Author: AVeryStrangeHoard

John Addington Symonds “Love in Dreams”

As the title of this poem suggests Symonds explores the dynamics between love and dreaming. The first lines of this poem read as though Symonds is responding to someone. “Love hath his poppy-wreath/Not Night alone.” (Symonds 1-2) The use of the “Not” in the second line makes it seem as though someone has just said that Night alone has a poppy-wreath and Symonds is writing his disagreement with them here. Poppies represent a few different things. In classical texts poppies often represent sleep. Perhaps this is what Symonds is responding to by arguing that Love also brings sleep, or is associated with sleep, not just the night time. The other connotations of poppies allow for more complexity in these lines. Poppies also are placed on the graves of fallen soldiers because they are connected with blood. This would make these more morbid, suggesting that Love is a fallen soldier. Or perhaps that Love is as dangerous as the Night is and also has its fair share of dead. There is also a homoerotic reading to poppies. With that in mind these lines could refer to homosexuality as being about Love as much as it is about the sin that happens at “Night”. Night was perhaps a time to do the deeds you wouldn’t during the day such as sex. Symonds here is claiming that Love is also homoerotic and a place of this expression of same sex desire.

Combining these literary connections to those in “The Language and Poetry of Flowers” published in 1875 makes for some interesting intersections. Poppies, depending on their color, can mean consolation, fantastic extravagance or sleep. The question of what kind of poppy wreath Love has seems to hinge on what kind of poppy wreath Night has. Night is a time of consolation and mourning the hard day, as well as being a time for extravagance and indulgences of many kinds. Not that these are entirely oppositional ideas but they bring out different meanings to these lines. If we read with consolation in mind then the rest of the poem is rather sad. The dream, all the “fancy fine” and “soul of youth” are present to appease the speaker because of some sadness or disappointment. When overlapped with the homoerotic reading it would seem that these dreams are consolation for his unrequited or sinful love. The overlap between homoeroticism and fantastic extravagance is slightly more positive about same sex love. Night is viewed as a time for the sinful, the taboo, and the excessive (i.e. drinking or sexing a lot) which has a connotation of indulgence. Night is a time to let out the impulses you keep in all day, like same sex desire, and it seems this poem is saying that Love is also a place/time where this indulgence should be/is permitted. When in Love, as in the Night, there should be a fantastic extravagance in same sex desires.

While all these different associates with poppies allow these first lines to have many overlapping meanings. There is no way to know exactly which version of “poppy wreath” that Symonds is referring to. This slippage between signifier, signified and sign creates possibilities of meaning. It is a place to potentially hide taboo subjects or reform social relationships in “confusingly disorderly ways” (Levine). The semiotic confusion doesn’t preclude meaning but expands it. The openness of these lines, and the way they could mean many things, shows how language is connected to who is reading it and how they choose to read it. It also shows how artists, like Wilde and his character Basil, are perhaps in their work as well as being apart from it. There are many combinations and connotations to just these two opening lines, and these possibilities produce meaning and readings for this poem.

 

“Poppy.” A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Michael Ferber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Credo Reference.Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

In the class “Angels and Demons” with Prof. Skalak we’re reading Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlow. Doctor Faustus follows the life of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in return for a devil to do whatever he wishes. As I was looking over passages I’d marked I began to realize some interesting similarities between Dorian Gray and Faustus. I don’t mean to argue that they are the same or mirrors of each other. In the blog post I want to explore the similarities to see if there are any interesting connections to pull out of Dorian Gray.

The first connection I made was between the figure of Mephastophilis and Lord Henry. Both are introduced to the protagonist (Dorian and Faustus respectively) early in the text. Faustus summons Mephastophilis while Dorian is introduced to Harry but both are the catalyst for corruption. Another connection was the loss of the protagonists soul. For Dorian the portrait, as he states, “was to bear the burden of his shame” (Wilde 102) and for Faustus Mephastophilis/Lucifer has taken his soul. While these are not necessarily the same thing I feel like they echo each other. Both characters get something in return for their soul (and potentially their salvation depending on the religious reading of the text).

Both characters also have a doubleness. Dorian is literally doubled in the portrait. He looks at himself and uses this second self to separate himself from the actions he chooses. He does not need to see himself age or become ugly with his sin because the portrait does that for him. In Faustus the double self is more subtle but can be seen in the way that Faustus is constantly speaking to himself in the third person. When he expresses either his desire to work for the devil or his desire to repent he does so in the third person. This creates a separation from his actions because he treats them as though another person is doing them.

There is also a parallel in the way that books are discussed. Oscar Wilde explicitly states that “Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book” (Wilde 140). This connects some of Dorians downfall to his reading dangerous literature. He read a book that influenced him so much that he becomes more corrupted than ever. In Faustus literature has a similarly corrupting function. Faustus discovers how to conjure the devil from a book. His last line before being dragged to hell is “I’ll burn my books” as though that would save him from damnation (Marlow 1508). Both of these texts reference literature as a corrupting element.

