2014.3 journal of literature and art studies

Journal of Literature

and Art Studies

Volume 4, Number 3, March 2014 (Serial Number 28)

David Publishing Company

www.davidpublishing.com

PublishingDavid

Publication Information: Journal of Literature and Art Studies is published monthly in hard copy (ISSN 2159-5836) and online (ISSN 2159-5844) by David Publishing Company located at 240 Nagle Avenue #15C, New York, NY 10034, USA.

Aims and Scope: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world.

Editorial Board Members: Eric J. Abbey, Oakland Community College, USA Andrea Greenbaum, Barry University, USA Carolina Conte, Jacksonville University, USA Maya Zalbidea Paniagua, Universidad La Salle, Madrid, Spain Mary Harden, Western Oregon University, USA Lisa Socrates, University of London, United Kingdom Herman Jiesamfoek, City University of New York, USA Maria O’Connell, Texas Tech University, USA Soo Y. Kang, Chicago State University, USA Uju Clara Umo, University of Nigeria, Nigeria

Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission, or E-mail to [email protected], [email protected]. Submission guidelines and Web Submission system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.org, www.davidpublishing.com.

Editorial Office: 240 Nagle Avenue #15C, New York, NY 10034, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082 Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Copyright©2014 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention, no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites) without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation, however, all the citations should be clearly indicated with the title of this journal, serial number and the name of the author.

Abstracted/Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, Airiti Inc. & OCLC Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory LLBA Database of ProQuest Summon Serials Solutions Google Scholar J-GATE

Subscription Information: Price (per year): Print $520 Online $320 Print and Online $560

David Publishing Company 240 Nagle Avenue #15C, New York, NY 10034, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082. Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: [email protected] Digital Cooperative: Company:www.bookan.com.cn

David Publishing Company

www.davidpublishing.com

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 4, Number 3, March 2014 (Serial Number 28)

Contents Literature Studies

The Role of the Forest in German Literature: From the Medieval Forest to the Grünes Band 149 Albrecht Classen

Ezra Pound’s Conversion to Confucianism 165 TAN Xiao-cui

Guilt, Love, and Forgiveness in David Hare’s The Reader and Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser 174

Naglaa Hassan Abou-Agag

On “Poetic Spontaneity” and Aesthetics 180 WEI Shu

“Everything About You Is Vampiric”: Vampirism as a Metaphor for Adolescent Maturation in M. T. Anderson’s Thirsty 189

Leni Marlina

On the Three Forms of Fruitless Love in Sons and Lovers 197 WANG Xiao-yan

Through the Works of Gabrielle Roy and Régine Robin: Innovations in Women’s Writings 201 Marie-Dominique Boyce

Special Research

“Mass Production” in the Mass Consumption Societies: The Case of Male Bodybuilding 208 Guillaume Vallet

The Symbols of the Fire in Georgian Folklore in Comparison With Global Experience 219 Bela Mosia

Pseudo and Digital Parapraxis in MMORPGs 225 Marion HAZA

Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836 March 2014, Vol. 4, No. 3, 149-164

The Role of the Forest in German Literature:

From the Medieval Forest to the Grünes Band

Albrecht Classen

University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

This paper demonstrates how much the forest was used by medieval writers as a symbolic space where critical

events take place deeply affecting their protagonists. The forest motif can be found in the works of St. Augustine as

well as in Dante’s Divina Commedia (ca. 1308-1321), and then in a plethora of other texts. Here the author

examines more closely the symbolic meaning of the forest as a mysterious, dangerous, yet also spiritual location in

Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Titurel (ca. 1220) and then in two 15th-century prose novels: Thüring von

Ringoltingen’s Melusine (1456) and the anonymous Fortunatus (1509). Each time we recognize how much the

poets placed their central figures one in the forest where their life takes a major turn. Recognizing this intriguing

function of the forest as a metaphor and symbol, we can employ the modern interest in and fascination with the

forest as a refuge from the destruction of the natural environment through modern civilization as segue to attract

students to the study of medieval literature once again.

Keywords: forest as symbol, St. Augustine, Dante Alighieri, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Thüring von Ringoltingen,

Fortunatus, relevance of medieval literature

Introduction

In his Confessiones (1960), St. Augustine reflects at one point about the difference between the writings of

the ancient philosophers and the passionate, emotional quest for the soul’s salvation in the Christian world. In that

context he resorts to a powerful metaphor that serves us extraordinarily well to outline the theoretical and

practical perspectives that the author wants to pursue here. Augustine (1960) emphasizes:

It is one thing to behold from a wooded mountain peak the land of peace, but to find no way to it, and to strive in vain towards it by unpassable ways, ambushed and beset by fugitives and deserters, under their leader, the lion and the dragon. It is a different thing to keep to the way that leads to that land, guarded by the protection of the heavenly commander, where no deserters from the heavenly army lie in wait like bandits. (p. 180)

For him, as for countless other writers throughout the Middle Ages and far beyond, if not until today, the

experience of being lost in the woods constitutes an archetypal condition. The forest is a space where human

conditions and laws no longer apply; hence both wild animals and robbers have fair play and can do whatever

they please. The forest is similarly the prime territory in fairy tales where wild things appear and threaten the

protagonists. Every culture and society has viewed the forest differently, and we can study a certain cultural

Albrecht Classen, professor, Department of German Studies, University of Arizona.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

THE ROLE OF THE FOREST IN GERMAN LITERATURE 150

period very well through the lens of the forest, but each time we will recognize how much the forest served as a

symbol and a metaphor. Herein the author perceives extraordinarily productive strategies to make modern students

aware about the importance and intrigue of the theme of the forest in medieval literature (Fischer, 2011).1

The Forest in Medieval Literature: A Brief Survey

Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265-1321) embraced a very similar image in the introduction to his Divina Commedia

(1974), positioning his protagonist in the midst of the woods, not knowing where to turn any longer:

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears), a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good. (p. 67)

Indeed, the forest has always served as an intriguing site for epistemological investigations, since human

culture extends only to the edge of the last meadow or pasture, where the wilderness begins, but where a new

world also awaits the visitor, the hermit, the monk, or anyone looking for freedom from social constraints

(Semmler, 1991, pp. 9-15).2 In Walther von der Vogelweide’s famous poem “Under der linden” (2013), the two

lovers meet at a meadow, under a linden tree, hence away from human society, but not yet in the wild forest;

instead, just at its edge.

Courtly literature is deeply determined by images of the forest where beasts live and where only the most

daring individuals, if not the mad, enter (Saunders, 1993). The courtly protagonist proves his prowess especially

in the forest where he encounters dangerous opponents and fundamental challenges to his own existence (Erec,

Yvain, Gawain, Lancelot, Partonopier, etc.). Sir Gawain, for instance, in the Middle English alliterative romance

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (the late 14th century), has to make his way through the frozen landscape of

Northern Wales and fight at many occasions against dragons and wolves before he finally reaches, just in time for

the Christmas season, the castle of Hautdesert, where the next stage of his testing begins (vv. 691-762). The poet

leaves no doubt as to the profound dangers which Gawain has to face, especially since he even seems to be

threatened in his life because of the inhospitality of the wintry forest:

By a mount in the morning the good man then rides Into a forest full deep, fantastic and wild, High hills on each side, and heavy woods beneath With bare oaks, very huge, a hundred together. The hazel and the hawthorn were thickly ensnarled,

1 Fischer indicates, for instance, how much the forest was a mythical space in the Middle Ages, and then became a location of refuge from society for the Romantics. At the same time, the forest matters greatly in the entire world of the fairy tale. 2 See especially Semmler’s introductory comments on the variety of functions which the forest could assume in the Middle Ages, pp. 9-15; for the relevance of the forest in early modern English literature, see Theis (2009), A remarkable paean on the forest as a refuge for all people after destructive wars or environmental disasters, for instance, was written by Giono (1954/1985), The man who planted trees.


with rough, ragged moss arrayed everywhere, With many birds, not blitheful, upon bare twigs, That piteously piped there in pain from the cold. (Sir Gawain, vv. 740-747)

However, Gawain survives, and ultimately triumphs, even though the Green Knight subsequently severely

tests him and would have almost defeated him with the help of his wife who works hard to seduce this worthy

representative of the round table. Details do not need to be pursued here at length, and suffice it to confirm that

the Gawain poet powerfully employed the imagery of the forest for his epistemological purposes since the

protagonist can only find his goal and master the task posed by the Green Knight once he has made his way

through the forest to the castle, and from there to the green chapel (Brewer & Gibson, 1997; Elliott, 1979).

Significantly, each one of the three animals which the Green Knight/Bercilak de Hautdesert hunts during the

three days while Gawain stays with him and rests in bed well into the late morning, specifically symbolizes one

of the latter’s knightly skills and character. While Bercilak races along the edge of the forest (“lynde-wode3

eue3”, v. 1178), his wife entraps Gawain by sitting down on his bedside (v. 1193), and we are left guessing who

of the two men is at a more dangerous spot, who is the true hunter, and who is the spoor. Although there are

many references to social-courtly settings throughout the text (castle, chapel), the forest itself determines

Gawain’s course toward his destiny and the time of his ultimate test regarding his courage and honor. While the

Green Knight had first visited the castle of King Arthur, he awaited Sir Gawain at the green chapel, in a forlorn

part of the woods, in a dale far away from all human civilization (vv. 2160-2198).

There are countless other examples of forest scenes in medieval literature, which contain a multitude of

ponderous signifiers in which individuals either feel completely lost, or recognize that they have entered a

utopian or dystopian space. In light of contemporary interest in the forest and wilderness as the last remaining

refuge for nature in face of ever expanding modern civilization, the question that the author wants to raise here is

how the discussion of the forest might facilitate a reinvigoration of student interests in medieval literature?

Ecocriticism is not just a catch-word coined by postmodernist theoreticians or green-oriented environmentalists;

instead, it is the result of deeply-grounded concerns by people today about the survival of our world as we know

it, especially of nature (Scarborough, 2013; Classen, 2012; Rudd, 2007; Aberth, 2012).3 At the same time, as we

will observe, the discussion of the forest as a magical space, as a maze wherein the weak and ignoramus will be

lost, while the strong and wise will succeed, carries timeless values (Wilson, 2012; Lekan, & Zeller, 2005).4 The

forest represents in many different ways cultural identity because of its enormous symbolic value throughout

times, either in a hospitable or a hostile fashion.

Ecocriticism Past and Present, and the Spatial Turn

Ecocritical awareness is not simply the result of postmodern reactions to the destruction of our natural world

by economic-capitalistic interests and hence industrial and other pollution. Instead, as the author will illustrate in

this paper, concerns about the natural environment can be traced already in much earlier literature. If we

recognize some of the universal issues at stake also in medieval texts, we will be in a much better position to 3 Medievalists have recently turned to ecocriticism, which promises to build highly productive bridges to modernism, revealing universal concerns beyond all historical dividers. 4 For modern perspectives, see Wilson (2012) and Lekan and Zeller (2005).


justify our discipline, medieval studies. This goal must be pursued not only for cultural-historical reasons, but

also because the voices contained in those literary documents prove to be partners in a larger discourse that

affects us as much today as in the past. The ecocritical concern is not only directed toward the natural

environment, but it also and essentially considers the healthy or unhealthy relationship between mankind and

nature (Hiltner, 2013). This approach must be pursued both with a perspective toward the modern conditions and

in light of the situation in the past, as reflected, for instance, by medieval literature.

Space carries meaning, and the natural environment as well, as we know so well since the beginning of the

“spatial turn” (Lefebvre, 1974/1991; Kipfer, Goonewardena, Schmid, & Milgrom, 2008). Our constantly

growing concern with the forest today connects us immediately with the approaches toward the forest in the

Middle Ages since we can recognize in that natural space a world where the self is deeply challenged and where

human society finds its limits. Entering the forest, hence, represents, in a way, one of the possible pathways

toward utopia (Thomasset & James-Raoul, 2005; Hartmann, 2010; Classen, 2000, pp. 133-156),5 the intellectual

and spiritual exploration of a new space, far away from human society. Or, just on the opposite, losing one’s way

in the forest could also be, as Dante’s example illustrates, the experience of a dystopia or of an existential crisis.

Furthermore, there is also a number of literary cases where a young protagonist grows up in the forest, far away

from courtly society, and has to learn, after his departure, how to adapt to the world outside and how to acquire

the necessary skills required from a knight and a chivalrous person in the adult environment at court, such as

Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival in their respective eponymous romances

(Classen, 2012b, pp. 51-55). As Perez (2012) notes:

Located on the margins of society, the forest is omnipresent not only in the imagination of the poets, but also in the lives of all medieval society. It surrounds the rural space, marking the limits of the cultivated lands, and often constitutes a natural border, the frontier between two adjacent territories. (p. 439)

Medieval Literature Today: The Meaning of the Forest

In order to come to terms with the issue at stake here, the author will discuss an early 13th-century text

where the forest space matters greatly for the development of the narrative and the protagonists’ lives, and then

two 15th-century prose novel to demonstrate not only the great importance of the forest as a motif and backdrop

in each text. The critical question here pertains to how the discussion of the forest in each literary example can

emerge as a crucial stepping stone to attract new readers to the medieval world. After all, our modern society is

deeply determined by the Middle Ages, and the connection between both cultures in philosophical, religious,

political, economic, and artistic terms are extensive, even if not so obvious at first sight for the outsider

(Fuhrmann, 1996; Zink, 1996/1998).6

Basically, the author no longer need to confirm how much the forest itself mattered for the narrative

development of so many medieval (and also modern) texts. We only need to think of Marie de France’s

“Bisclavret” (ca. 1190), for instance, where the unfortunate husband is forced to live in the forest as a werewolf

until, under unique and difficult circumstances, he receives, upon the advice of a wise councilor, a new set of 5 For a wide range of discussions about utopias already in the Middle Ages, see Thomasset and James-Raoul (2005); see also the succinct article by Hartmann (2010) and Classen (2000). 6 There are many researches on this topic by now, and scholars continue to discover ever new connections or sources of influence. See, for instance, Fuhrmann (1996).


clothing from the king and can thus shift back to his human shape, but not before he has bitten off the nose of his

wife as a punishment for her evil deed against him, banning him to a life in the wilderness (Marie de France, 2010,

2011; Sharon & McCracken, 2012).7 Or we could explore the “chante fable” Aucassin et Nicolette (ca.

1230-1250) where the female protagonist hides in a forest until her lover, having fled from his home country, can

finally discover her and then move on together with her, disregarding previous social pressures exerted against

them (Dufournet, 1984; Gilbert, 1997; Angeli, 2006).8

The burning question in medieval studies centers nowadays very much on how we can motivate our students to

pay attention to literary texts from the premodern era, how to make them relevant again, or how to preserve their

traditional role within the larger canon of Western literature (Classen, 2012a). The focus on the motif of the forest

promises to be one of many useful strategies, especially because it has long been recognized as a critical

epistemological tool of great heuristic value (Eco, 1994; Adam, 1988).9 We can traverse such a symbolic forest in

order to make our way to another goal beyond it, or we can explore the forest in order to understand its infrastructure

or the various types of habitats present there. Getting lost in the forest, as happens so often in fairy tales (such as in

“Hänsel and Gretel” or “Little Red Riding Hood”) easily and commonly symbolizes the basic human experience of

not knowing where to turn in one’s life, as Dante formulated already so powerfully (see above).

But we also find lovers camping out in the midst of the forest, not knowing about the spiritual meaning of the

natural setting, who then experience a dramatic upheaval in their lives because of their ignorance. The sylvian

environment can be the place of a utopia, or, as the outcome of this story, to be discussed below, implies, a

dystopia. These enigmatic clues about this so-far unmentioned text might serve to demonstrate how much

medieval literature can actually address modern concerns in a timeless fashion (Chazelle, Doubleday, Felice, &

Remensnyder, 2012).

After all, there is no doubt that the present generation is deeply involved in the preservation of the forest as

the green lungs of our world. A great example for this movement today proves to be the establishment of national

parks in the middle of Germany, in the form of the so-called “Grünes Band” (Green Band), preserving the strip of

land that had been used by the East German regime for their border to the West (Cornelius, 2010; Frobel,

Geidezis, & Kreutz, 2011).10 We can also refer to the massive movement in the 1980s to preserve the German

forests that were threatened by environmental pollution. Both mythology and ideology have always played with

the iconography of the forest, at least in German culture, insofar as every period since the Middle Ages and earlier

has engaged with the forest as a symbol, value, and metaphor. Little wonder, then, that focusing on the forest in

medieval literature also promises to yield major results because the critical treatment of people’s lives when they

spend time in the forest for a variety of reasons potentially illustrates existential concerns (Lehmann, 1998;

Zechner, 2006). The forest is not quite like a labyrinth, but it is a kind of maze which certainly challenges anyone

7 He also provides, in part, a reprint of the original texts. See Whalen (2011), Kinoshita and McCracken (2012). 8 Research on this chantefable is not very rich; but see, for instance, Gilbert (1997), The role of the forest, however, has mostly escaped scholars’ attention. Somewhat useful proves to be Angeli (2006). 9 The term “poetic forest” was commonly used in Baroque and Enlightenment literature. 10 This is only one of a whole series of volumes, all of them covering the entire stretch of land from the Baltic See down to northern Bavaria that once used to be the East-German Border. See also Frobel, Geidezis, and Kreutz (2011). The literature on this topic has become legion by now.


who does not know its topography and infrastructure well enough and cannot map the thicket and underbrush, or

who gets lost in the disarray of seemingly endless trees. As Penelope Doob (1990) informs us:

For Prudentius, life is a maze or, rather, a pair of mazes: in one, God is guide and reward; in the other, confusion and death abound. Pagans like Plato and Aristotle had no choice but to whirl along the downward winding of the demonic labyrinth, but Christians have supernatural assistance to find the single path to heaven. (p. 78)

As Gregory Thaumaturgus (ca. 213-270) commented:

But after all, there is neither any labyrinth so inextricable and intricate, nor any forest so dense and devious, nor any plain or swamp so difficult for those to get out of who have once got within it, as is discussion, at least, as one may meet with it in the case of certain of these philosophers. (as cited in Doob, 1990, p. 78)

So, there is hope, especially if one relies on discourse, logic, and intellect, not to mention trust in God.

Nevertheless, the forest continued to plague medieval writers as an epistemological, if not existential, challenge,

as Wolfram von Eschenbach demonstrates in his fragmentary Titurel, above all, the first key witness in our

examination (Wolfram von Eschenbach, 1988).11

Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Titurel: The Message of the Forest

Rarely was there any other text composed by a medieval writer where so much pre-understanding is

necessary to make sense out of it. Wolfram simply picked up a loose narrative thread from his grail romance,

Parzival (ca. 1205), and developed it a little further in his Titurel, but he obviously did not care, or could not,

complete it before his death (ca. 1220). Recent scholarship has discovered its literary brilliance and has begun to

analyze this curious piece much more carefully than ever before (Classen, 1990; Sager, 2006; Tax, 2011). While

the first fragment is deeply determined by the theme of death and the disappearance of the entire Grail family, at

the end new hope emerges because the families agree that Sigune, the last heir of the Grail, and the noble

Schionatulander can love each other. The second fragment fast-forwards to a moment when the two are already

spending time together in a sylvian idyll, having set up camp in a lightening near a brook in which the young man

is trying to catch fish. At that moment a dog’s barking can be heard, and Schionatulander is lucky enough, when

he runs toward the dog, to catch it and to bring it to his beloved, Sigune. Ominously, however, the narrator warns

us from the beginning that the arrival of the dog, meaningfully named “Gardeviaz” (keep on the trail), anticipates

sorrow: “It brought him future sadness” (stanza 134, line 3). Although the dog comes with a highly valuable leash,

finely embossed with jewels, which altogether create letters, which in turn form words, and hence a message, this

animal is on the loose, chasing after a bleeding prey, and races “through the thicket” (stanza 137, line 1).

Sigune immediately demonstrates strong interest in this animal, or rather, in the text, since she senses that it

carries a special message indirectly intended for her. As is always the case in medieval literature, everything has

some meaning here and awaits its decoding by the one who is intelligent enough to do so (Curley, 1979;

Obermaier, 2009).12 Both the dog and the inscription on the leash inform the young woman about tragic lovers

11 For a historical-critical edition, see Wolfram von Eschenbach (2003); here the author will quote from the English trans.: von Eschenbach (1988). 12 See the famous collection of allegorizing narratives about animals highly popular throughout the entire Middle Ages, Physiologus (1979). It dates back to the second or the third century, but was first translated into Latin in ca. 700 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiologus). See also the contributions to Sabine (2009).


before her who had not been able to “stay on the right trail” (stanza 144, line 3) and had disregarded the warning

written on the leash. As stanza 148 relates, for instance:

He met his end too in service under arms for her love. If it were not a violation of my sense of propriety, I should still be cursing the hand that caused his death in a joust. Florie died in that joust too, although she never came close to the point of a lance.

We do not need to investigate here what other sorrowful love stories Sigune reads on the leash; it only

matters for us that she cannot control her desire to learn about the outcome of the text, which is hidden from her

view, however, because of a knot with which the leash is attached to the tent pole. As soon as Sigune has loosened

that knot in order to keep reading, the dog feels the slackening of the leash and runs off, quickly disappeared in

the forest, barking loudly while tracing the spoor of some (or the same) animal as before. Schionatulander, who

had been fishing in the brook, races after the dog, but he is not fortunate enough to achieve his goal this time

because “[t]he trackless forest had let the dog get so far away from him that he could locate neither game nor dog,

and the wind was playing tricks on his hearing too” (stanza 160, lines 3-4).

When the two lovers come together again, they both bewail each other’s wounds. Sigune had tried to hold on

to the leash and thus to retain both the dog and the text, but the gems on the silk band had only run through her

palms, making them bleed (stanza 162). Schionatulander, on the other hand, suffers from bloody wounds on his

feet and legs resulting from his rushing through the brambles and running over sharp tree stumps. Both observe

each other’s wounds and lament them (stanza 163), but Sigune is not willing to let things stand as they are at that

moment. Instead, she now insists that her lover accept as his challenge the pursuit of the dog: “if you will still be

seeking to serve to gain my love, you must first obtain for me the leash with which Gardeviaz was tied in here”

(stanza 166, line 4).

Unfortunately, and tragically, we know already the outcome of the future events from Wolfram’s Parzival

because there we were told that Schionatulander encountered a mighty knight, Orilus, who had caught the dog

and refused to turn it over to the young man. In the ensuing joust, Schionatulander died, and for the rest of the

romance we only hear of the mourning Sigune who finally passes away, filled with enormous grief. She holds her

lover’s corpse in her lap, thus imitating the famous pietà figure, but there is no hope for her, not even in religious

terms. In Titurel (ca. 1220), Wolfram outlines briefly the cause for this tragedy, blaming Sigune for her inability

to read carefully enough and to understand the warning “written” on the leash. But there is more to the story,

since the wounds caused by the leash and the brambles are directly related to the forest and the special situation

the two lovers are in, briefly spending time in the utopian space of the forest clearing. However, as the narrator

indicated already in the first fragment, and as the outcome of the second one, where the protagonists operate in

the midst of the forest, confirms, love as a wild force, as the untamed other, overpowers these two young people

and throws them into the thralls of death and devastation. Everything here is told from the perspective of the bitter

outcome, and death seems to rule, both within the entire Grail family, threatened by extinction, as the

genealogical outline in the introductory section emphasizes, and at its margin, since love can no longer be

controlled, escaping the grasp of those who should live it out as role models of their society.

Haug (1980/1989) recognized in Wolfram’s Titurel that an image of a courtly world where nothing operates

any longer as it should, neither knighthood (resulting in deaths) nor chivalry with its erotic sublimation (death of


the lovers) (p. 549). The lovers no longer find the necessary support structure among their family members in this

unique situation, even though they are neither opposed to their love, nor among courtly society at large and thus

easily become victims of the forest, the metaphorical alterity in their own existence. It is not enough, as Haug

(1980/1989) has claimed, to recognize in Titurel simply one of several attempts by the poet to probe the validity

of the Arthurian concept altogether within its literary framework and hence the strength of the ideal of literary

fictionality (p. 553).13 Instead, as various important scenes in Wolfram’s Parzival confirm, the forest serves

exceedingly well as the essential backdrop for epistemological explorations.

Parzival’s mother Herzeloyde had withdrawn into the forest solitude of Soltane to protect her son from the

dangers resulting from all knighthood, since her husband Gahmuret had died in military service (Wolfram von

Eschenbach, 1998; Dallapiazza, 2009). But hiding away from society and keeping the child in artificial isolation,

that is, in the wild uncivilized forest, cannot prevent his growing up and his urge to learn about the world, and

hence about himself. Consequently, Parzival abandons the forest in order to find King Arthur and the Round

Table, not realizing, however, that his mothers dies the moment he departs from her, having been a victim of her

own self-illusion about the forest as a safe haven from outside dangers.

In Titurel, the forest at first seems to be idyllic, with the camp set up in a free and unperturbed space, yet

surrounded by thorny bushes and brambles. This protective location does not prevent the outside world to reach

that refuge both in the form of the dog and of the mysterious leash. Neither one stays with Sigune for long, and

once Gardeviaz has escaped again, in hot pursuit of a game, following his own wild instinct, bloody traces

become visible both on Sigune’s and Schionatulander’s bodies. While the script on the leash was made of

valuable gems, the text on their skin is written with blood, almost as a divine message. Tragically, however,

they cannot read those words and do not understand that chasing after the dog would only lead the prince to his

own death and to the princess’s life-long mourning. Blood proves to be the most precious “ink”, writing itself

on the human “parchment”, which clearly signals that the entire episode in the forest idyll would have to be

read also in religious and epistemological terms (Walker Bynum, 2007; Bildhauer, 2006, pp. 65-66;

Gadebusch Bondio, 2005).14

Even though the two lovers at first seem to spend their time in a secure haven, in the calm and delightful

clearing, which is not even fully outlined by the narrator, life-threatening dangers surround them, as signaled

by the blood-thirsty dog: “hot on the blood-red spoor of a wounded animal” (stanza 132, line 2). The dog’s

barking resounds throughout the forest, disturbing the tranquility and peace, announcing, as the narrator alerts

us immediately, to imminent death: “He will sell his joy and in doing so receive lasting sadness in return”

(stanza 134, lines 2-3).

Marie de France had created a quite similar scene in her lai “Guigemar” where the protagonist—a young

man with no feeling of love and no interest in the other gender—kills a doe and yet is badly wounded at the

13 He follows in this regard pretty much the suggestion by Wyss (1974), although such a position is predicated too theoretically on the idea that poets ultimately only reflect on their own creative activity. 14 She discusses historical-religious aspects in the late Middle Ages, but her theoretical underpinnings can certainly be used for our own investigation. See also Bildhauer (2006) and Gadebusch Bondio (2005). None of these scholars have paid attention to Wolfram’s Titurel, and none has investigated what the bloody script in general would signify.


same time because his arrow bounces back and penetrates his thigh. While Gardeviaz’s leash carries the

relevant message, though its critical parts are hidden and then lost because the dog escapes, here the doe

informs the hunter about his future:

May you never have a cure! Neither from herbs nor roots, nor by potions nor by a physician will you ever be cured of the wound you have in your thigh, until she cures you who, for love of you, will suffer great pain and great sadness such that no woman has ever suffered; and you will suffer the same for her, and all those who love, have loved, or will love in the future will marvel at this. (Marie de France, 2010, p. 5)15

Wolfram’s words sound surprisingly similar: “He had to experience unflinchingly grief lined with toil and

great striving for combat ever more. The hound’s leash was indeed for him the source of joyless times” (stanza

138, lines 2-4). However, the difference between both stories also could not be greater because once Guigemar

has left the forest, he encounters a magical ship that automatically transports him to his future beloved.

Schionatulander, by contrast, at first cannot penetrate the forest when he is chasing after the dog because he has

no shoes on and is bare-legged, and later, once he has succeeded in embarking on his quest, as we learn from the

account in Parzival, he runs into a deadly joust with Orilus, thereby making the tragic prophecy come true which

was indirectly related in the text on the dog leash, as we can surmise.

As should have become clear by now, Wolfram intriguingly operates with the motif of the forest as a

symbolic stage where the individuals of his account are tested according to their intellectual and spiritual abilities.

In the case of Parzival we can observe a number of similarities, but ultimately the protagonist always succeeds to

compensate his shortcomings and failures, being helped by others and being led by his pure love for his wife and

his dream of liberating the Grail kingdom of its curse (Bumke, 2001).16 This is no longer the case in Titurel,

where the forest basically surrounds and engulfs the lovers, bringing death and sorrow upon them because they

are no longer able to read the various signs and are caught in a world where the traditional values and norms are

no longer valid, refusing to guide them through an increasingly alienated world, dominated by the forest, a

symbolic space where this process of losing one’s orientation takes place.

The Forest in Thüring von Ringoltingen’s Melusine

From here the author wants to jump to the late Middle Ages and examine two other examples where the

interaction between the protagonist and the forest reveals how much natural spaces, especially a territory occupied

by a dense wood, reflect on the character’s problems and issues. In the highly popular Melusine by the Swiss writer

Thüring von Ringoltingen (1456, many printed versions since 1474) (Gotzkowsky, 1991, pp. 105-125),17 we

encounter a narrative plot that originates in the forest and concludes there as well because tragedy strikes right

from the start and is overcome only partially, before another catastrophe occurs. In essence, the poet discusses the

married life of the snake-woman Melusine with Reymund, which at first develops well and impresses everyone

15 Even though Marie does not identify the forest specifically as the “agent” of these events, it is the sylvian space where love is tested and lovers experience the greatest challenge in their lives. 16 Bumke (2001) discusses the wider philosophical-historical context at least of the account in Wolfram’s Parzival. Our analysis of the Titurel unfortunately takes us to the very bitter conclusion of the forest as the existential and symbolic maze where some are blessed to find their way out at the end, while others have to perish. 17 See also the latest update on the manuscripts (Rerieved from: http://www.handschriftencensus.de/werke/1873 (last accessed on November 20, 2013)).


because of its harmonious and close collaboration, until Reymund’s brother implants fear and envy in the

protagonist’s heart since he suspects his wife of adultery. In order to learn the truth about her, Reymund breaks

the taboo imposed upon him by Melusine not to inquire about his wife’s whereabout on those special Saturdays

(Classen, 1995/1999, pp. 141-162).

