Amos

So as I suggested earlier, the river merchant's wife was the benevolent female identity that we call Mary in our mythology (Mary is from the TOL and Eve is our malevolent female in the TOK).

1 While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
2 I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
3 You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
4 You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
5 And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
6 Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

In the first stanza there is balance and equalibrium between TOL and the TOK. The TOL was the celestial sea where the fruits of our soul (blue plums) were stored and they were enjoyed by the TOK while the TOL kept pulling the self serving ideas that this emerging ego cultivated into attractive flowers. It describes the "inquisitive child" wherein the blue plums were the questions and the flowers the answers to these question. Indeed, much like Emile, yes, and Chokan is what we call the Montesorri model of early childhood development.

7 At fourteen I married my Lord you.
8 I never laughed, being bashful.
9 Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
10 Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

Things begin to change during the adolescent period which is very short in most cultures. Here a stand-off is created and a pact was declared by the TOL ("I married you") wherein the TOL becomes the driving force behind the TOK. The TOK (ego) is banned from Eden (the TOL) and "the wall" is the great divide that separates the two minds wherefore the TOL is forced into a search for an identity of his own. Without any equivocation she takes up her position as guard to protect the integrity of the TOL (she is the cherub placed to guard the way to the TOL (Gen.3:24).

11 At fifteen I stopped scowling,
12 I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
13 For ever and for ever and for ever.
14Why should I climb the look out?

Here we enter young adulthood where the wanting ego identity has found a dream to live. It is important to have a dream and to "stop scowling" suggests that a casual relationship became estabilished wherein she expressed her desire for at-one-ment at some time in the future . . . but not yet. She would lead him first, as if by the nose, and would take him into the far reaches of human pleasure (which is hers to give, sic).

15 At sixteen you departed,
16 You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
17 And you have been gone five months.
18 The monkeys make sorrowful noises overhead.

The "far Ku-to-yen" is our "whole land of Havilah" where there is power, wealth and beauty (Gen.2:11). It is where the gold is good and the swirling eddies are fun and about this we learn through our senses and will therefore go through life like a winding river in search of destiny. The certainty that we would follow our senses was promised in Gen.2:6 where the river merchant's wife saw that the TOK was good for gaining power, wealth and beauty to be retained in the TOL and the subsequent curse upon the flesh was the reason she did not have to be on the "lookout" because the pleasure/pain principle itself would be our guide.

The monkeys overhead speak of our general outlook on life in response to our overall happiness (well being).

19 You dragged your feet when you went out.
20 By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
21 Too deep to clear them away!

She writes how our initial departure into a world of our own (our journey of life), was with a some uncertainty but once we learned to accumilate memories of our own as selected between right and wrong they slowly but surely began to accumilate and now exist like a layer of darkenss to the point that we find it increasingly difficult to keep sight of our celestial sea ("the gate") from were we must capture the insight to illuminate the light of our common day. This connotes a melancholy of a more persistent nature that will become the end of our involutionary period ("too deep to clear away"). This end is forshadowed by the number 5 which itself is the inversion of the number 2 that signifies the faith we once had in the dream we received to a life of our own. Note, the river merchant's wife (our TOL) is the cause of our dreams.

22The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
23 The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
24Over the grass in the west garden;
25 The hurt me. I grow older.
26 If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
27Please let me know beforehand,
28 And I will come out to meet you
29 As far as Cho-fu-sa.

--- Translation ©1936, Ezra Pound

Short summer, less sunshine, more darkness and more turmoil are signs that we, as river merchants, have lost sight of the true beauty of life ("our wife" here) . Our lymbic journey along pleasure and pain, love and hate, richess and poverty now appear like "paired butterflies" that cannot be conceived to exist without each other. We see the vanity of it all and "she" wants to know if we want to return to the East garden. If we do, she writes, I will help you get through the narrows of Kiang. Kiang is the third river of Gen.2:14 (Tigris) and the narrows of Kiang are the difficult rapids that will take us through purgatory in 40 days to arrive that the Eu-phrades (bright-mind) in the fullness of Eden.

To "let her know beforehand" is equal to our Annunciation wherein our "heavenly mother" is consciously called into action and thus into the TOK. This would liberate her out of the lowliness of her prior position with regard to our destiny (Lk. 47-48). Remember here that she is our anima or our woman identity of the subconscius mind, TOL).

The movement of the river merchant's wife from the TOL into the TOK was the vision of Joyce which is therefore beatific.

Luiseach

I believe you must give the spectator the possibility of participating in the film. He is no longer a mere consumer, authorized to injest spoon-fed images, but rather the very person who completes the film. Its framework is born not on the screen but in the spectator's mind.

