TABLE OF CONTENTS
A
Unique Perspective On The Life of Robert Frost
by Paul Kisak
Essay on The Eve of Saint Agnes by
Paul Roe
Altruism:
Fact or Fiction - A Discussion
A
Unique Perspective On The Life of Robert Frost
by Paul Kisak
Robert
Frost (1874-1963)
Lesley Lee Francis is the daughter of Lesley
Frost who is the eldest child of Robert and Elinor Frost.
On the 9th of April 2002 Lesley Lee
Francis was attending The Shenandoah University in
Winchester, Virginia as a visiting scholar and scheduled a
lecture at Lord Fairfax Community College in my home-town of
Middletown, Virginia. The
purpose of the lecture was to promote her recently released
book entitled “The Frost Family’s Adventure.”
After the lecture I cajoled her into reminiscing
about her relationship with her grandfather.
Lesley Lee Francis
Lesley
explained how the family referred to the master poet as “RF”.
She went on to state that “ RF was so involved with
his own children and the experience of their New England
Farm that she did not know him very well until after she was
grown.” I
asked if she remembered any certain poems that her
grandfather had shared with her or written for her as she
was growing up. She
explained that ‘It was not that way.
It wasn’t until later in life that I got to know RF
through visits and correspondence.’
She did offer one poem that was special to her for
personal reasons. She
later explained that the personal reasons that made the poem
so special were that it made reference to her mother Lesley.
The poem is entitled “The Last Word of a Bluebird
– as told to a child.”
She explained that “RF” was fond of adding the
phrase “as told to a child” and that she knew it to mean
that he intended it to add a special heartfelt warmth in the
reading. The
poem follows:
The
Last Word of a Bluebird
As
Told to a Child
As
I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost
made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax-
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing."
I
then asked her how she would express the personality of her
Grandfather. She
stated how he hated to travel and despised sightseeing even
more. She went
on to elaborate that “RF” used to give a special
rendering of the following Mother Goose nursery rhyme:
Pussycat,
pussycat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
“RF” would vocalize that everything he needed he
could find at home. He
didn’t need ‘to travel anywhere to chase mice, he could
chase them at home.’
The details of Robert Frost’s career in writing are
fairly well outlined in numerous books so I didn’t bother
asking for any information regarding the matter.
She did summarize during the lecture that Robert
Frost declared himself a poet in the third grade.
He then went on to do nothing else.
He inherited a farm and became distressed at the
academic distractions in the United States. This was his motivation to sell the farm and transplant the
family in England where his career took off.
I pressed Lesley for more details regarding his
personality and philosophy on writing.
She stated that after numerous arguments with herself
and others “RF” was adamant about stating that “the
essence of poetry was the metaphor” and that ‘his
children and his environment comprised a large part of his
motivation practicum’. She went on to outline how ‘RF had developed a reputation
in the United States as a dark poet’.
She implied that this didn’t bother him and stated
that “RF” had told her and others that his ‘goal was
primarily to push back the dark and reduce the anxiety of
life’. It was
at this point that she offered the only other poem, during
the discussion, that she felt significant enough, for the
point at hand.
The
Exposed Nest
by Robert
Frost - 1916
You
were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once--could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven't any memory--have you?--
Of ever coming to the place again
To
see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.
I then asked Lesley about the desires of Robert
Frost. She smiled boldly when stating that “RF” wanted to write
more plays, but that he commented that his plays always
seemed to turn into poetry.
She said that “RF” loved writing sonnets and that
it was an area that he wished to develop.
She stated with equal vigor that he never wanted to
see his poetry in a ‘collected works’ edition.
Lesley went on to confirm the rivalries that “RF”
had with Carl Sandburg and that the writing of Chaucer was
annoying to him because “he broke all the rules.”
Lesley
confirmed that there were many unpublished works of Robert
Frost to which I expressed surprise.
Based
on my own knowledge of the life and work of Robert Frost, I
don’t think that anybody would argue that he succeeded in
realizing his ambition to write "a few poems it will be
hard to get rid of."
In
1942 Robert Frost wrote a poem entitled “The Lesson for
Today.” There
is a line in the poem that reads "I had a lover's
quarrel with the world." This
line is used as the poets epitaph at his grave site in
Bennington, Vermont.
Essay on The Eve of Saint Agnes
by Paul Roe
Stained Glass and Lavish Feasts in The Eve of Saint Agnes
Summary: The stained glass window descriptions represent
Madeline's rarefied inner state, which itself represents
imagination, whereas, the table full of treats represents
Porphyro's lusty inner state- the earthy senses and passion.
