Prelude to "Tristan and Iseult"

Shadows stretching, tainting the glitt'ring sand,
The pure soul stain'd by the Platonic fire;
Footsteps fading, pulling on Ocean's hand,
Drew out the lover to seek her desire.
Seashells singing, chanting an ancient song,
First sung by an unhappy, gentle knight;
Mountains listening, following along
Like she who heard the song, sigh'd in delight.
Twilight blushing, turning to hide the glow,
No love can not love, disguised by disguise;
Night descending, kissing the earth below,
So lips burnt by lips, and eyes drank from eyes.
Mortals! are they allow'd a perfect love?
When Nature sings, whose voice is heard above?

On the Art of Translation - Part IV (Final Part)

Under the light of the fact that I am not (yet) an English professor, I would like to offer my readers some last comments on the art of translation. It is my pleasure in this last part to show just some of the clever translations that our translators (meaning, of course, largely Pope, and Fagles too!) have made in comparison to others. There will be a couple of readers who will sincerely be interested in my observations; others will think in lightheartedness and laugh at my serious interest in the cleverness and beauty of poetry.

One observation (and perhaps an apology) I would like to make before we proceed on is that I have gone back to Lattimore's translation and read the translator's notes. I actually did not read any introductory material for any of the four translations, and thought that I would figure out the styles of each just by reading and comparing. But now, having read the notes Lattimore himself made before the actual translation of The Iliad, I realized that, while my observations that his translation is as close to Greek as possible, I did him unjustice by using an English criteria to evaluate his work, and dismissed it as mere line-for-line translation. As his notes indicated, he indeed intended to give that Greek feeling to the translation, which would of course sound weird to the English reader. On this point, I would like to apologize for my unjust bias and evaluation. But my decision in my previous entries to use Lattimore as the standard comparison stands correct; presently, however, I would just like to say that Lattimore's translation should not be viewed in a negative light; it functions perfectly as a standard for us to see just how clever (or not) our other translators are.

Consider the opening line of the poem. All four translators call for the muse to sing the poem. But notice how all versions vary from one another:
Lattimore: "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus..."
Way: "The wrath of Achilles the Peleus-begotten, O Song-queen, sing..."
Fagles: "Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles..."
Pope: "Achilles's Wrath, to Greece the direful spring / Of woes unnumber'd, heav'nly Goddess, sing!"
Lattimore's greek-based version is rather typical and dry. All other three translators have the poetic sense to place the ultimate theme of the epic poem as the first few words of the opening line. Both Pope and Way in particular highlights Achilles' rage, meaning to say, Achilles' rage for the death of Patroclus, his closest friend. Fagles' version, however, is ingenious, because he starts the poem, introducing this theme without hesitation - "Rage" is the very first word of the poem. What is more ingenious about this beginning is that, when we read the poem again, we are also reminded of other instances in the poem, where rage plays an important role in determining the outcome of events. In fact, we are reminded that the casualties of Trojan War is the outcome of not just Achilles' rage, but Menelaus' rage, the gods' rage at one another and at the mortals - the entire world has fallen into victim of the intense passion of anger. Arguably, rage is the root of this greek epic tragedy. Fagles is intelligent enough to highlight this key theme in the first line.

In book two, there is a rather puzzling line which deserves some attention. Very early in the book, Zeus decides to send Agamemnon a dream to tell him to attack the Trojans. Here are the translations:
Lattimore: "Go forth, evil Dream, beside the swift ships of the Achaians." (II, 8)
Way: "Speed thee, O Dream of bane, to Achaia's sea-swift ships..." (II, 8)
Fagles: "Go, murderous Dream, to the fast Achaean ships..." (II, 9)
Pope: "Fly hence, deluding Dream! and light as air..." (II, 9)
Here we have a problem: the adjective used by the translator to describe the "Dream" are all different: evil, bane, murderous and deluding all have very different meaning. If Zeus' dream is "evil", this means it can bring nothing good, but the dream acts kind of as a tempter instead of a force; if "bane", then it is to cause harm, but not as much harm as "murdering"; if "murdering", then does Zeus mean to murder the Greeks? but he was to grant the Greeks victory; if "deluding", then the dream actually causes misdirection for Agamemnon, which means Agamemnon has no choice but to be deluded. We can group the binaries this way: Way is against Fagles; Pope, Lattimore. How one can reconcile this difference, I really do not know. But my own interpretation is that Pope's choice of "deluding" is more correct than the other three. Indeed, Agamemnon seems to be deluded with the idea of victory when he wakes up later in the book; but Fagles' choice of "murderous" works as well, since it was Agamemnon's command that causes all those Greek and Trojan soldiers to fall by the end of Book IV. Lattimore's choice of "evil" is problematic because "evil", at least according to Nietzsche, is really a Christian concept; for the Greeks, there is only "good" or "bad", and it is used in an entirely different sense. Way's use of "bane" is too weak.

