97.ACTIVITY AND CONTEMPLATION

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

97. ACTIVITY AND CONTEMPLATION

Human nature expresses itself mainly in three modes: indolence, activity and contemplation. Hindu psychology will classify it as three gunas: Tamas, Rajas and Satwa. Every society is a mixture of the three to varying degrees; and the three facets are also present in each individual. But each society shows the predominance of one or the other at different times. 

Historically, all  societies have valued contemplation above activity. When the ancient Greeks said that the unexamined life was not worth living, it was at contemplation that they were hinting. All activity ceases some time; all  earthly glory departs as poets such as Thomas Gray and James Shirley graphically described. Andrew Marvell, the seventeenth century poet sang in his celebrated poem The Garden:

The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flowers and all trees do close
To weave the gardens of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow. 
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.

This poem has been understood and interpreted at many levels, as all great poems  are. Simply stated, it means that men value and  strain to pursue an active life or career in the army (palm) or political (oak) or poetical endeavour ( bays). But the rewards they get are limited- for the wreaths made of the flowers and leaves of the plants mentioned are just cuttings or trimmings from them, while the whole plants flourish in the garden, which we can share only when we are in and with the garden! These activities must one day cease, and we must get the Quiet and Innocence only in solitude, as ceaseless activity in society is not conducive to such a state. Dame Quiet and Innocence, her sister, are not to be had in the busy companies of men! So we must retire into solitude and enjoy quiet contemplation!

An engraving.

Andrew Marvell
By Ruralhistorian (Own Work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons

Yet the history of Europe since the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries) is a direct repudiation of such an attitude! Colonial expansion and imperialism, capitalism born of and fed by the  Protestant ethic,expanding and intensive industrialisation, and Marxism have discounted the life of contemplation  in their own disparate and syncretic ways, and spread the attitude the world over. It is only in the mid-20th century that the serious ills of the society, especially in the form of depression and mental illness made psychologists pause and think and come up with solutions like TM, Relaxation Response, etc. The therapist became the new priest, and the tribe has grown since the days of Freud in unexpected ways. But psychology has not yet become a true science, nor has it taken the place of religion!

Religion, till the rise of Scientism as a cult, gave society some fixed rules and ideas regarding the three fundamentals of existence: Man, Nature and God. Nature and God were fixed, and Man could only adjust his reaction and plan his conduct accordingly. Religion induced a sense or duty of contemplation at least on a Sunday! Science questioned every belief, every practice without providing a substitute! Science has no clear idea on any of the three fundamentals, yet people believe in 'Science'!

Literature has followed the same trend. Our poets and novelists, from being men of vision  and guides of humanity, have now become one of us, just like us! Like the modern scientists and philosophers, they too do not know the final truth of anything , but can only advance theories! When Enlightenment and Science questioned religion (Christianity) and God, the German and British Romantic philosophers and poets could take refuge in Nature. It was still fulfilling, even without any supernatural connotations. But Science has removed all the mystique from nature itself! A flower is no more an object of beauty, subject of contemplation, but an item to be observed under the microscope, and dissected! There is no more beauty in Nature but only utility for the economist and information for the scientist! 

" I always seek in what I see the likeness of something beyond the present and tangible object", said Shelley. But this is exactly what science has done away with!

Percy Bysshe  Shelley
By Alfred Clint.

But the romatic poets were not simply 'nature' poets.For them nature was a symbol of something greater. In The Prelude, Wordsworth said:

Our destiny, our being's heart and home
Is with infinitude and only there....
something evermore about to be.

William Wordsworth

William Blake said:

Less than everything cannot satisfy man.

(Incidentally, this recalls to mind the Upanishadic dictum:Yo vai bhuma tat sukham. = There is happiness only in the Infinite.)

William Blake

Our problem today is that man has lost faith in God and religion. So, contemplation has lost its traditional significance. Activity only leads to endless cycles of restlessness, laying waste our powers, as Wordsworth said. Here , science ends in agnosticism and uncertainty about everything. Our modern literature also reflects the same trend. Our only recourse seems to be to turn to the old Classics, if at all we want any consolation or guidance from literature.

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 87. THE ACADEMIC TOUCH

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

87. THE ACADEMIC TOUCH

Most of us have read about Midas Touch- the story of legendary Greek king Midas whose touch would turn everything into gold. This gift made him so unhappy , turning even his pretty beloved daughter into gold, he got rid of it.

Illustration of King Midas with his daughter, from a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne for children, 1893. Public Domain.

I often think about the touch of the academics. It turns everything into argument, raising dust. Only, I am not able to decide whether we have to get rid of just the touch, or the academics themselves!

Is Philosophy difficult?

Take philosophy.Should it become so incomprehensible for the common man in the name of academics?

If we read Plato's dialogues, in many of which Socrates is the main character, we are struck by the fact that none of them talk philosophy! They talk about life! And the participants are not academics at all, but men drawn from different walks of life. They are not sitting in splendid isolation from the cares and concerns of life, but very much amidst them. They do not discuss meaning or mind, but the best way to live- what makes us happy. The great minds simplify things; the academics mystify them.

