Suicide is a theme that courses throughout Langston Hughes's oeuvre, most famously perhaps in this small haiku-style poem:
Suicide's Note
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
I've always loved this poem. But just this morning I realized that one could read the river as a mirror of the speaker's thoughts. The speaker, contemplating suicide, looks into the river and sees his own reflection. Read in this way, the river loses its agency and becomes all the more "cool" and "calm," an unbiased but unforgiving environment. Conversely, the burden of suicide comes to rest all the more on the speaker, as he becomes both the receiver and producer of the thoughts.
For a more lighthearted take on suicide, check out Hughes's "Life is Fine."
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Winter's Tale -Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale is my favorite Shakespeare romance. No, it's not as concentrated as The Tempest, nor as crepuscular as Cymbeline, but the sheer amount of dramatic trickery and innovation makes it a real pleasure to read. My favorite scene is toward the end, when Hermione's "statue" comes to life. Leontes, Hermione's husband, comments on her “statuesque” form:
...What fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath?
In a play which so insistently calls attention to itself as a piece of dramatic artifice, this questioning of artistic capability seems particularly poignant—especially since it comes at a time when Shakespeare is straining both the medium of theater and the genre of romance to their limits. We have already seen Time come on stage and announce that sixteen years have passed, as well as a bear chase Antigonus offstage. Now, with the resurrection of Hermione, “It is required that / You do awake your faith” and consider whether or not a chisel can cut breath.
The two hard “c”s and the “ch,” all stressed, are the dominating sounds in the line, drawing attention to the hard sounds of a chisel cutting at stone in the act of sculpting. These hard sounds counterpoise nicely the breathy “fine” and “breath,” just as these lines attempt to counterpoise the hard medium of sculpture and the lively figure of Hermione. The complicated “could ever yet” means something close to “could have ever until now,” thus opening up the possibility of a life-creating art—a possibility out of place in the first part of the play but now believable in the thoroughly romantic second half.
The question is also couched in two contexts. First, it is a question posed by Leontes to Paulina concerning the statue of Hermione. I am inclined to answer “yes” at one moment because I read just a few lines later that the breath was in fact real. I could also say “no,” since chiseling had nothing to do with her breath—she is, in fact, alive.
It is also a question being posed simultaneously by the audience to Shakespeare concerning The Winter’s Tale--that is, the play itself. Will the playwright be able to successfully create a scene in which unbelievable elements can create pathos even when the dramatic artifice is so blatantly exposed—especially to those spectators in the front row who can see the subtle movements of the boy actor playing Hermione? I am inclined to answer “yes,” since this scene has endured as a theatrical tour de force.
However, I believe the double meaning of the question also allows for a type of “no.” While “cut breath” primarily means to “shape breath,” I cannot help but hear the more sinister meaning—the possibility of a chisel taking breath away. This second meaning allows the presence of death to enter into the generically festive scene of recognition. While generic convention presses for a prevailing since of life and restoration, this final scene is overshadowed by the deaths of Antigonus and Mamillius as well as the loneliness of Paulina. Herself a figure of the artist much like Prospero, Paulina has “sculpted” a plot which has restored Hermione to life (“cut breath”) but has left both the king’s son and her husband dead (“cut breath”).
Whether life or death prevails at the end of the play is certainly as ambiguous as the statue of Hermione. Is this play, in the end, a romance or a tragedy? Is it both? Shakespeare’s careful “cutting” of The Winter’s Tale allows for ambiguous conclusions and leaves the reader or spectator questioning whether the medium of theater and the genre of romance are able to adequately contain and define this play.
...What fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath?
In a play which so insistently calls attention to itself as a piece of dramatic artifice, this questioning of artistic capability seems particularly poignant—especially since it comes at a time when Shakespeare is straining both the medium of theater and the genre of romance to their limits. We have already seen Time come on stage and announce that sixteen years have passed, as well as a bear chase Antigonus offstage. Now, with the resurrection of Hermione, “It is required that / You do awake your faith” and consider whether or not a chisel can cut breath.
The two hard “c”s and the “ch,” all stressed, are the dominating sounds in the line, drawing attention to the hard sounds of a chisel cutting at stone in the act of sculpting. These hard sounds counterpoise nicely the breathy “fine” and “breath,” just as these lines attempt to counterpoise the hard medium of sculpture and the lively figure of Hermione. The complicated “could ever yet” means something close to “could have ever until now,” thus opening up the possibility of a life-creating art—a possibility out of place in the first part of the play but now believable in the thoroughly romantic second half.
The question is also couched in two contexts. First, it is a question posed by Leontes to Paulina concerning the statue of Hermione. I am inclined to answer “yes” at one moment because I read just a few lines later that the breath was in fact real. I could also say “no,” since chiseling had nothing to do with her breath—she is, in fact, alive.
It is also a question being posed simultaneously by the audience to Shakespeare concerning The Winter’s Tale--that is, the play itself. Will the playwright be able to successfully create a scene in which unbelievable elements can create pathos even when the dramatic artifice is so blatantly exposed—especially to those spectators in the front row who can see the subtle movements of the boy actor playing Hermione? I am inclined to answer “yes,” since this scene has endured as a theatrical tour de force.
However, I believe the double meaning of the question also allows for a type of “no.” While “cut breath” primarily means to “shape breath,” I cannot help but hear the more sinister meaning—the possibility of a chisel taking breath away. This second meaning allows the presence of death to enter into the generically festive scene of recognition. While generic convention presses for a prevailing since of life and restoration, this final scene is overshadowed by the deaths of Antigonus and Mamillius as well as the loneliness of Paulina. Herself a figure of the artist much like Prospero, Paulina has “sculpted” a plot which has restored Hermione to life (“cut breath”) but has left both the king’s son and her husband dead (“cut breath”).
Whether life or death prevails at the end of the play is certainly as ambiguous as the statue of Hermione. Is this play, in the end, a romance or a tragedy? Is it both? Shakespeare’s careful “cutting” of The Winter’s Tale allows for ambiguous conclusions and leaves the reader or spectator questioning whether the medium of theater and the genre of romance are able to adequately contain and define this play.
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