Book IV has another point of contention. Early in the book, Menelaus is wounded by Pandarus, and this line describes the reaction of Agamemnon:
Lattimore: "...[Agamemnon's] spirit was gathered again back into him..." (IV, 152)
Way: "And [Menelaus'] spirit revived in his breast and his courage was kindled afresh." (IV, 152)
Fagles: "...[Agamemnon's] courage flooded back inside his chest." (IV, 172)
There are several points I wish to make here. Firstly, Pope does not have this line (which describes Agamemnon's reaction) at all. The omittion is certainly puzzling: it seems that Pope must really value the character Agamemnon - he requires Agamemnon to be brave and great at all time. Secondly, Way's translation, which is line-by-line rhymed, also omits Agamemnon's reaction. It is understandable how Pope can omit lines - Pope never did intend a line-by-line translation; but how can Way omit this? That is just baffling. Finally, I have to praise Fagles' translation; compared to Lattimore's, it is far more imaginative - we normally consider flooding water out of something (or flooding courage out of his chest); Fagles took the reverse of that, which is very clever.

But Pope is simply so much more clever in his poetry. Even one example (among many) will do. The best heroic couplet line is considered when it has a perfect rhyme, preferibly with one verb and one noun; in iambic pentameter with subtle variations; and within the couplet there should be as many parallels as possible. Taken from the battle in Book IV, consider the following translation by Pope:
"So to the fight the thick Battalions throng,
Shields urg'd on shields, and men drove men along." (IV, 484-485)

Compare to other translations:
Lattimore: "so thronged beat upon beat the Danaans' close battalions / steadily into battle, with each of the lords commanding / his own men..." (IV, 427-429)
Way: "So rank after rank they rolled onward, the Danaan men, to the war / Without cease: through the trampling the cry of the captains rang out everymore; / But in silence the rest of them followed..." (IV, 427-429)
Fagles: "so wave on wave they came, Achaean battalions ceaseless, / surging on to war. Each captain ordered his men / and the ranks moved in silence..." (IV, 496-498)

One can readily notice the similarities between the three versions. Way's version, however, lacked the metaphoric "wave" of Fagles' translation; nor does it have Fagles' dramatization, ending the passage with "silence". Pope's couplet, however, is simply a perfect adaptation of the passage - the neoclassical couplet at its very best. "Throng" and "along" are perfect rhymes, and "throng" is a verb. The first line of the couplet follows the iambic pentameter pattern ( x \ x \ x\ x \ x \ ; with x being weak stress and \ being strong); the second line's pattern varies ( \ \ x \ x \ \ \ x \ ). The first and the seventh accents are stressed, and notice which word are those accents: "shield" and "drove", both battle words, which needs to be stressed to achieve its effect. As a result, the entire line is heightened and dramatized. Notice, too, the parallelism of the second line, "shields urg'd shield", "men drove men". All these wonderful poetic effects in just one couplet. The couplet, in its condense and intense construction, is far better expression than the more literal translations given by the other three translators.

Pope's translation is full of these poetic devices and effects, which makes his translation so much more enjoyable. In a sense, one can consider this a virtuosic work, like a clever Liszt piano transcription of a Beethoven symphony. I would, however, like to make one final point about the style of the heroic couplet. The heroic couplet, in the hands of a master like Pope, of course will achieve its full capacity for expression. But even at this very full capacity, there is something that Pope can never achieve: Pope, without exception, has to have ten syllables for each line; there are moments in the poem which demands less for a better expression. For example, Achilles, in Book I, tells Agamemnon words to the effect of the modern translation of "f--k off" (now that is a vulgar but strong translation). Pope's translation is this: "Command thy vassals, but command not me." (I, 391) Fagles, with a freer translating style, is able to pull of something like this: "don't give me commands!" (I, 346) Pope uses the metric princple to convey his expression. His line runs like (x \ \ \ x x x \ \ \) - a total disruption of the metric principle, which effectly presents to the sensitive reader Achilles' state of mind. But Fagles' translation (\ \ \ x \) has but one weak stress. This is a very forceful line, far more effective than Pope's. Pope's neoclassical heroic principle has reached its very limit.

Coming towards the end, I hope my four parts on the Art of Translation has been insightful to my dear readers. Ancient literature is extremely valuable for us modern readers, because that is where our memory lies - our cultural memory. To better understand ourselves, we must understand the past. But the past is often inaccessible, which is why we need interpreters - skillful interpreters - to guide us. The art of translation is not a simple re-reading of old works: it is indeed an art for a skillful master, so that those who are incapable of reading the original at least will get a good taste of it in a translated form.

*Note: Fagles has translated both The Iliad and The Odyssey; Pope has also translated the two works by Homer; for a translation of The Aeneid, as far as I know, Dryden's translation (Dryden, who reigns in Neoclassical poetry with Pope) remains the best there is in English, although I have been told that the young Keats also translated The Aeneid in his teen years, but in prose.

On the Art of Translation - Part III

In Part II of this running series, I have mentioned that Pope often takes too many liberties, and as a result, his own poetic vision of Homer's Iliad begins to interfere with the reader's interpretation of the characters in the poem.

Consider the following two examples. The first one is taken from nearing the end of Book III, when Helen is persuaded by Aphrodite (Venus) to go to bed with Paris.

Lattimore: "So [Aphrodite] spoke, and troubled the spirit in Helen's bosom." (III, 395)
Way: "Thrilled by her voice was the soul of the lady, and Helen turned..." (III, 395)
Fagles: "Enticing so / that the heart in Helen's breast began to race." (III, 456-457)
Pope: "[Venus] spoke, and Helen's secret soul was mov'd; / She scorn'd the champion, but the man she lov'd." (III, 487-488)

The second one is taken from early Book IV, when Athena convinced Pandarus to let an arrow fly at Menelaus.

