Jul
14
Meaning, responsibility, ???
July 14, 2008 | | 1 Comment
First off: I really loved today’s class. I feel sort of like I derailed the topic of discussion, but the things we ended up talking about have been weighing much on my mind these days so I’m hugely glad we got a chance to discuss them.
I’m hung up on authenticity in a big way. It’s probably a character flaw, but even though I have a tendency to lie for fun, it’s a completely different thing to me. It ties in a lot to the ideas of responsibility I’ve been tossing around this session. It seems important to me that things be sincere; whether it’s a reaction to being surrounded by teenage nihilism or the contemporary love for irony or some sort of irritable response to post-modernism, I don’t know, but I have an inherent distaste for the sort of unthinking refusal to invest in things that seems to be rampant around me. The refusal to connect to the world (the attempt to be discontiguous, if you will) brings out in me a sort of pitying disgust–which is probably a problematic reaction. But it’s how I feel. On that possibly futile continuous search for meaning, it’s awfully hard to find any meaning of any sort if you can’t make a genuine connection, or at least attempt a genuine connection.
And as to that search for meaning, it seems that we aren’t doing ourselves justice if we ignore that search entirely. Okay, maybe not everyone’s as overt and specific about it, but I think most people are trying to muddle some meaning out of their experiences. And as Milton shows us, it’s not something you search for in just one place, but in EVERY place. Every single thing you do is part of that search, that journey. Because of how our brains and bodies work we can’t be seeing every single thing that way–we need some down time, after all–but if we had the ability and the time, we could look at everything and anything that way. Dig into it enough–like poetry–and even more is revealed. There’s that enfolded sublimity to everything, if you think hard in the right ways. Every tiny thing could show us something huge. And maybe this ties into the way the scope of stories has changed; we’re learning more and more that the tiny is a way to reflect the large.
It’s a lot of pressure, honestly. It is easier (can we say… tempting?) to reject meaning or the search for meaning and live in a more facile, shallow way. And even if you’re dedicated to authenticity and the idea of looking for something larger, you can’t be constantly vigilant that way. Again, our brains just can’t do it. But if you accept that pressure, that responsibility, it can be just as reassuring as it is difficult. (There are some things I’ll discuss with regard to discipline tomorrow that fit in here.) But to say: “okay, I think there must be some truth, and even if I can’t grab the whole thing–even if I can’t grab much–I’m going to go after it.” That’s freeing, in a way. It’s a start to fulfilling your responsibility to yourself and your maker. It’s part of the way to be your whole, contiguous self. And I think that’s important.
Though the specific poem is not one I was thinking of, here is a poem by Lia Purpura, who teaches at Loyola and who is a brilliant writer and a great speaker.
And here are my discussion questions for today, though Madeline pointed me in the right directions (and I probably didn’t write them out very well):
Do you think Paradise Lost is a monument or a living work? Do you agree that it is “dead”? Does Paradise Lost present any ideas we’d consider “dead”? What about living ones?
How does Milton’s religion mesh with his retelling the story of Genesis? (or) How does he square his faith with retelling a story from the Bible? Past that, how does he retell it?
If creation is divine/a divine act, why do the unfallen Adam and Eve have so little to do with it? They do not conceive in Eden. In fact, only God, Satan, Sin, and Death conceive/create during the poem. Conception as a product of sex is not mentioned–the place of Adam and Eve as our ancestors is never linked with their lovemaking.
Raphael’s hesitancy and the invocation of the deity–Milton seems not entirely comfortable with taking it upon himself to describe Creation, so why does he touch upon the subject at all? He has to find it worthwhile in some way
If food is the relationship between nature/man/angels then what does it mean that the Fruit is something EATEN?
God creates Earth supposedly to repopulate Heaven–this challenges his authority in two ways. One, has Satan affected God (and if so how)? Two, why are Adam and Eve the ‘new creators’ rather than God himself?
Considering the dinner scene in light of the ontological vegetable, how does that alter Eve’s status, or does it not alter it at all?
If we consider that life springs up like plants, and these plants mirror the ontological vegetable, what does it mean for all of life? Everything is rising; contrast with the multiple falls throughout the epic.
EDIT: Related only in the loosest of ways, but I think this is pretty great.
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