Although the images of the stained glass window in
Madeline's
chamber coincide with Porphyro's first glimpse of her, the
evocative descriptions represent Madeline's inner state, not
Porphyro's impressions. This is indicated most strongly by
the nature of Porphyro himself. From his very first
appearance in the poem, he has a 'heart on fire' for
Madeline. His journey is driven by the urge to see Madeline
in person, whereas Madeline's journey is driven by the
desire to see Porphyro in a dream. Also, the manner in which
Porphyro endeavors to realize his desire to see Madeline is
completely guided by a realistic assessment of the
circumstances around him, although, of course, as a whole,
his approach is impractical and dangerous because of the
harsh cold outside and
because he is hated by Madeline's family: think Romeo and
Juliet.
He sneaks into Madeline's family's castle and comes across
an
old lady who is a friend of his as well as of Madeline. He
convinces her to bring him to Madeline's chamber so that he
may spy on her. This entire approach by Porphyro is hardly
in need of elaborate and highly fanciful descriptions to
represent it. Porphyro is not in any way overcome by the
powers of imagination, as the images of the stained glass
and the glow it casts would seem to imply.
Madeline, on the other hand, hardly uses practical means to
aid in the fulfillment of her desire to see Porphyro. She
gives herself over to the power of imagination to take her
away to the realm of dreams so that she might glimpse
Porphyro. She undertakes a progression from light, fanciful
daydreaming to a fully transformational slumber that removes
her completely from the real world. Whereas Porphyro employs
a calculated 'stratagem' to help him along, Madeline relies
on the superstitious legend of Saint Agnes' Eve.
By the time the stained glass window images appear in the
poem, Madeline is about to perform the ritual of Saint
Agnes' Eve and then lay down in her bed, hopelessly lost in
imagination and at the threshold of the unreal world.
The stanza describing the artwork of the stained glass panes
perfectly represents the distance that she has inwardly
traveled from the everyday world into the realm of
imagination: the images being of splendid colors and long
gone saints and kings. The next stanza, which describes the
glow cast on her by the stained glass window,
perfectly suggests her near complete transformation from a
person to a being from an unreal world. She is almost
completely transformed into an angel, 'save wings for
heaven'. It can be assumed that she will finally receive
those wings once she falls into the deep slumber.
These images have barely any relation to Porphyro's scheming
and planning mindset. He is only an observer of her
transformation at this point. The transformational imagery
of Madeline from person to angel serves to increase
Porphyro's burning passion. These images inspire him- they
do not represent him.
The next stanza is parallel to the prior stanza, describing
Madeline's transformation through her disrobing and
appearing 'like a mermaid, half hidden in sea weed'. Here,
she is likened to another otherworldly being, a mermaid.
[It is an interesting aside to note the blend of Christian
and pagan imagery employed to represent her transformation:
the ritual of Saint Agnes Eve is Christian, but, possibly
has pagan roots; the pagan moon's rays filter through the
Christian stained glass and turn Madeline into an angel,
until the next stanza, when she is seen as a
mermaid while disrobing.]
She then lays in bed for a while in a 'sort of wakeful
swoon',
before finally falling into a deep slumber. Since it is such
a deep slumber, it seems that her consciousness goes into
complete oblivion, 'blinded alike from sunshine and from
rain', 'blissfully haven'd from joy and pain'. She has now
left the real world entirely. It is at this point that the
narrative stops describing her inner state and only
describes her outward appearance.
The focus shifts to Porphyro, who has been spying on her as
she lay sleeping. He peeps at her from between the curtains
and then emerges to heap up an assortment of food onto a
table. During this time, the descriptions of sights and
sounds suggest Porphyro's inner state more than Madeline's.
'The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettledrum,
and far heard clarinet' hardly represent Madeline's deep and
peaceful slumber, but rather, they represent Porphyro's
passion. And the food that Porphyro heaps upon the table,
'the spiced dainties.from silken Samarcand to Cedar'd
Lebanon' reflect a passionate earthy man who has traveled
the world, not an angelic being rarefied through both
Christian and non-Christian means.
There are only two mentions of Madeline. In stanzas 29-31,
she is described as still in a slumber, in an 'azure lidded
sleep, In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered'. This
serves a narrative function, informing the reader that her
state has not changed. Later, after Porphyro has attempted,
unsuccessfully, to wake her, she is described as under the
influence of a 'midnight charm Impossible to melt as iced
stream'. Once again, there is only a description of her
outward appearance, and no indication of her inner state.
