Dorothy Sayers, Conclusion

Two weeks ago I quoted a passage from Dorothy Sayer's introduction to her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Click here to refresh your recollection. She listed some of the references drawn largely from British history of the late 19th and early 20th century that a British poet in the middle of the 20th century might use in creating an analog. Her point was that these references will become obscure over time, just as the various references of medival Italy now seem quite obscure to us.

The passage of time has proven her right in this.  In last week's entries, though, I found something to say about eachof the allusions -- except for those below.  Today we conclude our self-appointed task as annoator for Sayer's hypoithetical poem.

"the Officer in the Tower" -- Norman Baillie-Stewart (1909-1966), a Subaltern in the Seaforth Highlanders, who was court martialled in 1933 for selling military secrets to Germany. The two countries were not yet at war, so he was not in danger of execution for treason, but he did become the last British citizen ever imprisoned in the Tower of London, and earned the italicized nickname.

Peter the Painter --  the pseudonym of a Latvian Communist revolutionary, who was involved in street fighting in London (the "siege of Sydney Street") in 1910-11. His "real identity" is still a matter of some dispute, but it may well have been Yakov Peters (1886 - 1938).

Jenkins 'of the Ear', -- Robert Jenkins -- the birth and death dates are uncertain. He was captain of a commercial brig sailing the West Indies in 1731. His vessel was stopped and boarded by a Spanish ship, and his ear was severed.  The incident became the professed cause of a war between England and Spain.

Dick Sheppard (1880 - 1937), the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral from 1929 until illness forced him to retire two years later. Sheppard was was of the outstanding clerical pacifists of the inter-war period.

Jack Sheppard (1702-1724), a thief was was repeatedly arrested by, and who repeatedly escaped from, the authorities in 18th century London, making him a Robin-Hood type figure in the eyes of some.

'the Widow at Windsor' -- A phrase popularized by Rudyard Kipling for Queen Victoria (1819-1901). It refers of course to the period of her rule after the death of Prince Albert in 1861.

The writer of this hypothetical poem also "holds strong views on" the following issues, on each of which I'll say a very few words:

Trade Unionism -- nowadays we would probably speak of "labor unions," and "collective bargaining." The phrase "trade unions" with or without an "ism" seems antique.

the constitution of the UNO -- of course the United Nations' constitution was and continues to be a target of objection both by nationalists who believe it constrains the sovereignty of member nations and by full-blooded internationalists who complain that it doesn't.

the 'theology of crisis' -- a phrase associated especially with Karl Barth (1886-1968), emphasizing the utter Otherness of God, and thus His unknowability. Reliance on scripture doesn't remove this unknowability, for: "The Bible is God's Word so far as God lets it be His Word," Barth wrote.

Freudian psychology -- Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) hardly needs comment from me, except to say that his influence was at something of a peak in the post-war British context of Sayers' hypothetical poet.

Einsteinian astronomy -- refers of course to Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) and the profound changes he introduced into how we think about Space, Time, Matter, and Energy.

and the art of Mr. Jacob Epstein (1880 - 1959), an influential sculptor, whose art includes for example "St. Michael's Victory Over the Devil," a work affixed to the wall of Coventry Cathedral.

Freud's Wizard

I recently received, unbidden, a catalog from Daedalus Books.  A couple of the books they are selling (both described on p. 23, in their "Self & Society" section) look at the origins of psychoanalysis.  One is called A DREAM OF UNDYING FAME.

Here's the ad copy for that one:  "In 1877, a young Sigmund Freud met an established physician named Josef Breuer and they began a collaboration that would lead to the publication of the classic work Studies on Hysteria.  Freud subsequently minimized Breuer's contributions, betraying his former mentor and benefactor.  Psychologist Louis Breger reveals the story behind the creation of Studies as well as the case of Anna O., which helped contribute to Freud's definition of 'neurosis,' showing how Freud's own self-mythologizing and history not only affected everything he did in life, but also helped shape his emerging beliefs about psychoanalysis."

The second of these books is called FREUD's WIZARD.  Here is the ad copy.

