Truth is not a joy I'm afraid. "To seek truth is not to seek pleasure" some sage observed, Montaigne I'm guessing. He was right of course. Life is perpetual infliction of pain for the pleasure of the reigning sadist. Sorry to object to your suggestng truth is a joy. It would be immeasurably better never to have a waking moment. Never to have thought of any thing.
The overall impression left at this conclusion is bittersweet. Melancholy triumphs. But Melancholy is born of truth, and the poet, alone among men, embraces Melancholy because he knows truth. And in knowing truth, he possesses the only joy that is not transient.
No need to be sorry. I enjoy reading thoughtful disagreement. I completely agree with your take on life, but I maintain that truth is a pleasure entirely separate from the pleasures of life – true satisfaction, not fleeting satiation.
It is reinforcing to discover one's own understanding in other thinkers. Makes one feel less alone. In my own case, this experience of shared understanding is rare, but fortunately not nonexistent. Nice anyway once in a while to stumble across something agreeable. To know the world is to know everyone's enemy. An enemy that unfortunately seems invincible. Some record what they know. When I do, it's as a pastime mainly--yet tinged with a faint hope that it might provide a smidgeon of solace to others similarly aware of just what they've been forced into. I don't think "satisfaction" describes my own feeling about my understanding. But I can be satisfied with how I express it. Thx for commenting Adam.
Pleasure and pain always coexist, always exist simultaneously, the latter always eclipsing the former:
Like a thunderclap Keats drops the reader back into gloom. No sooner does the poetic voice urge the reader to clasp and behold his lover to dispel Melancholy than it reminds him that that lover will die – and not only that she will die, that joy vanishes and pleasure turns to pain. Even in the very “temple of Delight,” Keats reminds the reader, is melancholy not only present, but enthroned as goddess.
And it has a decidedly tart taste, no sweetness detectable in this grape.
Some critics have sexualized the image of “burst Joy’s grape” and even the “globed peonies” appearing in the second stanza, but such readings can only arise from prurient urges, from minds looking for references that are plainly absent. The sensory analogy is to gustation, not copulation. “Joy’s grape” is “burst” against the palate – indeed, the “fine” palate, attuned to good taste. The poetic soul tastes sadness in joy, which necessarily obliterates the joy – “bursts” its “grape.” And grapes, of course, make wine (and stronger spirits) that intoxicate just like joy.
And here he confirms he will not defeat life, but be, as untold others, just another of its indifferent trophies, won by the black magic of its beauty together with programmed inability to resist its lures.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Camus would approve of the below. He favored squeezing every ounce of self-satisfaction one could from life, as opposed to halting it with a bullet through the head. It takes more courage than most have to dispatch themselves. Keats felt his own was not up to the job.
___________________________________________
Not even halfway through, the images become positively joyful – a rose, the seashore, peonies. In these the poetic voice urges the reader to seek joy until it draws the reader to the pinnacle of its joyous objects: the hand and eyes of a lover, lovely even as she is angry. Almost forgotten is the deathly evocations of the first stanza, and even the gloomy drizzle only a few lines before.
P.S. To add to my comment on Keats's lines, he's talking to himself in them. He seems to wish he could off himself, but to feel it's beyond him, and to thus console himself with the fact the end will come in time, so that's good anyway--better late than never.
I stopped at the below and wanted to comment on it. It's a tad exquisite but its point, that drowning the wakeful anguish of the soul is devoutly to be wished, couldn't be truer. The shade indeed comes "too drowsily." Better if I weren't here to write this. And if Keats and countless others had never been here either:
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
P.S. A suggestion: Cut down your prose to the fewest words necessary to get your idea across. Let style always bow to substance. The raw essence engages more strongly than fancy packaging. Like a Christmas present. You rip off the paper and bow to get at the prize.
Still, the poem you picked for exhibiting is worth reading, and I'm glad you interpreted it faithfully. I think you did an honest job of it--you made no attempt to cast Keats as a pro-lifer.
Keats wasn't blind to his plight, unlike so many. Digby Dolben, a topshelf poet despite having drowned at 19, and of whom most probably haven't heard, recognized his too. Robert Bridges, a relation of his, saw to it that his writing would outlive his person. Hopkins became infatuated with him after meeting him at Oxford, just as an extra odd fact.
Glad to hear, he deserves to be known. I learned about him via Simon Edge, a British novelist who wrote a novel called The Hopkins Conundrum, in which Hopkins's supposed lifelong attachment to Dolben's memory is the storyline given top billing. It's a quite well done book.
P.S. Tho my memory functions exactly the same way as the vessel of Danaides, let me, nonetheless, go way, way out on a limb and see if I can remember Edge's publisher's name. Well, true or false, "Eyebooks" popped into my head. If that's it, ascribe it to Revelation, The Resurrection, the return of the prodigal son. I don't read novels anymore myself, but maybe you do. So thought I'd include details that possibly could be helpful.