Even though the marriage had resulted in numerous male heirs, who grow up and later establish their own

kingships and dynasties, Reymund is finally convinced by his own brother, curiously called “graf vom vorst”

(Müller, 1990, p. 96; Count of the Forest), to investigate, after all, despite his original vow and promise never to

transgress his pledge to observe the taboo. Instead of trusting his wife and respecting her privacy, as a premise of

their marriage contract, Reymund cannot help himself and must find out what his wife is doing behind the closed

door on Saturdays, whether she is, for instance, having an affair with another man. Tragically, Reymund realizes,

too late, that he has destroyed the nimbus which his wife had created around herself for her self-protection and her

strategy to become reintegrated into human society after having been condemned by her mother Persina to live as

a fairy for the rest of eternity as a punishment for her and her two sisters’ violent transgression against their father,

who in turn had committed a transgression against his wife.

At first, however, since Reymund does not divulge Melusine’s strange nature to the public, she quietly

forgives his breach and allows him to continue living the happy life of a content husband with her. But as soon as

he has subsequently lambasted his wife in public for being half a snake and only half a human being (Müller,

1990, pp. 114-115), nothing can protect her any longer and she is forced to leave her family and all of human

society, which devastates Reymund as her husband, while the history of their sons continues without any major

disruption (Müller, 1990; Drittenbass, & Schnyder, 2010; Classen, 1995, pp. 141-162).18

Why would the forest matter, however, in this mythical context? First of all, Reymund runs into an

existential crisis at the beginning when he accidentally kills his cousin during a hunt in the forest. Completely

disturbed and desperate, he roams through the forest until he suddenly comes across a group of three women, one

of whom, Melusine, approaches him and makes the ominous offer to help him out of his terrible situation and to

establish both a marriage and a dynasty with her. Once he has agreed to her contract, she instructs him how to

carve out a huge estate of his own in the midst of the forest by means of a dear hide cut into very thin strings by

which they demarcate the new territory, which comprises both forests and valleys, farms and meadows (Müller,

1990, pp. 30-33). Melusine thus is entitled to reenter into human society and to develop her own territory, as

Reymund’s wife, although in reality she is the leading figure in their marriage. Ultimately, however, as we have

seen already, all her efforts to build a new world within the virginal land of the forest where she can reside

undisturbed by external forces fail because even her own husband begins to distrust her and finally betrays her

true nature to the world because his son Geffroy had murdered his younger brother Freymund.

The poet, mostly drawing from a French source (Couldrette, ca. 1400),19 does not specifically embrace the

18 The text is quoted from Müller (1990); for recent scholarly investigations on this text, see the contributions to Drittenbass, and Schnyder (2010). However, the specific analytic approach pursued here has not yet been dealt with in previous research. For an overview of older research, along with critical discussions, see Classen (1995). 19 The original story actually dates back to mythical accounts commonly known in medieval Europe, all of them predicated on the theme of a mysterious woman whose true nature as a dragon or snake is later found out when her human husband spies on her. Despite numerous differences, every author places the encounter between the woman and the future husband in the forest, a place far away from the court and, especially, the Church. See the commentary by Müller (1990, pp. 1020-1031).


forest as the staging ground for his two protagonists. Nevertheless, the decisive elements of the narrative plot take

place in the forest which thus becomes the catalyst for human destiny. Reymund kills his cousin on the hunt; he

encounters the fairy-figure Melusine in the forest; upon her urging and advice he establishes a dynastic territory

in the forest, but then, at the end, his own brother, explicitly associated with the forest as well, misleads him in

betraying his wife, who is thus forced to leave her husband and her family. The forest, in other words, represents

her own nature, the wild, chaotic existence outside of the human dimension. As soon as she can carve out a piece

of land by means of Reymund’s help, she is capable of establishing herself in that wilderness and create a new

territory for herself and her children. But the same forces that she tries to control, represented by the forest,

ultimately turn against her and destroy her by making her husband reveal her true nature.

The prose novel concludes with numerous accounts of the struggles by Melusine’s sons against various

monsters, but the forest itself then no longer matters as crucially as it does at the beginning when Reymund

encountered the mysterious woman and her two sisters. Nevertheless, as we can realize, that was the very

moment when his life took a decisive turn, allowing him to establish a new life and a dynasty on his own.

The Forest in Fortunatus

A final example can confirm how much the forest served as the staging ground for critical events in the lives

of literary protagonists. In the anonymous novel Fortunatus (1509), which might have been composed sometime

around 1450 or slightly later (Müller, 1990, pp. 1165-1167; Kästner, 1990, pp. 282-292),20 the protagonist twice

acquires magical objects, the first, a purse that is never empty, and the second, a cap that allows the bearer to

travel wherever he fancies to go. Unfortunately, as Fortunatus realizes only too quickly, his endless wealth

creates much envy and suspicion, and he has a hard time to cope in this life without being threatened or even

killed because of his money. Nevertheless, at the end he can realize his dream, marry the daughter of an

impoverished count, and establish his own dynasty in Cyprus—and this in parallel to the situation in Melusine.

But already the next generation, his two sons, fails in every regard, although they have their father’s valuable

objects available, the one because his ambitions take him too far afield, the other, because he is too content with

his wealth and does not accept any challenge. The first is tortured to death by his enemies, and the other one dies

out of grief over the loss of his brother.

The critical moment is reached in the first part when Fortunatus, having barely escaped a death penalty in

London despite his complete innocence, encounters a magical figure, Lady Fortune, in the middle of the forest.

Fortunatus runs into her only after he has lost his way, fears for his life because of wild beasts, especially a bear,

and has reached a low point in his existence, being close to starvation. At that moment he is now offered the

choice among: wisdom, wealth, strength, health, beauty, and a long life (Müller, 1990, p. 430). He does not

reflect for long on the options, and selects wealth, which then becomes the decisive factor for the entire rest of the

novel. Even though Fortunatus understands how to utilize his infinite resources quite skillfully and fittingly,

traveling all over the known world, marrying a count’s daughter, and establishing a good family, his two sons

miserably fail in following his advice, and thus quickly come to a horrible end, each in his own way.

The narrator unmistakably conveys his message at the closure in a straightforward epimythion, emphasizing

20 Kästner (1990), who suggests, with fairly good arguments, that the Nuremberg Franciscan and preacher Stephan Fridolin might have composed this novel.


that only the selection of wisdom would have been the correct one for Fortunatus. It would have been only

reasonable to do so, as he underscores, since also King Solomon had followed that advice and thus had gained

enormous wealth, after all (Müller, 1990, p. 580), However, as the narrator also alerts us in the final lines, such a

Lady Fortune no longer exists because she has been chased away. In other words, every individual has to make

that decision him/herself as to how to lead one’s life by what criteria and with what goals in mind.

Lady Fortune, however, had told him that the fact that he had gotten lost in the forest was actually to his

fortune. Nevertheless, she also had urged him to follow her advice to lead a virtuous life by means of his new

wealth, which meaning that he should always celebrate the day when he had received his magical money bag,

should abstain from carnal knowledge with a woman, and should help the daughter of an impoverished father to

marry a man, providing her with a rich dowry (Müller, 1990, p. 431). Moreover, she had helped Fortunatus to

find his way out of the forest, but he was not allowed to look back and see where she might disappear to. We

clearly recognize here that the Orpheus-motif,21 except that Fortunatus closely observes her order, does not gaze

backwards, and thus succeeds in leaving the forest, not at all a refuge for him from many external threats. He

would have nearly starved to death, or he could have been eaten by a bear, but Fortunatus is lucky at the end, and

then finally encounters the magical Lady Fortune.

Altogether, the forest proves to be the decisive turning point for the protagonist, since before the forest scene

he was struggling hard to make a living as a servant and had to face injustice, jealousy, and hatred. Now, with the

money purse all his material needs have disappeared, and he can enjoy his life as an independently wealthy

individual. However, as the further developments illustrate, money does not make it easier or safer for him,

since his wealth attracts others who would like to rob it from him and who would unhesitatingly kill him if they

had the opportunity.

The forest serves as the ultimate testing ground for the protagonist, and the author utilized that wild space as

the location where magic can occur. But the overall purpose of this prose novel consists of reflecting on the

precariousness of human existence which the forest illustrates most dramatically. If we turned out attention to the

large corpus of courtly romances dealing with the Tristan theme from the 12th through the 15th century, we

would find much confirmation for this observation (Robinson Kelly, 2009, pp. 237-247).22 But there are many

other examples of a forest in medieval literature characterized by its strong symbolic meaning, as we have seen

already at the beginning.

Conclusions

This now allows us to conclude with some comments as to how the study of the forest as a concrete space

and as a metaphor can make it possible to develop new teaching strategies for Medieval Studies (and by the same

token for other periods in the Humanities). There are many reasons and purposes of teaching literary history at the

university. While we traditionally regard literature classes as important for students to develop cultural awareness

and aesthetic sensitivities in a historical context, and while we commonly rely on literature to educate our

21 Research on Fortunatus does not yet seem to have recognized those parallels. 22 Curiously, for some poets, such as Béroul and Eilhart of Oberg, the Morois forest constitutes a miserable exile for the lovers, while Gottfried of Straßburg depicts the lovers’ cave in the forest as a utopian space. In any case, both here and there the retreat into the forest serves as the critical catalyst leading the respective romances to their tragic outcomes. As Robinson observes (p. 237): “In banishment, the alienated placelessness of their love receives external, spatial expression”.


students to train their analytic and writing skills by way of investigating literary texts, the treatment of the forest

as a motif can also facilitate another approach to teaching. One of the strongest motivational factors in education

has always been “curiosity”. The forest, significantly, represents the dark space beyond human civilization, either

as a refuge or as a threat, or simply as the unknown territory.

Things happen in the forest that would not happen outside of it. The world of fairy tales is filled with

accounts about animals or figures in the forest, or about events that take place in the forest. Similarly, medieval

(and early modern) literature, above all, reveals a strong interest in the forest because there the protagonists’

characters are challenged and tested, or where tragedy strikes them, or where their lives take a decisive turn.

Sometimes we hear of individuals who take flight to the forest out of desperation about the tragic development in

their lives, such as Bertschi Triefnas in Heinrich Wittenwiler’s didactic-allegorical romance The Ring (ca. 1400)

(Wittenwiler, 2012, vv. 9692-9696). Whatever happens in the forest, however, it regularly emerges as an

epistemological challenge. Both the protagonists and the modern readers face the difficult task to figure out the

meaning of the dark space of the wood, and sometimes it is presented in positive, optimistic terms, sometimes as

the dead-end of a life. When the hero enters the forest, she might realize a happy turn of events, or the forest turns

into the uncanny space which anticipates his or her death, such as in the anonymous heroic Middle High German

epic, Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) (Nibelungenlied, 2010, stanzas 913-998).

While the modern attitude toward the forest and our understanding of the true nature of the forest have

certainly changed since the Middle Ages,23 especially because its survival is threatened today by environmental

pollution and economic interests in wood as a commodity, its symbolic relevance and intrigue have not

disappeared. While the modern battle cries pertain mostly to the preservation of this green space as the lungs of

our world, the emotional attachment to or respect for the forest as the location of myth and history, of alterity and

power continues to matter greatly. Studying medieval literature in that light will allow us to establish meaningful

connections between past and present, hopefully placing the Middle Ages once again more toward the center of

the Humanities. Based on anecdotal evidence, the general, public interest in that past world certainly exists, while

school and college curricula are limping behind (Miedema & Sieber, 2013). If we could remind future readers of

medieval literature how much it consists of epistemological riddles and existential challenges, as expressed by

the motif of the forest, for instance, we might be able to remove one of the most difficult barriers in teaching

premodern texts again because modern readers will realize once again how much meaning and fun is contained in

studying those medieval texts. The young generation all over the world, deeply thrilled by the Harry Potter

novels, has already confirmed what the truly successful strategy consists of in giving relevance to a certain text.

The theme of the forest in medieval literature invites our students to go on a quest on their own and to figure out

what might be hidden in that dark, green space, waiting both for the literary protagonist and for themselves as

readers. The forest is simply ominous, both then and today, and responds directly to human needs and inquiry.

References

Aberth, J. (2012). An environmental history of the Middle Ages: The crucible of nature. London and New York: Routledge. Adam, W. (1988). Poetische und kritische Wälder: Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Formen des Schreibens “bei Gelegenheit”

(Poetic and critical forests: Studies on the history and form of occasional writings). Heidelberg: Winter.

23 Again, for a good survey, with a focus on the fairy tale, see Fischer (2011).


Angeli, G. (2006). “Le ambiguità dell” “idillio” nei primi racconti francesi da Piramus et Tisbé a Aucassin et Nicolette (The ambiguity of the “idyllic” from the first accounts of Piramus and Thisbé to Aucassin and Nicolette). Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate, 59(2), 137-150.

Augustine. (1960). The confessions of St. Augustine. (J. K. Ryan, Trans.). New York: Doubleday. Augustine. (1992). Confessions (vol. I: Introduction and Text). J. J. O’Donnell, (Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bildhauer, B. (2006). Medieval blood. Religion and culture in the Middle Ages. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Brewer, D., & Gibson, J. (Eds.). (1997). A companion to the Gawain-poet. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer. Bumke, J. (2001). Die Blutstrophen im Schnee: Über Wahrnehmung und Erkenntnis im “Parzival” Wolframs von Eschenbach (The

drops of blood in the snow: On perception and understanding in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Chazelle, C., Doubleday, S., Lifshitz, F., & Remensnyder, A. G. (Eds.). (2012). Why the Middle Ages matter: Medieval light on modern injustice. London and New York: Routledge.

Classen, A. (1990). Utopie und logos (Utopia and logos). Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Classen, A. (1995). The German Volksbuch: A critical history of a late-medieval genre. Lewiston, NY, Queenston, and Lampeter:

Edwin Mellen Press. Classen, A. (2000). Die Suche nach der Utopie in der Gralswelt. Albrechts (von Scharfenberg) Der jüngere Titurel (The search for

utopia in Albrecht (von Scharfenberg)’s The younger Titurel). In B. R. Fernández (Ed.), Parzival. Reescritura y Transformación (pp. 133-156). Valencia: Universitat de València.

Classen, A. (2012). The role of the humanities past and present: Future perspectives based on ancient ideas: Reflections by a medievalist. Alfinge: Revista de Filología, 24, 9-30.

Classen, A. (Ed.). (2012). Rural space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: The spatial turn in premodern studies. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Cornelius, R. (2010). Vom Todesstreifen zur Lebenslinie: Wartburg–Werra–Rhön: Mensch und Natur am Grünen Band Deutschlands (From the death strip to the life line: Wartburg-Werra-Rhön: Humans and nature at the Green Band in Germany). Niederaula: Auwel-Verlag.

Dallapiazza, M. (2009). Wolfram von Eschenbach: Parzival. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Dante Alighieri. (1974). The divine comedy (Vol. 1: Inferno). (M. Musa, Trans.). London: Penguin. Doob, P. (1990). The idea of the labyrinth from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell

University Press. Drittenbass, C., & Schnyder, A. (Eds.). (2010). Eulenspiegel trifft Melusine: Der frühneuhochdeutsche Prosaroman im Licht neuer

Forschungen und Methoden. Akten der Lausanner Tagung vom 2. bis 4. Oktober 2008 (Eulenspiegel meets Melusine: The early new high German prose novel in light of new research and methods: Proceedings of the Lausanne meeting October 2 to 4, 2008). Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi.

Dufournet, J. (Ed.). (1984). Aucassin et Nicolette (Aucassin and Nicolette). Paris: Garnier-Flammarion. Eco, U. (1994). Six walks in the fictional woods (Charles Eliot Norton lectures, 1993). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elliott, R. W. V. (1979). Woods and forests in the Gawain country. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 80, 48-64. Fischer, H. (2011). Wald. In R. W. Brednich, (Ed.), Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Encyclopedia of the fairy tale) (pp. 434-443).

Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Frobel, K., Geidezis, L., & Kreutz, M. (2011). Erlebnis Grünes Band (Experience of the green band). Bonn-Bad Godesberg:

Bundesamt für Naturschutz. Fuhrmann, H. (1996). Überall ist Mittelalter: Von der Gegenwart einer vergangenen Zeit (The Middle Ages are everywhere: From

the presence of a past era). Munich: C. H. Beck. Gadebusch Bondio, M. (Ed.). (2005). Blood in history and blood histories. Florence: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo. Gilbert, J. (1997). The practice of gender in Aucassin et Nicolette. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 33(3), 217-228. Giono, J. (1954/1985). The man who planted trees. Chelsea, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company. Gotzkowsky, B. (1991). “Volksbücher”: Prosaromane, Renaissancenovellen, Versdichtungen und Schwankbücher: Bibliographir

der deutschen Drucke. Part I: Drucke des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (“Popular books”: Prose novels, renaissance novellas, verse narratives, and jest narratives: Bibliography of the German prints: Part I: Prints of the 15th and 16th centuries). Baden-Baden: Verlag Valentin Koerner.

Hartmann, H. (2010). Utopias/Utopian thought. In A. Classen (Ed.), Handbook of medieval studies: Terms—Methods—Trends (pp. 1400-1408). Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.


Haug, W. (1980/1989). Erzählen vom Tode her (Talking from the perspective of death). Strukturen als Schlüssel zur Welt: Kleine Schriften zur Erzählliteratur des Mittelalters (Structures as the keys to the world: Short studies on the narrative literature of the Middle Ages) (pp. 541-553). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Hiltner, K. (Ed.). (2013). Ecocriticism: The essential reader. New York and London: Routledge. Kinoshita, S., & McCracken, P. (2012). Marie de France: A critical companion. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer. Kipfer, S., Goone Wardena, K., Schmid, C., & Milgrom, R. (Eds.). (2008). Space, difference, everyday life: Reading Henri

Lefebvre. New York and London: Routledge. Lefebvre, H. (1974/1991). The production of space. (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell. Lehmann, A. (Ed.). (1998). Der Wald—ein deutscher Mythos?: Perspektiven eines Kulturthemas (The forest—A German myth?

Perspectives of a culture theme). Berlin: Reimer. Lekan, T., & Zeller, T. (Eds.) (2005). Germany’s nature: Cultural landscapes and environmental history. New Brunswick, NJ:

Rutgers University Press. Marie de France. (2010). The lays of Marie de France. (E. J. Gallagher, Trans.). Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing. Miedema, N., & Sieber, A. (Eds.). (2013). Zurück zum Mittelalter: Neue Perspektiven für den Deutschunterricht (Back to the

Middle Ages: New perspectives for teaching German). Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, et al.: Peter Lang. Müller, J.-D. (Ed.). (1990). Romane des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Novels of the 15th and 16th centuries). Frankfurt a. M.:

Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. Perez, R. A. (2012). The forest as locus of transition and transformation in the epic romance Berte aus grans pies. In A. Classen (Ed.),

Rural space in the Middle Ages: The spatial turn in premodern studies (pp. 433-450). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Physiologus. (1979). (M. J. Curley, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Robinson Kelly, M. (2009). The hero’s place: Medieval literary traditions of space and belonging. Washington, DC: The Catholic

University of America Press. Rudd, G. (2007). Greenery: Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature. Manchester medieval literature. Manchester

and New York: Manchester University Press. Sabine, O. (Ed.). (2009). Tiere und Fabelwesen im Mittelalter (Animals and fable creatures in the Middle Ages). Berlin and New

York: Walter de Gruyter. Sager, A. (2006). Minne von maeren: On Wolfram’s “Titurel” (Courtly love resulting from verse narratives: On Wolfram’s

“Titurel”). Göttingen: V & R unipress. Saunders, C. J. (1993). The forest of medieval romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scarborough, C. (2013). Inscribing the environment: Ecocritical approaches to medieval Spanish literature. Berlin and Boston:

Walter de Gruyter. Schulze, U. (Ed.). (2010). Nibelungenlied. (S. Grosse, Trans.). Stuttgart: Reclam. Semmler, J. (Ed.). (1991). Der Wald in Mittelalter und Renaissance (The forest in the Middle Ages and the renaissance).

Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. Tax, P. W. (2011). Tragische spiegelungen: Herrschaft und sukzession, rang und stand in Wolframs “Titurel” (Tragic reflections:

Domination and succession, rank and station in Wolfram’s “Titurel”). Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 140, 38-57.

Theis, J. S. (2009). Writing the forest in early Modern England: A sylvan pastoral Nation. Medieval & renaissance literary studies. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

Thomasset, C., & James-Raoul, D. (Eds.). (2005). En quête d’utopies (In the search of utopias). Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Vantuono, W. (Ed.). (Trans.). (1991). Sir Gawain and the green knight (A dual language version). New York and London: Garland. Walker Bynum, C. (2007). Wonderful blood: Theology and practice in late medieval northern Germany and beyond. Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, Walther von der Vogelweide. (2013; orig. 1827). Leich, Lieder, Sangsprüchel (15th ed.) (Edition der Melodien von Horst Brunner).

T. Bein, (Ed.). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Whalen, L. E. (Ed.). (2011). A companion to Marie de France. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Wilson, J. K. (2012). The German forest: Nature, identity, and the contestation of a national symbol, 1871-1914. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press.


Wittenwiler, H. (2012). Der Ring: Text—Übersetzung—Kommentar. Nach der Münchener Handschrift herausgegeben, übersetzt und erläutert von Werner Röcke unter Mitarbeit von Annika Goldenbaum. Mit einem Abdruck des Textes nach Edmund Wießner (The ring: Text—translation—commentary: Edited on the basis of the Munich manuscript, translated and explained by Werner Röcke together with Annika Goldenbaum. With a reprint of the text edited by Edmund Wießner). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Wolfram von Eschenbach. (1988). Titurel and the songs. (M. E. Gibbs, & S. M. Johnson, Trans.). New York and London: Garland. Wolfram von Eschenbach. (1998). Parzival: Studienausgabe (Parzival: A critical editions for students). (P. Knecht, Trans.). Berlin

and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Wolfram von Eschenbach. (2003). Titurel. (H. Brackert, & S. Fuchs-Jolie, Trans.). Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Wyss, U. (1974). Selbstkritik des Erzählers: Ein Versuch über Wolframs Titurelfragment (Self criticism of the narrator: An attempt

with Wolfram’s Titurel fragments). Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 103, 249-289. Zechner, J. (2006). “Ewiger Wald und ewiges Volk”: Die Ideologisierung des deutschen Waldes im Nationalsozialismus (“Eternal

forest and eternal people”: The ideologization of the German forest by the National Socialists). Freising: Technische Universität München, Lehrstuhl für Landschaftsökologie.

Zink, M. (1996/1998). The enchantment of the Middle Ages. (J. M. Todd, Trans.). Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.


Ezra Pound’s Conversion to Confucianism∗

TAN Xiao-cui

Qilu University of Technology, Jinan, China

The paper aims to explore Pound’s early discovery of Confucianism and his conversion to Confucianism. Pound’s

interest in Confucianism coincided with the time when Christianity, already “contaminated” by “historical diseases”

in Pound’s view, could not offer a valid vision by which to guide the spiritual life, resulting in losing self in a

modern society. Pound discovers three main deficiencies of Christianity: lack of respect for individuality, the

decline of ethics, and open attack upon nature, which could not provide solutions to Western problems. Pound

turned to Confucianism to search the existence of modern man in the face of society, and nature, which results in

Pound’s Confucian medicine to cure Western moral obtuseness.

Keywords: Ezra Pound, Confucianism, Christianity, conversion

Introduction

Pound’s conversion from a Protestant to a Confucian was not a sudden decision; his spiritual quest

permeated his controversial life. It was T. S. Eliot that first questioned Pound’s belief. Eliot’s famous inquiry

that “What does Mr. Pound believe” became a highly-quoted question when Pound’s belief was under

discussion. Pound’s first direct response to Eliot took place two years later in his Credo (1930), “I have for a

number of years answered such questions by telling the enquirer to read Confucius and Ovid” (Pound, 1975b,

p. 53). Four years later, in 1934, Pound became more certain and made an announcement rather than an answer

to Eliot’s question in “Date Line”: “As to what I believe: I believe the Ta Hio” (Pound, 1985, p. 86).

In his first answer to Eliot’s question, he avoided the terminology “believe” but provided an alternative to

his “enquirer”; however, in 1934 he vowed his singular faith “I believe the Ta Hio”. That is the Da Xue1 大学

(Pound’s The Great Learning or The Great Digest), one of Chinese classics Four Books. In 1955, Pound

reiterated his belief, by referring to its Japanese title, in Canto LXXXVIII “I believe the Dai Gaku” (p. 581).

Pound’s Confucianism has been grouped into three phases by Poundian scholars. LAN (2005) categorizes

Pound’s Confucianism into the period of imitative—from early years of contacting Confucianism to the year of

1928, creative—from the early 1930s to the end of the Second World War, and comprehensive—after the

Second World War (p. 3). Cheadle (1997) offers a similar classification:

Pound’s Confucianism began about 1910, and developed into the certainty of “belief” only after about two decades

∗ Acknowledgments: The paper is sponsored by a project of Humanity and Social Science in universities of Shandong Province. The project is named “Ezra Pound’s Confucianism—From the Perspective of Contemporary New Confucianism” (埃兹拉·庞德

的儒家思想研究—现代新儒家的视角) [Project Number: J13WD07]. TAN Xiao-cui, Ph.D., lecture, English department, Qilu University of Technology.

1 The Hanyu pinyin system is used through the dissertation for Chinese names, dynasties, and titles of Chinese works. Pound’s Romanization spellings of Chinese characters are preserved only in quotation from his works.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

EZRA POUND’S CONVERSION TO CONFUCIANISM

166

(ca. 1930); the second period ran from the 1930s to the first half of the 1940s, and the last was after World War II and the fall of Mussolini’s Italy. (p. 9)

Moreover, there are no remarkably divergent views on Pound’s Confucianism in the first two periods.

Namely, the first period is marked with Pound’s strong interest in individual freedom and social responsibility

and the second period is characterized with his fervent enthusiasm for social order accompanying his polemic

political views. As for the third period, however, the opinions of the two main Poundian scholars are a little

different. Cheadle (1997) considers “this last phase of his Confucianism is marked by a return to what he

(Pound) regarded as Confucian fundamentals, with a concern for precise verbal definitions at the center of them

all” (p. 9). Nevertheless, LAN (2005) argues that “Pound’s postwar cantos were characterized by an arduous

spiritual quest sustained by, among other things, his extensive quotations from Confucian texts and his

intensified inscription of a Confucian anthropocosmic vision” (p. 5). Between the two views, the author has a

more favorable attitude towards LAN’s than Cheadle’s; that is, Pound served as a real liberal Confucian

disciple who pursued inner growth of mind in the last period of his Confucianism.

Pound’s Discovery of Confucianism

What the author wants to make up is that Pound has developed a comparatively comprehensive

understanding of Confucianism in his “imitative” phase. At the first period, Pound has established Confucian

ethics. What he insisted and extended during his second and third periods could not be diverted from his

fundamental recognition of Confucianism in the first period. What intrigued Pound in his Confucian study of

the early years is that he had a tentative impression—Confucianism can cure Western diseases. It may be said

that his lifelong devotion to Confucianism started with his disappointment and doubt towards Christianity in his

early academic years because as a mainstream culture dominating Westerners’ mind, Christianity could not

provide a way to cope with Western problem—alienation. Pound’s Confucianism, as Cheadle (1997) argues, is

“born from his discontent with traditional Western monotheism” (p. 9). Monotheism, simply speaking, is

Christianity. Just as Pound’s belief in Confucianism is never static, his repudiation of Christianity never ceases

along his life. Pound’s conversion to Confucianism will be explored. Therefore, the first period of his

Confucianism will be discussed in detail. Then some questions may be raised: “who or what led Pound to be a

Confucian believer?”, “why does Pound object to Christianity?”, and “what is his Confucianism?”. These

questions will be answered in the proceeding part.

The first period of Pound’s Confucianism can be divided into two phases: a random study and a serious

study. In the phase of random study, Pound benefited from several scholars among which some are prominent

Orientalists and who led him to know Confucius as well as Chinese poetry. In the phase of serious study, the

outstanding achievement is the publication of Canto XIII and this phase culminated in 1928 with his first

English translation of Da Xue 大学 (Pound’s The Great Learning) which was rendered from Pauthier’s

French version of Four Books.

Pound’s early contact with Confucianism started with his parents’ interest in Christian mission in China.

According to Stock (1982), Pound probably has read some Confucius “as early as July, 1907” (p. 176).

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), an English poet, and oriental art historian in the British Museum, opened a door

for Pound to step into the real palace of Oriental paintings. Pound became a frequent visitor to Binyon who at

that time served as Assistant Keeper of the British Museum in charge of the collection of Far Eastern paintings

and color prints, and who vigorously worked on expatiating upon the nature and monument of Chinese art.


167

Pound (1981) regularly “ate at the WIENER CAFé” (p. 506) near the British Museum with Binyon’s group and

their conversation definitely expanded his interest in some specific topics associated with Oriental art. Pound

cherished a good memory of his time with Binyon and about three decades later he recalled his early days in

London in his Pisan Cantos as “the British Museum era” (Pound, 1981, p. 506). He mourned “the loss of that

cafe (in 1914)/meant the end of a B. M. era” when “the WIENER CAFé” “died into banking”. Pound also

expressed his heart-felt gratitude to Binyon several lines later, “So it is to Mr Binyon that I owe, initially”

(Pound, 1981, p. 507). In Canto LXXXVII, when he had been deeply, and almost totally, involved in

Confucianism, he highly praised Binyon by comparing him to sequoias with the lines: “Only sequoias are slow

enough./BinBin ‘is beauty’./‘Slowness is beauty’” (Pound, 1981, p. 572). Pound’s attendance at Binyon’s

lectures, those conversations in Binyon’s group, and his frequent visit to the British Museum to inspect the

collection of Chinese and Japan paintings—all this offered Pound a preliminary education in Oriental art and

aroused his lifelong attachment to Chinese traditional culture.