Lattimore: "So spoke Athene, and persuaded the fool's heart in him." (IV, 104)
Way: "Then by Athene's words was his witless soul overborne." (IV, 104)
Fagles: "So Athena fired the fool's heart inside him." (IV, 120)
Pope: "He heard, and madly at the motion pleas'd..." (IV, 135)

I have only read the first six books of The Iliad from all four versions. I have not had the time to do all twenty-four books. (At any rate, the Way translation only goes up to Book VI; it's old and out of print.) While I'm convinced that upon closer reading, Pope's bias will be more evident, the two examples quoted above will do justice to my claim. As you see, in both of these extracts, while the other three translators portray the situation such that human minds are helplessly affected by divine powers, Pope thought otherwise. In the first example, our three translators all agree that Aphrodite fired Helen's passion for Paris, Pope maintains that Helen already loves Paris. Notice how Pope phrase his line: it is "Helen's secret soul", not just Helen's soul; this implies that Helen already labours a secret love for Paris, which is contrary to other translators' words of Helen later on in the poem (she loves Menelaus, her lawful husband).

In the second example, our three translators are convinced that Athena, in a way, forced the decision onto Pandarus. Lattimore's version is more neutral, but the emphasis of all three translations is on Athena, implying the power of the gods. In Pope's version, on the other hand, it was as if Athena merely dropped in the choice, and Pandarus made a conscious choice in shooting Menelaus. If it wasn't Athena who made the suggestion, another mortal could have said the same thing, and Pandarus would still think it a good choice to shoot Menelaus.

In other words, in Pope's translation, he seems to consciously and subtly imply a doctrine of free will and human independence from the divine. This bias on Pope's part is because he is part of the neo-classical tradition, which affirms androcentricism, or the human being as the center of the universe (see Pope's Essay on Man). Human beings, although they are part of a divine order, a great Chain-of-Being, they are the only species who has to ability to move up or down the chain. Hence we see Pope's characters in his translations, although greatly affected by the gods, nevertheless enjoys the final decision on things, or free will. But due to the poet's task of translating, not adapting, the story of The Iliad, Pope can only be subtle in his attempt to establish his neo-classical doctrine.

One can accuse Pope of betraying his task as a translator, if one is to see a translator as someone who should be transparent, like glasses for the viewer. If we carry on this metaphor, then Pope's translation is really a pair of shades, colouring the Homeric world with Neo-classical biases. But this assumes two fallacies: 1) the translator can actually be transparent; 2) the translator should be transparent. The idea of transparency for a translator, upon closer consideration, is an absurd one. Firstly, the languages are different, so there is no way a translator can be different; secondly, as mentioned before in Part I, a translator's task is not to translate the words but the spirit of the poem. If indeed the Popian glasses bring the Homeric view much more accurately than the others, then there is certainly nothing wrong with a shaded view. Furthermore, I have mentioned before that The Iliad is a performed poem - it must be chanted by a great bard. Historically speaking, it is believed that this poem is passed on from bard to bard in a verbal tradition. Hence, every bard will have their own version of The Iliad before it was settle down in words. In a sense, a line-for-line translation would destroy this vision of the great chanting bard, because it takes away the element of improvisation, of interpretation on the part of the bard, of memory of the past and representation of the present.

Translation can be liken to a pianist performing a piece by a composer: it has been naively said that the goal is to play the piece as close to the composer's intention as possible. But that is ridiculous. We can never know the composer's intention. Here I am reminded of two extraordinary performances of piano music that is definitely not the composer's intention, yet is extremely moving. The first is Gould's playing of Bach's piano concerto in D minor. Now, Bach has never heard of the piano; in a sense, Gould could be criticized as being unfaithful to authorial intention. But Gould's performance is Bach "in spirit" - clear, clean, balanced and pious. The other piece is Arthur Rubinstein's interpretation of Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata (#23 in F minor). Beethoven could not have known Rubinstein's tremendous expression, his fire and energy - at the time of Beethoven his piano simply does not have the capacity to do such a thing. But the performance is a fantastic representation of Beethoven's "second period" of composition: passionate, romantic, yet never self-indulging. Both Gould and Rubinstein betrayed their vocation as faithful interpreters, as far as the notes written by the composers; but they are true musicians because they understood the Muse that guided Bach or Beethoven in their compositions. And if we appreciate these great "unfaithful" performers (listen to Gould's outrageous performance of Brahms' D minor concerto - most people play the first movement within 20 mins; he took 25 mins), then we should also appreciate Pope the great translator. Pope brought Homer alive to his audience. In a sense, Pope becomes the bard, carrying on the verbal tradition, only in written verse.

On the Art of Translation - Part II

An ardent reader of my blog has left me with a question concerning my last entry. She asks, "to what extent, then, would you say that the role of the translator is one of a plagiarist?" I thank her very much for this challenging question, and I will now offer my two-cents of wisdom.