Truth is not a joy I'm afraid. "To seek truth is not to seek pleasure" some sage observed, Montaigne I'm guessing. He was right of course. Life is perpetual infliction of pain for the pleasure of the reigning sadist. Sorry to object to your suggestng truth is a joy. It would be immeasurably better never to have a waking moment. Never to have thought of any thing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The overall impression left at this conclusion is bittersweet. Melancholy triumphs. But Melancholy is born of truth, and the poet, alone among men, embraces Melancholy because he knows truth. And in knowing truth, he possesses the only joy that is not transient.
No need to be sorry. I enjoy reading thoughtful disagreement. I completely agree with your take on life, but I maintain that truth is a pleasure entirely separate from the pleasures of life – true satisfaction, not fleeting satiation.
It is reinforcing to discover one's own understanding in other thinkers. Makes one feel less alone. In my own case, this experience of shared understanding is rare, but fortunately not nonexistent. Nice anyway once in a while to stumble across something agreeable. To know the world is to know everyone's enemy. An enemy that unfortunately seems invincible. Some record what they know. When I do, it's as a pastime mainly--yet tinged with a faint hope that it might provide a smidgeon of solace to others similarly aware of just what they've been forced into. I don't think "satisfaction" describes my own feeling about my understanding. But I can be satisfied with how I express it. Thx for commenting Adam.
Pleasure and pain always coexist, always exist simultaneously, the latter always eclipsing the former:
Like a thunderclap Keats drops the reader back into gloom. No sooner does the poetic voice urge the reader to clasp and behold his lover to dispel Melancholy than it reminds him that that lover will die – and not only that she will die, that joy vanishes and pleasure turns to pain. Even in the very “temple of Delight,” Keats reminds the reader, is melancholy not only present, but enthroned as goddess.
And it has a decidedly tart taste, no sweetness detectable in this grape.
Some critics have sexualized the image of “burst Joy’s grape” and even the “globed peonies” appearing in the second stanza, but such readings can only arise from prurient urges, from minds looking for references that are plainly absent. The sensory analogy is to gustation, not copulation. “Joy’s grape” is “burst” against the palate – indeed, the “fine” palate, attuned to good taste. The poetic soul tastes sadness in joy, which necessarily obliterates the joy – “bursts” its “grape.” And grapes, of course, make wine (and stronger spirits) that intoxicate just like joy.
And here he confirms he will not defeat life, but be, as untold others, just another of its indifferent trophies, won by the black magic of its beauty together with programmed inability to resist its lures.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Camus would approve of the below. He favored squeezing every ounce of self-satisfaction one could from life, as opposed to halting it with a bullet through the head. It takes more courage than most have to dispatch themselves. Keats felt his own was not up to the job.
___________________________________________
Not even halfway through, the images become positively joyful – a rose, the seashore, peonies. In these the poetic voice urges the reader to seek joy until it draws the reader to the pinnacle of its joyous objects: the hand and eyes of a lover, lovely even as she is angry. Almost forgotten is the deathly evocations of the first stanza, and even the gloomy drizzle only a few lines before.
Here Keats is being ironic, enjoining what he knows is bound to happen without any nudge from him:
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose.
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
P.S. To add to my comment on Keats's lines, he's talking to himself in them. He seems to wish he could off himself, but to feel it's beyond him, and to thus console himself with the fact the end will come in time, so that's good anyway--better late than never.
I stopped at the below and wanted to comment on it. It's a tad exquisite but its point, that drowning the wakeful anguish of the soul is devoutly to be wished, couldn't be truer. The shade indeed comes "too drowsily." Better if I weren't here to write this. And if Keats and countless others had never been here either:
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
P.S. A suggestion: Cut down your prose to the fewest words necessary to get your idea across. Let style always bow to substance. The raw essence engages more strongly than fancy packaging. Like a Christmas present. You rip off the paper and bow to get at the prize.
Yeah, I wrote this a few years ago, and it’s probably more prolix than if I had written it now.
Still, the poem you picked for exhibiting is worth reading, and I'm glad you interpreted it faithfully. I think you did an honest job of it--you made no attempt to cast Keats as a pro-lifer.
Keats wasn't blind to his plight, unlike so many. Digby Dolben, a topshelf poet despite having drowned at 19, and of whom most probably haven't heard, recognized his too. Robert Bridges, a relation of his, saw to it that his writing would outlive his person. Hopkins became infatuated with him after meeting him at Oxford, just as an extra odd fact.
I actually knew about both Dolben and his effect on Hopkins. Mike Burch has written about them.
Glad to hear, he deserves to be known. I learned about him via Simon Edge, a British novelist who wrote a novel called The Hopkins Conundrum, in which Hopkins's supposed lifelong attachment to Dolben's memory is the storyline given top billing. It's a quite well done book.
P.S. Tho my memory functions exactly the same way as the vessel of Danaides, let me, nonetheless, go way, way out on a limb and see if I can remember Edge's publisher's name. Well, true or false, "Eyebooks" popped into my head. If that's it, ascribe it to Revelation, The Resurrection, the return of the prodigal son. I don't read novels anymore myself, but maybe you do. So thought I'd include details that possibly could be helpful.