Comme d’habitude, I will be working late this week, and unable to gather the energy or time to write. Comme d’habitude, I turn to poetry to ease the tension. This time, circumstance would have it that I am reading Auden. I offer two to you so that you may read along with me:
Alone
by W.H. Auden
Each lover has a theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;
The more they love, the more they feel alone.Whatever view we hold, it must be shown
Why every lover has a wish to make
Some other kind of otherness his own:
Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.
Leap Before You Look
by W.H. Auden
The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.Much can be said for social savoir-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.
NP: Slowdive, When the Sun Hits
simulacrum. i know that as a postmodern term. i hadn’t realized it was in an auden poem. what is its origin?
Comment by Stephenhero—October 10, 2003 @ 9:44 pm
I was also surprised to find it in Auden (having first seen it in Baudrillard—no, I can’t explain why I was reading that), but it seems that it’s an old word. I found it in a piece by Thackeray from 1845: see chapter 13 in his Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo. It is probably much older than that, though. The word appears in my Latin dictionary (“an image, likeness, portrait; effigy, a shade, a ghost, imitation, phantom, appearance”), seemingly from the same root as similis/similie and simia (ape, monkey, which are similar to humans, and hence the phrase: “to ape someone”). But that’s the extent of what I could find in a 15-minute search.
I was reading Auden because some co-workers have a “dead poet’s society” in which they gather for an evening every other week to discuss a poem or two, and they asked me to join. They had suggested Auden as a candidate, and in talking about him, someone mentioned that Auden wrote one of the best villanelles in English (“Time will say nothing but I told you so…”). I bought a “Collected Poems” volume and came across the poems above. “Alone” stood out to me as an interesting variation on the grossly repetitive villanelle form, but I also thought it intriguing to encounter “simulacrum” floating there in the middle.
Comment by Michael—October 11, 2003 @ 1:14 am
dead poets society. yes. i had one of those. but we called it the bulka society after art critic michael bulka. we met in a small room like dwelling under a stairway/bridge of one of the university buildings. there would be a dedication and sacrifice to the muse. i would burn peppermint patties. and then of course we would read poetry from stolen library books.
Comment by stephenhero—October 12, 2003 @ 11:17 pm
According to Webster, simulacrum dates to the 15th century, which means it came into the language at the same time as so many other latin-based words.
I too had only ever encountered this word in reading PoMo tracts, I had thought it was a coinage of Baudrillard.
There is no need to apologise for reading him, he may be the smartist communist left on the street. It can even be kind of nostalgic to think of it. There was once more than one secularist vision competing for our attention, and he was one of the champions on the field. I suppose it is quaint now to speak of the great edifices of secular culture as simulacrums, for the word itself seems to suppose the possibility of an alternative arrangement which would be more genuine (in Baudrillard’s case some form of communism). But, with communism so thouroughly passe now, I suppose secularusts need to move past (or evolve beyond) this concept. Once we dismiss it, then we can really get down to the business of being the last men.
Comment by ben—October 13, 2003 @ 10:49 am
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Comment by Michael—October 14, 2003 @ 10:06 pm