The real mentor, however, who led Pound to Chinese literature and Chinese classics, was Allen Upward

(1863-1926), the author of Confucian anthology, Sayings of K’ung the Master (1904). Two of Upward’s

writings influenced Pound much: One was his book The New Word (published in 1907 but originally written in

1901), and the other was a sequence of verses entitled “Scented Leaves—from a Chinese Jar” (1913). The

former caught Pound’s attention about the ideas of K’ung; while the later was the one that triggered Pound’s

real curiosity of Chinese poetry and stimulated Pound to go “down to Upward’s family home in the Isle of

Wight to soak some of it up” at the end of September 1913 (Carpenter, 1988, p. 218). Upward had no idea of

Chinese language and he explained to Pound that Scented Leaves sequence of poem was made up out of his

mind with the help of “a certain amount of Chinese reminiscence” (Carpenter, 1988, p. 218). Upward showed

Pound the book from which he got inspiration, Giles’s History of Chinese Literature (1901), and also instigated

Pound to read Pauthier’s Les Quatres Lives de Philosophie Morale et Politique de la Chine (1841). Pound not

only admired Upward’s “esoteric knowledge of folklore and anthropology”, but also spoke highly of Upward’s

thought. Pound stated in 1914, “his mind is as clear as Bacon’s… his middles are less indefinite than Plato’s”

(Pound, 1975b, p. 418) and in 1945 he maintained his early opinion in Pisan Canto “‘the mind of Plato… or

that of Bacon’ said Upward/seeking parallel for his own” (Pound, 1981, p. 469). The master K’ung was

highly praised by Upward for his wisdom and his refusing to talk about the unknown in The New Word (SUO,

2003, p. 18). About 10 years later, Pound claimed in Canto XIII, “Kung said nothing of the ‘life after death’”

(Pound, 1981, p. 59).

Pound did not begin a rigorous study of the Confucian classics in 1913, Cheadle (1997) argues (p. 11). But

it does not mean that his “looking at” Pauthier’s work left nothing on his mind because he wrote to Dorothy on

2 October: “I’m stocked up with K’ung fu Tsze, and Men Tsze, etc.. I suppose they’ll keep me calm for a week

or so” (Carpenter, 1988, p. 219). Pound gained strength and calmness from his “looking at” Chinese classics,

which directed his potential devotion to Confucianism. He was attracted by “Chinese colour”. Under inspiration

of Upward’s Scented Leaves, he wrote a poem A Song of the Degrees which was published in the November

1913 Poetry: “Rest me with Chinese colours/For I think the glass is evil” (QIAN, 1995, p. 186).

Mary Fenollosa, the widow of Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908), appeared just at the right time when Pound

was eager to compose poems with “Chinese colour”, Pound himself said in “Date Line”: “Fenollosa’s work

was given me in manuscript when I was ready for it. It saved me a great deal of time” (Pound, 1985, p. 77).

Ernest Fenollosa was an enthusiastic Orientalist and his sudden death in 1908 left much work undone. One of


168

his unfinished works was Chinese and Japanese materials contained in his notebook. Pound met Mrs. Fenollosa

in the fall of 1913. Their meeting accelerated Pound’s conversion to Confucianism and stimulated his

enthusiasm for Chinese and Japanese poetry. Fenollosa was the scholar who influenced Pound most and finally

drove his career as a Confucian poet (Palandri, 1974, pp. 301-311).2 Fenollosa’s notebook started Pound’s

fervent study of Chinese poetry which resulted in his distinguished work Cathy (1915) that earned him the fame

as “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time”3, and other works such as Certain Noble Plays of Japan (1916)

and The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry (1919). Pound started his serious study of

Confucianism around 1915, resulting in the publication of Canto XIII (1925) and first translation of Da Xue

based on Pauthier’s (1928) French book. Then more discussions will be focused on Canto XIII because

Confucian ethics Pound established in the short poem provides a panorama of Confucianism of the whole epic.

Canto XIII was composed in 1923 and published with A Draft of XVI Cantos in 1925.

The significance of Canto XIII lies in the fact that Confucian ethics has been established in this short poem.

During the years he composed Canto XIII, he concentrated on individuality but he also presented Confucian

order and the unity of man and nature in the poem. Canto XIII begins with Confucius’ peaceful walk “by the

dynastic temple”, “into the cedar grove”, and “then out by the lower river” (p. 58). Such poetic lines of

landscape description create a tranquil picture of an environment-friendly life and imply the ideal co-existence

of man and nature. A pursuit of the unity with nature is not all Canto XIII offers in its presentation of

Confucianism; what initially intrigued him was Confucius’ respect for individuality, moreover what Pound

increasingly stressed from the mid-1920s onward was Confucian concern for “order”. The two major themes

have been already explored and widely accepted by Poundian scholars, such as LAN’s “respect for the ‘nature’

of the individual and an appeal to social order” (p. 106) and Cheadle’s “individual integrity and social cohesion”

(p. 22). What the author stresses is that a respect for individuality, as for Pound, is his search for his

distinguished voice in poetry as well as a part of his search for the real self. “An appeal to social order” is

Pound’s intention to identify a human being’s position in society. In his 1938 prose “Mang Tse”, Pound

showed special preference to the words written “on the bo leaves” so as to call for “We in the West need to

begin the first chapter of the Ta Hio, not merely to grant casual admission of it in some out-house of our ethics

or of our speculations” (Pound, 1985, p. 86). In short, Confucian ethics built in Canto XIII deals with the

relationship between man and nature, man and society, and man and man. Albright (1999) argues:

Instead of a plan, Pound devised a strategy for creating a self-scrutinizing text, continually extending itself, ramifying outward, as it groped to comprehend its own prior meanings, to improvise new networks of connection, and to assimilate new material: a text shaped like a developing brain. New Cantos form themselves out of schemes to make sense of old Cantos: so the story of The Cantos comprises two intertwined stories, one concerning Pound’s writing of the poem, the other concerning Pound’s interpretations of what he had already written. (p. 59)

Albright’s argument offers a clue to the author’s observation that Pound’s Confucianism in later cantos is

interpretation and explanation of what has been presented in Canto XIII.

With Eliot’s question “What does Mr. Pound believe” enters the second period of Pound’s Confucianism.

Pound’s answer in 1934 became concise and confirmative “I believe the Ta Hio” (Pound, 1985, p. 86). What

intrigued Pound is Confucian order in the book—establishing the inner order and then spread to the outside

2 Pound was first addressed “a Confucian poet” respectfully by Palandri. 3 Eliot called Pound “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time” in the introduction to Selected Poems of Pound (1973, p. 14).


169

society. The oath of his belief pushed Pound to a second step of serious study of Confucianism. Around the

year of 1935, he started to learn Chinese characters so as to be able to study the original texts of Confucian

scriptures. His Chinese learning contributed to more Confucian translations and direct quotations of Confucian

doctrines or Chinese characters in his poetic and prose writings. Besides his English translation of excerpts of

Lun Yu 论语 (1937), Pound retranslated Da Xue 大学 (1941, 1942) into Italian and offered a fresh Italian

translation of another Chinese classics, Zhong Yong 中庸 or The Doctrine of the Mean (1945) for he was

isolated from English speaking countries. The poems he composed in this phase, particularly Seven Lakes

Canto (1937) and China Cantos (1940), are replete with Confucian ideas. His prose writing, including essays,

correspondences, and broadcasts, abounds with reinterpretations of Confucian doctrines and such

reinterpretations were often manifested in his political views of this period.

With the end of the Second World War, Pound came to his third stage of Confucian exploration and also

the third serious Confucian study. The incarceration cut him off from the chaotic world and his controversial

political condition and the confinement offered him a tranquil mind to explore the essence of the Confucian

classics. Pound’s post-war cantos are marked with a grueling spiritual quest, which is quite different from his

poetry during the 1930s and the early 1940s—filling with political and economic reformations. Besides

explicitly expressing his Confucian ideas with ample quotations from Confucian texts, Pound committed

himself to a systematic and complete Confucian translation in this period. During the gray years in Washington,

DC, he published his English translation of Da Xue 大学 (The Great Digest, 1947) and Zhong Yong 中庸

(The Unwobbling Pivot, 1947)—both were translated during the dark days at American Discipline Training

Center (DTC) near Pisa, and Lun Yu 论语 (The Analects, 1950). The first three of the Four Books were later

published in one volume with the title Confucius: The Great Digest, The Unwobbling Pivot, The Analects

(1969). As for Meng Zi 孟子, Pound translated four chapters of Book One into English and published them in

1947. Moreover, Pound translated Shi Jing 诗经 into English and published it with the title The Confucian

Odes, The Classics Anthology Defined by Confucius (1954).

Pound’s Conversion to Confucianism

Pound’s conversion to Confucianism originated from his contemplation on the disordered Western society.

In his view, “Today the whole Occident is bathed daily in mental sewage” (Pound, 1975b, p. 76). He pursued

what Confucianism could offer and what the West lacked. His fondness for Confucianism kept abreast with his

aversion to religion, especially Christianity. “A religion is damned, it confesses its own ultimate impotence, the

day it burns its first heretic” (Pound, 1975b, p. 52). As for Pound, Christianity degenerated and “The Church

had lost its faith anyhow, and mess, unholy and slithering mess, supervened” (Pound, 1975b, p. 77). “Fall of

Church” already pushed Europeans into a “Time when Church no longer had faith ENOUGH to believe that with

proper instruction and argument the unbeliever or heretic could be made to see daylight” (Pound, 1975b, p. 77).

As a matter of fact, Pound asserts that “Christianity and/or religion in the anglo-saxon world of our time has

been something optional. Some of us went to church in our childhood and some didn’t” (Pound, 1970b, p. 26).

As a result, “‘Belief’ as the pious once used the term is alien to our age” (Pound, 1970b, p. 26). Modern

Europeans lost faith in Christianity. As for Pound, his unfavorable comment of Christianity goes with his

favorable intention toward Confucianism. Contrasting Confucianism with Christianity, he found Christianity is


170

deficient in three aspects. Firstly, Christianity lacks of respect for individuality4; secondly, it is not able to

provide ethics that teaches man a way of living; and lastly its focus on human-centered concept results in a

violent attack on nature.

The first and foremost problem of Christianity, as Pound revealed in his “Imaginary Letters VII” (1918), is:

Christianity… has reduced itself to one principle: “Thou shalt attend to thy neighbour’s business in preference to thine own”.

It is upon this basis that the churches are organized, it is upon this basis that they flourish, (bar one old established conspirator’s club which exploits a more complicated scenic arrangement). (Pound, 1975a, p. 71)

The essential nature of Christianity, in Pound’s view, is to spy into others’ life rather than focus on his

own. Pound’s condemnation against religion did not cease. Later in a 1921 essay “Axiomata”, his criticism

became more poignant: The organized religions were usually “exploitation, control of the masses” (Pound,

1975b, p. 50), and the greatest tyranny derived from Christian dogma that imposed its will upon the individual.

Pound defined a belief as “a cramp, and thence progressively a paralysis or atrophy of the mind” (Pound, 1975b,

p. 52). However, Pound never denied the existence of god. He announced at the beginning of the same essay

“Axiomata”, “God… exists”, and “The universe exists” (Pound, 1975b, p. 49); but Pound’s God is not the

religious God but an ethical God who is able to guide and teach people to live in the earthly world. Religion,

according to Pound’s essay on Arnold Dolmetsch, begins with myth, while “a cult, a company of people who…

understand each other’s nonsense about the gods” arises around it. The decline of the cult begins when the core of

subjective experience congeals into dogma, which the cultists attempt to impose on others (Jackson, 1968, p. 74)5.

The second problem of Christianity is its “little concern[ed] with ethics” (Pound, 1968, p. 95). In Canto

XIII, Pound condemned the useless metaphysical-theological speculation by Kung’s saying “nothing of the life

‘after death’”. The decline of Christianity, according to Pound, “began a flight from reality” (Pound, 1996, p. 133).

Pound (1975b) once claimed: “The essence of religion is the present tense” (p. 70).

“The present tense” was used to highlight the importance of practice or action into real life. Pound made a

further movement to condemn European civilization, “If you squint at European thought from one angle it will

appear to burrow into the school and say farewell to reality” (Pound, 1970b, p. 30). The well-known

announcement about Pound’s belief is that “I believe the Ta Hio”. The Ta Hio: the Great Learning was

published in 1928, heavily based on Pauthier’s French version of the Four Books. There’s little doubt that The

Great Learning initially intrigued Pound and profoundly influenced Pound. What intrigued Pound, the author

believes, is the practical nature of The Great Learning. “There was nothing mystical or metaphysical about it. 4 Individuality is widely recognized as a social value dominated in Western culture, which highly advocates individual liberty and the distinguished quality of oneself from others. According to Lukes, the individual took shape during the 18th century; one the author shall term the concept of individuality strictly speaking (as cited in Hinchman, 1990, p. 762). In the English-speaking world, John Stuart Mill, a famous individualist, contributed the most to maintaining the power of the individuality. He wrote in 1840: In sober truth… the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. In ancient history, in the Middle Ages, and in a diminishing degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time, the individual was a power in himself… At present individuals are lost in the crowd. The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private life as in public transactions… As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them to disregard the opinion of the multitude gradually become levelled… there ceases to be any social support for nonconformity… (as cited in Morgan, 1942, p. 434). Morgan stated in 1942, “Since then there have been many protests against forces tending to weaken individuality in the modern world” (p. 434). Ezra Pound, the author contends, is one of them because he deplored in 1927, “The drear horror of American life can be traced to two damnable roots, or perhaps it is only one root: The loss of all distinction between public and private affairs” (Pound, 1975b, p. 216). 5 Jackson (1968) made a good discussion about Pound’s view on religion and mystery.


171

Here was a practical, ethical system divorced from any religion or religious institution”, Nolde (1983)

continues, “It pointed a way to world peace and harmony which did not require priests and churches and dogma”

(p. 19). Actually, for Pound, the Christian “concentration or emphasis on eternity is not social” although “Rome

was the responsible ruler”. And thus it fails to provide people a way of life. However, Pound had a penetrating

insight into Confucian ethics. In “On the Degrees of Honesty in Various Occidental Religions”, Pound (1975b)

claims “it appears to me that Confucius has in his dimension a pre-eminence over other founders of ethical

systems; while yielding nothing to any of them in other domains” (p. 68). In the same prose, he analyzes the

reason why Christianity could not reside in the mind of Chinese:

It is quite certain that Christianity appears or has in known instances appeared both immoral and anti-statal to the serious Chinese literate. He saw it as such when the Jesuits were inserting it into China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Disruptive of family life, disturbing to the quiet and order of the empire, inducing disrespect to the dead and destructive to Confucian ethics. (Pound, 1975b, p. 65)

To put it shortly, Christianity is “destructive to Confucian ethics”. A year later in 1940, his condemnation

of Christianity became more obvious: “It may be said here that the followers of Confucius and of Mencius were

horrified at the immoral and anti-social nature of Christianity and for a long time kept it out of China on those

grounds” (Pound, 1996, p. 133).

The third deficiency of Christianity, sharing some similarity with that of Greek philosophy argued by

Pound in “Mang Tsze” (1938), lies in the cruel fact that it is “almost an attack upon nature” (Pound, 1975b, p.

86); however, “at no point does the Confucio-Mencian ethic or philosophy splinter and split away from organic

nature” (Pound, 1975b, p. 87). Nature, in Pound’s world, is an organic whole. As he highly praised nature, he

strongly denounced anything which was contra nature. In his poetry and prose, he ceaselessly condemned usury

being CONTRA NATURAM (Pound, 1981, p. 230): “The usurer is damned with the sodomite. Usury judged

with sodomy as ‘contrary to natural increase’, contrary to the nature of live things (animal and vegetable) to

multiply” (Pound, 1975b, p. 61).

As for Pound, “Usury and revival of ancient Jewish texts (Old Testament) may, in part, have been

responsible” for “moral and spiritual bankruptcy” of the Church (Pound, 1996, p. 133). Unlike Christ who

“founded an ethics of the soul and its afterlife” (Cheadle, 1997, p. 18), “Confucius offers a way of life, an

Anschauung or disposition toward nature and man and a system for dealing with both” (Pound, 1970b, p. 24).

Another reason for Pound’s strong opposition to Christianity is that Christianity is monotheism. As for

Pound (1975b):

The glory of the polytheistic anschauung is that it never asserted a single and obligatory path for everyone. It never caused the assertion that everyone was fit for initiation and it never caused an attempt to force people into a path alien to their sensibilities. (p. 56)

Pound hated despotism and valued “recognition of differences, of the right of differences to exist” (Pound,

1985, p. 298). Comparing Catholic Church with Protestantism, Pound prefers the former. He blames Luther as

“merely a barbarian bore” and “Protestantism has no theology” at all (Pound, 1975b, p. 57). In the detention

camp at Pisa, when Pound was allowed to speak one person each day, “he picked the camp’s Catholic chaplain”

(Flory, 2003, p. 147). The chaplain Pound chose was Father Aloysius Vath. He wondered “why Pound, who

was not a Catholic, had chosen a priest rather than one of the two Protestant ministers”. Pound’s answer was

“What can the other guys tell me? You can tell me something”. The chaplain recalled, “He asked me a lot about


172

the Catholic religion”. On June 26, 1945, Father Aloysius Vath claimed, “For a Confucianist and a Catholic, we

get along very well” (Flory, 2003, p. 143). Pound’s preference to Catholic rather than Protestantism probably

results from “Directions for Confession”. “Pound is developing his larger point, about the compatibility of

Confucianism and Catholicism, by noting the importance of the disciplines of self-examination in both”

(Flory, 2003, p. 149).

Conclusions

However, Pound (1975b) finally turned to Confucianism. He wrote in his 1939 prose “Degrees of Honesty

in Occidental Religions”:

I might almost say that for a period of nearly fifty years I have never met Christian FAITH… Confucian faith I can conceive. I can conceive of a man’s believing that if, and in measure as, he brings order into his own consciousness (his own “innermost”) that order will emanate from him. The cycle of Chinese history, the reception of the “mandate” (called the mandate of heaven) by various dynasties, seems to offer demonstrable evidence of this process. (p. 66)

Obviously, Pound recognized the core of Confucianism—the harmony created by the unity of the inner

transcendence and the mandate of heaven. Pound (1975b) ended this prose by comparing Confucianism and

Christianity:

Both Confucianism and Christianity propose a state of sincerity which is almost unattainable, but the Christian proposals are mixed with all sorts of disorder, whereas a Confucian progress offers chance for a steady rise, and defects either in conduct or in theory are in plain violation of its simple and central doctrine. (p. 69)

The ending delivers two profound meanings. Firstly, the purpose of pursuing a kind of spiritual state

“which is almost unattainable” makes Confucianism and Christianity in common. In Confucianism, the

almost-unreachable state is called Zhong Yong 中庸 (Pound’s pivot); in Christianity, it may be a kind of state

which ordinary people can talk with God through prayer. Secondly, Pound attaches importance to the spiritual

elevation of an individual. He finds Confucian believers get chance to improve themselves steadily and

constantly—that’s a process of establishing order within self; however, Christian believers suffer from “all

sorts of disorder” and chaos on the way to achieve that holy state and he also signs “I see almost no spiritual

elevation in the Old Testament, and the Talmud” (Pound, 1975b, p. 68).

Pound’s great discovery is to cure Western disease by Confucianism. In 1937, just at the eve of World

War II, Pound appealed for “Immediate need of Confucius” in which he diagnosed Western disease, that is,

“Western disease shows in sixty percent racket on ink money” (Pound, 1975b, p. 76). He reiterated, “That is a

symptom of moral obtuseness” (Pound, 1975b, p. 76). The “sixty percent racket on ink money”, the author is

sure, refers to usury—what Pound repeatedly, vehemently attacked with any possible opportunity in his prose,

poetry, and etc.. Furthermore, in Pound’s view, usury, in part, has been responsible for the “moral and spiritual

bankruptcy” of the Church (Pound, 1996, p. 133). The Church, on one hand, could not attract people’s frequent

visit on Sundays because people lost faith in Christ. On the other hand, Christianity itself is deficient in three

aspects: lack of respect for individuality, little concern with ethics, and an attack on nature. Therefore,

Christianity is impotent to solve the problems generated in Western society. Pound knew this point perfectly

well so that he turned to Confucianism instead to find the power of curing Western “moral obtuseness”.


173

References Albright, D. (1999). Early Cantos I-XLI. In I. B. Nadel (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Ezra Pound (pp. 59-91). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. Carpenter, H. (1988). A serious character: The life of Ezra Pound. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell. Cheadle, M. P. (1997). Ezra Pound’s Confucian translations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Flory, W. (2003). Confucius against Confusion: Ezra Pound and the Catholic chaplain at Pisa. In Z. M. QIAN (Ed.), Ezra Pound

and China (pp. 143-162). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hinchman, L. P. (1990). The idea of individuality: Origins, meaning, and political significance. The Journal of Politics, 52(3),

759-781. Jackson, T. H. (1968). The early poetry of Ezra Pound. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. LAN, F. (2005). Ezra Pound’s Confucianism—Remaking humanism in the face of modernity. Toronto Buffalo London: University

of Toronto Press. Lau, D. C. (1970) (Trans.). Mencius. London: Penguin Books. Legge, J. (2009). (Trans.). The Confucian analects, The great learning and the doctrine of the mean. New York: Cosimo, Inc.. LI, Q. J. (2008). Ezra Pound’s poetic mirror and the China Cantos: The healing of the West. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 30,

41-54. Morgan, G. (1942). Individualism versus individuality. Ethics, 52(4), 434-446. Nolde, J. J. (1983). Blossoms from the East: The China Cantos of Ezra Pound. Orono: National Poetry Foundation, University of

Maine. Palandri, A. (1974). Homage to a Confucian poet. Paideuma, 3(3), 301-311. Pound, E. (1968). The spirit of romance. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1969). (Trans.). Confucius: The great digest, The unwobbling pivot, The analects. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1970a). Gaudier-Brzeska: A memoir. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1970b). Guide to Kulchur. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1973). Selected poems. T. S. Eliot, (Ed.). London:Faber and Faber. Pound, E. (1975a). Pavannes and divagations. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1975b). Selected prose: 1909-1965. W. Cookson, (Ed.). New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (1981). Ezra Pound the Cantos. London: Faber and Faber. Pound, E. (1985). Literary essay. T. S. Eliot, (Ed.). London: Faber and Faber. Pound, E. (1996). Machine art and other writings: The lost thought of the Italian years: Essays. M. L. Ardizzone, (Ed.). Durham:

Duke University Press. QIAN, Z. M. (1995). Orientalism and modernism: The legacy of China in Pound and Williams. Durham: Duke University Press. Stock, N. (1982). The life of Ezra Pound. San Francisco: North Point Press.

SUO, J. M. (2003). 庞德《诗章》中的儒学 (Confucianism in Pound’s Cantos). Tianjin: University of Nankai Press.


Guilt, Love, and Forgiveness in David Hare’s The Reader

and Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser

Naglaa Hassan Abou-Agag

Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

The paper proposes to investigate feelings of guilt, love, and forgiveness as they manifest themselves in David

Hare’s The Reader (2009). It will focus on Hare’s selection of detail in his screenplay The Reader; a dramatic

adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s novel of 1995. This will involve comparing the novel to the dramatic text for the

purpose of showing the movement from narrative to dramatic rendering. The paper aspires to reach the conclusion

that Hare’s screenplay, The Reader creates a world of signification where the interplay of guilt, love, and

forgiveness shape the textual and stage space. Read in light of Shoshana Felman’s The Juridical Unconscious

(2002), the play investigates the traumatic history of Nazi Germany with scope for analysis of guilt and forgiveness

and the possibility of atonement through love and literature. The focus of the paper will be on the ideological and

formal structure of the play and its impact on meanings and interpretations.

Keywords: guilt, David Hare, Shoshana Felman, Nazi Germany, juridical unconscious

Introduction

David Hare’s screenplay The Reader (2009), a dramatic adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s novel Der

Vorleser (1995), presents the interplay of guilt, love, and forgiveness within a dramatic world characterized by

immediacy and polyphony of voice, as opposed to the past tense narrative dominated by the voice of the

narrator and contained by the linear development of events in Schlink’s novel. Both novel and play, however,

use the same story line and are informed by the same historical background, thus constituting part of what is

known as holocaust literature where the traumatic experience of the camps is the focal point around which

events and characters evolve.

In both novel and play, young Michael Berg gets involved with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz, to whom

he reads works of literature of his choice. The sudden disappearance of Hanna leaves Michael struggling with

feelings of grief, guilt, and loneliness and the unexpected reappearance of her at a camp trial revives these

feelings and pushes Michael towards a quest for understanding his own feelings, the nature of Hanna’s

behavior, the motives behind what she has done, the guilt of the camp generation, and the responses of the

younger generation. This quest remains unfulfilled till the end of both novel and play, even after Hanna’s

suicide, which raises questions about the possibility of true forgiveness. In the novel, the events and characters

are all seen from the perspective of a Michael in his fifties looking back at his most influential adolescent

experience and the linear development of the text leaves little scope for the polyphony of voice apparent in

Naglaa Hassan Abou-Agag, Ph.D., associate professor of drama and comparative literature, Department of English Language

and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

GUILT, LOVE, AND FORGIVENESS IN DAVID HARE’S THE READER

175

Hare’s screenplay, where Hanna enjoys an independent voice contesting the authoritative voice of Michael that

comes from the novel. Therefore, although both novel and play belong to holocaust literature and are about the

same experience, they offer different meanings and interpretations.

Holocaust Literature

The holocaust may be seen as a central event in the history of mankind, the representation of which in

literature and cinema has proven essential “for the self-understanding and self-reflection of Western society”

(Stern, 2004, p. 193). Between 1946 and 1947, a number of feature films dealing with the holocaust appeared:

The Last Station in Poland, The Murderers Are Among Us, The Shadows, The Path is Long, and Morituri in

Germany (Stern, 2004, p. 198). More literary works and films were produced over the second half of the 20th

century. Among these are Primo Levi’s novel Is This a Man? (1958, Italy), Alain Resnais’ documentary Night

and Fog (1955, France), Peter Weiss’s play The Investigation (1961, Germany), Yoram Kaniuk’s novel Adam

Son of a Dog (1969, Israel), Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel Enemies, a Love Story (1973, United States), Orna

Ben-Dor’s film Because of That War (1988, Israel), Thomas Bernhard’s play Heldenplatz/Plaza of Heroes

(1988, Austria), Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List (1993, United States), Istvan Szabo’s Sunshine (1999,

Canada, Germany, Hungary), and Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002, Canada, France, Germany, Poland)

(Stern, 2004, p. 196).

The story of Michael and Hanna in both novel and play exposes Nazi policies and the brutal practices in

the camps. The guilt and shame both characters struggle within the novel and the play raise issues of justice and

healing through forgiveness so that the German society would endure and overcome the break that has occurred

in both the legal system and the imagination of the German individual. In addition, in both novel and play, the

crime of Hanna, representing the crimes of the Nazi, is discussed within the framework of the law, attempting

to define the nature of the crime, the responsibility of each one of the defendants, and the suitable punishment.

However, as Hanna Arendt writes, the:

Definition of Nazi policy as a crime (“criminal guilt”) strikes (…) (her) as questionable. The Nazi crimes, it seems to (…) (her), explode the limits of the law; and that is precisely what constitutes their monstrousness. For these crimes, no punishment is severe enough… That is, this guilt, in contrast to all criminal guilt, oversteps and shatters any and all legal systems. (quoted in Felman, 2002, p. 138, italics in original)

Focusing on the legal aspect of the holocaust experience would limit the scope of investigation and

localize the event. The psychological dimension, the ideological backing, and the moral implications have to

come together via a theoretical attempt to understand and evaluate the nature and the consequences of this

central event in the history of the West. In Felman’s The Juridical Unconscious, the trauma theory is the

framework for the analysis of two important trials; the O. J. Simpson Case in The United States of America in

1994-1995 and the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. According to Felman (2002), before the Eichmann

Trial, “Holocaust survivors did not talk about their past, and when they did, they were not listened to. Their

memories were sealed in muteness and in silence” (p. 127). The Eichmann Trial made of survivors’ stories

“one national, collective story… that formerly existed only in the repressed form of a series of untold,

fragmented private stories and traumatic memories” (Felman, 2002, p. 7). Along the same lines, the trial in both

novel and play revisits the Nazi era and sets in perspective the history with which the older generation in both

texts is burdened. In both novel and play, the trial of Hanna and her colleagues from the Protective Squad

(Schutzstaffel) also give scope to the voice of the victims represented by Rose and Ilana Mather, the only two


176

survivors of the church fire. The testimony of both mother and daughter, coupled with the book the daughter

has written on the incident, exposes Hanna’s guilt and creates a dynamic world of action on stage, where

interaction between “speaker, addressee, time, [and] location” presents contesting extended messages (Elam,

2002, p. 128), thus turning the trial scene into a “visual event” (Stern, 2004, p. 204).

The Trial in Both Novel and Play

The trial is the point where Michael is forced to confront his past and to investigate the impact on his life

of the brief relationship he had with Hanna when he was a 15-year-old boy. It is also an opportunity to

explore the past of the nation and whirl away “the dust that society had permitted to settle over the horrors of

the past” (Schlink, 1997, p. 91). On the personal level, the trial scene raises the question of the parents’ guilt;

they must have all taken part in the Third Reich (Schlink, 1997, p. 92) and revisits the Michael/Hanna

relationship. The age difference places Hanna in negative light as a predator exploiting the emotions, the

body, and the reading ability of young Michael, in the same way she exercises power over the inmates at the

camp. There is also Michael’s sense of shame at developing a relationship with an older woman; something

that he cannot tell, neither to his family nor to his friends. Feelings of guilt and grief overwhelm him when

she suddenly disappears and are resurrected with a kind of anxiety when he sees her at the trial. The

possibility of forgiveness is toyed with throughout both texts, with Hanna asking Michael in her will, after

committing suicide, to give the money she has saved to the daughter who wrote the book which has drawn

attention to the case of the women who burnt to death in the church while the defendants, Hanna included,

were in charge.