An interesting quotation to consider within the context of our discussion. I agree with the contention that the reader/viewer is not just a passive vessel for the creations of the writer/filmmaker, but I would hesitate to limit the 'spectator's' mind to what happens within the confines of the cranium. The mind is itself the intersection for other influences, and so the 'framework' for the text/film bears traces from interaction with other texts/films/experiences.

The quotation, however, draws attention to the question of what 'mind' is (or how the mind functions), an issue which may or may not be relevant to the present conversation.

Luiseach

I find the connections you draw between Portrait and religious images interesting, Amos, but for some reason I'm not convinced that we should limit our understanding of the text within the margins of Catholic resources. Certainly, it's a valid point to make that the girl in the water could be seen as the Virgin Mary (symbol of rebirth, salvation, epiphany and so on), and Catholicism was of interest to Joyce himself, but could we not extend our analysis to look for less overt nuances? For instance, if we see the girl as just a local girl that the young Stephen happens to notice in the moment of his realisation of what he should do with his life, then she is just there - accidentally, I mean - and therefore not significant in herself. What could be of interest to us as readers is the fact that Stephen starts to see the extraordinary in the ordinary - he grabs hold of the 'artistic vision,' which is partly the ability to transform the ordinary world into something more than what it is. He sets aside his Catholicism and Irish past, the narrowness of his youthful, self-absorbed mentality, and allows his consciousness to mature a bit. With the widening of the tapestry of life that comes with self-actualisation/growing up, perhaps the young Stephen has finally started to acknowledge his own inexperience, his own ignorance, personified by the girl he sees as mystical and unknowable. He's no longer so sure of himself, because he is maturing, and his recognition of the girl as something more than just a girl on the beach could be seen as an expression of his move towards the humility necessary for really good art. Sometimes the best kind of art is of the sort that defamiliarises things that we take for granted...

I'll try to respond to your comments on the poem you've included....... :-)

Amos

Not all, Louise, and it would be wrong for you to accept my interpretation at will. Your analysis is much the same as mine because it was this vision that opened his mind towards the divine (your "good art"), and yes, this awakening led to the end of his religion (religion as a means to the end).[/b] The "Mary" here is not the historic Mary blah, blah, blah, but it was his own "womanity" that he re-cognized as the reality the BVM represents (as a side note: there is no historic Virgin Mary except in our own mind. This image is indoctrinated by religion and is later recognized at the moment of realization). Yes, I agree with all of the above and you summarized it well. The fact is that that is exactly what happened to Joyce.

I could object to your "Stephen started to see the extraordinary in the ordinary." As see it, for him, the "extraordinary became one with the ordinary" (more or less) because of his transformation and I base this conclusion on his last line: "Old afther, old artificer . . ." and susequent resurrection on May 1 as I explained earlier.

Your "he grabs hold of his artistic vison" is correct and true, but my responce would be: that's a good idea but why don't we all do this?

Sorry that I missed a post ealier where you asked me this: "What do you think of this passage, Amos? Do you think it applies?" This was in ragard to the Modern Scottish Novel: Narrative and the National Imagination (1999), by Cairns Craig.

I should tell you here that I am not a critic (just critical) and not interested in it. I once wrote a character delineation of WE for which I received much recognition but was left alone because it would upset all established criticism. I've also argued that the popularity of Shakespeare plays in different countries over a different period of time are a good barometer of the spiritual well being of a nation as it moves through time. Here, for example Coriolanus was popular in France but never in England while Macbeth was always popular in England but not always in France. The interesting part here is that Coriolanus is a divine comedy while MacBeth is a Senecan tragedy (failed divine comedy). If you apply Craigs argument to this we would be forced to conclude that divine comedies are not identified with in England but they are/were in France. This, of course, was my argument.

Sorry to pose another question: What is it about ‘Catholic’ writing you find interesting? .

I really don't make a distinction but I could tell soon that Northrop Frye was a protestant. Do you know Frye?

BTW. Don't look at me as literature buff because I haven't read a book for 15 years (time is a factor and now I need reading glasses).

Amos

Sorry about that, I thought that Pound and Joyce would go hand in hand. If you are not familiar with it you do not need to reply. I liked writing it and need the practice.

Did you get the message that the letter send by this river merchant's wife ended with his invitation to their equivalent of our "wedding in Cana?"

phaedrus

hugo

Ah! Okay - what makes Olsen (and hence Fish) reject this, as it isn't obvious from the quotes i posted and from the work i've read? Of course, i haven't read everything by Fish... see later for a similar question.

