motif takes a more prominent role in Ulysses (for example, in the Aeolus episode, which is written in a newspaper style).

The collection as a whole displays an overall plan, beginning with stories of youth and progressing in age to culminate in 'The Dead'. Great emphasis is laid upon the specific geographic details of Dublin, details to which a reader with a knowledge of the area would be able to directly relate. The multiple perspectives presented throughout the collection serve to present a broad view of the social and political contexts of life in Dublin at this time.

The final and most famous story in the collection, 'The Dead', was made into a feature film in 1987 directed by John Huston (it was Huston's last major work).


Dubliners by James Joyce. Viking Press, New York. 1975 (1916)
Ulysses by James Joyce. Vintage Books, New York. 1990 (1922)

Herodotus

I just spent the weekend listening to lectures, and discussing the The Histories of Herodotus with a sizable group of cohorts, all of whom were gathered to revel in this amazing classical text. During the fifth century B.C. Herodotus traveled the known world making inquiries and doing research on the origins and events of the wars between the Persians and the Greeks. This sizable text was the result and it includes what he referred to as enquiries but what encompasses much of what we would call history, sociology, anthropology, mythology and more. It is a wonderful narrative providing the essential background and events, including famous battles like Thermopylae and profiles of great leaders on both sides including Themistocles, Darius and Xerxes. Perhaps the best way to convey the import of this book is to let Herodotus speak for himself. He opens the book thus:


"Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks."


Herodotus does not shy away from opinions about the events that he narrates; one of these opinions is related early in Book One:


"I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place."


This becomes more and more evident as one reads on through this excellent work. Whether it was Croesus , who was at one time the richest man in the world, or the Persian emperors, whose realm extended to the ends of the known world, their respective happiness did not last. Reading this book was an adventure into the history of the known world in that time.




The Histories by Herodotus, trans. by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, New York, 1998.