Furthermore, the trial is the point at which Hanna’s shame is brought into the light. Her being illiterate has

always been a major problem she has been trying to deal with in secret. She refuses a promotion in the tram

company because this would entail reading and writing and she gets extremely nervous when Michael goes out

during their trip together to bring her breakfast and a flower assuming that she will read the note he has left her.

She is even willing to be condemned for something she has not done so that her secret would not be exposed. It

seems that her shame for being illiterate is much bigger than her shame for being an SS guard who knew about

and took part in the process of sending women to Auschwitz to be killed and under whose watch hundreds of

women burnt to death. This raises the question of whether she is aware of the atrocities she has committed and

whether her cruelty finds its origin in her ignorance. Hanna’s illiteracy is “a moral deficit or ethical obtuseness

on the part of the German generation that, despite its veneer of civility, enacted, or at least condoned, the vilest

brutality” (Worthington, 2011, p. 207) seen in modern history in the West. Hanna’s confusion and her inability

to realize the monstrosity of her crime, which may find its origin in her illiteracy, is translated into the question

she addresses either to the judge, to herself, to the people at the court, or to the readers/audience, and which

remains hanging in the screenplay:

HANNA Well, what would you have done? HANNA is looking at the JUDGE—a perfectly straight question. MICHAEL smiles slightly, proud of her. Everyone

in the court waits for the JUDGE to answer. Silence. ROHL is impassive. But HANNA follows her own thoughts. She quietly asks herself a question.

HANNA So should I never have signed up at Siemens? (Hare, 2009, p. 62)


177

This challenges the reply the judge provides in the novel when he says: “There are matters one simply cannot

get drawn into, that one must distance oneself from, if the price is not life and limb” (Schlink, 1997, p. 112). The

hanging question in the screenplay gives scope to as many different answers as possible, placing the issue of

Hanna’s guilt at center stage; in contrast to the novel where the narrator, Michael, is preoccupied with the

analysis of his own feeling of guilt towards Hanna when he disowns her at the club where he was swimming

with his school friends:

My body yearned for Hanna. But even worse than my physical desire was my sense of guilt. Why hadn’t I jumped up immediately when she stood there and run to her. (Schlink, 1997, p. 83)

He later dwells upon the same issue when he examines his feelings of guilt:

However, the fact that I had not driven her away did not change the fact that I had betrayed her. So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal. (Schlink, 1997, p. 134)

In the screenplay, Hanna’s imagination is free from the constraints imposed upon it in Michael’s narrative,

since she achieves a separate physical presence and therefore, acquires an independent voice. This allows her to

raise the question of whether or not she should have “signed up at Siemens” (Hare, 2009, p. 62), a question that

marks the beginning of a long journey of self-discovery and soul-searching.

Narrative Techniques Versus the Dramatic World

Hanna’s narrative in Schlink’s novel is contained within the master narrative of Michael, as his voice

dominates the narration and his perspective on events imposes restrictions on all the stories he presents. The

novel focuses on “Michael [who] needs to understand (…) But the incomprehensible gaps in the text repeatedly

undermine his attempts at explanation or narrative authority” (Worthington, 2011, p. 218), providing at no time

“access to Hanna’s interiority” (Worthington, 2011, p. 212). The novel begins with “(w)hen I was fifteen, I got

hepatitis. It started in the fall and lasted until spring. As the year darkened and turned colder, I got weaker and

weaker” (Hare, 2009, p. 3). It ends with:

As soon as I returned from New York, I donated Hanna’s money in her name to the Jewish League Against Illiteracy. I received a short, computer-generated letter in which the Jewish League thanked Ms. Hanna Schmitz for her donation. With the letter in my pocket, I drove to the cemetery, to Hanna’s grave. It was the first and only time I stood there. (Hare, 2009, p. 218)

The dominance of the first person narrator in the novel from beginning to end, together with the past tense

narrative form a rigid framework within which characters, actions, and emotions are presented.

The screenplay The Reader, on the other hand, creates a world of signification where the interplay of guilt,

love, and forgiveness shapes the textual and stage space and challenges the authority of Schlink’s text. In fact,

Hare’s The Reader fits the definition of dramatic worlds according to Elam (2002), which “are revealed through

the persons, actions and statements which make them up, and not through external commentary” (p. 101). In

Hare’s screenplay, the authoritative voice of Michael, that comes from the novel is broken down to three

separate and contesting voices: Michael the teenager, Michael the university student, and Michael the 51-year

old divorcee, who has been reading for Hanna examples of Western literature on tape and sending the tapes to

her in prison, not knowing that she uses the tapes to learn to read and write. Each of the three separate Michael


178

voices presents its own narrative and functions in its own dramatic space, thus deconstructing the uniformity of

the dominant narrative voice in Schlink’s novel.

In addition, Hanna in the screenplay is not portrayed through Michael’s voice and therefore gains

independence. This explains the powerful physical presence of Hanna, which is described in the play as follows:

She picks up one, rolls it, smoothes it over her calf and knee, then attaches it to her suspender. She reaches for the other. The flesh is bare between her legs. MICHAEL watches, riveted. HANNA seems oblivious. But as she is about to put the second stocking on, she looks at him. She drops her dress, and straightens, holding her stare. In response, he blushes, then panic and runs out of the flat. The door slams. (Hare, 2009, p. 9)

During the trial, Hanna is again presented as a most dominant physical presence when she comes into the

court room with the rest of the defendants:

HANNA and the PRISONERS are led into the court. HANNA’S suit is so formal that members of the public call out. “Nazi! Nazi!” DIETER leans in to MARTHE. HANNA walks on to her place. (Hare, 2009, p. 80)

Her appearance stirs a reaction in the court among the people attending as well as the law students who are

watching the trial as part of a special seminar group on The Legal System in the Third Reich. In addition to the

way she looks at the court, Hanna’s long conversation with the judge (Hare, 2009, pp. 70-74) does not only

assert her independent physical existence in space and time but also shows a mind acting on its own and a

personality free from the constraints of the imagination of a narrator. Hence, the screenplay creates a dramatic

world where action unfolds in space and time due to the interaction between individual and independent

characters on stage.

Another aspect of Hare’s The Reader, which creates the immediacy of the dramatic world and hence the

distance between the three periods of time the events occupy as everything “that happens in a screenplay

happens in the moment” (Boon, 2008), is the continuous shift from 1995 to 1958 and to the 1960s. The

organization of scene slugs at the beginning of Hare’s screenplay is a case in point. This provides the temporal

structure of the play as opposed to the “(c)hronological time which belongs to the fibula of the drama” (Elam,

2002, p. 106). In the novel both fibula and narrative follow the same organization of events with Michael’s

voice as a 51-year old lawyer opening and ending the novel. Conversely, in the screenplay the independence of

all the voices presented in the screenplay: Hanna’s voice and the three contesting Michael voices is created and

sustained through “the absence of narratorial guides, (which provides) external description and ‘world-creating’

possibilities, the dramatic world has to be specified from within by means of references made to it by the very

individuals who constitute it” (Elam, 2002, p. 100).

Finally, contrary to the novel, where only the titles of the literary works Michael reads to Hanna are

mentioned, Hare’s screenplay gives space to extracts from these works to be included in the text of the play and

to occupy part of the dramatic space. The literary works Michael chooses for Hanna represent the essence of

Western culture and the Humanist tradition, against which the crimes of the Nazi are symbolically committed.

It is true that individuals suffered and died as a result of the Nazi crimes but the impact of these crimes is far

reaching and they may be considered a violation of the Humanist tradition upon which Western civilization is

based. Hence the extracts incorporated in the play further accentuate Hanna’s crime, by placing it against the

power of literature. Ironically the tapes educate Hanna literally. This establishes the Western canon as the

carrier of universal human values. Thus, intertextuality is used in the play to sustain the continuity of Western

culture and the power of literature, to remember Arnold’s (1987) words about poetry, to “interpret life for us, to


179

console us, to sustain us” (p. 260). The assumption created in both novel and play is that Hanna’s literacy

grants her knowledge and nurtures her sense of guilt and remorse which is translated into the will she writes in

which she leaves all the money she has been saving to the daughter who wrote the book to use in whatever way

she sees fit. The will may also be an act of seeking forgiveness, not necessarily from the daughter herself, but

on a more philosophical level as Kim L. Worthington states that “—at least (…)—her unforgivable crime,

perhaps the crime of Nazi Germany itself, calls for forgiveness” (p. 218, italics in original).

Intertextuality in the screen play is also achieved with regard to the relation between the novel and the

screenplay, with the novel exercising control over the play in some instants and the play defying the novel in

others. In the novel there are images of Hanna that have been fixed in the imagination of Michael and that have

shaped his subsequent relationships with women (Schlink, 1997, pp. 62, 64, 80). In the screenplay, these fixed

haunting images are not accentuated and the distance the dramatic world creates between Hanna and Michael

breaks the power of Michael’s narrative voice in the novel.

Conclusions

Though both Schlink’s novel and Hare’s screenplay are centered on the same story line, the novel is

preoccupied with Michael, his guilt for loving a Nazi criminal, for loving an older woman, and for betraying

her at some point; his attempts to understand what she has done; and his exploration of the possibility of

forgiveness. The screenplay, on the other hand, places all the characters on equal footing in dramatic space and

presents the action as it takes place in the here and now of the dramatic world with no psychological analysis

and no guiding narratorial voice. Therefore, Hanna achieves an existence away from Michael’s imagination that

dominates the novel. She is allowed a separate voice not contained by the narrator and Hare’s screenplay, thus,

presents an angle to Holocaust literature that gives scope to the point of view of the guards.

References Arnold, M. (1987). The study of poetry. In D. J. Enright, & E. De Chickera (Eds.), English critical texts (pp. 260-285). Oxford:

Clarendon Press. Boon, K. A. (2008). The screenplay, imagism, and modern aesthetics. Literature/Film Quarterly, 36(4). Retrieved from

http://www.questia.com/read/1P3-1592024251/the-screenplay-imagism-and-modern-aesthetics Elam, K. (2002). The semiotics of theatre and drama (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Felman, S. (2002). The political unconscious: Trials and traumas in the twentieth century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hare, D. (2009). The reader. New York: Weinstein Books. Schlink, B. (1995). Der Vorleser (The reader). (C. B. Janeway, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books. Stern, F. (2004). The holocaust: Representing lasting images in film and literature. In J. Matthaus (Ed.), Contemporary responses

to the holocaust (pp.193-218). Westport, CT: Praeger. Worthington, K. L. (2011). Suturing the wound: Derrida’s “On forgiveness’ and Schlink’s The Reader”. Comparative Literature,

63(3), 203-224.


On “Poetic Spontaneity” and Aesthetics∗

WEI Shu

Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China

This paper tries to explore Wordsworth’s poetics through a discussion of his important poetic conception of “poetic

spontaneity” or “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Wordsworth’s poetic point

“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” is stated in his important work The Preface to

Lyrical Ballads (1801), and this theoretical point is actually validated by many good poems of his own. This paper

demonstrates the significance of the theoretical point by a close examination of The Preface and its textual

meanings. And then it presents an understanding of the theory through a detailed analysis of his masterpiece

Tintern Abbey (1798) and I Wandered lonely as a cloud (1804). It also demonstrates the importance and influence

of his “poetic spontaneity” by comparing it with the Neo-classicalism in the 18th century and the Modernism in the

20th century.

Keywords: William Wordsworth, poetics, spontaneity, aesthetics

A General Survey of Wordsworth’s Poetics

The Essential Characteristics of the Romantic Poetry

In the 19th century, romantic poetry was developed into the main genre of English literature. Compared with

the 18th century neo-classical poetry, it has quite different literary conceptions and stylistic features. As is known,

romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics—the romantic writers had moral enthusiasm and were

faithful in the value of individualism and intuitive perception; they regarded the nature world as the source of

goodness and man’s society as a source of corruption.

The Significance of The Lyrical Ballads and The Preface to It

In Wordsworth’s the Lyrical Ballads (1801), most of the poems are seemingly conventional in form, but the

old vase contains many fresh flowers: The poems have come from Wordsworth’s great passions towards man and

nature. As for the process of composing the poems, Wordsworth had particular experience and formed some

significant poetic concepts that can be found in his important theoretical work The Prelude to The Lyrical

Ballads (1980).

According to Wordsworth, the inner feelings are the powerful source of poetic inspiration that can be

attained through the poet’s meditation of the past passionate impression. Abraham (1986) put in The Preface that:

Not that I always began to write with a distant purpose formally conceived; but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found

∗ The present research is sponsored by Project (YETP1507), the Funding Project under Beijing Municipal Education Commission.

WEI Shu, master, lecturer of School of Foreign Studies, Beijing Information Science and Technology University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

ON “POETIC SPONTANEITY” AND AESTHETICS 181

to carry alone with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to the nature of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. (p. 61)

Wordsworth emphasizes here that the poetic spontaneity through the intuitive perspective, and he argues

that the power to drive the poet to write a good poem is not the social reality but the subjective correspondence to

the great natural world. So there would be no good poems without the poet’s internal correspondence to nature

that is right source of any poems. There out Wordsworth claims that: “Poems to which any value can be attached

were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possesses of more than usual organic

sensibility, had also thought long and deeply” (Abraham, 1986, p. 61).

The Significance of Wordsworth’s Conception of “Poetic Spontaneity”

Although the romantic poets shared the general principles of romanticism, only Wordsworth pioneered the

theoretical banner for the Romantic Movement in England. In his The Preface, Wordsworth’s conception of

“poetic spontaneity” distinguishes the previous poetics. Abraham (1986) claims that:

For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and, as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. (p. 62)

This statement emphasized the relations of the poet’s feelings and his thoughts, explaining how the past

things reappear by one’s contemplating and how the poet’s feelings are connected with important subjects, and at

length the repetition and continuance of the act can make the pet form a particular habit of mind for poetic

composition. That is, the poet’s continued influxes of feeling are always modified and directed by his thoughts

or past feelings.

This concept obviously challenges the neo-classical conventional poetic principles that emphasize the

objective reflection of the reality with rational thinking mode. More importantly, this point guides many

successive poets to enlighten and reveal their great passions towards the thoughts or past things. As a nature poet

Wordsworth implies that the poet always reveals his thoughts by contemplating his feelings or impression of the

natural things and natural man, and so the romantic poetry the reader can understand the inner minds of the

romantic poets and also can get better understanding of nature and natural man.

A Further Analysis of Poetic Spontaneity and Wordsworth’s Nature Poems

A Further Statement of the Significance of Poetic Spontaneity and Freedom

In his The Prelude, Wordsworth (1980) wrote that “I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my

subject”(p. 4621), and in a supplementary essay, he complained that from Dryden through Pope there is scarcely

an image from external nature from which it can be inferred that the eye of the poet had been steadily fixed on his

object. A glance at the table of the contents of any collection of Romanic poems will show that the degree to

which the natural scene has become a primary poetic subject, while Wordsworth, Shelley, and even more

Coleridge and Keats, described natural phenomena with an accuracy of observation.


Romantic poems habitually imbue the landscape with human life, passion, and expressiveness. In part such

descriptions represent the poetic equivalent of the metaphysical concept of nature, which had developed in

deliberate revolt against the world views of the scientific philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who had

posited as the ultimate reality a mechanical world consisting of physical particles in motion. For many romantic

poets it was clearly also a matter of immediate experience to respond to the outer universe as a living entity that

participates in the feelings of the descriptive 17th and 18th century poets who had depicted the created universe as

living direct access to God. At this point of possessing the attributes of divinity; Wordsworth, in Tintern Abbey

(1798), exhibits toward the landscape attitudes and sentiments that human beings had earlier felt not only for God,

but also for a father, a mother, or a beloved.

This vies of natural objects as corresponding to an inner or a spiritual world served also as the understanding

for a tendency, especially by Blake and Shelley, to write a symbolist poetry in which a rose, a sunflower, a

mountain, a cave, or a cloud is presented as an object instinct with a significance beyond itself. “I always seek in

what I see”, Shelley said, “the likeness of something beyond the present and tangible object” (O’flinn, 1988, p. 76).

Wordsworth defined good poetry not merely as the overflow but as “the spontaneous overflow” of feelings.

In traditional aesthetic theory, poetry had been regarded as supremely an art—which in modern times could be

practiced successfully only by poets who had assimilated classical precedents, were aware of the “rules”

governing the kind of poem they writing, and deliberately employed tested means to achieve foreknown effects

upon an audience. But to Wordsworth, although the composition of a poem originates from emotion recollected

in tranquility, and may be preceded and followed by reflection, the immediate act of composition must be

spontaneous—that is, arising from impulse, and free from all rules and the artful manipulation of means to

foreseen ends—if the product is to be a genuine poem. Other important Romantic critics also voiced declarations

of artistic independence. Keats listed as an “axiom” that “if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it

had better not come at all”. Blake insisted that he wrote from inspiration and vision. Shelley also maintained that

it is “an error to assert that the finest passages of poetry are produced by labor and study”, and suggested instead

that they are the products of an unconscious creativity: “A great statue of picture grows under the power of the

artist as a child in the mother’s womb” (Wolfson, 1997, p. 66).

The emphasis in this period on the free activity of the imagination is related to an insistence on the essential

role of instinct, intuition, and the feelings of the “the heart” to the supplement the judgments of the purely logical

faculty, “the head”, whether in the province of artistic beauty, philosophical and religious truth, or moral

goodness. “Deep thinking”, Coleridge wrote, “is attainable only by man of deep feeling, and does not tell you

something in the heart is grievously to be suspected as apocryphal” (Wolfson, 1997, p. 72).

An Analysis of Wordsworth’s Poems for His Poetic Points

Because of the prominence of landscape in this period, romantic poetry has become almost synonymous

with nature poetry to the popular mind. Neither Romantic theory nor practice, however, justifies the opinion that

the aim of this poetry was description for its own sake. Wordsworth in fact insisted that the ability to observe and

describe objects accurately, although a necessary, is not at all a sufficient condition for poetry, “as its exercise

suppose all the higher qualities of the mind to be passive, and in a state of subjective to external objects” (Davis,

1989, p. 78). And while most of the great Romantic lyrics begin with an aspect or change of aspect in the natural


scene, this serves only as stimulus to the most characteristic human activity, that of thinking. Romanic “nature

poems” are in fact meditative poems, in which the presented scene usually serve to raise an emotional problem or

personal crisis whose development and resolution constitute the organizing principle of the poem. As

Wordsworth said in his Prospectus to the Recluse, it is not nature, but “the Mind of Man” that is “my haunt, and

the main region of my song”(Wolfson, 1997, p. 90). To some extend, nature is just external trigger for the poet

to express the mind of man. Here is an analysis of Wordsworth’s I wandered lonely as a cloud and Tintern

Abbey for this point:

I wandered lonely as a cloud I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high over I saw a cloud, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the tress, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay; Ten thousand say I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Outside the sparkling waves in glee; A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company; I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. (WU, 2000, p. 12)

Wordsworth is generally regarded as a nature poet. The following poem shows us the poet’s great passion

inspired by the natural thing “golden daffodils” grown by the lake. The sight of the beautiful flowers excited the

poet and made him be full of great poetic passion in his mind. So there are lines “And then my heart with pleasure

fills,/And dances with the daffodils” overflowing out of the poet’s heart. From this poem the reader has a vivid

picture of the beautiful natural scene—in the quite lake area there are “A host, of golden daffodils;/Besides the

lake, beneath the trees,/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. This indicates that the poet always has a particular

view of the nature and the great nature endows the poet a particular mind to reflect the seemingly common natural

things. Only poet can grasp the imperceptibility of the commonness and the greatness of a natural thing through

their imagination. Wordsworth imagined that the golden daffodils “Fluttering and dancing in the

breeze./Continuous as the stars that shine/and twinkle on the Milky Way,/They stretched in never-ending line”.


And more vivid description of the beautiful flowers are shown in these lines: “Tossing their heads in sprightly

dance./The waves beside them danced; but they/Outside the sparking waves in glee”. The poet was deeply moved

by the nature and his heart was stirring up with the great poetic feelings. How could he block this feeling to flow

from the excited heart? So Wordsworth’s poetic point is convincing.

Tintern Abbey is one of Wordsworth’s important long poems. It can be regarded as the best sample for the

application of his romantic poetics, for this poem shows the poet’s deep understanding of nature; the natural

things and natural people. Wordsworth expressed his love of their simplicity and truth as well as their beauty and

lofty. In the first part, the poet recalled the past experience and expressed his admiration of the natural scene:

And again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quite of the sky. (WU, 2000, p. 14)

And then, he was touched by the natural villages, the pastoral farms; the attractive green hue of the orchards

and the unripe fruits, the wreaths of smoke set up in silence from among the trees; and also there is another one

that calls for the poet’s concern is the natural people: the vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods and some

hermit living in the cave.

The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves “Mid groves and copses. Once again I see” These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees With some uncertain notice, as might seen Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone. (WU, 2000, p. 14)

Seeing such a natural beautiful scene, the poet’s heart was beating and stirring. The memory of these

beauteous forms were not forgotten, and further it were continuously stirring up the poet’s heart and making him

feel sweet and pleasure. The poet expressed his thanks for the endowment of nature that has the power of

harmony and power of joy that made him feel blessed and become a living soul.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye; But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din


Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man’s life His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood In which the burden of the mystery In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspected, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul Which with an eye made quite by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. (WU, 2000, p. 15)

A Comparative Study of Wordsworth’s Poetics and Traditional Aesthetic Theory

The 18th Century Neo-classical Theory—“A Mirror Held Up to Nature”

The 18th century theorists had regarded poetry as primarily an imitation of human life—in a frequent figure,

“a mirror held up to nature”—which the poet artfully renders to instruct and give artistic pleasure to the reader.

For the 18th century poets, poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned

expression, which is the countenance of all science. Shakespeare said of man, “that he looks before and after”

(Davis, 1989, p. 181). He is the rock of defense for human nature; an upholder preserver, carrying everywhere

with him relationship and love. In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and

customs: in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed; the poet binds together by

passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time.

Wordsworth, on the other hand, repeatedly described all good poetry as, at the moment of composition, “the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Abraham, 1986, p. 61). Reversing earlier theory, Wordsworth thus

located the source of a poem not in the outer world, but in the individual poet, and specified that the essential

material of a poem were not external people and events, but the inner feelings of the author, or at any rate,

external objects only after these have been transformed or irradiated by the author’s feelings.

Other romantic theories, however diverse in the other aspects, concurred in this crucial point by referring

primarily to the end of the mind, emotions, and imagination of the poet, instead of to the outer world, for the

origin, content, and defining attributes of a poem. Many writers identified poetry as the “expression”, “utterance”,

or “exhibition” of emotion. Blake and Shelley described a poem as an embodiment of the poet’s imaginative


vision, which they opposed to the ordinary theory of the imaginative process and the poetic product, based on the

model of the growth of a plant. That is, he conceived a great work of a seed-like idea in the poet’s imagination,

grows by assimilating both the poet’s feelings and the diverse materials of sense-experience, and evolves into an

organic whole in which the parts are integrally related to each other and to the whole.

No critical tradition, however, can stay vital by simply handing down principles; these must receive new

applications and need to be scrutinized and refined. Wordsworth made one of the largest contributions of any critic

in the tradition before or since, and the psychological bent seen elsewhere in his thought is prominent here as well.

The 19th Century Romantic Theory—Wordsworth’s “Poetic Spontaneity”

Wordsworth claims that the purpose of the Lyrical Ballads is not the result of any deliberate self-conscious

effort on the part of the poet, but rather resulted from habits of meditation the poet can encourage. The pertinent

passage depends on a view of the connection of feeling with thought that is shared with Hume and Kant but, probably

derives directly from Wordsworth’s own experience. The most important point of this theory is as follows:

For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and, as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. (Abraham, 1986, p. 62)

It is significant, therefore, that Wordsworth does not so much as mention genres in the Preface to Lyrical

Ballads when he does offer the customary list of genres later in the preface of 1815, moreover, he changes

immediately to a psychological view, “to the powers of mind predominant in the production of them” and to

subjects matter as the method of categorization of his poems in the 1815 edition.

What ever the situation, Wordsworth in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads replaced genre and decorum with a

new principle based on feeling that harkens back to what must have been the original psychology of poetic

creation: that “the feeling… developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and

situation to the feeling” (Abraham, 1986, p. 61). No longer, Wordsworth was staying in effect, was it necessary to

have a coronation or a heroic action for the subject of a serious poem. “You could choose incidents and situations

from common life” (Abraham, 1986, p. 61): Subjects concerning idiot boys and little girls would be excellent

choices as long as the poet infused them with the necessary feeling. In fact, in his choice of subjects for Lyrical

Ballads, Wordsworth was not just choosing low subjects, but almost totally insignificant ones, such as incidents

involving beggars and mad mothers. He was pushing his principle as far as it would go.

The 20th Century Modernist—Eliot’s “Objective Correlatives”

Eliot can be regarded as one of the most influential representatives of the 20th century modernist poets. With

the exception of his fellow expatriate Ezra Pound, no modern writer of English rivaled Eliot in his influence on

the development of modern literature. He expressed his view of poetry and his view of tradition by praising John

Donne and the 17th century metaphysical poets. Obviously Eliot tried to value the Metaphysical over

Wordsworthians and Victorians.

Eliot’s essays about many other English writers have been very influential. He favored Donne over Milton;


replaced Wordsworth and Tennyson in the 19th century canon by Hopkins. He helped to establish the influential

movement known as New Criticism. The New critics gave priority to the close analysis of the text itself instead of

the background information about the author.

As for the emotion of art, Eliot believes that it should be in the poem rather than in the poet. He demonstrated

this principle in “The Sacred Wood” which introduces the term “objective correlative” (Moody, 1994, p. 52).

Eliot hoped to establish a new criterion of literary judgment that would bring order to the undisciplined

journalism of his day. Or the criticism of a poet for not practicing a Wordsworthian or Tennysonian

expressiveness.

Eliot’s criticism was the criticism of a practicing poet who worked out in relation to his reading of older

literature what he needed to hold and to admire. He lent the growing weight of his authority to that shift literary

taste that replaced Milton by Donne as a great 17th century English poet, and replaced Wordsworth and Tennyson

in the 19th century by Hopkins. His often-quoted description of the late 17th century “dissociation of sensibility”

keeping wit and passion in separate compartments—are both a contribution to the rewriting of English literary

history. His view of tradition, his dislike of the poetic exploitation of the author’s own personality, his advocacy

of what he called “orthodoxy”, made him suspicious of what he considered eccentric geniuses. On the other side,

his dislike of the grandiloquent and his insistence on complexity and on the mingling of the formal with the

conversational made him distrustful of the influence of Milton on English poetry. He considered himself a

classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion. He is in favor of order against chaos,

tradition against eccentricity, authority against rampant individualism; yet his own poetry is in many respects

untraditional and certainly highly individual in tone. His conservative and even authoritarian habit of mind

alienated some who admire and some whose own poetry has been much influenced by his poetry.

Conclusions

Through the above discussion of Wordsworth’s poetic conception of “poetic spontaneity” or “All good

poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, this paper has explored that Wordsworth’s poetics

emphasizes the relations of the poet’s feelings and his thoughts, explaining how the past things reappear by one’s

contemplating and how the poet’s feelings are connected with important subjects, and at length the repetition and

continuance of the act can make the poet from a particular habit of mind for poetic composition. That is, the

poet’s continued influxes of feeling are always modified and directed by his thoughts or past feelings.

Wordsworth’s original contributions lie in both the principles of that tradition and related issues. As for

traditional mimesis, the truthful representation of human experience, Wordsworth says bluntly, “Poetry is the

image of man and nature” (Davis, 1989, p. 69), and in the same paragraph adds the complementary principle of

university, making clear his allegiance by direct ascription.

In his psychological re-examination of traditional literary principles, in any event, Wordsworth turned to the

issue of feeling as a link between human experience and the poet and between the poet and the reader.

Wordsworth, as we have seen, seems to have almost taken for granted the basic validity of mimesis and

universality. But the poet, whom the traditional had all but ignored, Wordsworth found to be the key to

subordinate issues of subject and style, especially through the vehicle of the poet’s feelings.

We have also seen the poet treated as a kind of “trained feeler” when Wordsworth dealt with the morality of


literature. He further considered the poet “as in the situation of a translator” between nature, including natural

passions, and the reader. Such emphases on feelings suggest the new Romantic stress on feeling evident by the

late 18th century, and of course Wordsworth was influenced by his times, but the immediate reasons are more

psychological and subtle.

In short, through his expression of the poetic conception of poetic spontaneity, Wordsworth has enriched

English poetics and paved a broader way to the development of English poetry.

References

Abraham, M. H. (Ed.). (1986). Norton Anthology of English literature (Vol. 2). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.. Davis, R. C. (1989). Literary criticism and theory. London: Longman Inc.. Moody, A. D. (1994). The Cambridge companion to T. S. Eliot. London: Cambridge University Press. O’flinn, P. (1988). How to study romantic poetry. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Wolfson, S. F. (1997). The shaping of poetry in British romanticism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wordsworth, W. (1980). The prelude. London: Macmillan London Limited. Wordsworth, W. (2001). Selected poetry of William Wordsworth. New York: Random House, Inc.. WU, W. R. (2000). English literature and selective works. Beijing: Foreign Teaching and Research Press.


“Everything About You Is Vampiric”: Vampirism as a Metaphor

for Adolescent Maturation in M. T. Anderson’s Thirsty

Leni Marlina

State University of Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia

Over the past few years, vampire genre has populated young adult (YA) literature. YA literature can be defined as

narratives about the individual growth and maturation of adolescent protagonist. Adolescence is the bridging

process of growing from childhood to adulthood. Furthermore, it is a turbulent time of rapid physical growth and

sexual development. It also creates a critical phase in the formation of identity. In this paper, the author shall

identify the ways in which representation of adolescence in an American contemporary young adult novel,

Anderson’s Thirsty (2008), reflects and shapes the maturation of its young protagonist. The author argues that the

transformation of vampire in the novel works as a metaphor for the various changes and maturation process

experienced by the protagonist in the novel. Furthermore, the author’s discussion will be preceded by a short

history of vampire narrative. The author’s analysis is supported by psychological theories of adolescence and

socio-cultural approach which focuses on the ambiguities of adolescents’ identity. Moreover, this paper alludes a

psychoanalytic reading of the symbolism of the vampire which refers to Freud’s notions of libido and death drive.