Front cover of the book from the University of Chicago Press,2009.The cover image is that of Plato's head. This is a book of immense scholarship, one of the most original books showing the unity and evolution of Plato's thought.

The same feeling we get when we read the Upanishads. There too we have 'conversations', if not dialogues. The issues raised are a little more serious, because the participants are on a spiritual quest  : What is it by knowing which we know everything? Directed by what does the mind fall on its objects? The teacher does not give a theory or a ready made formula; he directs the student on a quest- of inquiry, discovery- self-discovery! There is absolutely nothing technical or mystical in it. Of course, it is the product of a specific culture  in externals, but its core ,its spirit is universal. The truth will not dodge us, if we give up our attachment to dogma!

Front cover of book published by Jaico, Mumbai.2009

Scholars and academics

Lest I should be mistaken ,  I want to make it clear that I make a distinction between scholars and mere academics. The great scholars enlarge our mental horizons and promote our understanding. The academics promote theories about everything , focus on analysis and render appreciation difficult and almost  impossible and irrelevant in the academic system. The academic system is preoccupied with literary criticism meaning analysis in terms of some academic dictum,and not with appreciation and enjoyment and simple aesthetic satisfaction from contact with a creative mind. Those intent on learning the chemical properties of a flower, what do they care for its beauty?

In his novel  'Hard Times', Charles Dickens tells us about  Thomas Gradgrind, the school owner, who wants "Facts, sir; nothing but Facts" as " the one thing needful" . One day, he asks a little girl, "girl number twenty", who calls herself Sissy Jupe, after her father,[ but who, according to Mr.Gradgrind, has no business to call her Sissy, which is no name, but Cecilia] to define a horse ( which has to do with her

 father's occupation). The girl is unable to 'define'. Then he asks a boy, Bitzer, who defines it:

Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs,too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in the mouth.

 No doubt,this gladdens Mr.Grindstone's heart (or is it mind?) and he asks girl number twenty to learn her definition. Appropriately, Dickens has titled this chapter: "Murdering the Innocents".

Illustration:Thomas  Gradgrind- drawn by Sol Eytinge
from: www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/eytinge/118.html

I have often felt that our academics are all Gradgrinds, his more sophisticated incarnations.

Poetry or prose is now subjected to academic criticism: practical criticism or applied criticism;impressionistic criticism;judicial criticism; mimetic criticism;pragmatic criticism;expressive criticism; objective criticism. Well, how many authors or poets will survive this onslaught? And what do we, general readers, gain from this academic outrage?


Appreciation, different from criticism

Far happier were we with our Bradleys. Sixty years ago, we learned, following A.C.Bradley, to ask ourselves: 'what is the substance of a Shakespearean tragedy' or 'what is the nature of the tragic aspect of life as represented by Shakespeare?' For,how many of us are lucky enough to be spared by Providence of the touch of sorrow or suffering? We expect the great poets to give us a clue. The academics are only interested in finding out  how far the poets fulfil their pet theories! As Bradley said:

the critic never passed from his own mind into Shakespeare's; and it may be traced  even in so fine a critic as Coleridge, as when he dwarfs the sublime struggle of Hamlet into the image of his own unhappy weakness.

From: Oxford Lectures on Poetry, Chapter 1.

Front cover from the book by Atlantic Publishers, 2010

It is true, more information has been gained about the plays since then. But have we gained more insights therefrom? The latest Oxford editions ask us to focus on the play as it was staged, not on the poetry! What a great honour for the greatest literary figure England has produced in its recorded history!

In poetry too, things have become not only complicated, but even inexplicable in the name of critical appreciation. It seems the critics write for each other , and not for the general reader. Bradley offered, for instance, this very straight appreciation of Wordsworth's poetry:

It was not Wordsworth's function to sing, like most great poets, of war,or love, or tragic passions, or the actions of supernatural beings. His peculiar function was 'to open out the soul of little and familiar things,' alike in nature and in human life. His 'poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with which he feels the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us  in the simple primary affections and duties. # ....he tended also to ignore the darker aspects of the world. But in this very optimism lay his strength. The gulf which  for Byron and Shelley yawned between the real and the ideal, had no existence for him.....The spirit of his poetry was also that of his life- a life full of strong but peaceful affections; of a communion with nature in keen but calm and meditative joy; of  perfect devotion to the mission with which he held himself charged; and of a natural piety gradually assuming a more distinctively religious tone.

From: Oxford Lectures on Poetry. First Published: 1909; this is taken from the edition of Atlantic Publishers, 2009; p.83

# We might say, in the words of Oliver Goldsmith: " these simple blessings of the lowly train" ( The Deserted Village )

What an extraordinary passage this is!  In just one paragraph, Bradley makes us appreciate the distinct characteristics of Wordsworth's poetry, in contrast to those of his predecessors and contemporaries, and later poets. He also tells us how his poetry sprang out of his life! Here Bradley has captured the very essence of Wordsworth mind and heart, as stated by the poet himself in: A Poet's Epitaph:

But who is he, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than his own.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,

This is what I call scholarship, sir. What is the use of mere academic theories for us? The academics may fly their fancy kites; we want to discourse with the poets. Bradley may be considered old -fashioned. But then, in this age, is not poetry itself considered old-fashioned?