Structurally both texts follow the white male protagonist through his decent into sin and corruption. We meet the protagonist before he is damned and very early in the text the reader is shown a moment of change where both are changed and begin their journey towards damnation. Both stories end with the death of this protagonist at their own hands and at the same time by accident. Dorian attempts to destroy the portrait and destroys himself instead. Faustus sells his soul and then is unwillingly taken years later.

Now that I’ve outlined all these similarities I’m not quite sure what this tells us about these texts. Perhaps Dorian Gray is more invested in religion than it first appears. Perhaps Wilde was influenced by Marlowes work. I think that both are invested in exploring white masculinity and what that means. They explore how these men navigate their desires and influences from the world. Despite the more than two hundred years’ time difference these texts have similarities that connect them. If anyone has any other ideas about this I’m curious what you think! I was interested in the ways these two texts participate in some of the same projects but I’m not sure if it’s entirely fruitful yet. Any light ya’ll can shed is much appreciated!

While reading Dracula I was puzzled by the way that time passed in the novel as well as the way that time functioned for the reader. There are some explicit references to the ways that time changes around Dracula. We’ve discussed how train times and meal times represent a certain lifestyle or status as civilized, and while at Castle Dracula these become harder to set time by. The “normal” progression of time is disrupted.  When Jonathan first arrives at the castle he states that “the time I waited seemed endless” (Stoker 21). We as readers know that it was not endless because he is eventually allowed to enter into the castle. However the way that time is experienced by the narrator is shifted. It is also true that the Count himself disrupts the normative idea of linear time. It is not only “he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep” but he is also immortal and does not have the same relation to history that humans do(Stoker 54). Jonathan states upon hearing the Count recount ( 😉 ) his family/his own history that Dracula “seemed to have in it a whole history of the country” (35). Contained within himself or his own history is something much more vast. These anxieties mimic that “the Victorians were troubled by Time. On the one hand, there was not enough of it….On the other hand, there was too much time” (The Victorian Age 1055). This reading points out the fact that simultaneously society was moving at a much faster pace while it was also learning about the vastness of history and the long years that we had never before seen. All this while still imagining time in a linear measurable way.

In contrast to the way that the Count is experiencing time, as something moveable or insubstantial in his life, the “Crew of Light” is determined to document time accurately. There is a date and, if necessary, a time for each diary entry or each newspaper clipping. The meticulously document every train time despite the fact that the trains do not arrive or depart on time. For me, this relates to the way that this narrative insists on its factuality. Throughout the text there is an instance that everything is documented perfectly accurately and exactly how it happened and that the realness of these facts is indisputable. The fact that the normative passage of time is documented relates to the way that these diaries are supposed to give the readers a sense of reality. The opening paragraph states “there is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary” (Stoker 6). Not only does this sentence insist again the factuality of this text but it justifies this through time. It argues that by using “contemporary” documents is part of the accuracy of them; that a short passage of time between the event and the writing of it creates factuality.

However, the presence of the Count disrupts this experience of time. He experiences time differently, I’d assume as he is immortal, and he creates an environment around the protagonists that does not fit into the traditional narrative of time. He simultaneously disrupts the idea of factuality, not only through time but through his mere existence. When Van Helsing is trying to prove to Steward that vampires exist he appeals to the idea of belief. Steward, a man of science, of reason and logic, believes in facts and reality, but Van Helsing asks him “to believe in things that you cannot” (Stoker 206). This is a paradoxical sentence. If you cannot believe in something, then how can you believe in it? However, within the context of the narrative, vampires are real, they are fact. So why is there a need to believe in “so sad a concrete truth” (Stoker 207). The presence of fact seems to contradict the need for belief.

Here’s where I’m really unsure of my ground. Just as this sentence seems to undo the exact thing it does, the presence of linear time measurements undoes the linearness of time in the text. The instance on fact undoes the very presence of fact. This text creates a tension between what is considered reality and what is experienced as reality. While time is considered to move linearly it does not. While facts are considered proven in the text, this is fiction.

There are many parts of Dracula that drew my attention: one, because vampires are so cool, and two, because the story seems rich in symbolism related to many of the themes of the fin de siècle that we have discussed in class. However, the first page of the story opens a question that I’m curious about. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moreau are both told through a first person narrator that is arguably bias. Prendick is hallucinating and Watson is, most probably, in love with Sherlock. Both of these narrators potentially reveal their own desires throughout their narration. If we read through the lens of Freud we, as readers, might delve between the lines of these texts and pick apart the desires and day-dreams of these authors and/or their narrators; if you’ll allow me to extend psychoanalysis to the characters as we do to their authors.