Thus, the two finest descriptions of the poem are divided
evenly between Madeline and Porphyro, and the aspects they
represent. The eternal realm of the imagination is glimpsed
in Madeline's inner person via the stained glass window. The
earthy senses and passions are represented by Porphyro's
lust through the dainty-laden table and the sound of
boisterous music.
Altruism:
Fact or Fiction - A Discussion
by Sean MacNiven, et al.
Sean MacNiven: I once wrote a little piece about the non-existence
of selflessness following the line of thought that even the
most apparently selfless acts of benevolence have at their
root, a purely selfish motivation for self gratification. If
I give a beggar on the street a couple of Euros or even go
as far as to cloth him, take him home with me, feed him, get
him a job, an education and make an outstanding member of
society out of him, I do so because his pleasure,
satisfaction, thankfulness and gratitude make
me feel good. I wouldn't do it if it made me feel
bad...would I? Altruism coming from the Italian altrui and meaning
"somebody else" cannot, in practice, exist as
everything we do, think, feel, experience is done through
the eyes of the Subject, all others being Objects.
Everything we do thereby
is purely subjective, is done and experienced subjectively,
pertains purely to the Self's ability to act and react and
has as it's root the pure principle of pleasure and self
gratification, i.e. is selfish. Altruism can then only be
interpreted as a selfish act from which others benefit. A
nice side-effect of a more endearing form of selfishness
perhaps.
That's my take on altruism anyway.
(Addendum) I forgot to add a request that is paramount
to my thoughts on selflessness. It is a request that to
date, has never been answered without my being able to
counter it and I leave it as a little gentlemanly challenge:
"Give me one example of a selfless act"
RESPONSE 1
Fang Yuan: A selfless act should be simple to give, as
you have already given us the opposite - selfishness. A
selfless act is in effect the loss of the self, the
inability to do anything that brings one pleasure. Acting
for others rather than for oneself, as in the losing of the
self due to
society's demands. There is no concise way to explain it
(although this is a favorite topic of mine). Basically, if
you have ever read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, Peter
Keating is your answer.
REBUTTAL 1
Sean MacNiven: Interesting, An act that is neither
agitated by nor conscious to the self? An unconscious act?
We say the beating of the heart is an unconscious act, but
that lies still within the realms of self. An act to which
the very ego is oblivious? Can one act for others indeed act
at all
without involving the self? Unfortunately I have n ot read
"The Fountainhead" (thanks for the tip though) but
if Peter Keating is a living, breathing, cogitating, self
aware individual then even he cannot act without a 100% involvement
of the self. Unless of course he is but a tool for some
higher
force. There the principle of selflessness could indeed
materialize. But in that case it is a quality rather to be
feared than adored for it is a robbing of the will, the
memory, a trance-like state in which recollection has no
place.
Indeed there would be nothing to recollect! Selflessness...Hmmmm...that
really does put a whole new edge on the question! This is
becoming quite a nice discussion.
RESPONSE 2
Dr. Greg Grove: It seems to me that today, what with
all the craziness that passes for sanity, that the truly
altruistic individual is about as valued as an outbreak of
psoriasis. If someone were to admit to doing something
just for the fun of it, with no hidden self-vaulting agenda,
so what? It is
in selfless service that true Being develops and matures.
Forgetting the self is possible when deeply involved in
activity that isn't tied to the Stock Market. :)
RESPONSE 3
Elliot Siemon: Perhaps the most selfless act I have
run across is that of Alfred Vanderbilt, who gave his
lifejacket to a lady as the Lusitania was going down.
And while I would agree with Ngoc, that alturism is a duty,
there may be some "puffery" for some people in
some situations for "doing the right thing", which
may defeat the otherwise altruistic nature of the act.
However, for Alfred Vanderbilt, and for others
who have done similar altruistic acts, perhaps it is not our
place to second guess them. Yet can you imagine someone on a
fast sinking ship having any bloated feelings of pride in
giving one's lifejacket?
REBUTTAL 3
Sean MacNiven: Maybe. Although the complexity of human
nature makes it difficult to be sure that he really got
nothing out of it. He may have died but he may have thought
about (however subconsciously) securing a place in someone's
good books. This is not that dissimilar to the ascetics of
the
early 300-400s or to the many women who achieved sainthood
by purposefully ingesting the pus from the wounds of the
lepers they were taking care of. They also died. But from
their code of belief they did not do so in vain
anymore than JC himself. Some might say that his was also a
selfless act, but it was committed by the self, and after
2000 years of worship, wars, and power in his name, I really
can't see him not having gotten anything out of it! Not to
mention the resurrection. A somewhat pseudo-sacrifice one
might
say.