"The saturation of the English-speaking world with psychoanalytical concepts was instigated by one British analyst, Ernest Jones.  As Freud's disciple, collague, and biographer -- and the man who literally rescued Freud and his cabal from the Nazis in 1938 -- Jones led the international psychoanalytic movement, shifting its vortex from Vienna to London and spreading its influence to Toronto, New York, and Boston.  Brenda Maddox's biography reveals a brilliant and flawed analyst who both venerated and challenged his mentor, and who well understood and used his own abilities to attract women in a string of liaisons."

Both books, as you can see, focus on the mentor-protege relationship, and together they give us Freud at each side of it.

Bernstein on Freud on Moses

Richard J. Bernstein, Freud and the Legacy of Moses (1998).

"We may feel uneasy about the way in which Freud so freely appeals to the Hebrew Bible when it suits his purposes, and dismisses it as a distortion when it contradicts his beliefs.  Freud does open himself to serious methodological critique when he self-confidently asserts: 'No historian can regard the biublical account of Moses and the Exodus as anything other that a pious piece of imaginative fiction, which has recast a remote tradition for the benefit of its own tendentious purposes'....It is difficult to resist the conclusion that once Freud became convinced about what he thought really happened, he then scanned the Bible in order to select the evidence that would support his case."

That would seem spot on.  Bernstein doesn't think Freud makes a contribution to our understanding of Moses or ancient Egypt, although he does think that studying this particular book can make a contribution to our understanding both of Freud and of his circle.

Both the friends and the enemies of psychoanalysis called it a "Jewish science."  Anna Freud herself said in 1977 that such characterizations, even though or in part because they were once hurled by Nazis, "can serve as a title of honour."    

The questions that intrigue Bernstein concern the issue of what Jewish identity meant in the time of Alfred Dreyfus, at least for the highly educated and secular European Jews of whom Freud was an example, and whether psychoanalysis, in a sense that need be neither a disparagement nor a title of honor, was in origin Jewish.

Yerushalmi on Freud on Moses

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, a former professor of Jewish History at Columbia, in NYC, passed away in 2009.  Back in 1993, though,  he wrote FREUD'S MOSES, a discussion of Sigmund Freud's theory on the buried (historically and psychoanalytically buried) origins of monotheism. 

In one brief passage in that book, he states Freud's theory in a more straightforward manner than Freud ever managed to.  I'll reproduce that here. 

"Monotheism is not of Jewish origin but an Egyptian discovery.  The pharaoh Amenhotep IV established it as his state religion in the form of an exclusive worship of the sun-power, or Aton, thereafter calling himself Ikhnaton.  The Aton religion ... was characterized by the exclusive belief in one God, the rejection of anthropomorphism, magic, and sorcery, and the absolute denial of an afterlife.  Upon Ikhnaton's death, however, his great heresy was rapidly undone, and the Egyptians reverted to their old gods.  Moses was not a Hebrew but an Egyptian priest or noble, and a fervent monotheist.  In order to save the Aton religion from extinction he placed himself at the head of an oppressed Semitic tribe living in Egypt, brought them forth from bondage, and created a new nation.  He gave them an even more spiritualized, imageless form of monotheistic religion and, in order to set them apart, introduced the Egyptian custom of circumcision.  But the crude mass of former slaves could not bear the severe demands of the new faith.  In a mob revolt, Moses was killed and the memory of the murder repressed.  The Israelites went on to form an alliance of compromise with kindred Semitic tribes in Midian whose fierce volcanic deity, named Yahweh, now became their national God.  As a result, the God of Moses was fused with Yahweh and the deeds of Moses ascribed to a Midianite priest also called Moses.  However, over a period of centuries the submerged tradition of the true faith and its founder gathered  sufficient force to reassert itself and emerge victorious.  Yahweh was henceforth endowed with the universal and spiritual qualities of Moses' god, though the memory of Moses' murder remained repressed, reemerging only in a very disguised form with the rise of Christianity."

No comment.

