Lyn’s MODL 5304 page

In The Poem of Niagara, Martí begins by discussing poetry in its relationship to the historical and political environment, and then to the poetry of the past and the future.

Martí juxtaposes the stable, fixed court environment of the past poets who created what are considered works of genius against the setting of poets in his day.  “Genius is becoming less individual and more collective.  Man is losing for the benefit of man.” (p. 315).  I started wondering if there was something lost in this?  Do we spend less time in developing a single idea?  Was there a time when ideas were richer because there was consistency, in opposition to today when ideas are collective and appear and disappear quicker?  I do not think so.  Today few ideas are belong to one person.  Instead there seems to be an evolution so that our understanding of them involves development by several people.   Martí calls it a decentralization of intelligence.  There is an expanding, widening, and opening of the idea that is unique to our rich culture and advanced communications.  The world of ideas and literature is present and alive in ways not possible in the past, operating and changing at the same time.  It is more a part of everyday life and interaction among average people, instead of being exclusive to certain situations and people.  Martí claims these circumstances are necessary for one to understand himself and to decode “what is intrinsic in man from what was added to him by his predecessors with their lessons, legacies, and law.” (p. 317)

I enjoyed reading Martí.  He created very interesting and imaginative images.  I also appreciated the perspective on how ideas are worked and used in society.  It gave me a greater appreciation of the variety and richness of our culture.

What makes Sentimental Education interesting is the description of every day events.  Well, of the bourgeoisie anyway.  Flaubert is silent on the lower classes and what their lives were like.  But he gives us a transparent image of daily life of the bourgeoisie with passages such as the newspaper description.  Describing Hussonnet’s Flambard, “The leading article was invariably devoted to taking apart some distinguished man.  After that came some society gossip and some scandals.  Then there were some wry observations about the Odéon Carpentras, fish-breeding, and prisoners under sentence of death…” “In the third column a chronicle of the arts, in the form of anecdotes or advice, gave some tailor’s announcements, together with accounts of evening parties, advertisements of auctions, and analysis of artistic productions, writing in the same strain about a volume of verse and a pair of boots.” (p.261)  We see what they were reading and talking about.

Another example is the duel. We are shown the seriousness of offenses, how they were handled and the related code of honor, the role of the seconds, who decides how they will be resolved, and what weapons will be used.  Flaubert alludes to whether or not Frédéric has a right to duel with Cicy because he is a member of the aristocracy and only members of the same social standing have the “right” to fight him.  It provides an insight to the prevailing class ideology and how this ideology affects more than economics.

Flaubert describes the dinner parties at the Dambreuse’s, what the women and men discussed, and what coffee table books the high society people were flipping through (the Revue des Deux Mondes, Imitation and Almanach de Gotha, a literature, philosophy, political and science publication, a spiritual guide, and a genealogy of royal families).  In Frederic’s rant we are told that the subject and ideologies of the revolution were taboo to the upper class, as it was economically threatening. 

The horse race passage describes how the races were executed and the scenes of the spectators.  We are shown how the spectators interacted with other social classes and within their own.  And there is the description of the Champs d’Élysées as everyone was leaving the races, the rows of carriages, horses, and people mixing with the rain, light and sky.  This was a common event, going home from the race, but because it was something meaningless and ordinary, it felt like the reader was seeing real, instead of staged and produced.

All of these things and many others give a glimpse into the society of someone like Frédéric in the first half of the nineteenth century.  It provides an interesting comparison to our present day society.  It also helps make the historical events of that time more constituent.  Instead of just seeing history as an end event and focusing on what the result was, it is also interesting to see how the changes occurred, the many elements involved that resulted in a change, and how it affected the individual.  The readers are shown throughout the text that the ideas and spirit of the Revolution were not a single ideology, or a collective rising up against the established government as a solitary force, but an opposition of many, extremely varied opinions also fighting amongst themselves. 

What struck me at beginning of Sab was the stark contrast of the juxtapositions.  In the first few pages she positions images of Sab against slaves, slaves against Carlotta and Theresa against Carlotta.  Theresa is wearing a mask but hers is seen as negative, contrasting Sab’s positive one, neither one is seen; their souls and power are hidden. She hides behind a protective emotionless and severe hardness, yet she is an emotional, compassion person.  Sab is first mistaken for an educated farmer.  Society’s label is the mask to a soul remarkable different from expectation.  Theresa is also contrasted against Carlotta who is on the inside as she appears to be, naïve, sensitive, and tender. 