The conclusion of this paper is that Anderson’s Thirsty is a paranormal novel which positions the implied readers to

understand the trials of an adolescent protagonist during his difficult time of transition from childhood to

adulthood.

Keywords: vampirism, adolescent maturation, young adult literature

Introduction

The belief in vampires has existed since ancient time. Originally, the myth of the vampire can be found

throughout history. In addition, the research concerning vampires has gone through many permutations. O’Quinn

(2004) claims that in the history of literary monsters and vampires, society has sometimes maintained “macabre

manipulation of humanhood” (p. 51).

Enright (2011) explains that “Vampires could be seen as mischievous spirits, […] mindless creatures hungry

for blood or other bodily secretions, sensual beings whose only drive was to sexually tutor the living, or powerful

deities that demanded blood to prove the believer’s faith” (p. xi). Furthermore, Heldreth and Pharr (1999) states

that vampires periodically appear from the darkness of humans’ imagination in folklore before they are

popularized by other media. Moreover, vampirism has long been known as various identities in adult Western

Leni Marlina, master, English Department, Faculty of Languges and Arts, State University of Padang.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

“EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU IS VAMPIRIC” 190

texts, even during times in history when they were universally hated and feared. On account of this, vampirism in

contemporary young adult texts is close to humans’ identity.

Vampirism in a Contemporary Young Adult Text

In addition, Macdonald (2012) and Enright (2011) emphasize that vampires have extraordinary power over

real living people. The nature and power of vampires in young adult (YA) text can be read in Anderson’s Thirsty

(2008). In the introduction part of this novel, the protagonist focalises that a vampire is like a human, but the

vampire may have stronger power than humans:

IN THE SPRING, THERE ARE VAMPIRES IN THE WIND. People along by the side of country roads. People see them scuffling along by the side of the forests. They do not wear black, of course, but things they taken off bodies or bought on sale. … The bodies begin turning up in Springfield, Lenox and Williamstown. … One victim is barely buried. One is surrounded by swear words written in her own blood. We are warned that the vampires look like normal people, except when they are angry or when the bloodlust is upon them. One day in early April some people catch one just a few towns away, in Bradley. A policeman is wounded during the arrest, because a thirsty vampire has the strength of ten men. (Anderson, 2008, p. i)

Moreover, vampirism has frequently been linked to a raw sexuality which may bring universal issues such

as the instinctual power of humans’ libido. This instinctual power of sexual desire clearly appears in Anderson’s

Thirsty. This novel depicts the image of primal sexuality which relates to changes and puberty and causes

tensions and stresses to a young male protagonist. The changes experienced by the protagonists occur because of

hormonal growth which causes sexual drive (Anderson, 2008, p. 28). Accordingly, the intention of the young

vampire is more likely to look for the explanation of his bodily changes and to understand his identity and new

power in society.

In recent young adult literature, contemporary vampires have a little in common with the early folkloric ones

(Day, 2006, p. 113). Besides, vampires likely tend to be different in every culture and periods because of various

location and humans’ anxiety factors (Bane, 2010). Moreover, since the 19th century the traditional or ethnic

vampires have changed into modern vampires which enable them to interact in news ways with current human

society (Melton, 2011). Thus, the author argues that the one who becomes a vampire in YA text feels anxiety

because of his transformation identity from childhood to adult ways of being.

As an illustration, the experience of being a vampire in Thirsty is narrated from a perspective of a freshman

of a high school, Christopher (less than 16 years old) who lives in Clayton, Massachusetts. This novel conveys

the vampirism as an evil or disease instantaneously embedded in the human’s heart which possibly enables its

host immunity to it:

The celestial being looks at me with eyes invisible behind his dark designer glasses. He tells me, “You know what I am talking about. You know you are becoming a vampire. The vampires recognized it in you. Vampires can see other vampires. And you don’t reflect when the blood-lust is upon you. You saw it in the lake”.

“I don’t know-” “Water doesn’t lie”. He still stares at me. “Your thirst is only beginning now. When you get angry, you become

vampiric. And vice versa. When you get thirsty, you get angry without reason. Increasingly. You feel prone to violence. You feel prone to drink blood. In four months, you blood-thirst will have overwhelmed you. You won’t be be able to control yourself for long”. (Anderson, 2008, p. 33)


Likewise, Schlozman (2000) states that “Vampires are usually characterized as purely evil, and they display

their malevolence through their almost psychotic desire to satisfy their enormous hunger” (p. 50). Anderson’s

Thirsty details Chris’ experience who lives in a town where vampires may grow and look for victims, but they are

not acceptable at all by their society:

Vampires are lynched, traditionally. It is too costly to hold them for trial. A full-grown vampire is immortal if well fed, but can’t live long without human blood; and it is tricky to come by donors. There’s no need for a trial, I guess, because threre’s not much doubt about vampires. There are, after all, the pointy teeth and the mirror problems. Whenever their blood-lust is upon them, their fangs slide down forward, and they have no reflection to speak of. And once people find those signs, it’s all over for the vampire. If you are a vampire and still alive, people know you must be guilty of murder. There’s no other alternative-no other way you could live. So sometimes they will burn you. Usually they will drive a stake through your heart. (Anderson, 2008, p. 9)

Since vampires are not accepted in Chris’ society, people celebrate a yearly ritual “Sad Festival of the

vampire” to keep the evil “Vampire Lord” defeated and unable to enter their world. As a result, vampires are a

scourge of society and they are hunted down and killed in the protagonist’s world.

Unlike the vampirism in common genre of vampire texts, vampirism in Anderson’s Thirsty tends not to

expose many romantic moments such as kissing and encountering sexual contact. This does not mean that there is

a space for the protagonist to think about the romantic imagination. However, Chris as a vampire is not as

attractive and romantic as the male vampire portrayed in other contemporary similar genres. As a result,

vampirism in Anderson’s Thirsty have its own special characteristic among various vampires texts.

In fact, Chris turns to be doubtful vampirism of a curse that seems threatening to destroy his future life:

“I can’t be a vampire. I’m not dead”. “Vampirism is a lonely highway, and there are many routes that lead there”, he [celestial being] says. “Stop moving

backward. Some vampires were cursed after died; some were born with the curse, passed on from their parents; some were cursed while still alive. You have the curse in you. I don’t know why. But puberty has set it off within you. Hormones. In a few months-four, I’d say, at the outside—you’re going to be fully vampiric”. (Anderson, 2008, p. 31)

However, Chris seems trapped in his anxiety of his bodily changes, dreams or fantasy of encountering

sexual desire with a girl at his school, Jessica:

Briefly, I sleep. I dream of wielding great gouts of fire that wallop the vampires, as they cast their wicked spells. I dream of being cured by a kind touch from Chet. I dream that Rebecca Schwartz loves me and talk to her like I would talk no one else. I picture her careful, clever face, and I picture kissing it and and her smooth white neck. I kiss her right where the pulse is, and I can feel how how her blood is. I can feel it moving through her like quick fire; I can sense it caressing her breasts from the inside, circling like electrons around her secret womb.

I can feel it in my mouth, running down my throat. I fell strong again; I feel alive; I feel the spark of her life twitching in my heart as she drains into me, from under me, as I feel spasms beneath me and her death. (Anderson, 2008, pp. 165-166)

The Adolescent Vampire and the Maturation Process

Anderson’s Thirsty shows the readers how a young vampire goes through the different range of conflicts,

ambivalences, ambiguities to gain maturation and new understanding of his identity and place in society. An

expert in psychology, J. Anderson (1980) constructs identity as a “dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs,

and individual history” (p. 159). Meanwhile, the word adolescence means “to grow to maturity” (Rice, 1999, p. 1).


Besides, many changes and challenges take place during this time of growth and maturation (Durham, 1998).

Moreover, adolescence is a transition time which is full of possibility, desire, and possibly changing the

teens’ identity. Furthermore, Blos (1968) insists that “Whoever has studied adolescence, regardless of theoretical

background, has been aware of changes in the maturing personality that are generally identified with character

formation” (p. 245). To emphasize, the vampirism among teenagers is strongly related with their growing up

process and identity.

Additionally, the implied readers of Anderson’s Thirsty are invited to sympathetically see the maturation

process of the adolescent vampire in encountering different conflicts. Chris faces his main conflict when he

appears to be turning into a vampire stage by stage; he is afraid to be known by his family, friends, and society.

Chris indicates his own vampirism such as having “bad hunger” for a few months:

At night, I have been especially hungry. Sometimes I can’t sleep well because I’m so hungry. Also, I have been feeling strange little percolations in my chest. Whatever it is, I don’t like it. It’s a desire for something, but I can’t tell what. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes during the day. It has been disturbing my sleep occasionally at night. It is like a leaping or a squelching or an anguish about nothing at all. Maybe it’s love, these percolations, that’s what I think.

But maybe it’s not love at all. That night, after the lynching, after I am recognized by one of the damned, the hunger is very bad. I lie with my head under the pillow. Everyone else is asleep. (Anderson, 2008, p. 13)

However, Chris seemingly hides his vampirism before he meets a celestial being called Chet whom he

thinks could return himself to be full human. The narrative shows that the young protagonist does not want to join

the vampire community in an abandoned church. He knows being a vampire will be not acceptable in his normal

society because he lives in town where vampires are hunted and executed.

Moreover, his personal conflict becomes worse since the young protagonist describes himself as the one

who lives in unharmonious family: Chris’ parents sometimes fight with each other and they have decided to get a

divorce as soon as Chris is in college:

A year and a half ago my mother and father informed us that as soon as we go away to college, they are getting a divorce. They are waiting.

After their big fight they avoided each other. My father worked late nights at the Station laboratory. My mother watched television or called her real-estate clients. Things were very bad for a year. Now, though, they are eating dinner at the same time and sleeping in the same room again, and they recognize each other by sight. They do not like to fight in front of Paul and me, ever since they overheard us referring to them as Ward and June. Now they go out to dinner alone once a month to fight. (Anderson, 2008, p. 6)

The identity of being a vampire which runs parallel with the life of young adult can be explained through

scientific or supernatural reasons. In the case of Anderson’s Thirsty, the issue of vampire identity is likely raised

by having more scientific explanation rather than supernatural reasons. To illustrate, the young protagonist needs

Chet, the celestial being, to explain what is happening to him as Chet focalises in adult voice:

I [Chris] look at him [Chet]. I am sort of wary, because I am not sure what happened. “How they ganged up on you”, he says. I shrug, and I say, “I started it”. He nods, and his hair moves in the wind. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Did you? Did you start it? Who can say?

You are going through a difficult age”, he says, “I’m sure. So many contrary emotions. Some of them very new and


violent. You won’t be a boy for long. There are a lot of changes you’re going through right now. Hormonal and so on”. (Anderson, 2008, p. 28)

In line with this changes, Bradford, Strain, and Parson (2011) describes that adolescence “has rather limiting

and negative connotations associated with ideas such as identity crisis, insecurity, sexual awakening, rebellion

and adolescence as rites of passage” (p. 1).

Vampirism and Adolescent Identity

Anderson (1980) mentions some characteristics of identity such as identity achievements and identity

diffusions. Identity achievements means “individuals who have experienced a decision-making period and are

pursuing self-chosen occupation and ideological goals” and identity diffusions means “young people who have

no set occupational or ideological direction, regardless of whether or not they may have experienced a

decision-making period” (Anderson, 1980, p. 162).

Refers to Anderson’s characteristics of identity, Anderson’s Thirsty tends to depict its young protagonist

with identity diffusion. Although Chris tends to make a decision in remaining to be human, he does not yet pursue

clear self-chosen action for his future. He knows that he keeps feeling “thirsty”. Thus, in this situation the implied

readers are positioned to fill the empty space of ideological goal for the protagonist as well the readers

themselves.

It is interesting to discuss whether young adults can truly become real vampires. The existence of vampires as

the real creatures in humans’ real life is still a debate. Curran (2010) states that “Vampires are creatures from

mythology and folklore… While people really have been accused of drinking blood and being vampires, we do not

know for sure whether vampires are real or not” (p. 6). Likewise, Macdonald (2012) claims that “Vampires do not

exist—and they never have done. As living dead bodies, they contradict themselves. They are impossible” (p. 1).

The main thing which makes the vampires immortal in this world is the humans’ anxiety. Beresford (2008)

insists that fear is a key element to the vampire’s existence (p. 1). Schlozman (2000) states that “Among

adolescences […] who have not successfully negotiated [the] trying developmental crisis, the displaced

representation of adolescent challenges within the vampire mystique might be very wellknown account for the

current popularity of the vampire’s story” (p. 50). Hence, the vampirism in young adult texts can significantly

work as the metaphor for adolescents’ quest of transition in finding their identity and gaining maturation.

To repeat, the monstrous transformation of a teenage protagonist into a vampire in Thirsty is a metaphor of

the pubescent body. In other words, the young adult fights his unruly body. He is unsuccessfully trying to

suppress bodily powerful drives. Morever, becoming a vampire means on the physical level entering zones of

sexual impulse. According to Freudian view, the sexual impulse is supposed to “commence about the time of and

in connection with the maturing process of puberty” (Freud, 2010, p. 12).

To illustrate, Chris in Anderson’s Thirsty shows an increasing time and frequency of daydreaming and

dreams on the female he is interested in. Chris’ dreams and daydreaming of having sexual contact with Jessica

seems to function as a wish fulfilling and satisfying the protagonist’s desire that cannot be filled in reality.

Although he has strong sexual fantasy or dreams, Chris finally refused an offer from anoter girl, Lolli, to act as a

vampire—to suck her blood, encounter free sex and kill her:


“Lolli, I’m just having—” “Shut up. Okay, look! You’re not like getting it through your thick head that people are killers, too—they kill to save

themselves just like yours truly. Think of that? That’s what they do. That’s what we do. …” She steps forward, her hand on my arm, and her chest grazes mine. Her face is so close. So hard. “So don’t waste my time, Chris. Let us all in on the secret. You gonna come out of the coffin? What’s going to be?”

“There must be—” “Stop arguing!” “I am not going to kill anyone!” I yelp. “Anyone I know! Forget it!” …. “I have a respect for human life and—” …. I am used to having things happen to me, instead of me doing things. Now I realize that it is high time for me to do

something quickly. Something escape-like. (Anderson, 2008, pp. 190-191)

Consequently, Anderson’s Thirsty positions the readers to see the struggle of the young protagonist to control

her sexual drive as well as vampire’s desire. In line with this effort, Enright (2011) states that Anderson’s Thirsty

takes the readers on the terminal journey of an average young man battling changes beyond his control (p. 77).

Furthermore, the maturation process in a YA text does not merely show the body changes accompanied by

the sexual drive and the way to control it. In fact, maturation may be indicated by thought and additional verbal

descriptive ability. At the same time, it is also based on the change of the way of thinking as experienced by the

protagonist.

As an illustration in Anderson’s Thirsty, having a hard time of being vampire, Chris finally gains his mature

thought and consciousness by realising what kind of change is happening to him. That is a change which cannot

be cured by other, except by himself as written in dialogues between Chris and Chet:

“No, you’ve got to tell me. What about me now?” I try to sound strong. I’m histerycal. He can hear I’m afraid. He can hear I’m almost whimpering.

“What? Now?” “My vampirism”. “I’m so sorry”. “You lied about that. You lied about being able to help me”. He laugheds kindly. “Of course I lied, Christoper”, he says. “What did I just say I am? I’m a freelance agent of the

Forces of Darkness. I’m supposed to lie. I lie, cheat, kill, make people unhappy, and draw an enermous wage”. “I helped you! I did everything you asked!” “Christoper, Christoper, Christoper! It’s not within my power! I can’t change what you are. You are what you are. I

could remold the matter you’re madde of to make you human, like a wizard turning a shepherdeness into a frog, but you wouldn’t be yourself. Everything about you is vampiric. Your jaws are vampire jaws. Your teeth are retractable vampire teeth. Your heart is a vampire heart with little wicked tendrils strapped around your ribs, strangling your other organs. Your mind—cold, distant, hungry—everything—you’re a vampire, Christoper”. (Anderson, 2008, p. 220)

However, Chris tries to think more clearly. As a young American, Chris does not belive that he is going to be

a vampire as he focalises:

I want to be alive in twenty years to have a wife whose family I know well, … This is what I due to me, because I am an American; and I can’t believe the thing I can feel squirming in my chest, that it is eating its way outward and that I am going to be a killer.

I know that it is there, my vampiric heart, squelching in the cavern of my ribs, spitting and sucking blood. (Anderson, 2008, p. 233)

In addition, Chris hardly tries to gain his adolescent maturation by making decision to love himself as well


as his family and to think about identity he wants to own for his future as he focalises:

I’m hiding behind my door. … I don’t want anyone to knock. I don’t want them to knock. When they do, I’ll be tracing their blue veins in my mind from their fist up their arms, up to their necks, their soft, pulpy necks.

And suddenly, I love them because they are so fragile, because I am no longer one of them. And because I love them, I should run into the night and do savage things I need to do.

No, I cannot do those things. But I have to. “I don’t know—no, I do know. I can’t do those things. And realise that decision to be human is not one single instant,

but is a thousand choices made every day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human”. …

Hiding behind the doorway. Not that I would jump at someone who came in. Not that I would jump. I would never jump on a member of my family and drink their sweet, tart blood. I would never. (Anderson, 2008, pp. 235-236)

The author believes that the major preparation for adulthood is the formation of identity. In fact, the young

protagonist like Christ just starts to behave like adults. However, the maturation of physical sexuality and thought

experienced by Chris does not yet guarantee that he is as mature as an adult. To ilustrate, Chris finally plans to

share his personal conflicts with his mother rather than overcoming it by himself:

As darkness grows thick around me and wraps itself on the furniture like black sheets hung in a house that will not be lived in again, I know that tehre is no hope and there is nothing for me to do. ….

Just tell my mother? Yes, yes, I think, because she will protect me in spite of everything. Mothers love their children, and she will protect me. It is only natural for mothers to love their children, it is natural thing that always happens in the wild. Even with animals. (Anderson, 2008, p. 234)

This conveys that Chris still need parents to consult or share. As an adolescence who has a time of transition,

Chris on one foot is still in childhood and another foot is tentatively testing the area of adulthood.

As the author has discussed above, a paranormal young adult text in the case of Anderson’s Thirsty clearly

portrays the adolescence transition. It speaks to adolescent readers from the young male protagonists’ point of

view. Likewise, the YA novel is focalised through consciousness of the young protagonist searching for his

identity and exploring his relationship with adults and social forces.

Conclusions

Overall, the YA novel uses fantasy within realistic world to address various stages of adolescence

maturation. The process of maturation in Anderson’s Thirsty is parallel to the young male protagonist’s

transformation into a vampire. To emphasise, the text portrays the protagonist going through the stages of puberty

in which the vampiric traits suddenly take place. Consequently, Anderson’s Thirsty reveals archetypal

adolescents engaged developmental crisis as well as maturation. In conclusion, Anderson’s Thirsty is a YA

paranormal novel which positions the implied readers to understand the trials of adolescence protagonist during

his difficult time of transition from childhood to adulthood.

References

Anderson, J. (1980). Identity in adolescence. Handbook of adolescence psychology (pp. 159-187). New York: Willey and Sons Publisher.


Anderson, M. T. (2008). Thirsty (10th ed.). Massachusetts: Candlewick Press. Bane, T. (2010). Encyclopaedia of vampire mythology. New York: Macfarland and Company, Inc.. Beresford, M. (2008). From demons to Dracula: The creation of the modern vampire myth. London: Reaction Books Publishing

Ltd.. Blos, P. (1968). Character formation in adolescence. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 23, 245-263. Bradford, C., Strain, L., & Parson, L. (2011). Subject positioning and fiction for young adults. Text for young adults: Study guide

and readings (pp. 1-2). Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Curran, R. (2010). Vampire handbook: An essential guide to vampire. London: A & C Black Publishing Ltd.. Day, P. (2006). Vampire in modern mind. At the interface/probing the boundaries, volume 28: vampires: myths and metaphors of

enduring evil (pp. 107-123). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Durham, M. G. (1998). Dilemas of desire: Representations of adolescent sexuality in teenage magazines. Youth and Society, 29(3),

369-390. Enright, L. L. (2011). Young adult literature. Vampires’ most wanted: The top 10 book of bloodthirsty biters, stake-wielding slayers,

and other undead oddities (pp. i-xv). Washington: Potomac Books Inc.. Freud, S. (2010). Dream psychology: Psychoanalysis for beginners. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Heldreth, L. G., & Pharr, M. (1999). Introduction. The blood is the life: Vampires in literature (pp. 1-6). Ohio: Bowling Green State

University Press. Macdonald, F. (2012). Vampires: A very peculiar history. Brighton: The Salariya Book Company Ltd.. O’Quinn, E. J. (2004). Vampires, changelings, and radical mutant teens. The ALAN Review, 31(3). Retrieved from

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v31n3/oquinn.html Rice, F. P. (1999). The adolescent: Development, relationships, and culture (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Schlozman, S. C. (2000). Vampires and those who slay them. Academic Psychiatry, 24(1), 49-54.


On the Three Forms of Fruitless Love in Sons and Lovers∗

WANG Xiao-yan

Changchun University, Changchun, China

David Herbert Lawrence is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. He is not only a

turn-of-the-century social reformer, but also an artist deeply concerned with human relationships. His famouse

work—Sons and Lovers (1994), describes the process of young Paul’s growth with young Lawrence’s personal

life as the model. The present paper, first of all, gives a brief introduction of the novel. Then the three forms of

unreal love in the story are what the present paper mainly explored. Firstly, the love between Paul and his mother

is a distorted love between a mother and a son. Secondly, the love between Paul and Miriam is an immature love

of young people. Thirdly, the love between Paul and Clara is physical and short-lived. The three forms of love are

unreal and doomed to be fruitless.

Keywords: Sons and Lovers, love, Paul Morel, Gertrude Morel, Miriam Leivers, Clara Dawes

Introduction

David Herbert Lawrence is one of the pioneers in modernist fiction which emphasize the description of the

characters’ psychological activities, and so has sometimes been called modern psychological fiction (LIU, 2001,

p. 488). Ronald Draper, the most recent surveyor of the Lawrence canon, said, “the finest achievement of Sons

and Lovers is its quickening truthfulness to actual life” (Gilbert, 1997, p. 83).

Sons and Lovers (1994) is one of the classic novels in the 20th century of world literature. It is a kind of

autobiographical and modeled on the life of young Lawrence. It is set in a coal-minging district. The hero, Paul

Morel, who resembles Lawrence in family situation, was born in a coal miner’s family. His father, Walter Morel,

is a miner, easy-gong pleasant-seeking and irresponsible. His mother, Mrs Gertrude Morel, is a refined,

puritanical and strong-willed woman from the middle class, who has no satisfaction in the roughness and

illiteracy of her uneducated husband. Mentally isolated, she pins her hopes on her children. After the premature

death of her elder son, she invests in Paul, her younger son, all her hopes and passions. But her all-possessive

affection for her son becomes a hinderance to his independent development as a man. She opposes his love for

Miriam, a farmer’s daughter. Meantime, Paul, feeling Miriam’s love egocentric and intolerable, turns from her to

Clara, a woman estranged from her husband and potentailly sensual. But fiding her passion stifling, he also left

her. In the end, Mrs. Morel dies of cnacer. Paul, costing off three forms of unreal love, stands free and intends to

seek for a more valid mode of life.

∗ Acknowledgements: This paper is a part of the results of the research programs the author participated “The Study of the Female Characters’ Social Position in the Early Stage of 20th Century Foreign Literature” [2013] No. B137 and “The Cognitive Orientation Study of Chinese Foreign Language Teaching in China from Global Perspective” [2013] No. 251.

WANG Xiao-yan, associate professor, School of Foreign Languages, Changchun University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

ON THE THREE FORMS OF FRUITLESS LOVE IN SONS AND LOVERS 198

The three forms of fruitless love are what this paper want to explore.

Love Between Paul and Mrs. Morel

The central character of the novel Paul is a keen, wiry, expressive, and aloof young man. From childhood

on Paul is especially sensitive, artistic, and imaginative, yet he becomes extraordinarily dependent on his

mother, who is a refined, highly intelligent, ambitious, and thrifty woman with an unusually strong and vivid

personality. She devotes herself passionately to her sons, yet her special love also spoils her son.

We can understand the love between Mrs. Morel and Paul in this way: Paul’s love to his mother is still a

woman’s natural love for a son. It is only that when Mrs. Morel, the proud willful woman who cannot satisfy her

own ambitious nature directly, is disappointed by her brutish, hard-drinking coal-miner husband through whom

she cannot indirectly reach her high goal, she turns her love to her sons who are more like herself and more like

what a man in a given society is expected to be. She makes her sons into miniature husband-figures from their

earliest childhood. Thus, when Paul gets older and begins to have important relationships with girls, his

attachment to her prevents him from loving them as fully as he feel he should.

Paul has grown up physically, but his mind is still immature. He is unable to love Miriam as she is prepared

to love him, “… this is because of his unresolved fixation upon his mother” (Lawrence, 1994, p. 98). And the

dependence on his mother makes it easy for Paul to give up and seek for comfort from his mother when he meets

some troubles. And when Mrs. Morel shoes her rejection to Miriam, he feels tortured and dares not admit his love.

As we know, Lawrence was roughly acquainted with Freud’s theories, so it is not surprising that his

characterization of Paul, in Sons and Lovers, should have been one of the first Freudian “case studies” (Gilbert,

1997, p. 73). The relationship between Paul and his mother grows frankly Oedipal as Mrs. Morel’s hostility to

Mirianm becomes more and more irrepressible. It seems as though Paul is pouring all of the passion and

devoteion which he might have had for Miriam into his care for his mothe. And his mother, for her part,

honestly admits that Paul must take the place of the husband she feels she never “really” had.

Besides being a son, and a lover, Paul is also very importantly artist. Thus we see Paul being simulated

and encouraged both by his mother and Miriam. His mother “urges” him toward success for her sake—so that

she can live through him, while Miriam eagerly, flattering, encourages his talent for his own sake because she

is self-sacrificingly in love with his genius and quickness. Yet whatever the respective motivations of the two

women, it is clear from Paul’s character and from his relationships with them that without their help he might

not achieve the artistic success that we feel he destined to achieve.

Mrs. Morel partially created yet partially destroyed Paul’s talents and hopes. Even when Mrs. Morel seems

to love Paul most, we sense that she is somehow corrupting him with her unusual love.

Love Between Paul and Miriam

Miriam is a beautiful girl with black curls “fine and free” and the attraction of “a shy, wild, quiveringly

sensitive thing” (Gilbert, 1997, p. 75), who loves poetry and resents being kept at home to do housework,

While Paul is a young literature and art lover. Their similarities lay the foundation of their love. Paul is flattered

and fascinated by her mind, and by her interest in his mind, for as Mrs. Morel’s observes, Miriam seems to

want to “absorb” all of him in her almost fanatic enthusiasm from his genius. Mirian’s intensity reveals itself


not only in this, however, but also in her physical fear and awkwardness, a sense of strain and stiffness in the

way she stands and walks. Later, when she and Paul grow up more and are confronted with issue of sex,

Miriam’s religious and “spiritual” proclivities prevent her from being able to relax sexually. She is always

frigid, rigidly against Paul. It is finally this stiffness, this “woodenness”, this inability to relax and give

herself to ordinary life, physical, and social, that turns Paul against Miriam, for though he is plainly under his

mother’s influence in breaking off the relationship, it is rather clear, too, that Paul could never find any kind

of ultimate happiness in a marriage to someone as purely spiritual as Miriam. Though Miriam has become

increasingly important in Paul’s life, Mrs. Morel is still her son’s chief confidante, counselor, and his first

and greatest love.

Finally, he even writes a rather cruel letter to Miriam:

You see, I can give you a spirit love, I have given it you this long, long time; but not embodied passion. See, you are a nun. I have given you what I would give a holy nun—as mystic monk to a mystic nun. Surely you esteem it best. (Lawrence, 1994, p. 156)

Paul has come back to his mother. Hers is the strongest tie in his life. It is the one place in the world that

stands solid and does not “melt onto unreality”.

Love Between Paul and Clara

Compared with the former two love affairs, Paul and Clara’s love seems to be the craziest, yet the most

short-lived. Clara Dawes is characterized as a maturely sexual, ripely responsive woman, an opposite of Miriam.

She comes to replace Miriam and satisfy Paul for what Miriam, the reserved girl, could not offer. Things are

imbued with sex when Paul is with Clara. Sex is the foundation of their love; which evokes their passion. It is

with Clara that Paul feels the greatness of the cosmos and finds his self as a man of nature, who exists in the most

primitive way and satisfies his desire.

Besides the sexuality, what lights their passion is Clara’s courage. Clara is depicted as a new 20th-century

woman who advocates women’s rights. Determined to be independent, she leaves her husband, earns her own

living, and has an extramarital affair with Paul, which requires courage in her time. Clara can be viewed as a

representative of the many post-Victorian women who rebelled against the traditional image of woman as the

“weaker sex”.

After Paul and Clara have experienced the carnal sexuality, they begin to ask for more about the spiritual

communication. However, neither of them is satisfied. Paul attaches great importance to cultural life. He loves

literature and art, which ties Miriam and him closely in the spiritual world. But Clara cannot replace Miriam in

the spiritual world. She is not a romantic girl like Miriam: she will not be so fond of talking about literature; she

will not stimulate Paul’s work as an artist. They do not have any bond in the spiritual communication. Paul ever

tells his mother, “Sometimes, when I see her just as the woman, I love her, mother; but then, when she talks and

criticizes, I often don’t listen to her” (Lawrence, 1994, p. 350).

Sexual life without spiritual support cannot last for long. They soon feel their passion exhausted. Finally

Clara goes back to her husband.


Conclusions

The novel tells the fruitless love between three pairs of lovers: Paul and Mrs. Morel, Paul and Miriam, and

Paul and Clara, with the foundation of their loves laid on some necessary factors but not on all factors. The failure

of their loves is caused by lack of some factors.