Sigmund Freud: A Quote for the Day

"If we admit for the moment that the rule of Pharaoh's empire was the external reason for the appearance of the monotheistic idea, we see that this idea, uprooted from its soil and transplanted to another people -- after a long latency period takes hold of this people, is treasured by them as their most precious possession and for its part keeps this people alive by bestowing on them the pride of being the chosen people."

-- Moses and Monotheism

Reading Freud's book has led me to think about his sources. As intellectually ambitious as he was, Freud wasn't going to create a new theory of Biblical scholarship working from scratch. He leaned on recognized authorities in the srea. One of these was Ernst Sellin.

Grapple with Sellin as a figure in the history of biblical scholarship? A task for another day, at least for me.

Mad Men: Some Thoughts

I've been watching Mad Men lately. Cicily and I, neither slaves to timeliness, have been working our way through the first season, which first aired in 2007-08.

So here are some comments about those early episodes.

The very first episode showed our protagonist, Don Drapper, trying to come up with a new advertising slogan for Lucky Stripes, which is under attack (along with the rest of the industry) as consciousness begins to dawn in some quarters that the product might not be entirely healthy.

This episode had some amusing scenes with a severe looking woman whose accent is, I think, supposed to be Viennese. She represents the Research department of the agency, and she believes in Thanatos. The fact that cigarettes could kill you might make them more appealing in a Freudian way, and the ads should play to that, she thinks. Don shoots this down, though an underling pitches it to the clients anyway, and they shoot it down.

Don finally comes up with "It's toasted!" as the slogan. This, in fact, was a historic Lucky Stripe slogan. "It's toasted to taste even better." I think in reality Larry Tate got started that way.

A few episodes later, Don is supposed to come up with a campaign to get American Jews to vacation in Israel. The prospective tour promoters came to him because they understood he had come up with a killer campaign to get tourists to Rio de Janiero. He asks, "Do you have a mountain with a statue of Jesus on top? That helped us with Rio."

Anyway, since there don't seem to be a lot of Jews in Don's social circles, he calls the one Jew he does know and pumps her for ideas. She is understandably put off by being taken as a token of the Chosen here.

All the pitching and strategizing generates dialog that firmly locates us in 1960. This was, after all, the year that Israeli operatives captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, as Draper's poorly-chosen confidante mentions.

Some of the efforts to allude to 1960 are confusing. Drapper's philandering boss invites his hot secretary to take a Caribbean jaunt with him for the weekend. She turns him down, saying "I don't care if it's Cuba. I can't go." Of course, there had just been a revolution in Cuba, but I'm not sure how that fact fits into this context. And I speak as an expert -- I've seen Godfather II about 20 times.

Some allusions are just plain wrong. One character says to another, "You know what they say? the medium is the message." 'They' weren't saying this yet. That phrase was popularized by Marshall McLuhan in the book Understanding Media, published in 1964. I suppose maybe this is all taking place in an alternative universe where McLuhan wrote that book sooner.

Still: the show is a lot of fun.

Other elements weaved in

My "Stalin diaries" story, discussed yesterday, will have other elements. The "girl who didn't dream," for example.

This one involves a circle of friends at a fictional college in the early 1970s (twenty years or perhaps a bit more before the main events of the story line) who would ask each other "have you have any dreams lately?"

It becomes faddish among them to invent wild stories about one's dreams. But one figure in the group stands ou for her unwillingness to 'play.' All she will say when asked such a question is "I never dream."

A couple of neat twists are possible taking off from that. It would be in accord with literary convention -- and for all I know Freudian theory -- to hold that she is suppressing something horrible. And this can link in naturally enough with the nightmare situation in which my lead characetr finds himself when the diaries he has been provided as a "hot lead" turn out to be bogus.

Oh, and by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIONEL. Famed singer Lionel Ritchie is 60 yeas old today.

Eight theories of religion

The title of this entry is also the title of a book by Daniel Pals, a professor at the University of Miami.

Strictly speaking, the first edition, in 2006, was called "Seven theories of religion." Pals has included an eighth, and thus the new title, for the just-printed second edition.