What exactly are you asking here? Are you subscribing to olsen/fish's position or you see the problems with the position?

For the believer, but not necessarily anyone else. I think that's what he's getting at regarding the use of rhetoric; i.e. how do you convince someone if they don't share your belief structure? This is a far more interesting question, i think, and one on which i'd like your opinion.

So they shouldnt "generalize". How does one convince? The same way two people with different languages and cultures try finding the means to communicate and share. Now, a question prior to yours should be - why should one convince another individual? What is the objective? From these questions will come your answer. Just think about a staunch religious believer and a non-religious person trying to convince each other about the origins of the universe

To what end such communication?

Umm as i said....to either learn or to impart learning

I see, but disagree.

Thats why so many mainstream souls dismiss pomo

Back there i was trying (for the sake of argument) to defend relativism from the charge of being self-refuting; to help me out, i posted a few quotes from Habermas, Derrida, Rorty, et al, that i thought would help explain why Putnam's statement could be seen as a recognition of a limitation. You could look through for them but it's really a case of looking at a tough mountain when the weather's coming in and saying "can't get up there, fella". Anyways, the quotes were along the lines of this one, from the first page (i can't be bothered to look for others):

Dont really see the habermas quote helping you refute the god's eye view charge. Here is what rorty had said in "consequences of pragmatism" (i think)

On that same first page, our mutual friend Kantian provided an argument which may be of interest to you.

Where is our man now-a-days?

Fair enough. So do you want me to try to critique him?

Please do

Edited to add....

Does one require language to think?

John Page

Perhaps a definition of "language" and a new thread?

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

You ought to realize by now that i'll adopt any position here if i think it'll stimulate debate, even unto the ridiculous. Here, however, the link you offered criticized Fish for social structuralist tendencies that i haven't read in the works i have, but no references are given. Therefore, i'm asking where these pointers are, so as i can check them.

As for this particular point, i can indeed see the difficulties but i don't see why that should stop me. I suspect there's some more discussion to be drawn therefrom.

It's slow arriving... Fish is saying that rhetoric and not a little faith convinces, while more rhetoric serves to hide our blushes. What say you to that charge?

So PoMo should be more positive?

Well, i may return to that later. Meantime, can you recall what Putnam said in his own defence when he wrote that comment?

He's out there... watching... I'm trying to get him into European cinema.

I'll try to post something contra-Gadamer soon, when i have some time.

Hugo Holbling

Hmm... I changed my mind, jp! This argument may need some tightening up but let me know what you make of it for the moment. I'm kinda tired so let's hope it makes sense...

Suppose that there is a God’s-eye view. How do I justify it as “better” than another view, or else justify that I have the one true God’s-eye view, not some imposter? If I cannot, it isn’t a God’s-eye view; if I can, I will have to refer to a third view which judges the superiority of views based on some criteria (but that won’t do at all) or else say that the God’s-eye view must be self-justifying. In that case, how do I answer the question “is this view better than any other possible view?” without reducing my response to “it just is”? Any criterion for so doing must be established within the view and so cannot be applied to another view external to our God’s-eye perspective. Thus, it would seem that there can be no such other possible view without forcing us to adopt a third view to judge between them, unless we say there is only one possible view and that is the God’s-eye version, not amenable to justification. This, I think, is somewhat unpalatable and sends us back to the drawing board.

I conclude that there is no such God’s-eye view.

You can see what i'm trying to do here: assume that said view exists and then try to derive some absurd or unacceptable conclusions. Regardless of whether i've succeeded, if such an argument could be found it would show that a God's-eye view isn't needed to state the impossibility of a God's-eye view. Perhaps you could give it a shot, just for the hell of it? As I said, it needs some work but is an interesting and diverting exercise.

John Page

Haha! Highly subjective!

I feel the puzzle is to understand why it is we think there might be such a god's eye view and how the belief in such a view affects our behavior.

1. We can take many different viewpoints and compare them.
2. Any judgement as to the superiority of one viewpoint over another is made by (and therefore in the context of) the "reader".
3. We can compare the effect of viewpoints over time, evaluate their different effects and investigate the question "What would be the best viewpoint." a.k.a the god view.
4. The answer to that question is always in relation to the "reader" and therefore subjective.
5. However, believing that a "perfect" view exists encourages us to strive and improve ourselves toward that view - illustrating again the pragmatic nature of religious beliefs. Link to some benefits of god belief

Thus we are led to the inevitable question when confronted with a challenge, "Well, what would god want us to do?" In this way, we become the author of our own god, the same one that is the author of the world that we live in, and the same one who tells us how to read it.

Cheers, John