I think the important point is to define what "plagiarism" is. By the commonly understood definition of plagiarism, it seems obvious that every translator plagiarizes, only in a different language. Thus if my assignment is to write an essay on 18th century China, and I "translate" someone else's essay from Chinese to English, without question I would be considered as a plagiarist. This view on "plagiarism" neglects a very important factor to the definition: a plagiarist must be someone who does not really know what he is talking about, and merely copy-and-paste someone else's work and take credit himself.

Given this business of "knowing what you are talking about", I think this is a good criteria in distinguishing the translator from the plagiarist. The knowledgeable translator is one who knows how both languages work. For the translator, while most passages are translatable (except for some insane literary or philosophical work like Being and Time or Faust), occasionally there are some expressions in one language simply does not translate to another language. Anybody who has fluent access to two or more languages will agree with me. Upon encountering these passages, the true translator will not translate expressions word-for-word; rather he will do something drastically different in order to communicate the same sense of language to the intended audience. For example, there is a chinese expression, when translated literally to English, will read as "slanted bowl huge rain" (I personally doubt if this is a correct literal translation). The plagiaristic translator will literally translate that (and perhaps justifying it as a metaphor: afterall, a slanted bowl implies pouring water). The true translator, on the other hand, I believe, will translate it as "raining cats and dogs". It is upon these instances one can tell just how much a translator is a plagiarist: if one reads any awkward expressions or sentence structures, one can almost readily conclude that the translator is a plagiarist.

Having no knowledge of the Greek language, I unfortunately have to make the assumption that one of the translations, Lattimore's, is the most accurate and close to Greek language, since it is line-for-line, and it is does not rhyme, giving the translator the most freedom. But here is an example:

Lattimore, at the end of Book IV, translates the following final couplet:
"For on that day many men of the Achaians and Trojans
lay sprawled in the dust face downward beside one another." (IV, 543-544)

This couplet, towards the end, is a bit awkward. Compare that to Way's translation:
"For many a man of Achaia and Troy on that wild day,
Outstretched on his face in the dust, by his foe in the death-peace lay." (IV, 543-544)

Or Fagles' translation:
"That day ranks of Trojans, ranks of Achaean fighters
sprawled there side-by-side, facedown in the dust." (IV, 629-630)

If Lattimore's translation is to be the standard, then 1) we have assumed Lattimore to be the plagiarist; 2) Fagle's translation is truly beautiful; 3) Way's translation is just terrible. In fact, I would not hesitate to call Way a plagiarist, for, if we take the rhyme ending away, his translation is also the same as Lattimore's. There is almost no "English characteristic" in Way's translation; but Fagles' translation resembles the typical English free verse line (the last line actually has ten syllables), with parallelisms on within each line and also within the couplet. Fagle's translation is definitely not plagiarism.

One might be wondering what Pope did with that last couplet. His, in fact, was nothing like the above three:
"So fought each host, with thirst of glory fir'd,
And crowds on crowds triumphantly expir'd." (IV, 636-637)

Now, one can accuse Pope of not translating but only adapting the text of Iliad. I, on the other hand, would defend Pope. I think Homer's sense of desolation of the tragically-spirited fighting is far better conveyed in Pope's words than any other translator's words. It is true that Pope really deviated from the text, but he is much closer to the spirit of the text: notice the rhyming words for this couplet - "fired" and "expired". They are exactly the opposite of one another in meaning, and hence the contrast deserves the most emphasis (and hence the rhyme). The image conveyed here is much more colourful and intense than the one painted by Fagles, and still more by Lattimore and Way. And indeed I think Homer in his Greek version would much rather end his Fourth Book with Pope's bang of powerful rhythms and rhymes than Way's pathetic whimper of poorly-constructed couplet (the word order is just awkward).

I hope this example makes clear of what I deemed to be an act of plagiarizing and an act of translating. The translator translates spirit; the plagiarizer mimicks mere words. This is not to say that plagiarizing, in an act of translation, is totally useless and valueless; the line-for-line translation of Lattimore, for example, does give us a much more accurate (but not authentic) feel of Homer. And at times, plagiarism is better than translation because the bias of the poet (especially in Pope's case) will get in the way of interpretation. Pope's translation is full of little things he drop in that affects how the reader constructs the characters within his mind. This is a great problem. A skilled translator, I believe, will learn to mediate the relationship between the act of "translation" and "plagiarism". Fagles is a good example.

On the Art of Translation - Part I

For the past few days I have been reading four versions of Homer's Iliad. From reading different versions of the supposedly same work, I have learnt a lot about how language works, in particular the English language. I have also learnt that only true poets should do translations, not language scholars, because bad translations truly destroys what was a great work of art.

Here are the four translations:
1. Alexander Pope - an immortal poet, he translated the Iliad in early 18th century
2. Arthur S. Way - an obscure scholar, he translated the Iliad in late 19th century
3. Richmond Lattimore - a brilliant Greek professor, he translated the Iliad in the mid-20th century
4. Robert Fagles - a poet and literature professor still living, his versio of the Iliad appeared in 1990; it is the newest version as far as I know.

A quick comparison of one passage will show who is the greater poet. This passage is taken from Book III, when Helen and the elders of the Trojans survey the battlefield. Antenor is speaking, and he is describing the elegant speech of Odysseus.