You've no doubt read my previous mails and my rather
empirical approach to the topic so I won't get boring and
repeat myself. That which we colloquially call altruism is
indeed observable and perhaps even a duty if we are to
survive as a collective (and thereby as individuals). The
theoretical nature of altruism is practically reduced to a
utilitarian altruism. That need not be a bad thing. It is
certainly a lot better than the selfish deed that really
only aids oneself! For me there are three degrees of
self-motivated actions:
1. the self motivated deed that also aids others.
2. the self motivated deed that harms others and 3. the self
motivated deed that neither helps nor harms others.
It really is my personal take on things however. I simply
cannot logically allow for the existence of something that
necessitates the exclusion of the active participant.
Self-less, without the interaction, involvement of the
self. That's how I interpret the word and from this
perspective it simply cannot exist. Some good points coming
along though. Most people have simply agreed with me. I knew
that would not be the case here!
RESPONSE 4
Barry Howard: I understand the reasoning here in its
pure form, but I think to peer so deeply into the hidden
motives of a selfless act is stretching it. If you say
"(however subconsciously)", that really doesn't
leave a lot of room for rebuttal. Indeed, he may have had
some conscious motive in his act; and if so, it supports
your theory. But he were simply a decent atheist (just to
use an example), then the act is, for all intents and
purposes, altruistic. Whatever warm, self-serving feelings
this individual received
(and I'm even stretching here to assume he felt them) from
giving his life to a stranger are far outweighed by the
absolute finality of the consequences. The act is
altruistic in my opinion.
One might argue that the act is 99.999% altruistic, and
.001% selfish. Perhaps. Unfortunately the objects (humans)
involved in the the experiment have certain characteristics,
including emotions. Simply because these unalterable
functions are in operation does not, in my opinion, negate a
raw definition of altruism in human action.
Part of the problem lies in the identification of motive and
byproduct. To me, motive is clearly the mode by which we
measure the altruistic nature of each action...not
byproduct. In the act mentioned previously, the motive could
easily be deemed 100% pure, while the byproduct
(satisfaction with
one's self as the ship slipped into the sea), would probably
be a relatively 'good' feeling (as a good as a feeling could
be in that situation). Certainly the man's motive for doing
it, assuming he wasn't "securing a place in someone's
good books", is not related to the dinky amount of
self-satisfied fallout that occurs after the action is
complete. Motive and
natural byproduct... that's where I would make the
distinction.
REBUTTAL 4
Sean MacNiven: Well I suppose you could look at it
that way, and the "natural byproduct" is as good a
redefinition as any if we wish to maintain usage of the word
altruism. Even a decent atheist believes in something
though. Believe in God or the Afterlife need not have played
a role in his (or another's) decision. If we take the
finality of the act as proof of
altruism. Martyrs may also be seen as altruistic
individuals. They died for what they believed in be that
what it may. The important thing here is "they"
died for what "they" believed
in. There is essentially no second or third person involved.
That belief can be stronger than the inbuilt will to
survive, but it is not external to the self and self
motivations. That belief may be a fundamental part of that
individuals make-up, the loss of which could prove to
represent a greater
personal catastrophe than the very loss of life. Hard to
believe I know, but not as easily dismissible as we would
perhaps wish.
I included "However subconsciously" as a means of
getting to fundamentals. It could just as easily be seen as
an easy way out although I certainly did not mean to use it
in that way. We can round of pretty much any argument with
"However subconsciously" - Freud certainly did!
Yes, my argument is
very reductionalistic and empirical. I have nothing against
using the word "altruism" in normal conversation
and certainly would not go into such detail. If I did that
for every word I feel is too generally used I would have
great problems even saying "Good day"! If
the man about to donate his life jacket knew that the
receiver would not be in the slightest bit appreciative he
most certainly would not hand it over. There's the gratitude
that makes even the most "altruistic" of actions
not devoid of self-satisfaction and thereby a degree of
selfishness. Nevertheless, such behavior is truly to be
highly thought of as it is a quality that is found
(consciously) in the human being alone. If we choose to
bestow a title upon
it that is not within the capacity of the self (in its
empirical
reductionalistic form) then it is indeed an accolade that it
is worthy of. Accolades are meant to be ideals that are
associated with actual/real objects. "He was an icon of
the Enlightenment", "It was a perfect day",
"She was the epitome of the altruistic nature of
man" etc. Altruism is an accolade. An ideal. For all
intents an purposes though we may
very well deem the giving of the life-jacket as an act of
altruism. However great or small the "good
feeling" bought by that act. The superficial motive,
and the deeper natural by-product. Or visa versa? Difficult
to say. Certainly worth reflecting upon though.
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