Paul’s relationship with his mother is a perversion of a woman’s natural love for her child, but as Paul is

growing older, especially when he fell in love with Miriam, the mother’s grows frankly Oedipal. Although we

are warm to the mother’s intelligence, her wit, her brave struggle against poverty, and her passionately devoted

to her sons, we often feel that there is something sinister about Paul’s mother. We sense that she is somehow

corrupting him with her love.

Paul and Miriam are spiritual lovers. They have several bonds of love such as love of literature and art. But

because of Miriam’s defects, they cannot feel the joy of sexual love since they sense no passion, and Paul feels he

was bound. Thus they have to part with each other. Paul’s relationship with Miriam collapsed because it was

spiritual and immature.

Paul and Clara only have the carnal sexuality. But they cannot communicate with each other. Paul keeps his

fixation on Miriam in the spiritual word and Clara feels he did not belong to her. Their sexual love becomes tiring

and boring for lack of spiritual communication. Paul’s relationship with Clara collapsed because it has become

all physical. Though his body adores Clara, Paul’s mind is not very fully attuned to hers. His intense attachment

to his mother keeps him from properly loving any other woman.

Sons and Lovers concludes with Paul’s walking “quickly”—a significant pun—towards the town before

him, the town which is “faintly humming” and “glowing” with its own mysterious and various life. He is

mature at last; he has passed through the final crisis in his growth. He has faced death and separation from his

mother and having overcome these he is ready at last to try his single strength against the world.

References

Buenaflor, J. L. (1998). Ursula Brangwen: The lady of the dance. Kutatown: University of Pennsylvania. Gilbert, S. (1997). D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and other works. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. GUI, Y. Q. (1985). Selected reading in English and American literature. Beijing: Translation Company Press. Gutierrez, D. (1980). D. H. Lawrence and modern destructiveness. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 10(4), 219. Lawrence, D. H. (1994). Sons and lovers. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. LIU, B. S. (2001). A short history of English literature. Zhengshou: Henan People’s Publishing House. Schneider, J. D. (1986). The consciousness of D. H. Lawrence: An intellectual biography. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. WANG, L. Y. (1996). Image of D. H. Lawrence’s novel. Foreign Literature Review, 4, 62-68. YANG, L. M. ( 1988). Teachers’ book of college English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. YANG, L., & WANG, C. C. (2011). Oedipus complex in literature works. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2(6),

1420-1424.


Through the Works of Gabrielle Roy and Régine Robin:

Innovations in Women’s Writings

Marie-Dominique Boyce

Fairfield University, Fairfield;

Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, USA

The purpose of this paper is to show that autobiographical works like Gabrielle Roy’s Enchantment and Sorrow

(1988) and Régine Robin’s La Québécoite (1983), do not succeed in anchoring the self and eliminating past

traumatic experiences. These writers realize that they cannot reincarnate their former “I” as time has passed and

their lives have changed. The self does not let itself be reduced to a definite being but on the contrary mirrors

itsef in all its surroundings. Writing the fragmentation of the self makes these authobiographies appear on one

hand, fictional as the “I” always eludes itself. But on the other hand, they best describe the postmodern “I” who is

conscious of the permeability of one’s own self as well inwards by the influences, the collages of others on the

Self as outwards by the projection of the self onto others, like rhizome connecting to others and forming a web of

exchanges like in cyberspace.

Keywords: non-coincidence of the self, dissolution of the self, mirroring of the self, fictitious self, crumbling

down of the self, connection of the self with others like in-between rhizomes, cyber migrances, postmodernism

Introduction

This paper will reveal that the autobiographical works by Gabrielle Roy’s Enchantment and Sorrow (1988)

and Régine Robin’s La Québécoite (1983) cannot take the authors back to the trauma of their younger years.

Time has passed and choices have been made, therefore, the author-narrators of these autobiographies recognize

that they cannot reincarnate their younger innocent selves. Their scrutiny of the self, instead of bringing solace

and clarity, on the contrary brings revolt and dismemberment. The author-narrators are then left to tell

indefinitely the explosion of their Selves, and their writings instead of showing more reality become more and

more melodramatic and fake.

Non-coincidence of the Self

Through the works of Régine Robin and Gabrielle Roy, we see authors who want to arrive at term with their

pasts. For the former, Régine Robin, it is the past of the holocaust that her family endured during the Second

World War in Paris. For the latter, Gabrielle Roy, it is the history of her French-Canadian family which settled in

Marie-Dominique Boyce, Ph.D., Modern Languages and Literatures Department, Fairfield University; World Langues and

Literatures Department, Southern Connecticut State University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

THROUGH THE WORKS OF GABRIELLE ROY AND REGINE ROBIN 202

Manitoba to create a French colony in British Canada. These women writers want, by reminiscing on the

traumatic experiences of their childhoods, to accept history and their pasts. But these authors are faced with the

impossibility of finding the “I” of their youths. As a space of time got inserted in between these two moments of

their lives: The time when these writers are writing and the time of their youths, these writers see that their two

“I” do not coincide and that their writings are an in-between wandering between the Past and the Present, between

fiction and reality. This constant back-and-forth wandering, instead of defining their authors more precisely,

makes them look on the contrary less real. These two authors do not look any longer like beings made of flesh

and blood, but like fictitious beings made of paper, ghosts wandering in between the world of the Past and of

the Present.

The autobiographical writing, as a way of going back into the Past, does not operate any synthesis between

the different moments of these authors’ lives, but instead creates a schism between the “I” of the character of their

youths and the “I” of the narrator-author who, 50 years later is writing about their childhoods. In her

autobiography Enchantment and Sorrow, Gabrielle Roy evokes the “I” of a 20-year-old young girl, on the

platform of the train station, decided to abandon her family to the poverty of Manitoba in order to go to France

and find her identity and her place in the world. While the “I” of Gabrielle Roy as a young girl is feeling guilty to

leave behind her mother, she foresees that her desertion will be excused as she fancies that she will come back

from France as a rich woman and will save her mother of financial problems. She says the as the train is pulling

her apart from her family:

At the sound, now regular of the train speeding across the free spaces, the big consoling dream of my youth… was picturing to me that I would have the time to do everything. In first, to save myself. To who is one useful, one self drowned? Then, to come back and save the others. (Roy, 1988, p. 243)

By contrast, the “I” of the adult writer who remembers this last glance directed at her mother who came on

the platform of the train to bid her farewell, tells her to remember that she knew that she would not come back to

Manitoba to save her, and that the reasons that were chasing her away from Manitoba were not only personal

ambitious reasons but family reasons—Her mother piling up bigger and bigger debts that were spiraling the

family into a bitter and bitter misery all the time:

She (the mother) was following me with her eyes off. I could see too well that she saw that I would not come back. That fate was snatching me for a quite different life. The heart failed me. For, I knew that I was not leaving to avenge her as I had so often loved to believe it, but, my God, wasn’t it rather to lose her from sight? She and our misfortunes packed around her, under her care! (Roy, 1988, p. 242)

Another comparison of the voice of the “I” of Gabrielle Roy in the last part of her autobiography The Time

That I Have Missed (1997), (published after her death) on the theme of her failure to be back at the mother’s

bedside when she was dying, shows again a discrepancy with the “I” of the adult author writing her story. While

the opening of The Time That I Have Missed expresses the pain that Gabrielle Roy tells us having received when

she heard of the sudden death of her mother and of the guilt that she felt for not being able to come to her mother’s

bedside. Roy (1988) says:

And here in this month of June, just out of Montreal, the train speeding in the gloomy night, at each turn of the wheels, was hammering: your mother is dead… I was still unable to believe it, despite everything, in the bottom of my


heart. Why Mother would have died before I had had time to bring her back the reason to be proud of me, that I had fetched to the other end of the world, with so much effort? So little time! … So little time! … begun to repeat as to mock at me, the rails. (p. 14)

The following passage indicates to the readers that Gabrielle Roy had been warned by her sisters of her

mother’s failing health. Her sister Anna had warned her of her mother’s heart attack and her other sister Esther

had even advised her to come back to her mother’s bedside telling her that “it was suitable for people who loved

one another to say their farewells on this earth” (Roy, 1988, p. 15). So, why Gabrielle Roy would not leave to take

the train and see her mother before her death and why did she throw herself whole heartily in her writing as she

says it: “When I learnt that Mother was seriously sick? All that I remember is that redoubled my efforts and

worked like a maniac” (Roy, 1988, p. 22). This reaction is contradictory to the first feeling of distress that

Gabrielle Roy tells us having experienced and reveals the division of the subject in two parts, the part of the

young subject, dependent on her family and who is torn by her filial duty towards her mother and who desires to

see her before her death and on the other side, the other hidden part of the subject who refuses this relationship

and who wants to engender herself through writing. The return to her mother in Manitoba would have led to an

abdication of the deep “I” of Gabrielle Roy for the interest of her family. After returning to Manitoba, Gabrielle

Roy would have undoubtedly taken back a teaching position with the sole objective to save her family. She would

have gone along with the principles of her paternal and maternal ancestors, Quebeckers and Acadians, who

sacrificed their lives to maintain the French language in Canada, in a word, she would have accepted not to exist.

The hatred of poverty and especially of the poverty of the French colonies that had settled in Manitoba, and that

the law of 1890 had deprived of most of their rights, and sentenced to die in a newly becoming British Canada,

decided her to stay in Montreal.

Evolution of the Self

In Montreal, Gabrielle Roy decides to become her own family. She refuses to be swallowed by all the “I”

voices of her ancestors, of her sisters, and of her mother dictating the conduct that she should have. She breaks all

her ties with her family, refuses to understand all the foreboding signs of her mother’s death and postpone her

decision to come back to Manitoba and share the responsibilities towards her family. She buries herself in these

rented bedrooms at the Mac Leans’ and at the Mac Kenzies’ to write works where she is at the roots of things. She

becomes a goddess-writer who, by the power of speech, can transform reality. In these bedrooms, she looks back

at her life with her mother, as we push the button “rewind” in the world of the cinema when we want to go back to

a special moment of the past that we want to dub with our own voice. She does a “remake” of her mother’s life.

Here is an example. When she is in Montreal, she returns to see her childhood’s house on the hills of Rawdon and

although this house has been erased of the earth by the extreme weather, she describes to her mother the

apparition that she had on these very hills of this house. Roy (1988) says: “I do not think having seen it as clearly

as that very day, overflowing with life as it must have been, when under my eyes appeared nothing else but

powder snow between stiff spruce trees” (p. 23).

In these times, Gabrielle Roy writes also reports in the magazine Canada, and it is known to the whole world

as a writer. She is born again under her own name and not any more under the name of her father and of her

mother. She becomes a new woman who conjures the malediction brought by her ancestors from Acadia and


Quebec, without any money or land. As a writer, she is born again to riches. She gets a contract with the magazine

Canada for a series on Gaspésie and thanks to this money, she can help her mother with a pension and take her

responsibilities towards Clémence, her handicapped sister. As a writer, she realizes that she can push back the

limits of reality and of poverty which had been the harshest realities of her childhood.

Explosion of the Self

But at the very moment, Gabrielle Roy drops her two letters into the mailbox, saying her affirmation of

becoming a writer and of helping her family, her mother dies. Gabrielle Roy wants to give shape and weight to

her new self as a writer with her financial help towards her family, but the excessive self-assertion and

self-petulance of her new self destroys the unity of her old self and of history and pulverizes the “I” of the writer

and of history in a thousand pieces. The writer is then left to tell a thousand times the time that [she] missed to

prove her quality as a writer to her mother. As she cannot say it to her mother, she says it to all the strangers that

she meets, like the two ladies that she meets in the train that was taking her to her mother’s funeral, and to all the

readers of her book The Time That I Missed. Her autobiography is as a plea that, cut off from reality, her mother,

to whom it was directed, is widening and becomes fictitious. It is no longer a unified being and a logical

organization of the facts that the writer describes in her autobiography, but on the contrary a “crumbling” of her

Self, as from a human being that had exploded into a thousand of pieces after a disaster and who writes a fantasy

story of her life exploring another life than her own. Gabrielle Roy, who does not have for target her mother,

becomes a fictitious being that doubles up indefinitely in all the characters of her creation which, in turn, mirror

her own image back to her. The writer says: “Where does it come that they (these strangers) have better

understood me than my relatives?” (Roy, 1997, p. 37). As a writer, a fictitious being, Gabrielle Roy organizes the

explanations of her not coming back to her mother’s bedside in her own manner. She notices the treachery, the

fabrication of her story:

… I was saying how much since ever, I had hastened to come and save my mother… with this voice that did not sound quite like mine, I was telling about a life that did not seem either quite like mine. (Roy, 1997, p. 35)

Or again, she notices that she exaggerates and becomes melodramatic in order to seduce her audience to her

good intentions:

Never would we be poor any more… I came that close, I confessed to my friends of the moment, in my mad presumption, to swear to my mother a never ending happiness and peace, these goods that are not ours to ensure the sharing. (Roy, 1997, p. 36)

In return, these strangers accept her fictitious design of the facts that prevented her from going to her

mother’s bedside and they exclaim all along Gabrielle Roy’s story “Oh No! It is not possible… and what

happened then… ” (Roy, 1997, p. 35), and encourage her to continue her story. Obviously, these characters met

on the train, disappear as if they had been mere ghosts of Gabrielle Roy’s imagination, and Gabrielle Roy is

astonished not to have been able to find them and thank them of their moral help when she arrives at her

destination in Manitoba. Gabrielle Roy is trying to trick us and to make us believe in the veracity of her story but

at the same time she alludes that her story is only a simulation, an enactment, and a lie.


Fictitious Self/Fictitious Story

The continuous self-creation of the “I” of Gabrielle Roy and the fictitious reasons that she gives us for not

coming to her mother’s bedside, weaken the “I” of Gabrielle Roy. She becomes a ghost whose words are erased

by her sisters’ words. Her sisters present a portrait of their mother that contradicts Gabrielle Roy’s portrait and

Gabrielle Roy steps back and let them talk:

We constantly talked about Mother and it emerged from her, according to the personality or experience of each of my sisters, a portrait so different that I am still lost today in defining it clearly… for Adèle, Mother had been a dutiful mother, generous and capable of such an abnegation, but alas! a story teller by nature who could not hold on to the facts but adorned them or transformed them entirely, incapable to present the truth in an honest and clear way… Anna excused our mother, saying that she was hiding things from my father, it was true, the little debts that she was amassing behind his back, but she was excusing her with compassion saying: “How could she have done anything else, so short of money all the time, always at bay!” I listened to them stunned. As I could not see my mother in the woman that they had known, could they recognize her, without any doubt, in the imaginative being I cherished, often carried away it is true, by her talent at telling stories beyond the facts, but to make a better account of the facts and to imbue them with all the heat of life. (Roy, 1997, pp. 64-65)

It is as if the characters of her story (the mother, the sisters) were escaping from the author and were

beginning to live a life of their own while the writer herself was stepping back from her characters and was

showing the whole spectrum of the interpretations of her mother from her sisters’ view points. She keeps silent

and takes the place of the dead, and by doing so opens up the story to a dialogic interpretation rather than a unified

interpretation of the world by the author. By going to and fro between the Real and the Symbolic, Gabrielle Roy

succeeds in doing what she wanted to do with her story, to push away the limits of the Real, Death, the

disappearance of beings and things. She succeeds in having these people and things escape from their sad

condition on earth, from silence and let their voices be heard and reach eternity through her story.

Régine Robin’s Ruins of Her Self

Régine Robin also wants to arrive at terms with the traumatic experiences of her past, the experiences of the

Second World War (the ghetto, the raid of the Vel d’Hiv) that her family and herself have suffered. These events

have pulverized her Self and when she arrives in Quebec, at the age of twenty, she has lost her family in the

Holocaust and she is only a ghost-like figure who wanders in the streets of Montreal. In her novel La Québécoite

(The Wanderer) (1983), Régine Robin is determined to write a story of her life in which she tries to lay down

piece s of her young “I” when she arrived in Quebec. The writer wants to show the gap that separates her young

traumatized “I” at her arrival in Quebec from the “I” of the writer of this memoir that she was writing 30 years

later. She establishes a dialog with this young girl writer and shows her estrangement from her young character

by naming her with the pronoun “You/[tu]”. She shows that this young girl does not have a body of her own.

When she arrives in Quebec, she feels a proliferation of existence. And she wants “To fix this porousness of the

probable, this micro-memory of strangeness. To spread out all the signs of difference” (Robin, 1983, p. 5), but as

she has no body, she cannot intellectually understand what she is seeing in Quebec and the “I” of the adult writer

notices that all that she was collecting as memories at that time were only an incoherent magma: “bubbles of

memories, pieces of vague reminiscences coming all together without texture, a bit grey” (Robin, 1983, p. 5).

Split up, this young subject cannot write a chronological story of her life. She only writes from the ruins of her


“I”, from a fragmented memory which has: “No order. No chronology, no logic, no lodging” (Robin, 1983, p. 5).

Nevertheless, the mature writer encourages her young subject to write to reunify the pieces of her self and give

consistency to her subject character by advocating the easiness of such project:

This desire for writing. Yet, it is so simple to start at the beginning, to follow a plot, to resolve it, … To try to fix a few signs, hold onto them, wrest them from the void… You had to fix all the signs of difference: the difference of the smells, of the color of the sky, the difference of the landscapes. You had to make an inventory, a catalogue, a nomenclature. To record everything in order to give more body to this existence…. (Robin, 1983, p. 8)

But the young writer notes that it is not easy to write when we are carved out of oneself. She suffocates of her

lack of existence, of having nothing inside her body, of having nothing to say:

Would it be possible to find a position in language, a purchase, a fixed point of reference, a stable point, something that would anchor the words, when there was only a tremulous trace of text, a mute voice, twisted words? To take the right to speak. What words? To keep quiet? Humiliation again? To wear the star again? Broken text. To root out fear, shame, solitude. To speak for—for nothing perhaps. To speak because. The noise—nothing but noise, babble, rubble. (Robin, 1983, p. 8)

The Self of the Character of the Autobiography Has a Life of Its Own

Instead of doing a synthesis between her two selves, the story of the writer reveals a subject character that

becomes more and more independent from her. Her subject character refuses that she sees through her and takes

over the story. She wanders in the streets of Montreal and her “I” is like a mirror that reflects the people that goes

by: “She’d like it. This laissez-faire. This no-man’s land would be hers. She would feel at home in the midst of

this obese crowd, in their loud, poorly—made clothes” (Robin, 1983, p. 49). This subject character refuses to

assimilate herself in the districts where the writer wants to have her live, Snowdon, Outremont, and the district of

the Market Talon because all these districts remind her of ghettos, and she is afraid of the rise of the independent

consciousness of Quebeckers which reminds her also of the rise of Nazism in Central Europe and of its

devastating consequences. She prefers to stay in this in-between space, and for Régine Robin, even a space

in-between three countries (France, Quebec, and Israel). She says: “From now on, the time of elsewhere,

between-three-languages, between-two-alphabets, between-two-oceans, between-two-worlds,

between-two-logics, between-two-longings” (Robin, 1983, p. 52). But to stay in-between three countries means

to stay in the space of the loss of a territory, the hybridization of places, so again a multiplication of places, a

dismissal of any proper territory.

These writers realize that the act of writing, far from reorganizing their pasts, from taking their pasts back to

a time immemorial, back to oblivion, is on the contrary sets of their pasts forward. Instead of finding a unity and

fusion of the self by this analytic writing, Régine Robin and Gabrielle Roy notice that they are mirroring and

duplicating themselves indefinitely. They refuse linearity and unity and are pleased with their paradigmatic and

nomadic identities. They are not beings made of flesh and blood but like Deleuze and Guattari have defined in

their work Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Shizophrenia: Thousand Plateaus (1988), a rhizome which always

makes off to connect with other rhizome to form memory and visual exchange networks with other

rhizome-beings. Régine Robin says herself in Cybermigrances: Traversées Fugitives (2004) that she has two

identities on her Internet home page—the identity of a professor and the one of Rivka A. and that she converses of

academic subjects with the ones and of Jewish androids with the others.


These authors show that at the time of the cyberspace and of the crumbling down of the borders by the web,

identity cannot be subjected to national frontiers. We are no longer a definite being, unified but a cyber self, a

being that has a social and biological reality but also a being that goes across places and time like a person that

goes through walls, a being that is searching for its identity, who is exhibiting itself like a historical statue, who

has a valor and identity according to its past, but also a being that can also cheat with its identity, do tricks with its

identity, its life, like changing its name and launching on the web a flattened screen picture of itself, a stereotype

of itself because for these authors, what is important is not the representation of their selves but the look of the

others, of the readers, of the web addicts on them. In that way, these authors are postmodern because they refuse

to show their selves, but on the contrary, they put themselves at the place of the dead and let other people talk

about them and the stories of their lives.

Conclusions

Gabrielle Roy and Régine Robin have demonstrated that writing autobiographies could not settle their

traumatic past and unify their Self but on the contrary was unleashing forces that pulverized their Self, the ruins of

which, they mirrorred indefinitely in their writings. Far from refusing this crumbling down of the limits of their

Self , they delight in their new postmodern cyber identities that enable them to go through any borders and link in

with other selves and exchange visual and memory information.

References

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2009). Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and shizophrenia. New York: Penguin Group USA. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. New York: Columbia University Press. Massumi, B. (1992). A User’s guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Cambridge: MIT Press. Robin, R. (1983). La Québécoite (The wanderer). Montreal: Editions Quebec-Amériques. Robin, R. (2004). Cybermigrances: Traversées fugitives. Montréal: VLB Distributors. Roy, G. (1988). La détresse et l’enchantement (Enchantment and sorrow). Montreal: Editions Boréal. Roy, G. (1997). Le temps qui m’a manqué (The time that I missed). Montreal: Editions Boréal.


“Mass Production” in the Mass Consumption Societies:

The Case of Male Bodybuilding

Guillaume Vallet

University of Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France;

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland;

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris, Paris, France

Nowadays, the body seems to be the perfect object of consumption. People use it to define themselves but also as a

vehicle that can send signs to others in the hope that their body will be a factor of social integration and social

recognition. Hence we can observe the development of practices of body transformations which go along with the

philosophy of the society in which everything seems possible for everybody, with no limit whatsoever. Indeed, if

you want your body to be seen, you have to “produce” it before. The practice of bodybuilding sustains efforts in that

direction: historically born and developed along with the consumption society, it came to embody its values. The

analysis is based on qualitative methodology that is observations in three bodybuilding Gyms and 30 interviews

with bodybuilders in France. The results show that bodybuilding reflects the consumption society’s norms, that is a

practice in which the body is in tension between imitation and distinction, hence showing the will to be “like others

but in better” thanks to the production of a nice and “massive” body. Such a dimension could sometimes be

dialectical, when the body becomes a source of alienation.

Keywords: bodybuilding, capitalism, consumption societies

Introduction

During the 20th century, Western societies have turned from “production societies” to “consumption

societies”. From an economic perspective, as Rostow (1991) argues, the means that once the take-off process has

been achieved, the economic system has to develop standardisation with the aim of producing for the whole

population. This indicates that the main social challenges and conflicts are not only in the production area, but

also and maybe more in the consumption area: The social recognition and the individual identity of a person are

strongly linked to their ability to demonstrate something to the others by consuming. If such attitudes used to

exist during other periods, as Tocqueville (2004) or Simmel (2011) highlighted for example, it seems that they

have taken more importance during the past 50 years. The latter have been indeed marked by the questioning of

ideologies (religious, political, …), the difficulties of the nation-state as a central institution, and the debates

about the place of job in our societies. Those evolutions tend to accelerate the rise of individualization and even

Guillaume Vallet, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Economics, University Grenoble-Alpes; Department of Sociology,

University of Geneva; Department of Sociolgy, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

“MASS PRODUCTION” IN THE MASS CONSUMPTION SOCIETIES 209

individualism (Bauman, 2000), entailing that the most part of social life is oriented towards individual

satisfaction provided that it is showed to others.

Hence, in such “consumption societies”, objects that one possesses are important to build a social status, to

be positively labellized by others. In this context, the body appears to represent the perfect object of consumption

(Baudrillard, 1998). People use it not only to define themselves but also as a vehicle that can send signs to others

in the hope that their bodies will be a factor of social integration and social recognition. That would explain why

people turn to their body, as a support of intimacy and differentiation. Hence we can observe the development of

practices of body transformations which go along with the contemporary philosophy in which everything seems

possible for everybody, with no limit whatsoever (Blake, 1996). The practice of bodybuilding sustains efforts in

that direction: historically born and developed along with the consumption society, it came to embody its values.

Particularly, a muscular body symbolizes for the persons who practice this sport a high-performance body that is

highly valued. And as they think this body is nicer and stronger than the others, they can exhibit it to attract

people’s glance (Vallet, 2013).

But such a body which is used in this market of signs has to be produced first: the signs circulation process

depends on the production one. In others words, in order to comprehend to what extent the body can here play a

central role in our “consumption societies”, it is necessary to investigate the way a person transforms it from a

resource to a capital too. Once again, bodybuilding seems to be very relevant in this case because it is based on a

“Mass Production” implying hard work, pain, and asceticism (Monaghan, 2001; Vallet, 2013). Knowing that

such a personal project is about gender (Klein, 1993; Berry, 2010; Denham, 2010), we make the choice to focus

on another often forgotten but relevant aspect of this sport. So we shall tackle the following issue: to what

extent is bodybuilding both the reflection and the vector of the main principles of our contemporary

consumption societies?

The first part emphasizes on the particularities of such societies as well as the status and the place of the

body in them. The second focuses on the appeal of bodybuilding for some people in such a context: as this sport

presents itself as the best way to transform the human body thanks to individual efforts, it could be very attractive.

The third deals with the ambivalent aspects of such a body mass production: based on observations in three Gyms

and 30 interviews with bodybuilders conducted in France, we will explain why the body is in tension between

imitation and distinction, implying both a liberation and an alienation process.

The Weight of the Body Today

The social conception of the body is very different according to the societies and the historical periods. In

western societies, if the body used to have a low value with Platon (the 4th and 5th centuries before J.C.) and with

the dominance of Catholicism, it has gained value with the modern conception that has appeared since the 18th

century. First, as Weber (2012) highlighted, the development of the Protestant ethic induced that the body was

considered as a major tool to create wealth in the hope of attracting God’s glance and evacuating the anxiety to be

damned. But the body became a new field of investment in the current life here below: It could and had to be

rationalized too. So such an evolution created a more attractive status for the body (Taranto, 2008).

But more generally, this period is convenient in major philosophical, technical, and medical progresses

which have participated in creating a new imaginary towards the body: the latter is a convertible object, located


in a perpetual “no limit path”. This explains why during the two following centuries such a vision has

influenced another conception that is the possibility of a “subject body”: through its care, a person could really

reach wisdom, happiness, self-knowledge, in a process where body and soul merge (Maisonneuve, 1976;

Shilling, 2012).

Nowadays, we would be in the “second modernity” of the body (Bonetti, De Gaulejac, Descendre, & Pagès,

1998). In such an era, the individual centration on the body is accentuated, because a person looks for excess,

overtaking and maximum risks (Baudry, 1991; Beck, 1992). In this way, the body is the perfect resource that

everybody possesses and could use to give sense to life (Turner, 2008), or even become a safety anchor (Moore,

1996). Thus the body has an important status for an individual: thanks to it, he could transform himself by

transforming it, allowing him to be more narcissistic (Lasch, 1991) as well as becoming more attractive in the

interactions. In such a social context where a person is the core of the system, reflexivity behaviors rise

(Giddens, 1991).

Indeed, bodily display seems to have taken a growing importance in the interactions, implying that one can

be labellized as normal or deviant (Becker, 1963; Goffman, 1963) regarding to the characteristics of their bodies

(Amadieu, 2005). The normal body gives access to positive recognition and thus is able to attract someone’s

glance. That is what we call the “gravitational body”. Conversely, the deviant body is perceived as a stigma that

someone wants to hide, because it has a reduced or no value in our societies (Queval, 2008). At the opposite, the

example of obesity perfectly indicates to what extent such a fat body embodies an individual laisser aller and

then a person who does not have the sense of responsibility. These two behaviors are badly judged (Queval,

2008). The growing medicalization of life sustains efforts in that direction too. The reference to health has

become a norm and even a virtue in a world which would have lost its marks. Health would be both a right and a

duty, and the body would be the reflection of it. The condition of it, is to register the body in a continual

improvement path, that means a “better, faster, stronger” and rationalized process. The previous developments

indicate that if the whole body is involved in this process, not all the bodies are welcome: only the successful

ones are valued, that is the muscled, lean and low fat bodies. Fat is perceived as a useless burden a person has

to eliminate.

Bodybuilding perfectly fits such a requirement: This sport is based on the body’s muscular development but

with minimal fat levels.

Bodybuilding as a Consumerist Socioeconomic System

In our consumption societies, bodybuilding has benefited from the context emphasizing on the fact that to

show off one’s body is visible health (Klein, 1993). But if we want the body to be seen, we have first to pay

attention to it, following the principle of free entrepreneurship. In the practice of bodybuilding, this goes along

with a hard and organized work aiming at the production of the required mass. Our observations, which have been

done in three French gyms from August 2009 to May 2010 (120 observations exactly), show how the work out

goes on: Most of the bodybuilders follow a very strict routine, with precise and defined exercises, series and

repetitions. Furthermore, some of them use chronometers to be regular in the performance. Time is clearly gain.

And you can evaluate your own performance in real time thanks to mirror as well as mirrors on the wall that will

boost you. For example, it is written in big letters on a poster: “maximum results, minimum time”.