Lattimore, whose translation is line-for-line, and hence is more accurate to the Greek words:
"But when he let the great voice go from his chest, and the words came
drifting down like the winter snows, then no other mortal
man beside could stand against Odysseus." (III, 221-223)

A.S. Way's translation, also line for line but rhymed, goes like this:
"But soon as the sound of his mighty voice from his deep chest rose,
And the storm of his fast-coming words like the drift of the wintertide snows,
Then no man might strive with Odysseus in counsel-rivalry..." (III, 221-223)

The modern Fagles translated the passage as the following:
"But when he let loose that great voice from his chest
and the words came piling on like a driving winter blizzard -
then no man alive could rival Odysseus!" (III, 267-269)

Finally, Pope's heroic couplet translation (strict iambic pentameter, rhyme at the end):
"But, when he speaks, what elocution flows!
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows
The copious accents fall, with easy art;
Melting they fall, and sink into the heart!" (III, 283-286)

One needs not to be super sensitive to see that Pope's translation is by far the best. And if we go with Lattimore's translation as the closest to literal translation, then Pope's translation also deviates the most. Several things can be noted in a comparison:
1. It seems that a translation works best if it deviates most from the original text without varying in meaning. In this sense, Pope really captures Homer's Greek poetic-spirit in English: this is the reason why literal translations do not work; the translator needs to have a complete understanding of both languages in order to translate not just the words and meanings, but also the spirit within. Pope and Fagle's sense of length, rhythm and meter in one line is a good example. A good english line should not be any longer than 12 syllables; most famous poems are like that (see Shakespeare and Milton, who almost always writes in 10 syllables verses); Lattimore and Way's lines are ridiculously long.
2. Specifically, in translating Homer, one has to keep in mind that Homer is to be chanted by a bard, just like Shakespearean plays to be performed. In this sense, Lattimore's literal translation is not as effective, even when it is measured up against Fagle's translation (let alone Pope's): try to chant the three lines outloud for both of them; you will find that Fagle's version works a lot better. Fagle's version has dramatic pauses and exclaimations, which very much more resembles human speech.
3. Translation shows just who is a true poet and who is not; undoubtedly, Pope is the champion here. Observe the restrictions each translator sets for himself: Lattimore is to be literal; Way is to be literal and rhyme; Fagles is to be dramatic, but otherwise no real technical restrictions; Pope has to satisfy the requirements of the heroic couplet. Pople, who has the most difficult restriction, turns out to be the one who is most effective. Compare how Way and Pope rhymes. Way's rhymes are just sad: "snows" and "rose" are not proper rhymes; Pope's "snows" and "flows" are proper rhymes. Furthermore, the perfect requirement of the heroic couplet is that one of the two words in the rhyme pair is a verb, and it should not only be mono-syllabic, but also on a strong accent. Pope's rhymes satisfy this. Also compare the meter of the lines by Pope and Way: Pope's lines are almost always iambic pentameter, like proper poetry; Way's meters are almost random - except for the rhyme, one can almost call that prose. Way's translation is an example of "bad poetry".
4. The spirit of poetry mentioned before also means knowing the limits of the liberties one can take. Pope's special treatment of the snow-metaphor is an exceptional example. Instead of like the others, who only mentions the snow as it is demanded by the literal text, Pope takes the liberty and extends it (and he does it beautifully too). While one can argue that this is not translation, but one has to remember that Homer is a chanting poet: he improvises as he goes along. I believe Homer, resting in the halls of Hades, will definitely approve of Pope's genius.

There are many passages in the poem which are worth noting, which shows the genius of both Pope and Fagles, but which I have no space or time to illustrate here. I will, however, conclude with two things: firstly, translation is similar to the transcription of music from one instrument to another; it demands the transcribor's understanding of both the notes and the nature of the instrument. A literal transcription of a Mozart symphony to piano two hands is not enough; one has to be creative at this art of transcription, like Webern's transcription of Bach's "musical offering"; secondly, while Pope's translation is undoubtedly the best, Fagle's translation is also worth reading - he does a lot of things that Pople could not have done with his strict insistence of the iambic pentameter pattern.

Pope's translation will always be the best, there is no doubt about that; Mr. Way's translation...I don't know. It would be worth your time if you have a lot of time...you will learn what bad poetry is, and I suppose that is also a constructive gain.

Monologue On Postmodernism and Art - Part IV (final part)

Presence. Yes. This is the ultimate criterion for the evaluation of the great work of Art. Oh, there are just so many examples one can give: the traditionally great artists all have a kind of presence in their works, in particular their late works, as they have come to understand the nature of their mode of expression much better than in youthful times. Shakespeare's The Tempest, T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen (regretfully, a much neglected work)...these are all late works which are particularly sublime: no longer do we have mere pleasant combinations of symbols; rather all these works are incredibly sublime - the work has an extra dimension of presence, which opens up when the audience pays attention to the work, allowing each other (the author and the audience) to feel the standing-forth of the other.