Sab stands out to the point that Enrique is mesmerized. On page 30
Avellaneda poses a description of Sab against a description of slaves, “…brows seared with mark of slavery just as their souls are branded with the desperation of Hell”.  In the following paragraph Sab is described as extraordinary, “In effect, the bearing of that farmer [Sab] seemed to reveal something great and noble which attracted attention, and what the stranger heard, expressed in a language and with an eloquence which belied the class his dress appeared to denote, increased his admiration and curiosity”. (p.30)  Enrique is fascinated with him because his interior does not appear to match his exterior, as defined by the culture they lived in.  Sab is a slave, who are described in the preceding paragraph as degraded humanity, brutes, “brows seared with the mark of slavery”, but he is educated, eloquent, great and noble.  Sab is able to contradict the labels.  He explains himself on p. 30 “It can happen,” he said, again fixing his eyes on the stranger, “that at times the soul is free and noble though the body be enslaved and base.”

            The poem at the start of chapter one describes the difficulty in determining oneself true self from one’s perception by society.

“The tyrannical influences of my guiding star formed me

into a monster of such rare quality

that while I am of heroic lineage

in the endowments of my soul,

I am also the scorn of the world”

I think this verse is ambiguous in that it could be referring to the author herself or to Sab.  But ‘The tyrannical influences formed me into a monster’, says to me that he identifies himself as the monster society sees.  There is acknowledgement along with the blame.  It foreshadows the theme of hidden souls not just in slaves, but in all of her characters, and of the difficulty of not assimilating the perceptions and labels of the culture into one’s personal true identity.  

            This is the first work I have read by this author and I find the text well written and very enjoyable.   

Is it my imagination or is the author playing games with the narrator?  As I read the first chapter, I felt like the narrator was telling the action as if it was in past, as if it had already happened.  Then chapter two starts with dialogue between Theresa and Carlotta in the present tense.  I felt a little ambiguity because the narrator could be recounting the dialogue that happened in the past or switching to present tense. Chapter 3 starts in the present tense, “It is well known…” but then ends in the past?? Am I missing something? In the 5^th paragraph “A long period of silence followed this short dialogue, and we shall take advantage thereof to acquaint our readers with the two young women …” She appears to be still in the past tense, but pausing the action as if it was the present.  

And on several occasions the narrator speaks directly to the readers.  On p. 37 speaking of Enrique she says, “Did his soul understand that other passionate soul of which he was master?…We do not know: the events themselves will soon tell us and will then shape the opinions of our readers.”  How can the narrator not know?  This sentence seems to be an indication of the present. 

The narrator also seems to be establishing his/her power over the text and therefore the reader, not only the power of the narrator, but writers in general as authors.  This plays into our previous discussions in class of the part the author plays in establishing meanings by the selections and presentation of events.  But she makes a decision not to do this and tells us so.

            Not only does the narrator address the reader directly, but tells us her purpose.  “Not wanting to get ahead of things, we will limit ourselves for now to providing some knowledge of the people who appear in this story and of the events leading up to it.” (p. 37) Here are the events.  You decide if Enrique understands and is deserving of Carlota. Preceding this statement, she plants questions in the mind of the reader to get him/her wondering. “Did Enrique Otway deserve so beautiful a passion?” “Did he share in that divine enthusiasm which permits Heaven to be dreamt on earth?”  The narrator wants the reader to start questioning and draw their own conclusions, and s/he will present the story in a way that allows that to happen. S/he is drawing in, mentally engaging the reader and making it personal. 

Sab starts off with a description of man riding through the street.  However the emphasis is not on the rider but on the nature surrounding him.  Nature is not only humanized, but also genderized.  (I don’t think that’s a word, but I think you will know what I mean.)

      The sun is described as brutal, but becoming feeble, melancholy.  The sun is sinking, fading, dying; the day’s ending.  In contrast, the earth and fields are fertile, vigorous, luxuriant, virgin, youthful, and welcoming.

             I have not finished the text yet (okay I’ve only the first couple of chapters), but I am interested to see if something in the end is symbolized in the beginning, and to see how nature will be portrayed throughout the text.

In looking at the time-line of ideas, there seems to be a strong link between the structure of the language, specifically Derrida’s language center, and the ideology of the time.  At the same time in history that written language changed, so did ideology. 

Before the birth of humanism, the texts were religious and were under the power of the church.  The language was structured with God as the center, reflecting the general ideology.   With the rediscovery of the ancient languages and texts came the first secular writings and the professional training outside of  the clergy.   They were used for training in grammar study, law, medicine, and many other fields.  A new form of written language was developed and it was done by humanists or at least by using Humanist models.  They had the power to develop the secular written texts and translations.  This is where the individual becomes the center of language, and it is no longer God.  ‘I’ was  no longer the periphery seen in relation to God the center.  When I is the center of language, it must follow that it reflects the ideology of the culture. I realize that there can be multiple centers, but in general terms there seems to have been a big shift.  

Individualism seems to be at least partially transcendental from that time forward, through the Sensibility and Romanticism movements, and is such a part of our current language center and ideology that it difficult for me to understand the idea of collectivity of the middle ages.  

Why is this important?  It probably isn’t, but what was fascinating to me was the link of language to one’s ideology and the power of language to influence or change it.