Hence the body is both the tool and the result of such a work. Twenty-seven out of the 30 bodybuilders

interviewed even directly use the word “work” during the interview. While still a beginner, Vincent (18 years old,

who has been doing bodybuilding for four years), gives priority to work over leisure and discussions during

training: “Of course, I will never send somebody off when I’m training, it’s a question of savoir-vivre,

nevertheless… ” (personal communication, January 20, 2010). It is also crucial to rationalize all the aspects of

your life if you want to succeed and reach your goals: you have to pay attention to your nutrition, several products

that you consume as well as the people you see (Monaghan, 2001). As Darmon (2008) highlights with anorexia,

which relies on the same principles of work than bodybuilding according to us, such a work of and on the body

always implies a work “for” and a work “against”. For instance, Claude (28 years old, bodybuilder for 10 years)

often finds strategies to manage to apply this logic and logistic even if it implies sacrifices:

The worst thing for me is the family Sunday lunch… you see what I mean, when people don’t want to adapt to you, then you have to adapt to them. So, you know what I do on Sundays, I just grub a little before going to lunch, and once there, I grub a few mouthfuls, just to show that I’m eating something, and I even say to them: “I went out last night, I’m not very hungry”. (personal communication, May 15, 2010)

Nevertheless, such a hard work is temporary by nature: the bodybuilder has to always think about the way to

push away the borders of his body, as Claude cited just above underlines during the interview, when we talk

about limits: “I have no limits whatsoever. If I can be the world champion, then I just do it” (personal

communication, May 15, 2010).

Such a sport shares then with other social activities the main principle of our consumption societies: it relies

on the perpetual creation of new needs, necessitating transforming resources into accumulated capital. This

implies for the bodybuilder a permanent frustration which he has to deal with. This also induces for him the fact

that he wants to improve his body to reach the ideal body of the sport: maximum muscle mass, minimal fat and

water levels, and symmetry and equilibrium of the different muscles (Perine, 2010). This process is hence based

on strong ties between production and consumption eras: the “mass” production depends on performance during

training as well as in the whole life, in particular through nutrition (Luciano, 2001). A bodybuilder has to eat a lot

of proteins and calories to build muscles, showing that he is entirely a member of the consumer societies due to

his growing needs. But it is important to notice that gains value only through a social validation that is through

competitions and more often interactions. Conversely, the latter give a price to the body, which is an invitation to

go further into the involvement.

That is why we consider why such a body is the “nicest consumption society’s object” (Baudrillard, 1970).

Indeed, even if bodybuilding took some of its roots in some activities and aesthetical demonstration of the naked

body during the Antiquity (Prost, 2006; Young, 1984), it is above all strongly linked to the industrial era that

really took place in western societies at the end of the 19th century. At this time, bodybuilding borrowed some of

its principles of weight lifting to ancient traditional popular games that used to produce “big bodies” as well as

enhance and control the body as the German gymnastic did. The goal was to do the best to improve the human

body (Chartier & Vigarello, 1982; Defrance, 2003).

During this period, athletes like Eugen Sandow or Charles Atlas after him used to lift heavy weight, mainly

to show off their body and in demonstrations, slowly launching the idea that body appearance could be a strong

and unique criterion to evaluate such athletes (Schwarzenegger, 1998). So from the 1950s till today, competitions


have been set up where only hypermuscular, low-fat and symmetrical bodies have a chance to win. That is the

case for the main competitions as Mr. Olympia, the most famous competition of bodybuilding in the world,

anchored to the powerful International Federation of Bodybuilding. The latter, created by Joe and Ben Weider

during the 1940s, relies on consumption societies’ principles too. Firstly, it works thanks to the logic of

spectacular bodies that represent the way to follow for the bodybuilders: “In this way, when I see one of them, I

say to myself ‘this one looks quite good, I’d like to be like him’” (Mohamed, 34 years old, who has been doing

bodybuilding for 14 years) (personal communication, March 4, 2010).

This reinforces the principle of self-help and meritocracy, which can give access to money. The case of

Schwarzenegger is strongly relevant here: what has attracted Fabrice (28 years old, the 11th in bodybuilding) is to

“See Arnold on television… (laughters). When I was a child, he was my model, he was, … and there was also

Stallone and a few others, but I wanted to be like Arnold when I grew up” (personal communication, March 13,

2010). And that is the reason why he is constantly looking for:

Massive bulk today… yes, massive bulk. For me, what matters is massive bulk indeed (laughters). Now, I’d like to have a nicer bodily line, but I must admit that what I’m striving at is massive bulk… the bigger I get, the happier I am. When I see on the scales that I have put on weight (1kg), I’m overjoyed!. (personal communication, March 13, 2010)

Secondly, such physicals are shown through competitions, and overall specific media, that influences the

aesthetical body norms whose bodybuilders refer to. To relate this, we have analyzed 30 numbers specialized

reviews. It seems that two main functions emerge out of them: to sell numbers, and to spread the imaginary

showing to bodybuilders that if they want to transform their body, they can, and that such a body will give them

several benefits (Klein, 1993; Duret, Griffet, & Roussel, 2003). This norm works easily because it seems to have

been chosen by bodybuilders themselves.

And the previous element goes along with all the advertising for different products that create a whole

system of mass consumption: in the Flex magazines, almost half of the pages of the review contains advertising.

Industrial companies put into light products that will help the bodybuilder to reach his goals, but with the caution

of science and the support of a champion.

Antoine (29 years old, has been practicing for 12 years) argues:

You know, you’ll always have those kinds of magazines coming from the U.S.—what I call the ‘veterinary mags or ox mags’ because every two pages is dedicated to speak in praise of the qualities of such or such product, they display guys the same size as us but weighing 140 kgs, and all of them are lean… We can easily guess that they don’t take just a little dose of amino-acid, you’ll agree with me. Well, it’s not just the fact that it makes you dream of it, but you say to yourself ‘okay, they’re big, they’re strong’ … then of course, you’ll end by buying some. (personal communication, May 2, 2010)

To sum up, bodybuilding nowadays partakes in tackling the double issue: “Which body by which society

and which body for which society?” (Berthelot, 1983). A bodybuilder has to invest his body and always go

beyond. The body is a private resource which symbolizes freedom to invest, entrepreneurship, free work and

profit (economically or symbolically), that is “no pain, no gain”:

Let’s say that bodybuilding is one of those sports in which you can actually see the results with your own eyes, so that’s what makes it interesting, you see. It’s true that you still have the artistic side of it, but above all, it’s a question of results and performances, the fact that you can see that you’re making progress (Alex, 37 years old, the 7th in bodybuilding). (personal communication, March 25, 2010)


The apparent single project of a bodybuilder producing his body during work out and life to be able to

consume it in the interactions has actually to be linked to a whole socioeconomic system that is a framework and

a pillar of our current consumption societies.

That is why bodybuilding is in fact similar to other characteristics of our consumption societies, and their

ambivalences in particular. Indeed, consumption of the body could both give sense to a person, giving her freedom,

as well as being destroying if the whole life depends on such consumption. We develop this in the first part.

The “Schizophrenic Body” of Bodybuilding: Freed or Burden Mass?

The body of bodybuilding embodies two other features of our contemporary societies, namely hedonism and

eudemonism. The first is about pleasure and leisure, and the second one deals with welfare. In other words, the

transformation of the body means a transformation of the self. This could be relevant for people who feel bad with

themselves, knowing that bodybuilding is a sport strongly attractive for those who feel weak or lack something

(Klein, 1993). It is at the core of the dialectic interiority-exteriority (Vallet, 2008): An internal weakness would

be compensated by a strong appearance. We have to notice that such a sport as a whole has grown up on this basis.

Atlas cited above used to underline in its comics in the 1930s that a muscular body prevents the owner from being

laughed at by other men and is very useful to attract women’s glance:

I advise you to order my coursebook, then nobody will never ever dare to throw sand on your face. In record time, you’ll become an exceptional man and you’ll display your body on Venice beach, and be successful with girls. (Schwarzenegger, 2013, p. 140)

Moreover, Joe Weider, the former historic president of the IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilding)

(recently dead in 2013), and who, since the 1950’s, has built a strong industry in medias, material and products

dedicated to bodybuilding, used to explain on its personal website or in books to what extent bodybuilding

represents the best way in life to be your best. To build a body gives access to self secure feelings and to a positive

self-image that is very helpful in interactions (Reynolds & Weider, 1989).

Our data indicate that such a belief is important for the bodybuilders: 19 among 30 people interviewed that

explain they have chosen to commit in this sport because of an initial weakness. For example, Gaétan (25 years

old, the 3rd in bodybuilding) tells us that:

I’m telling you, I had a physical complex, even as a child, I’m sure. And I was just thinking about it before coming, well, I think that most of the people who practice bodybuilding really in depth have some kind of complex deep inside, that’s what I think. (personal communication, January 16, 2010)

It is the same for Kaïss (31 years old, has been committed in this sport for eight years):

Well, I felt I was skinny. I didn’t go into bodybuilding to have a nice body for going to the beach, as they say. For me, it was more a question of putting on weight. It’s true, I was full of complexes about that, cause I wanted to be sturdy, and get into competition with other guys. What I’m looking for is male comparison rather than female seduction. (personal communication, April 20, 2010)

Kaïss is certain that he is now more self-confident, thanks to the transformation of his body. In other words,

bodybuilding has clearly filled a need for him: “I must admit I went into bodybuiding for that reason. In the end,

I did not only aim at becoming sturdily built, I wanted to win, and unconsciously, I wanted to develop my


self-confidence” (personal communication, April 20, 2010).

If we go back to Gaétan, there is a “before” and an “after” too:

That’s exactly what I was about to tell you (affirmative tone). I’m not the same person, so to say, I mean, I feel better with myself… even if, as I was telling you, I don’t like to be stared at when I go to the beach, but still, I feel better, much better. And what’s more, as I’m doing it mainly for myself, I feel even better, you know. (personal communication, January 16, 2010)

From this perspective, body investment in the practice of bodybuilding plays the role of liberation. That is

what some women who do bodybuilding put into light. Such a sport gives strong and visible means “to be

someone” in our societies and to produce “gender trouble” in particular (Butler, 1999): thanks to bodybuilding,

you can break the rules in a male domination world (Hargreaves, 1994; Moore, 1996; Chapman & Vertinsky,

2011; Felkar, 2012). Indeed, even if this sport field used to be only in the hands of men for several years and

although male domination is still present nowadays, women have achieved to officially enter and this in a visible

way, since the 1970s. More precisely, Bev Francis’ physical symbolizes that: when she exhibited her body at Ms

Olympia in 1983, for the first time in the history of bodybuilding, not only did a woman show a muscular body,

but a hypertrophied one, extremely streaked and “dry”. That questioned what and where the borders between

what gender categorizes as male and female are, as well as beauty and aesthetics norms of our societies (Johnson,

1996; Griffet & Roussel, 2004).

To sum up, bodybuilding seems to have many advantages for the person who wants to be involved in it:

thanks to the perpetual growth of the muscular mass, it would give access to wisdom that is a hobby for oneself

leading to intimacy. But such a feeling would improve self-confidence too, which would be very useful in the

interaction. As one among many other objects of our consumption societies, the body, in bodybuilding, would be

a source of liberation. Nevertheless, such feelings are not always stabilized, because the body is a very labile

capital, and because as another object of our consumption societies again, it does not satisfy its owner.

In bodybuilding, like in Sisyphus’ myth, the end has no end: when you reach a level, you do not have to stop,

because you tend to think that you can always do better and because you fear to lose your results. Even if the

motivations and the degree of involvement of bodybuilders are plural (Monaghan, 2001), one can observe that the

obsession of the body is common for more than 75% of our population, whatever the level of the bodybuilder. In

other words, such observations are not isolated cases, numerous bodybuilders are actually body-minded. This

reveals that in bodybuilding, there is an alienation dimension with body consumption, meaning that the body can

be beyond control for the bodybuilder.

The obsessive side of bodybuilding can first entail risky behaviors. Among them, there is the question of

doping. If it can be difficult to define clearly what is doping or not, we refer on this point to the regular

consumption of forbidden products by the International Olympic Committee: steroids, growth hormone, insulin

and diuretics especially. Four bodybuilders interviewed who consume such products, even if they do not compete,

show by their testimonies that taking these drugs is rational for them to go further in their involvement. Bruno (42

years old, the 6th year of bodybuilding) use them both to gain mass and lose fat: “(As far as I’m concerned, I

always want both… I want to try to gain mass, but without taking rubbish)”: “Yes, exactly. Always going further.

You’ll never exceed your natural limits… once they’re at their highest, then that’s it. But, if you can take products

to go even beyond that limit, well, just do it” (personal communication, January 8, 2010). He is conscious of the


risks, but he seems to have evaluated them in comparison to the advantages such products can offer:

So, well, just go and have a look on the internet, just look for guys who have already taken some and who get a good grade, physically speaking. I wouldn’t ask a bloke who weighs 50 kgs to do that, you see. You need to be square and forthright, you know. And you must take stuff to protect your liver and your kidneys, that’s of paramount importance. Many guys don’t pay attention to that, you see, and then, they end up having their testicles all dried up, as well as everything else, and your kidneys too. Okay, you can take some, but be careful not to fall into this…, try it first, yes, do. Just do one, or even two course treatments, no more, this will help you to develop, and after that, it’s up to you to keep this balance, thanks to healthy food and efficient training. You’ll also need rest. And don’t say to yourself: “I’m gonna give myself a shot in the ass during summer, only to realize in winter that it makes no difference”. (personal communication, January 8, 2010)

Mohamed cited above confirms: “I’ve gained mass, sure I have. It gives you so much, everything in fact:

performance, stamina, almost everything. So many positive sides to it, you know. And negative sides too, but

that’s another story” (personal communication, March 4, 2010). Frédéric (38 years old, who has been doing

bodybuilding for 20 years) is in the same case too:

Of course, you’ll want to try, like everyone else, that’s what you do in fact… and either you realize that you’re actually making progress, but then, it’s getting quite expensive, and you think, well, if it costs you more than the result it brings you, well, if you have acne or such problems, then you stop. But everybody gives it a try, anyway. (personal communication, May 18, 2010)

The problem is that there are biological and social spillover effects with the consumption of such products:

due to the positive neurological and social sensations they give, at least at the beginning, they create an incentive

to always go further and overall, a strong dependence. Chris (32 years old, the 15th year in bodybuilding) knows it:

Such guys have no limits whatsoever, and then, about the anabolistic side of it, they cannot stop: first, they take one, two, then three doses. It’s a sport about comparison: the bloke training next to you is better bodily-shaped than you, and so, you want to do like him. If he takes such or such product, then you’ll do the same. It’s always a question of over-doing it, all the time. But we’re getting at the core of it… this is the moment when it’s beginning to get on you, you find yourself caught up in the system, just like a drug addict, it’s exactly as if you were taking drugs, and you’re saying to yourself: “I’ve got what I was looking for”, and now, in order to keep having what I want, I need to follow up taking that stuff. Well, okay, you take it as a course treatment, and you have the impression of being a drug addict… but that’s just because you’ve taken the stuff; that’s what you’re telling yourself”. (personal communication, June 3, 2010)

Secondly, besides doping, there are phenomena of overconsumption of the body that is a will to always train

harder and harder. The fear and the deception of losing the results explain this, as Regis (39 years old, 22 years in

bodybuilding) argues:

Yes, absolutely. I mean, there are times when I really don’t want to go to the gym, but if I don’t go, I will lose the benefits of all the training I’ve done, so sometimes, I feel I’m forced to do it. For instance, if I go on holiday somewhere and I can’t train there, it’s not that I feel ashamed when I come back, but the thing is, I don’t feel well. Because it’s not a question of fear, it’s a feeling of disappointment, the fact that you’ve worked hard during a year or so, and you get good results, but then, as I was just telling you, after a holiday break or just a break like the one I had this year because of the flu, when you come back, it’s as if you were going back to square one. And it’s a known fact, in the eyes of other people. Often, you hear them say: “You’ve lost weight” or “What happened to you, have you got cancer?”. (personal communication, April 2, 2010)

Frederic cited above sustains efforts in that direction, assimilating the practice to slavery:


I can tell you, it turns out to be slavery, because you can’t do without, really you can’t. For you, it’s real disaster, it is. If you go on a fortnight’s holiday, you have to have a gym where you can train, it’s a must. And this is not a good thing”. He admits he fears losing all he has gained: “That’s the thing, you see. Once you’ve stopped for a week, you need two to make up for the lost time; and if you stop for two months, then you need three, it’s horrible, you don’t want to lose all you had gained. (personal communication, May 18, 2010)

That is why such a “too much” body also copes with all the psychosociological aspects of a bodybuilder’s

life: when he only defines himself by his body, he feels insecure. Such insecurity is not the same than the one

which took place at the beginning of the involvement. It is now more about the fear of a lack of something, the

sensation to be “less” than somebody else and to have not enough body. Then he is likely to develop pathologies

like bigorexia or dysmorphophobia (Vallet, 2008). Kaïss cited above admits it:

Yes, that’s true… I often look at myself in the mirror, I do. You can actually see the progress you’ve made, you can see your nerves prominent, and so you can see the difference. But I must admit that, looking at myself in the mirror every day, I’m telling myself psychologically that I’m not big enough. (personal communication, April 20, 2010)

Mike (29 years old, 12 years in bodybuilding) thinks that his vision and his involvement in bodybuilding

have a pathological side:

Oh, but it’s obsessional, I tell you it is. It’s obsessional, because honestly, whenever I see a mirror, I look at myself, I do. Believe me, it’s compulsive. When I see a mirror, I can’t help looking at myself; when I eat, I can’t help touching my stomach, just to make sure I have not put on fat. It is obsessional, because before, when I saw a hefty man, it was a real problem for me, but now that I’m a teacher, it’s gone, don’t ask me why, something must have changed in my mind; I mean, when I used to see a really well-built man in the same room as me, I would suddenly feel very bad, and I would leave the place. I felt completely drained. Let me tell you, I don’t feel the same with a bodybuilder, because in that case, I’m impressed. But to see a guy the same age as me, heftier than me, and I would be in a terrible state, and leave the room because I was sick at heart. (personal communication, March 6, 2010)

Antoine always thinks about his body too:

You always think about it, really, once you’re in it, after that, well, it’s like a man running the marathon or the guys who go hiking, you don’t train for a week, and then you feel heavier, your body craving for physical effort, but sure, you also have the “yes, I ‘ll become less well-shaped, I have to go back” side, and this is not inconsiderable, in some way…. (personal communication, May 2, 2010)

It is likewise for Stéphane (33 years old, who has been doing bodybuilding for eight years):

To me, it’s something that makes you fall, in a way… well, as far as I'm concerned, it’s sheer obsession, I’m positive about it. Because if I skip training, even for a day at least, I don’t feel well… I know I’m going to rest, and that’s what I’m telling myself—“I’m having a good rest” or “I need to rest”—but if I had any sense, I would go to the gym. So, you see, it’s sheer madness, that’s what it is really, but then, you know, I force myself to rest, I take one or two days off each week. I think that what I end up telling myself is “if I went training, more and more, I would be able to make more progress”, and that’s where you’re very much mistaken, and that’s when you have to know how to rest, in fact. You quickly fall into over-training, and that’s a mistake. It’s catabolistic”. (personal communication, April 16, 2010)

In sum, such testimonies indicate that the production and the consumption of the body in bodybuilding only

secures at best the “form” but the “core” of someone’s identity (Klein, 1993). This could then be a source of

relative frustration and even alienation.


Conclusions

Bodybuilding perfectly fits the main principles of our consumption societies. It both embodies and spreads

values as hedonism, wealth, and individualism which are characteristic of them. Hence, through the investment

of his body, someone could concretize such ideals as he decided, leading to a higher state of self-consciousness

and wisdom. Symmetrically, bodybuilding is based on the application of economic principles that allow

consumption: before being visible, the body has to be produced like any other good. That is why such a body has

to be built thanks to rationalization, planning and calculation. Not only does the socioeconomic system of

bodybuilding include training but also one’s whole life too, due to the fact that the way to succeed in

bodybuilding implies a “work for” some things and a “work against” other things that limit commitment (Darmon,

2008). This sense of life through body production and consumption could hence represent liberation for some

people who find in bodybuilding a way to change themselves, that is to feel better and to gain value into social

interactions.

Nevertheless, such behaviors could become obsessive. When you define all your life through what your

body is and what it has to become, it could be risky, even dangerous. Indeed, in relation to other consumption

societies’ principles too, the body could be assimilated to an object that never satisfies its owner, implying that it

finally is behind one’s control. Clearly, such process is alienation. This example is “ironic” because it shows,

although such sport was born with modernity that it takes some of its roots in Antiquity. Ancient norms of

aesthetic, body concern, performance belong to current bodybuilding’s principles as well as the fact that

bodybuilding has unfortunately to do with Antic myths: it could help you to know yourself like Prometheus, but

it could also pull you on a Sisyphus’ path… where you lose yourself.

References

Amadieu, J. F. (2005). Le poids des apparences (The weight of appearances). Paris, Odile Jacob. Baudrillard, J. (1998). The consumer society: Myths and structures (First Published in 1970). London: Sage Publications. Baudry, P. (1991). Le corps extrême (The extreme body). Paris, L’Harmattan. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Toward a new modernity. London: Sage Publications. Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Berry, B. (2010). Making it big. Visible symbols of success, physical appearance, and sport figures. In E. Smith (Ed.), Sociology of

sport and social theory (pp. 187-200). Champaign: Human Kinetics. Berthelot, J. M. (1983). Corps et société. Problèmes méthodologiques posés par une approche sociologique du corps (Body and

society. Methodological issues raised by a sociology of the body). Cahiers internationaux de sociologie (International Papers of Sociology), LXXIV, 119-131.

Blake, A. (1996). The body language: The meaning of modern sport. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Bonetti, M., De Gaulejac, V., Descendre, D. & Pagès, M. (1998). L’Emprise de l’organisation (The influence of the organization)

(First Published in 1979). Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble. New York and London: Routledge. Chapman, D. L., & Vertinsky, P. (2011). Venus with biceps: A pictorial history of muscular women. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. Chartier, R., & Vigarello, G. (1982). Les trajectoires du sport. Pratiques et spectacles (The trajectories of the body. Practises and

shows). Le débat (The Debate), 19, 34-58. Darmon, M. (2008). Devenir anorexique. Une approche sociologique (To become anorectic. A sociological approach). Paris: La

découverte. Defrance, J. (2003). Sociologie du sport (Sociology of sport). Paris: Repères, Editions La Découverte.


Denham, B. E. (2010). Masculinities and the sociology of sport: Issues and ironies in the 21st century. In E. Smith (Ed.), Sociology of sport and social theory (pp. 143-152). Champaign: Human Kinetics.

Duret, P., Griffet, J., & Roussel, P. (2003). The Decline of Female Bodybuilding in France. Sociology of Sport Journal, 20, 40-59. Felkar, V. (2012). Marginalized muscle: Transgression and the female bodybuilder. Ignite, 4(1), 40-49. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Touchstone. Griffet, J., & Roussel, P. (2004). Le muscle au service de la beauté : la métamorphose des femmes culturistes (The muscles to serve

the beauty: The metamophosis of female bodybuilders). Recherches féministes (Feminist Researches), 17(1), 143-172. Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the history and sociology of women’s sports. New York: Routledge. Johnson, L. (1996). Flexing femininity: Female body-builders refiguring “the Body”. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of

Feminist Geography, 3(3), 327-340. Klein, A. M. (1993). Little big men: Bodybuilding subculture and gender construction. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lasch, C. (1991). The culture of narcissism. London: W.W. Norton & Company. Luciano, L. (2001). Looking good. Male body image in the modern America. New York: Hill and Wang Editors. Maisonneuve, J. (1976). Le corps et le corporéisme aujourd’hui (Body and bodily display nowadays). Revue française de

sociologie (French Review of Sociology), XVII, 551-571. Monaghan, L. F. (2001). Bodybuilding, drugs and risk. London: Routledge. Moore, S. D. (1996). God’s gym. New York and London: Routledge. Perine, S. (2010). Controverse. Flex, 100, 74-80. Prost, F. (2006). Corps primitif, corps archaïque. Anthropologie et archéologie de la représentation corporelle en Grèce ancienne

(Primeval body, archaic body. Anthropology and archeology of the representation of the body in the ancient Greece). In F. Prost, & J. Wilgaux (Eds.), Penser et représenter le corps dans l’Antiquité (How to think and to represent the body in the ancient world) (pp. 31-40). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Queval, I. (2008). Le corps aujourd’hui (The body today). Paris: Gallimard. Reynolds, B., & Weider, J. (1989). Joe Weider’s ultimate bodybuilding: The master blaster’s principles of training and nutrition.

Chicago: Contemporary Books Inc. Rostow, W. (1991). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto. Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press. Schwarzenegger, A. (1998). The new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Schwarzenegger, A. (2013). Total recall. Paris: Pocket. Shilling, C. (2012). The body and social theory. New York: Sage Publications. Simmel, G. (2011). The philosophy of money. London: Routledge Classics. Taranto, P. (2008). Le corps sportif: un corps imaginaire (The sporty body: An imaginary body). In D. Moreau, & P. Taranto (Eds.),

Activité physique et exercices spirituels. Essais de philosophie du sport (Physical activities and spiritual exercices. Essays on the philosophy of sport) (pp. 71-98). Paris: Librairie Philosophique Vrin.

Tocqueville, A. (2004). Democracy in America. New York: Library of America. Turner, B. (2008). The body and society. London: Sage Publications. Vallet, G. (2008). Corps performant bodybuildé et identité sexuée masculine: une congruence? (The powerful body in bodybuilding

and the male identity: Do they go along with each other?). Revue Interrogations, 7, 148-167. Vallet, G. (2013). Devenir bodybuilder. In P. Maréchaux (Ed.), Hercules de toujours (pp. 37-63). Paris: Editions Cécile Defaut. Weber, M. (2012). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Routledge. Young, D. C. (1984). The Olympic myth of Greek amateur athletics. Chicago: Ares Publishers.


The Symbols of the Fire in Georgian Folklore

in Comparison With Global Experience

Bela Mosia

Shota Meskhia State Teaching University of Zugdidi, Zugdidi, Georgia

Fire is the world meaning symbol of wisdom, purification. Elements of place symbolism associated with fire are

day time and specifically noon when the sun’s light and heat is the greatest. The association with the sun makes fire

an above space phenomena rather than a below or within space phenomena. The fireplaces have the same meaning

for the houses like the sun for the earth. This paper is divided in several topics to show how the fire changes its

meaning and how do peoples attitude to fire can be changed. Fire can represents in wedding ceremony, fire out of

control makes chaos, destroying around everything from which arise the new life, and fire make the soul to be free

from the sin. Fire, the eternal flame is the symbol of strong emotional feelings. The purpose of the paper is to give

the interesting examples of fire symbols in Georgian folklore and make some similarities with world experiences.

Georgian people as a part of ancient world make their own culture and in order to integrate Georgian materials in

world cultural fund paper aims to make comparative work to achieve the main goal.

Keywords: fire, chaos, emotion, red

Introduction

This paper addresses one of the interesting symbols, symbol of the fire in Georgian folklore in comparison

of world experience. The fire is known as a source of warm, purification, can emphasize strong feeling, and

there are some very rare meanings of fire in Georgian reality people worship from the very ancient past. The

research consist some parallels with world culture and world people attitude to the fire.

The nation of Georgia (Georgian) was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty from the

ninth to 10th century arising from a number of predecessor states of ancient Colchis and Iberia. The kingdom of

Georgia flourished during the 10th-12th centuries and fell to the Mongols invasions of Georgia in 1243 and

after a brief reunion under Giorge V of Georgia to the Timurid Empire. By 1490, Georgia was fragmented into

a number of petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the early modern period struggled to maintain

their autonomy against Safavid and Ottoman domination until Georgia was finally annexed by the Russian

Empire in 1801. After a brief bid for independence with the Democratic Republic of Georgia of 1918-1921,

Georgia was part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic from 1922 to 1936, and then

formed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The current Republic

of Georgia has been independent since 1991.

The culture of Georgia has evolved over the country’s long history, providing it with a unique national

culture and a strong literary tradition based on a Georgian language and alphabet. This has provided the strong

Bela Mosia, professor, Humanitarian Faculty, Shota Meskhia State Teaching University of Zugdidi.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

THE SYMBOLS OF THE FIRE IN GEORGIAN FOLKLORE

220

sense of national identity that has helped to preserve Georgian distinctiveness despite repeated periods of

foreign occupation.

The history of any countries is based on central historical sources like monuments of spiritual and material

cultures, archeological evidences like monuments on the earth and under the earth, secular, and religious

architectural monuments, ethnographic materials, written documents, and folklore, including linguistic

materials, historical documents, epigraphic evidence, old inscriptions, coins called like numismatic evidence,

works of literature, and foreign written documents. Georgia as a part of ancient cultural life is attractive for its

unique traditions, national life, beliefs. Folklore and essential monuments of folklores like: Legends, ballades,

myths, narrations, tales, songs, dances, charms, and omens etc. are the points of the author’s interest as facts,

sources of ancient culture. They are the evidence about world ancient culture as the other nations and cultures are.