* * *

You: grand proclaimations, my friend. Granted that you are correct, that your "art" has somehow transcends the problem of language, that all visions of art are universally grounded in the experience of being. But what about the epistemological issue that you have put aside: in short, how do you guarantee that this "greatness" in art will actually reach a universal audience?
I: ...
You: For example, let us grant that Bruckner's Fourth Symphony is universally great art in virtue of its presence of "the romantic". But would an African drummer feel this presence, which is supposed to be universal? Conversely, would Bruckner feel the presence of some pagan god embodied by the rhythm of Africian drumming?
I:...
You: Why is it that the popular song listener does not like an 80 minute symphony? You might say that it is because that listener is not musically educated to understand the "art-ness" of it. Well, then, let us educate our listeners! But what are you doing in the act of education? You are imposing your own cultural values onto others such that others will understand your vision of being. There is no doubt that "presence" is important to "art"; but should we also impose just how all of us should experience being? You complain that the so call "lesser popular arts" do not give the audience the experience of being; why can't the argument be turned around? Why can't I say that you don't understand my modern popular stuff, that you are far too prejudiced in your way of presenting presence?
I: What can I say? Hasn't this monologue become a dialogue? Hasn't my attempt to come to unity failed? Haven't I deconstruct my own grand vision of Art?

I am falling; I have fell off the high ground...

*End*

Monologue On Postmodernism and Art - Part III

The question of what is universality is already answered by the German thinker, none other than Herr Heidegger (or at least I thought so).

Many times I have mentioned the notion of being. I truly believe that this is the key to transcends all these postmodernist problems of relativism.

The more proper way of notating the word "being" (such that one can fully appreciates) is "be-ing". It is an action of something (like "work-ing" instead of "working" in the sense of "the internal workings of a clock"), an act of be-ing. "Be-ing" is presence: it is a standing forth from a background of mere objects.

Strangely the understanding of "being" is how we can overcome the problem of positivism. Yes, while it is true that each and every language (that is to say, natural languages like Chinese or English) is unique, and that each language has its own set of expressions to express its own cultural values not found in another languages, at the origin of all languages is its original function, now forgotten: language is to denote the original experience of "being".

Consider a common example: as you are walking down the street, in a sea of strangers a man comes up to you and asks for your time. You answer and he dives back into the sea. When you get home, you tell your friend: "today a man came up to me and asked for my time." Note what happened: in your experience of the presence of the man you denoted him as "man". When you recall your experience to your friend, you use the word "man" to recapture your experience of the man's presence. With this example in mind, we can perhaps imagine the first human beings who were still trying to develop a language: each word is to denote the being of something - a stone (I have kicked a "stone" today), a tree (a "tree" caught on fire today), a leaf (a "leaf" fell from a tree today). It is not merely assigning symbols to objects; objects must come to being and stands forth to the perceiver. This is how we come to have language: even though all languages are different, they all have the same origin, namely, to denote presence.

In the process of feeling the presence of other things, we also come to feel our own presence. So the idea of being is really a twofold idea: as an object stands out from the background of everyday stuff to your consciousness, so you also stand out from your own daily meddling of things and into the embracing of the being of that object.

Real Art is to bring about that experience of presence, of being. What presence are we talking about is really of no significance because that is culturally different; but the very sense of presence (meaning, bring you to presence) is what constitute as great art. A careful examination of all "great works of art" will reveal that there is a mysterious sense of presence in them: to a careful reader, Shakespearean drama bring to him the presence of the human being ("human spirit", I dare assert); Bach's Masses bring the presence of God; Van Gogh's paintings (in Heidegger's famous example of the pair of peasant shoes) bring the presence of common objects. The degree of greatness of Art comes in the intensity of this feeling of presence. Compare the early and late Mozart composition: the early Mozart is mere pleasant sound; the late Mozart is artful music.

Many modern cultural works and popular works, however, are too keen on "forgetfulness". I am told that techno music allows one to forget oneself and be entirely one with the flow of rhythm; or perhaps the popular romantic novels, which allows the reader to be entire submerged into the characters and forget about their own presence. That, however popular, however wonderful, is not Art. A gathering of Being in a certain medium of expression is the work of art.

*End of Part III*

Monologue On Postmodernism and Art - Part II

But let us be practical: I mean the definition and value of Art. What is "art"? And what does it mean to be artistic? I have a strong view on Art: it must be elitist, elevated above the common herd and into the realm of the sublime. It seems that postmodernism, on the other hand, has a tendency to democraticize my elitist views. Everyone is entitled to a say; everyone is artistic in his or her own way: the Canadian anti-epic novel is just as great as the Homeric epic poems; the wonderful Brittany Spears song is equally memorable as the Bruckner symphony. To anyone who objects to these two (and many other) statements, you will get the ultimate rebuttal: your "universal greatness" is a product of your own culture - in fact, "culture" usually means "cultural memory", since nobody who is in love (these are the people I think who lack conscious cultural memory) with Spears' "music" will ever complain Bruckner's lack of musical quality - complaints are usually the other way around. And just how can any genuine elitist artist (like me, I may not be an artist, but I certainly agree with this elitist position) reply to this kind of ultimate rebuttal? Any attempts to reply to such postmodern-ultimate-rebuttal will be labeled negatively - for example, Harold Bloom, who is always called "a tyrant".