The eight theories, identified by their most prominent theorists, and by the brief explanatory phrase for each he uses as his table of contents, are:

1. E.B. Tylor and James Frazer (animism and magic)
2. Sigmund Freud (religion and personality)
3. Emile Durkheim (society as sacred)
4. Karl Marx (religion as alienation)
5. Max Weber (A source of social action)
6. Mircea Eliade (The reality of the sacred)
7. E.E. Evans-Pritchard (Societies 'construct of the heart')
8. Clifford Geertz (Religion as cultural system).

The new chapter in that lot is the fifth, on Weber.

From Schopenhauer

"The truth was not found, not because it was unsought, but because the intention always was to find again instead some preconceived opinion or other, or at least not to wound some favorite idea, and with this end in view subterfuges had to be employed against both other people and the thinker himself. It is the courage of making a clean breast of it in face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles' Oedipus who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigible enquiry, even when he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry in our hearts the Jocasta who begs Oedipus for God's sake not to enquire further; and we give way to her, and that is the reason why philosophy stands where it does."

From a November 1815 letter to Goethe.

This is a fascinating conjunction of ideas, given the latter development of psychoanalysis. Schopenhauer starts off here describing what Freudians call "defense mechanisms," i.e. subterfuges employed by a thinker against the thinker himself. Then he illustrates such subterfuge by a reference to the myth of Oedipus.

The way in which that myth is invoked here is importantly different from the way in which Freud would use it. But I'll spare you the full compare-and-contrast essay. Go and enjoy the last day of the old year's last weekend.

The Simpson's Movie

It was a great movie. Some of those with whom I shared an audience may have regarded my laughter as excessive -- but hey, if you don't want to expose yourself to the reactions of your fellow audience members you'll have to wait until its a DVD.

The opening scene involves "Itchy and Scratchy." As all true Simpson-philes know, this is a send-up of Tom & Jerry. Itchy is an ultra-violent mouse through whose schemes the cat, Scratchy, always meets a horribly gruesome end. The scene on the moon is true to form.

By making Itchy & Scratchy a cartoon-within-a-cartoon, the creators of The Simpsons long ago gave their program, if I may say so without sounding pretentious, an Id. It's so off-the-wall that even the events of dysfunctional "Springfield" seem normal, seem the sort of world an "ego" can inhabit and of which a "superego" can disapprove. After all, the impulse to violence, the cat-and-mouse violence, is suppressed by virtue of being unreal FOR that world. Thanatos is under control. Eros is relegated to Alaska.

Okay, that does sound pretentious. Just go see the movie-rino, or Flanders will adopt you. ARRRGH!

"The Canvas Enlists the Viewer"

I was looking again, recently, at John Updike's 2002 novelization of the history of modernist painting, SEEK MY FACE.

One of the minor characters in John Updike's story is known, in the novel, as Bernie Nova. I suspect that Bernie must be a slight fictionalization of some real painter or intellectual or both, but I don't know enough of the relevant history to guess who.

Bernie is a friend of Zack, who is clearly based on Jackson Pollack. One day in the 1940s -- the war was still on, though these young men were oblivious to it -- Bernie and Zack and others of their crowd (including one Roger) argue about the future of painting in a diner, sitting in the dark leatherette booths. This gives Updike his chance to unload Bernie's big theory on us.

Bernie snaps at Roger, "Your Surrealist friends are French playboys, playing with Freud, who was playful enough. Who says that being asleep is more profound than being awake? Dreams are a muddle -- brain-slime. What matters is not the psyche but metaphysics. Penetration into the world mystery; for this the painter's mind should be as pure as the scientist's and the philosopher's."

A little later in the conversation, Bernie again: "The canvas enlists the viewer in sympathetic participation with the artist's thought. It expresses the mind foremost, and whatever is still sensuous is secondary, an incidental accident. Truth before pleasure."

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So for the question: did anybody in the US in the era depicted talk like that about art? Was he part of a social circle around Pollack? or part of the post-war development of abstract expressionism?