Ancient Fire Symbols

As the main aspects of the author’s scientific works are astral beings, on the author’s work the author

focus on the symbols of the fire in Georgian folklore and also on some traditions in Georgia connected with the

fire as the fire is embodiment of the astral beings by meaning and form. How the fire makes the sense of heaven

and how it can unify the world, earth, and heaven from down to up? We are all familiar with symbols because

they pervade all our live. It is representation of ideas either in visual or audible form. The primitive culture,

surrounded with harmful environment, surrounded with thunder, and frightened with everything and everyone,

was looking for help in everything and everywhere. The main importance achievement of human was the fire,

which helps him to avoid wild nature, wolves, and evil spirits. Ancient people were surprised with fire and

were frightened with fire which was streaming from the land up to the sky and for this reason fire always was

connected with supreme Gods and heaven. In primitive culture, people worship the fire as God and later fire

was considered as an embodiment of Gods on the earth. Fire represents the sun and was considered as the

symbol of the sun. In most ancient religions those two symbols, the sun and the fire, or mixed or fully equal to

each other. The ancient religion of Iran Zoroastrianism is based on worship of fire, even the Mithra, developed

independently from Zoroastrianism completely was based on the philosophy of fire. Well known ritual in

Georgia, widely spread on Georgian territory is Chiakokona, sometimes considered as an fire worship from the

Zoroastrianism, even contemporary life ritual of Chiakokona is celebrated in Georgia, it becomes like holiday

and lost its ancient meaning but people still believe that jumping on the fire makes their life clean and this fire

destroy the evil spirits under their legs. Georgian ritual chiakokona (jumping on the fire) has no connection

with Zoroastrianism fire, it is the fire celebrity emphasize the sympathy to the fire, trying to make great bonfire,

it is local, Georgian tradition from ancient past. According to the Buddha’s tradition, one main symbol of

Buddha is fire column and the fire light is the metaphor of wisdom. The place of fire in natural systems is

represented by deserts and mountains. The deserts symbolize the quality dryness and heat associated with fire

and the mountains symbolize the upward pyramid shape of fire. Similar to the element of fire which they

represent, deserts have traditionally been associated with purification. Elements of place symbolism associated

with fire are day time and specifically noon when the sun’s light and heat is the greatest. The association with

the sun makes fire an above space phenomena rather than a below or within space phenomena. A natural

phenomenon which represents fire is lightning, and the phenomenon of fire out of control is symbolized by the

forest fire. To say about fire:


221

It is intimate and it is universal. It lives in our heart, it lives in the sky. It rises from the depths of the substance and offers itself with the warmth of love. Or it can go down into the substance and hide there, latent and pent-up, like hate and vengeance. (Bachelard, 1964, p. 44)

Fire as the Symbol of the Sun

The major symbolism of fire is related to the sun and the powers of transformation and purification. Its

basic movement is upward rather than downward like water. Because fire warms and gives off light like the sun,

it often represents the sun or sun God in mythology. In ancient Rome, the cult of the fire reincarnate into the

fire on the fireplace. Vesta is the Roman goddess of fire and the hearth, whose circular temple in Rome was

considered as central hearth of the city. Vesta represents the secret hearth or hearth of the home, the central fire

which supplies heat and on which the food is cooked. In accordance of some Georgian traditions, the central

fire in the fireplace was magical, and represent the sun and Georgian people worship it and believed if the fire

blows down the misfortune will happen in family. Georgian curse: “be your fire blown down means desire to

be destroyed the family. The fireplace was situated in middle of the house and was dividing the house in two

parts: “The right part for men, left part for the women” (Chikovani, 1983, pp. 75-77). By Georgian beliefs the

sun and the moon were introduces as female and male and the whole house was based on the life tree, which

was the central part of the roof and under it was fireplace as the sun is the central creator under which he earth

is living, giving to the earth the warms, light, and life, the fire in the middle of the house giving the house

warms, light, and life. And the name of this life tree Georgian “Dedabodzi” means mother column. Beside the

fireplace there was kept the snake, called as an angel of the house, keeping peace and happiness for the family.

Snakes in the several shapes were represented several symbols and one and mostly important was the snake

holding the tale in his mouth, like the ring as a symbol of the sun. The most important thing in Georgian

tradition was that the snakes were kept in the milk to emphasize the sympathy to them. It is not accidental that

snakes were kept in the milk. In sister language of Georgian Megruli, the sun and the milk has the same name,

the word “Bjha = mze” for the milk and for the sun. In mythology, the sun and the milk were identified, one

Georgian myth tells us why the sun and the milk have the same name:

One widow was milking the cow when the sun and the moon came and were glancing at her, she by anger throw the dung (muck) to them, the sun was able to purify in the milk but moon could not, so moon is hiding his face day time because of having dirty face. (Kiknadze, 1984, p. 119)

According to one Indian omen: “The sun has the great meaning for the agriculture, they were pouring the

milk on the fire and they believe it helps to the sun to rise perfectly and it was the omen to worship the fire

itself” (Nozadze, 1957, p. 15). Georgian phrase “you are not washed with the sun or milk” said for the true life

and means you are not true, you are not right, purified or in the sun or in the milk as in Georgian the sun and

the milk has the same name. Like the fire, the sun and the milk are purifying, too many examples of purifying

in fire, with the same function the milk can clean the soul from the evil spirit. In Georgian myths, ladies like

mermaids trying to fall in love with hunters, after they become beloved, men had problems with family, he

could not serve the wife as husband, it was forbidden and he must follow the rules or mermaids will revenge, if

anyone from the family, wife, mother or father follow him and during sexual intercourse with Mermaids, pour

the milk on her hair, these ladies would have lost their magical power and becomes normal and usual. By this

example even the hairs have magical function and as they are growing they were considered as they internally

streaming to the sun. To sum up the magical meaning of the fireplace and the attributes around it they are the


222

magical embodiment of the sun as in form also by meaning. The fireplace in the middle of the house was the

holy place having sacral, sacred meaning. In the wedding tradition bride must walk around the fire three times

to become the full member of the family. The Georgian name of the word wedding = kortsili, consists of two

parts: kora and tsili and means the kora = house, family and tsili is part. “There is tradition within the Indian

people to walk around holy fire and millstone stepping seven times with right leg on the stone” (Frazer, 1919,

p. 293). Within the world people stones have been sacred to some spirit from ancient times. “Any man may find

a stone for himself, the shape of which strike his fancy, or some other object, an octopus in his hole, a shark, an

eel, which seems to him something unusual and therefore connected with a spirit” (Frazer, 1919, p. 63).

In Georgia some stones are having the hole in the middle considered as a holy stones, thunder stones and

they are from the fire, the holes are from the heaven, thunder stones are kept at the gates of houses to keep the

family from the evil spirits. “Some stones were sacred to various deities, whom the Greeks called Cronus, Zeus,

the Sun, and so forth” (Frazer, 1919, p. 107).

Fire as Symbol of Creation

Fire is the active power takes part in the creation of the world. The existence of four basic physical

elements—fire, air, water, and earth—of which the entire world is composed. Making fires was the great epoch

for mankind. The bringers of a fire are legendary heroes in many traditions. Prometheus of Greek mythology,

one of the famous fire bringers, stole fire from the Gods and gave it humans. With this fire there were given to

human various types of skills and knowledge. In Georgian mythology Amirani is the hero resembles classical

Prometheus, like Prometheus he is punished and chained on Caucasus with his cursed dog Kursha and similar

to the Prometheus an eagle, raven eat his liver but it heals every night. The child Amirani had marks of his

semi-divines origins with symbols of the sun and the moon on his shoulder-blades and a golden tooth. Scholars

agree that folk epic about Amirani must have been formed in the third millennium BC and alter went through

numerous transformation, the most important of them being morphing pagan and Christian elements after the

spread of Christianity. The myth could have been assimilated by the Greek colonists or travellers and embodied

in the corpus of the famous Greek myth of Prometheus. In the Georgian literature and culture, Amirani is often

used as a symbol of the Georgian nation, its ordeals and struggle for survival. Georgian Amirani stole the fired

lady from heaven and let her living on the earth had been in love with her.

Fire is the symbol of chaos and war, There is an interesting relationship of fire with the symbolic place of

Paradise. It shines in Paradise. It burns in hell. It is gentleness and torture. It is cookery and it is apocalypse,

bringing nothing but ruin. Flames can bring punishment and suffering, as in the Christian image of hell as a

place of fiery torment. Some myths of apocalypse predict that the world will end in fire—but it also may be a

purifying, cleansing fire that will allow the birth of a fresh new world. In Indian mythology God of fire Agni

represents three main aspects of fire: creator, defender, and destroyer. But fire can be the symbol of new life, as

in the case of phoenix, the mythical bird that is periodically destroyed by flames to rise reborn from its own

ashes. In many cultures people practise rituals related to the fire, these rituals are often based on myths and

legends about fire or fire Gods. It is unbelievable that in this history of civilisation, the history of which was

begun by making, taming the fire at the same time knows the very strict memories connected with the fire. Fire

deities living under the earth request only people as a victim, only after immolation they will become kind and

allow to the sun to be born in the morning again after sunset. The medieval inquisition was not only the war

against magician but also it was somehow purification from unclean, all dirty. A little bit different attitude to


223

the fire in antiquity. It was like mediator between exist and future life after death. It free the soul from the life,

flesh, and body must be destroyed by the fire to make the soul free, this comes from the tradition of cremation.

People keeping themselves from the fire away in some occasion, for example: “within the Indian tribes Pima,

who will kill the apaches for next six days purifying in isolation, does not eat meat and salt, and does not look

on fire” (Frazer, 1919, p. 63). Within Georgian people there are special illnesses, infectious diseases, called

Batonebi = Lords, people were keeping several taboos to avoid their bad effects, one of this never let to sick

person look at fire or electricity.

Fire as Symbol of Emotions

Fire is also usually used for strong emotional feelings such as love, hate, desire, and determination,

sometimes Love is spoken as an eternal flame. Fire and heat have been used to symbolize human emotions and

particularly emotions associated with sexual power. In some tales it is linked with the idea of hearth, the center of

the household. When the fire is eternal it can be enthusiasm, inspiration, but in the classical poem of Shota

Rustaveli “The Noble in the Tiger’s Skin” the fire is the conscience, internally killing the person, burning inside

and makes spirit purified.

Fire is also related to the process of change. “Fire suggests the desire to change, to speed up the passage of

time, to bring all life to its conclusion, to its hereafter” (Bachelard, 1964, p. 36). In this sense, all that changes

slowly can be explained by life while all that changes quickly can be explained by fire. “Through fire

everything changes” (Bachelard, 1964, p. 95). When we want everything changed we call on fire.

Fire has its color, colors of fires are the advancing colors of red and orange and the aspects of fire are flames

and rays. Red color is considered as a color of the fire, flame, because flames and coals have a red coloration.

From the red color of the fire comes the light, which is the symbol of spirituality. “This is massage we have heard

from him and declare to you: God is light, in him there is no darkness at all” (John, 1:5-7). Light makes us to see

things clearly so that we may be able to walk without falling, light gives us knowledge, and it is one of the means

of perception. The sun, the fire, and the light were combined, united in New Testament when the Christ

transfigured before his apostles: “There he was transfigured before them, His face shone like the sun, and his

clothes became as white as the light” (New Testament, 2011, 17:2). The main color of the fire, red is the

embodiment of light, light comes from fire is not visible, the no visible part of the fire become visible in red color,

in flame, at the same time the red color of the sun was considered as an prediction of death, danger. Everything,

happiness, danger, and death are the prediction from the heaven and also the life and safeness are the will of the

heaven Gods.

Conclusions

To sum up the idea about fire symbols, according to Georgian tradition, fire makes the whole system of

rituals and elements around it to unify the separate world and the fire with its universal nature makes the sense

of perfection with all aspect of the life.

References Bachelard, G. (1964). The psychoanalysis of fire. (A. C. M. Ross, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. Bible. (n.d.). King James Version Bible (KJV). Retrieved from

http://www.bibleing.com/versions/kjv.html?gclid=CO6aobHC5rwCFcIMcwodzy8AOg


224

Chikovani, M. (1983). Hearth of mountain people’s house, Achieve of the sector of Georgian-Caucasian cultural-historical relations. Tbilisi: Nakaduli.

Doane, T. W. (1882). Bible myths and their parallels in other religions being a comparison of the old and new testament myths and miracles with those of heathen nations of antiquity considering also their origin and meaning (4th ed.). (J. W. Bouton, Trans.). New York: The Truth Seeker Company 28 Lafayette Place.

Frazer, J. (1919). Folklore in Old Testament, studies in comparative religion. London: Macmillan and Co.. Inman, T. (1884). Ancient pagan and modern christian symbolism (4th ed.). New York: J. W. Bouton, Broadway. Kiknadze, Z. (1984). King Pharnavaz’s dream. Journal Language and Literature, 1, 23-38. New testament. (2011). Russian Bible Society. Tbilisi. Nozadze, V. (1957). The sun lore in the “Knight in the Tiger’s Skin”. San Tiago de Chile: Avtandil Merabishvili. Tylor, E. B. (1871). (1989). Primitive culture: Researchers into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art

and custom. New York: Henry Holt.


Pseudo and Digital Parapraxis in MMORPGs

Marion HAZA

Poitiers University, Poitiers, France

This communication proposes to study some language processes, similar in literature and videogames: parapraxis

and the choice of a pseudo. It will aim to show how the use of a word reveals the intimacy of the subject, just like

the autobiographical novel, which gives information about the writer. We would therefore have the presages of a

self-writing in the creation, naming and storytelling of the avatar of a videogame player. From the example of a

young player of the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) networking game Dofus, who

we met in consultation, we will see how his avatar “DeadIop” comes from parapraxis and enables the narration of

his emotional intimacy. The unconscious elements that led to the creation of the pseudo enabled him to tell his story

and grasp some unexplained facets of himself.

Keywords: videogames, parapraxis, pseudo, narration

Introduction

Today, all over the world, teenagers and older people (the average age of players is now 35 years old) play

videogames, especially MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). The addiction concept

is often brought up to explain these video games, whereas gamers’ identity is rarely questioned. To better

understand what is going on with videogames, we will have to think these virtual worlds as a place where

people can evolve in as in real life.

This paper proposes to study some elaboration processes, similar in literature and MMORPG videogames,

namely parapraxis in the choice of a pseudo and the story of the avatar. The author will show how the use of a

word reveals the intimacy of the player-subject, just like the autobiographical novel, which gives information

about the writer. We would therefore have the presages of a self-writing in the creation, naming, and

storytelling of the avatar of a MMORPG player. From the example of a young player of the MMORPG Dofus,

who we met in consultation, we will see how his avatar “DeadIop” comes from parapraxis and enables the

narration of his emotional intimacy.

Tom, a young boy of 11 years old in last year of primary school, comes to consult us because of intense

sadness and incapacitating anxiety. Tom is a good student, he does not create any problem at home or at school,

even if lots of his friends are unruly and always ready for a fight. His mother brings him in because he is

embarrassed with a “blood phobia”—as he himself calls it—that prevents him from attending and listening to

science classes, or from watching the news broadcast or some movies. Tom, in such situations, begins to stamp

his feet on the floor obsessively, in order to create a bubble of physical stimuli, and is extremely upset. Tom is a

withdrawn, sad-looking boy, without visible emotion. He nevertheless lights up when talking on his own of his

favorite game, the preteens MMORPG Dofus, a “colorful, amusing, and enchanting” universe. Since a few

Marion HAZA, lecturer, EA4050 CAPS, Poitiers University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

PSEUDO AND DIGITAL PARAPRAXIS IN MMORPGS

226

months, Tom has been playing this game, in which he uses several avatars of different levels. In addition to his

summoner, his thief, and his mage, Tom commits himself a lot to his main, a warrior avatar of the Iop race. As

it is explained in the website’s game, “Iops are go-getting warriors beyond reproach! One thing’s for sure: Iops

really know how to use their weapons. They need to draw first blood at least once a day just to feel alive. Their

impetuousness can make Iops the best of knights… and the worst!” (Retrieved from http://www.dofus.com).

Tom therefore creates a character capable of major damage, whose violence and link to the blood, that usually

really worries Tom, can be detected. Therefore, through the game, Tom transcends his fear. The link to blood

of the Iop is valued, and even essential, when it is so costly in Tom’s imagination. His “knight, with his huge

Mohawk and cross” is called “DeadIop”. He explains, during long sessions and without pausing, the battles,

fights, quests, and evolutions of his avatar, thus recreating a bloody universe not really threatening.

Pseudo

Let’s begin with questioning the use of the pseudo, inherent to MMORPGs, and sometimes disguise for

literary writers.

The pseudo is indeed an integral part of MMORPGs and the construction of the avatar. In the digital world,

an avatar refers to any “virtual” character representing a player. It is the intermediary between the subject and

the digital space, the extension of oneself, “some kind of technological version of the image returned by a

mirror” (Hajji & Tordo, 2009, p. 659), with all the objective and subjective elements inherent to such an image;

it is driven and controlled by its user.

The player invents avatars made of two components: a written one and a graphical one. Nowadays, video

games enable to determine in great details all the characteristics of the characters played, from the most basic

ones (species, sex, or profession… ), to the most precise ones (skills, biography, pets, relationship status, etc.),

as well as all the physical attributes. Players can decide on the physical appearance of their character in an

extremely fine way: morphology, facial features, color of the skin, hair, eyes, tattoos, etc..

This way, the players can try out a new sex, love relationships, violent behavior, all in all a whole range of

experiences that can be delicate, or even impossible to implement in real life for physiological, psychological,

moral or social reasons. “I made a mistake”, tells this teenager we met in psychological consultation, on WOW

(World of Warcraft), “when I clicked I chose an elf girl. In the end I kept her, she’s pretty”. We can interpret

this as a misaction and see it as his desire to try out a feminine identity. The practice of MMORPG implies an

interpretative dimension of the played role, in the extent that players communicate in writing in the name of

their character. To understand properly the identity stake, one has to take into account the relationships

“between the players and their own characters, but also the relationships between the players, the characters,

and the players with the others’ characters” (Di Filippo, 2012, p. 9).

The avatar used online is what enables us to be recognized and distinguished from the others, but it is not

in any way what the person identifies to. One does not become one’s own avatar: it supports the identity.

It is therefore recommended, when creating a character, before entering the game, to choose a pseudo.

Without name, the avatar does not exist. The identity of the player is therefore achieved, after the creation of

the physical characteristics of the avatar, through the choice of this pseudo.

For example, we can see with this World of Warcraft player1 the use of pseudos: He developed several

1 He is the author’s patient and told the author that during a psychological consultation in 2012.


227

avatars with different functions: “Crowphen”, a hunter whose name comes from “Crow” and “Phen” for

“Phoenix”, because “the crow is a smart animal, capable of lying and of a social behavior, that cleans the

campaigns, and the phoenixis reborn from its own ashes. Therefore, the enemy is warned that if he kills him,

‘Crowphen’ will come back for revenge”. Here we can see the weight of the choice of the pseudo, in its entire

aggressive valence. Here are some other characters of our player: As a play on word with another fellow player

whose pseudo is “Big”, he calls his priest “Bang”; or, as a reference to a member of his family working in

science, he creates a warrior called “Watson” to play in duo with “Crick”, as a direct reference to the two

researchers who discovered DNA. Finally, our player also has a thief called “Nothing” so that the message

“You’ve been killed by ‘Nothiiiiing’ appears on his opponents’ screen”. In this case, the use of the pseudo

gives some clues on the character of the player, and, digging somewhat more, on the friendly or family

relationships he commits himself to. Nevertheless, without any explication, these elements escape the players’

community and may be incorrectly interpreted.

In parallel, in literature, many writers write under a pseudonym, such as Roman Kacew, aka Romain Gary,

aka Emile Ajar, who left this suicide note: “I’ve had a lot of fun. Good-bye, and thank you” (Gary, 1980). Or

Philippe Sollers (“clever, ingenious” in latin), whose parents asked to give up on his family name Joyaux, or

Françoise Quoirez, minor, who published Bonjour Tristesse (Sagan, 1954) under the pseudo of Sagan, in

homage to Marcel Proust; Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, Eric Blair, and aka George Orwell; Richard

Bachman, aka Stephen King; Currer Bell, aka Charlotte Brontë, or the writer of Harry Potter; J. K. Rowling,

who writes under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, etc..

“Why some writers choose to hide behind a pseudonym, whether or not a writer has a real life anyway”,

asks the writer Paul Auster (1986). This thought can make the link with the question of the real or virtual

existence of the avatar. Following the example of Paul Auster, we can ask ourselves: Does the avatar have a

real life? Do the naming, thinking, and telling of this figure present and visible on the screen give consistence

to the avatar?

Tale of the Avatar-Self

We can see that beyond the pseudo, the tale and the explanations surrounding the avatar are implicit.

Actually, is the tale of the avatar in MMORPGs an autobiography or a fiction?

The creation of a controlled facet of oneself can be found as much in literary writing as in the creation of a

digital avatar and its pseudo. The avatar and its generation are indeed “narrative supports” (Tisseron, 2008;

Cahn, 2013), and the object of a self-history, just like self-fiction. One way of expressing this self-history that

reveals itself in the choice of pseudo and their associated tales corresponds to what Ricœur (Ricoeur) called

“narrative identity”: Indeed, personal identity brings face to face two uses of the identity concept, the Latin

“idem” and “ipse”: In its diverse uses, “same” (même) is used in the context of comparison; its contraries are

“other”, “contrary”, “distinct”, “diverse”, “unequal”, and “inverse”. The weight of this comparative use of the

terme “same” seems so great to me that I shall henceforth take sameness as synonymous with idem-identity and

shall oppose to it selfhood (ipseity), understood as ipse-identity. Self-narration is therefore not an invention but

a storytelling of reality by organizing events in a readable way: “The specific model of the interconnection of

events constituted by employment allows us to integrate with permanence in time what seems to be its contrary

in the domain of sameness-identity, namely diversity, variability, discontinuity and instability” (Ricœur, 1996,

p. 167). This is how our WOW player can have several identities coexist (warrior, hunter, but also shaman and


228

healer), despite the apparent contradiction between the desires and aims inherent to each avatar.

From there, the author will redefine the autobiographical genre.

In autobiography, the author (writer), the narrator (“I”), and the character (protagonist of the story) are one

and only person. The events did actually happen; the characters did actually exist; nothing can be invented or

fictitious. For Lejeune (2005), it is a “retrospective story in prose that a real person tells of his own existence,

laying emphasis on his individual life and, in particular, on the story of his personality” (p. 14). Its distinctive

feature is the alternation between story and analysis, that is, the presence of a double look, the writer been

looking for elements of his past ego: We got the point of view of the moment, and the remote one, the real time

of the story and the time of the enunciation.

Furthermore, autobiography is a relational text: The writer, from the very beginning, by setting the

environment, the tone, the relationships, asks the reader to trust him, to believe him, and proposes in exchange

to reveal himself. According to Lejeune (2005), we can study the relationship of the narrator to his character

(identification, nostalgia, or humor, rejection… ), to himself, to the reader. This reminds the transfer and the

link created in the story relation between the MMORPG player and the other who listens to him, psychologist

or not, player or not.

Besides, other literary genre that implements narrative identity, self-fiction appeared in 1977 under the pen

of Serge Doubrovsky2 to refer to his novel Fils (1977). It is a literary genre defined by an “oxymoronic pact”

(Jaccomard, 1993, p. 63) or contradictory pact associating two types of opposed narration: like autobiography,

it is a story based on the principle of three identities, which nevertheless claims to adhere to fiction in its

narrative form. It is a meeting of a real tale of the writer’s life and a fictive tale exploring an experience he

lived. The names of characters or places may be modified, and the factuality put in the background in favor of

an economy of the memory or the narrative choices of the writer. Freed from “inner censorship” (Ernaux, 1992,

p. 220), self-fiction leaves a leading place to the expression of the unconscious. Fiction becomes the public tool

of an identity quest, “a process that consists in making oneself an imaginary subject by making up adventures”

(Vachey, 2001, p. 87).

We can therefore assume that the player, by telling from a first-person perspective the evolution and

adventures of his avatar, gets closer to the life story fed by imaginary and fictitious elements. That is what we

find in the self-histories/avatars proposed by adolescents in therapy. This construction of one’s double leading

to identification clearly sets the coexistence of the player, the narrator and the avatar in one and only scene,

going from real to virtual life (in the original sense of potential, future). According to John Suler, avatars are

just like a Rorschach inkblot; they can convey elements of the conscious and unconscious life of each and every

one. By narrating an avatar, we can tell what we are, what we would like to be, what we would have liked to be,

what we fear, etc.. The narration and the analysis of game plays, whether oral, written (blogs such as Heyte

Nografe’s diary, Carnets d’Azeroth (Vachey, 2001, p. 88), forums), or even video (YouTubers), demonstrate

this desire (or unconscious necessity) to mend diverse temporalities and aspects of oneself.

Parapraxis

We propose, to go further, to relate unconscious elements of self-representation, in the story and the

choice of the pseudo, through parapraxis.

2 Literary critic and novelist.


229

Let’s be clear about parapraxis. Words are containers that participate in the psychical work of identity

elaboration with their manifest and latent content. Words always have a particular meaning for the subject,

which can be secret to the others.

In the Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2007), parapraxis is defined as “an error made in speech (lapsus

linguae), writing (lapsus calami), memory (lapsus memoriae) or physical action (lapsus manus)” (p. 98): The

subject expresses something else than what initially intended, mainly by substituting an expected term with

another word. According to Freud, parapraxis can be considered in two ways: on one hand, in a linguistic

conception (Meringer & Mayer, 1895), parapraxis being heard as disorders resulting from the influence of

elements internal to the ongoing speech (influence of other linguistic elements, syllables, words, propositions of

the speech); on the other hand, in a psychoanalytical conception, parapraxis being conscious manifestations of

unconscious perturbing elements (some kind of compromise resulting from the condensation of two

representations, one related to the word we wanted to pronounce, the other related to the disruptive element). It

is the free association and the pulling down of censorship barriers that enables one word we do not intend to

pronounce to impose itself to the conscience. According to Freud (2004), the interpretation of such a process

explains the reason why the parapraxis is often similar to the word we intended to utter. In this perspective, the

parapraxis appears, just like every other misaction, as the involuntary expression of a conscious or unconscious

intention we do not want to confess, or a repressed idea.

Thinking that the choice of the pseudo, the uses of the avatars and their functions (Tank, Healer, Dps) and

the story come from parapraxis enables to take into account the unconscious emotional investment of the player

towards his avatar. Digital parapraxis, for example, gives some clues on the inwardness and inner self of the

player IRL (In Real Life).

Let’s now come back to young Tom and his “DeadIop”. Coming from such a sad child, this name raises

questions: The author associates, in her counter-transference, on his state of mind, on this unemotional child,

almost like a zombie, almost dead, and the author wonders what weights so much upon him. However, not to

make hasty interpretations, the author questions him on the creation of the pseudo. That is when Tom explains

to the author that he chose this name himself because “Dead” means “Fort” (strong), in order to assert himself

in front of his opponents in a powerful position. For the author it is clearly a digital parapraxis, translating

unconscious stakes related to Tom’s history. When the author explained the meaning of “Dead” as being “Mort”

and not “Fort” (parapraxis by sound metonymy revealing unconscious issues), he then associates on his family

and some striking memories. In particular the successive illnesses affecting the grandparents (several

cerebrovascular accidents, with ensuing motor disability, a dead grandfather and great-grandmother, another

grandmother who almost died), and a mother trying to cope with it all, worried and worn out… In particular

two traumatic scenes related to him: a foot wound during the Oedipal period that required his mother to “scrape

out his foot”, not without pain, and a rabid dog bite he witnessed on TV that impressed him for a long time.

Tom can then evoke his sadness as coming from his family, and connects these elements to his blood phobia,

wounds, and accidents. “DeadIop” finally comes from a parapraxis that enables him to access a narration of his

emotional innermost thoughts. The unconscious elements leading to the creation of the pseudo enabled him to

tell his story and to understand some unexplained aspects of his self. Through the tale of the quests and fights

of his Iop, he could understand himself and develop his family history. The use of Dofus as a bedtime ritual

enabled him to avoid thinking about loss and separation, while keeping on thinking to it, unwittingly, through

his “DeadIop” avatar.


230

Conclusions

In conclusion, this paper aims to show how, in MMORPG, the player-subject remains subjected to some

unconscious processes (parapraxis/misaction) that escape him and support some rational and conscious choices.

The narration of the avatar-self enlightens these processes. It avoids the Violence of Interpretation (Aulagnier,

1975) that can, for example, give a figure of weakness, ghostly, deadly non-existence to “DeadIop”, opposed to

his conscious desire of identity, masculine and phallic construction.

References Aulagnier, P. (1975). La violence de l’interprétation, du pictogramme à l'énoncé (The violence of interpretation: From pictogram

to statement). Paris: PUF. Auster, P. (1986). The locked room. The New York trilogy. London: Sun and Moon Pr. Cahn, R., Gutton, P., Tisseron, S., & Robert, P. (2013). L’ado et son psy (The teenager and his psy). Paris: Editions in Press. Ciuraru, C. (2001). Nom de plume—A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms. New York: Harper. Di Filippo, L. (2012). Les notions de personnage-joueur et Roleplay pour l’étude de l’identité dans les MMORPGs (The notions

of player-character and role-playing for studyingidentity in MMORPGs). Retrieved from http://www.revue-interrogations.org/Les-notions-de-personnage-joueur

Doubrovsky, S. (1977). Fils. Paris: Gallimard. Ernaux, A. (1992). Vers un je transpersonnel (Towards a transpersonal I). In Doubrovsky, S., Lecarme, J., & Lejeune, P. (Eds.),

RITM, 6, 219-221. Freud, S. (2004). Psychopathologie de la vie quotidienne (The psychopathology of everyday life). Paris: Payot. Gary, R. (1980). Vie et mort d’Émile Ajar (Emile Ajar’s Life and death). Paris: Gallimard NRF, Blanche Edition. Hajji, M., & Tordo, F. (2009). Avatars et Moi! La fonction psychologique de la multiplicité des avatars dans les jeux video

(Avatar and me! Psychological fonction of multiplicity of avatarsin videogames). Adolescence, 27(3), 657-665. Jaccomard, H. (1993). Lecteur et lecture dans l’autobiographie française contemporaine: Violette Leduc, Françoise d’Eaubonne,

Serge Doubrovsky, Marguerite Yourcenar (Reader ans reading in contemporary french autobiography). Genève: Droz. Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J. B. (2007). Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse (Psychoanalysis vocabulary). Paris: PUF Quadrige. Lejeune, P. (2005). Le pacte autobiographique, Tome 2 (Autobiographicalpact). Paris: Seuil. Meringer, R., & Mayer, K. (1895). Versprechen und Verlesen (Slip of the tongue and misreading). Stuttgart: G. J. Göschensche

Verlagshandlung. Ricœur, P. (1996). Soi-même comme un autre (Oneself as another). Paris: Seuil, Point Essais. Sagan, F. (1954). Bonjour tristesse (Hello sadness). Paris: Juilliard. Tisseron, S. (2008). Virtuel mon amour. Penser, aimer, souffrir, à l'ère des nouvelles technologies (Virtual my love. Think, love,

suffer with new technologies). Paris: A. Michel. Vachey, F. (2011). Fictions de personnages dans un MMORPG. Entre jeu de rôle et écriture de soi, écrire une persona fiction

(Characters’ fictions in MMORPGs. Between role plays and self-writing, creating a persona fiction). Sociétés, 3(113), 81-90.

Documents

2014.3 journal of literature and art studies