I ask myself: can I honestly go up on the stage and genuinely say, Spears' music is just as valuable as Bruckner's symphonies? I answer decisively: no! Even at the risk of being labeled as a tyrant, I will proudly stand up and say that Bruckner is art and Spears is trash (this part is alright, because it's still my opinion); I will, however, also assert that Bruckner is art and Spears is trash is a universal truth (this is what will get people angry). You, oh great postmodernist, can undermine all you want of my cultural background, and how I am conditioned to think this arbituary way, that all of my values are worthless and entirely artificial. You will support the little guy who is trying to assert the opposite: that Spears' songs are also universally great music. Fine. But remember the old saying: "you can play Bach your way, and I will play Bach his way."

The postmodernist / cultural-relativist got it all wrong: not everything is culturally based. Their argument is: as language determines culture, since language is a human construct, therefore culture too must be a human construct, and hence everything is relative as language itself is relative. But true Art does not aim for cultural production; rather it "reaches" for universality. This great "reaching" is not an authorial intention; it is simply the nature of Art. If a thing is what it does, then art is the reaching of universality.

But what is this "universality" that art is reaching for? This is the way in which elitists like me can overcome the postmodernist.

*End of Part II*

Monologue On Postmodernism and Art - Part I

For anyone who cares to think about this issue, it seems that with the advent of postmodernism, Art in general has come to a crisis: it has been decentered. There is no longer a "natural" way of evaluating Art: as all criteria are human construct, all are arbituary and therefore are relative. Nothing is universal.

Many modern students and scholars love postmodernism. They think it is so much fun to undermine all values, reducing them to mere human cultural constructs, destroying them whenever they want. They will say: why isn't so-and-so a great poet just because he does not write volumes and volumes of epics, and instead writes in the style of "black-talk"? Why should we deny the voices of other non-popular groups? In Canadian literature, for example, why is it that we only get points of view from British Canadians? What about the Quebecois? Japanese-Canadians? Chinese-Canadians? First Nations? Postmodernists will say that we should embrace multiplicities, many voices; we should empower minorities, not in the sense of few people, but minorities in the mind (like women, for example).

That is postmodernism in a nutshell. While many people have grown to embrace that, I am having much difficulty with this idea. Yes, I agree that we should give our attention to people of all sex, nationality, cultural background, etc etc. But must we be decentered? The full consequences of postmodernism, if I may jump to such conclusion while hoping that I am politically correct, is the following:

1. There is no God, but only many gods.
2. There is no Art, but only many arts.
3. There is no Truth, but only many truths.
etc etc

God, Art, Truth...these are all centers which the postmodernist deconstructs (and I dare say, destroys). I cannot come to understand how anybody can live without centers. There is no ground; you cannot even center the world around you because, as Heidegger (who is not really postmodernist, mind you) said, language speaks, not you. You are spoken by language. And we know language is anything but Language. (There are only languages, no Language, as Wordsworth would like to believe.) Without ground, one is eternally falling: postmodernists seem not to mind - they are having fun with the groundlessness. I, on the other hand, cannot handle this groundlessness. Just imagine yourself falling into a bottomless cliff and never hitting the bottom. Never. Eternal falling...

*End of Part I*

Reflection

Ever since I met her in English class last wednesday, I have been seeing her everywhere: on the bus, be it school or non school time, in the sub...no I do not have a crush on her. The important point here is that, there are many things in which we see everyday, but they do not register into our memory. We live in a constant flux of changing sceneries, in which one is the same as the other; all people we see on the bus are the same, unless they have names in which we have come to know. She told me that she has seen me before on the bus; perhaps she is more attentive than I am, which is truly ironic, because I have always insisted to be more aware of the beings around us, to slow down and look at things carefully; however, I must confess that I have never seen her before until English class...

Yes, I must say that I am hypocritical, perhaps unintentionally so: who is not immersed in a stream of everyday busyness these days?

Third Aphorisms - On Laughter

For K. - Let us laugh at and with each other...

I

Laughter is the very limit of language. What is laughable exceeds representation of words; or else there would be no need for laughter.

II

When somebody laughs, why do we ask the question "what is so funny?"? Do we need a reason to laugh? Have we lost our integrity?

III

The difference between laughter and anger is this: laughter is acceptance; anger is the opposite; this is true especially when we either laugh at or be angry with ourselves.

IV

The poet laughs at bad verses; the musician, unresolved cadences; the mathematician, bad proofs; the child - everything.

V

The question "When did we first learn to laugh?" is an incorrect one; the real question is "When did we first forget to laugh?"

VI

The moment one has forgotten the ability to laugh, one has entered from the first stage of life into the second stage - early maturity: the world is no longer beautiful, but full of human constructs that lures one into society. One is recognized and accepted by Society, into its mighty chain of Being. Consciously or unconsciously, one's struggle is to get to the top of the chain, or at least not to fall to the bottom. As every single action matters to one's social status, one must be cautious. Everything is serious; nothing is funny anymore. One forces oneself to stop laughing; eventually one loses the ability to laugh at all.

VII

Oh what sadness it is to not have the ability to laugh! There is no longer an expression for happiness! One must slowly learn one more lesson: to abandon the great chain of Being and become an automous individual - to become sincere once again. One moves into the third stage - full maturity. Gradually one learns to laugh again - to laugh at everything, the world, the people, oneself - especially oneself!