At a glance at the chapters, Dracula, it seems, is also told through first person narrator in the form of journal entries. These could be considered as unreliable. However, the short paragraph on the opening page to me, adds to this question. “How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them….” (Stoker 6). Someone has constructed these journal entries. By writing the paragraph in the passive voice this someone has concealed much about their identity. Obviously they are invested in this story. Are we as readers meant to assume that this is the author? Or is there another figure outside of the story that is party to crafting the narrative?

This first sentence reads like a deflection of the exact question that this paragraph raises. I would have assumed that these fictional journal entries were ordered in such a way to enhance the drama and suspense of the story. However, by stating that the reason for the sequence will be revealed through reading it made me pause. Why does this invisible figure feel the need to reassure me that the story will makes sense? Beyond that the questions is not why, but how. Is this simple a teaser to make the reader feel the mystery before they have even begun? To do a little deconstructionist reading: I did not question this stories creation until this someone reassured me that all would be revealed. I did not question the authenticity of these (fictional) journals until this someone reassured me that really, really, everything in these stories is factual history. The reader is placed in a position to either trust this someone to do all that they claim to do, or to grow suspicious of the only information that we can/will be given about these events. Both of these options, from a literary criticism stand point, are not that useful because the text is all we have. By distrusting the text we cannot make any claims that stick. However, I feel to ignore this insistence on truth and order within the text would mean missing something the text is trying to do. I’m not sure how this will fit in, but I’m curious about whether we will meet this mysterious someone in the text, or whether they will float as a periphery God-figure who cannot be ignored, questioned, or investigated.

This seems to be exactly Freud’s anxiety at the start of “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”: “Our interest is only heightened the more by the fact that the writer himself gives us no explanation, or none that is satisfactory…” (Freud 143). It is frightening and exciting not to know how the author created the story. There is mystery and anxiety in this unknown world that writers inhabit that psychoanalysts, it seems, cannot. However Freud sees the text as insight into the author, even if it is not insight into writing. So I’m left with the questions: What do we do with this secret narrator? What will the text reveal about their mysterious motives? Or will we, like Freud, be left in the dark to perpetually wonder what is behind the curtain of creation?

After Moreau shares the secrets of the island with Prendick, he goes to bed a little unsettled to say the least. He makes the comment that “the black window stared at me like an eye.” (Wells 60) This line stood out to be for a number of reasons. The blackness of the window recalls the blackness of the creatures he first meets. This blackness is a less than subtle racialization of these characters. These characters and with them this window is presented as the other: dangerous and disgusting to the narrator. This blackness “stared” at the narrator. This ascribes it agency and purpose. The specter of blackness is fixed upon the narrator. Now looking at something can have many different connotations. It is potentially something as simple as interest or as sinister as hunting. The sentence does not give us enough context but if we read the blackness as a metaphor for racial anxiety in the British Empire than this stare could be read as aggressive. Colonized nations are become more “civilized” and, to use an imperfect metaphor, self-aware. In many ways they are beginning to stare back at Britain and think about their own position within the empire. This black window is staring at Prendick, in many ways the average man.

I find it very interesting that this blackness is a window. The darkness is not the outside or within. The black is found in this liminal space. A window is both a barrier between indoors and outdoors and a place to pass from in to out. It is not directly one space or the other. It is solid and permeable. Windows allow us to see through but obscure direct connection. Prendick is not describing the outside but the window. Not only is the window black, but it is a center of ambiguity. This is much like the Beast Folk. These creatures are not animal or human. They do not bridge the gap between humans and animals, but they also are a mixer of the two elements. The Beast Folk are not easily categorized. In many ways they are also a liminal space.

This dark liminal space is staring at the narrator “like an eye” (Wells 60). The addition of this metaphor is interesting to me. The fact that the window “stared” implies vision and therefore some type of eye (Wells 60). Perhaps Prendick is thinking of the potentials of vivisection and is seeing the human possibility in everything. Maybe it refers to how the window stared; it stared like an eye would stare. Or more interesting to me, the window is like an eye. Eyes are used for seeing; they transport information to the brain about the world. The window, this liminal, othered, and frightening space is somehow the information and perceptions of the world. These liminal spaces transport information from one clear concept to another. However the eye changes the world as it transports it. Does this sentence mean to imply that liminal spaces change the people that are not liminal?

I’m also interested in how it reverses the more common idea that ‘eyes are the window to the soul’. Eyes are viewed as a way of seeing into the truth of someone’s nature. Prendick often cites the eyes of the Beast Folk as evidence for their inherent humanity or inherent beastliness. The eye it seems in this sentence, has betrayed him somewhat. It is not giving him the truth of the Beast Folk but instead is invoked as a way that the darkness might be seeing into him.