VIII

Learn to laugh at other, but especially learn to laugh at yourself, my friends! Laughter is a form of acceptance, but also a form of combat. A lack of seriousness will humble you, but it will also strengthen (egotize) you; you will see that while you are one speck of dust in this universe, you will realize that you are a laughing speck of dust with your own unique laughter, standing out among the herd.

IX

Laughter is the subject of the great fugue of the world; it is the key to the spirit and wisdom of the universe. Philosophers seek to be like children because children laugh.

X

But what do I know about life and laughter? Am I not just a monkey making funny and strange noises and calling them "aphorisms"?

The Snowman [Philosopher]

*Two philosophers standing side by side


Snowman-building. I have not had such fun for the longest time. I remember back in Grade 6: that year it was one of the craziest snowstorms in Vancouver's recorded history. The snow was up to my hips; although it was not the first time I had seen great amount of snow, the feelings were the same - one of excitement and rapture. My brothers and I helped our Father (who was still young!) shoveling one half of the driveway. With the other half, we first built a snowfort, then, abandoning it (as any adventurous knights would abandon safety in order to live a life of danger), we each massed up huge amount of snow, and slowly but surely we built ourselves a pair of twin snowmen. While the snowmen were destroyed by some naughty youngsters the next day, the images of the snowmen were preserved by one photograph, and the joy of the day was engraved into my memory.

Those images no matter concern me as a grown young man; the joy of the day, however, lasted through the many winters. When I spontaneously decided to (re)build the snowman, I was merely trying to outbuilt my neighbours, who built a mere snow-child. But once the building process started, a sense of joy - that sense of joy - came back to me. So despite the harsh labour I had to exert on pushing the body of the snowman, the toil became great joy. I felt that I was like a child, like Alpha - open, innocent and carefree. I had Math 12 to review and a 3000 word paper on Wordsworth due on Monday, but I did not care. I concentrated on my snowman: thus was my strange Wordsworthian intercourse with Nature - I was all alone, not in the sense of physical solitude (my brother was with me), but in a metaphyscal sense of feeling Nature's presence. You can imagine the joy I felt if you picture a little kid crouched down and slowly rolled his snowball, from a fist size to the size of a medicine ball. You cannot help but smile - I cannot help but smile the entire time I was rolling my little snowball!

When the work was done; when the gloves were completely wet; when the snowman was dressed; when the pictures were taken; then there was a moment of silence - between the snowman and I. This strange solitude - I have realized that we were both tired of human noises, and were listening to the beautiful harmony of the totality of the Presence of Nature, Nature's Being. The joy I was feeling was now stripped of its bodily activity; it was joy transcendental, a kind of joy manifested in my intellectual love for Nature. Slowly I left my snowman. As I was leaving I cannot help but think that the silence and solitude outside will do my philosopher snowman much good - He can recollect his emotions in tranquility, transcends his bodily existence and be one with Nature. (I do mean this quite literally if he melts tonight...)

"Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe!
Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,
That giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting Motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of Childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up the human Soul,
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
but with higher objects, with enduring things
With life and nature, purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear; until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart."

~William Wordsworth, from The Prelude, I, 401-414

From Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morality"

From First Treatise: "Good and Evil," "Good and Bad"

[Out] of the vengeful cunning of powerlessness the oppressed, downtrodden, violated say to themselves: "let us be different from the evil ones, namely good! And good is what everyone is who does not do violence, who injures no one, who doesn't attack, who doesn't retaliate, who leaves vengeance to God, who keeps himself concealed, as we do, who avoids all evil, and in general demands very little of life, like us, the patient, humble, righteous"... (13)

From Second Treatise: "Guilt," "Bad Conscience," and Related Matters

[B]ack then, when humanity was not yet ashamed of its cruelty, life on earth was more lighthearted than it is now that there are pessimists. The darkening of the heavens over man has always increased proportionally as man has grown ashamed of man. (7)

From Third Treatise: "What Do Ascetic Ideals Mean?"

There is, strictly speaking, absolutely no science "withouit presuppositions," the thought of such a science is unthinkable, paralogical: a philosophy, a "belief" must always be there first so that science can derive a direction from it, a meaning, a boundary, a method, a right to existence. (Whoever understands it the other way around - for example, whoever sets out to place philosophy "on a strictly scientific foundation" - first needs to turn not only philosophy but also truth itself on its head...) (24)

Second Aphorisms - For Tiffy

I

A picture is worth a thousand words.

II

A picture contains in it not scenery, but the emotions within the scene and the emotions triggered by the scene.

III

A picture is thus the gathering of all emotions present; a concentration of feelings that stands forth at the moment of perceiving it.

IV

The content of the picture no longer matters: those thousands and thousands of words are not descriptive words; they are expressive words - words of poetry, not jounrnalism.

V

A picture is valuable for its simplicity. Simplicity is often touching enough to cover up the flaws of a work, like Schubert's Sonata #14.

VI

The moment of the picture is the only time in which memories are allowed to be taken out of context; but ironically pictures are taken so that the context can be vividly remembered.

VII

What happened at the moment of when the picture is taken? This is a mystery solved by the picture, for only the picture can grasp the totality of the happening - I was simply busy smiling.

VIII

The picture that hangs over the abyss of time possesses my heart.